Video Game Collection x 2

Ever look back on your game collection and ask yourself, "Why do I own 2 of these?" Well, I asked myself that a few weeks ago and still don't really know the answer. My game collection has many duplicate games, games I own more than once and in some cases three or more times. Whether my reasoning is I like it more on this system, or it's only $x amount for a backup copy no matter how it's ultimately justified...it's never really justified.

Momentarily I shall list off my multiple games just to show how absurd it really is. But before you see my travesty of a money hole, reflect on your own. Are you as crazy as I am? Are you intelligent enough to say 1 copy is enough and so what if I have to plug the NES back in to play it? Or are you like me and even though you didn't even really LIKE Far Cry 2 that much you bought it again on Steam for $7 because PC controls > PS3 controller?

Well friends that's the sort of thing I will reflect on below. I will do my very best to list all the duplicate games I have, but honestly, there's a good chance I will miss a few.

In absolutely no particular order:

Zelda Ocarina of Time: N64/3DS/Gamecube/Gamecube (yes twice on Gamecube)
Mario 64: N64/DS
Mario 1, 2, 3: NES/Wii
Super Mario World: SNES/GBA
Mario Kart 64: N64/Wii
Ninja Gaiden 2: NES/Wii
Kirby's Adventure: NES/Wii
Metroid Prime: Gamecube/Wii
Metroid Prime 2: Gamecube/Wii
Metroid Prime 3: Wii/Wii
God of War 2: PS2/PS3
Zen Pinball: PS3/iOS
Max Payne: PC/PC (steam)
Max Payne 2: PC/PC (steam)
Dead Space: PS3/PC (steam)
Final Fantasy 7: PC/PSP
Final Fantasy 8: PC/PSP
Vagrant Story: PS1/PSP
Xenogears: PS1/PSP
Chrono Cross: PS1/PS1 (bought it twice)
Super Mario RPG: SNES/Wii
Street Fighter 2: SNES/PS2/PS3/GBA
Mega Man X: SNES/Gamecube
Mega Man 6: NES/Gamecube
Mega Man 7: SNES/Gamecube
Mega Man Zero 3: GBA/NDS
Mega Man Zero 4: GBA/NDS
Mario Kart Super Circuit: GBA/3DS
Donkey Kong Country: GB/SNES
Donkey Kong Country 2: GB/SNES/GBA
Far Cry 2: PS3/PC (steam)
FEAR 2: PS3/PC (steam)
STALKER: PC/PC (steam)
STALKER Call of Prypit: PC (still wrapped)/PC (steam)
Street Fighter 3: PS2/PS3
Street Fighter 4: PS3/PS3
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit: PS3/PC (steam)
Zelda: 3DS/Gamecube
Zelda II: NES/3DS/Gamecube
Metroid: GBA/3DS
Assassin's Creed: PC/PC (steam)
Fallout New Vegas: PS3/PC (steam)
Borderlands: PS3/PC (steam)
Shank: PS3/PC (steam)
Killer Instinct: SNES/GB
Tekken 6: PSP/PS3
LittleBigPlanet: PS3/PSP


I am fairly confident that isn't all of them but I am away from my game center at the moment so this is all memory. The one that bothers me most of all though is STALKER Call of Prypit. I bought that game brand new for $40 when it came out assuming it would be hard to find later on, and Steam wasn't carrying it at the time. A year went by and I never played the game, then Steam had a sale on it for $3...I bought it without thinking claiming convenience of not putting a disc in the tray was worth the $3. And don't get me wrong, it is worth that...but to this day I haven't played the game even ONCE. I bought it TWICE and haven't played it once! How sick is that? DEMENTED I say.

What's even WORSE is I found out later my CD key for my box copy probably would have activated through Steam for free...But really I haven't played it yet because I didn't beat the other two Stalker games I have. And yeah, I own the first Stalker TWICE too!

Another sick anecdote about this list is the Metroid Prime games. I paid the FULL $50 for each game, that's $150 total. Then they made the Prime collection disc! I refused to buy it but then I found a sale on it for $20 PLUS Nintendo said they were stopping production of the game so I had to get it. $170 later I own the Metroid Prime series TWICE.

I guess the worst part about this list of mine is how few of these games I've managed to play the copy of. In other words, I'd buy the game again but not actually play it. The prime series is a prime example...lol...where I played all the gamecube games and MP3 on Wii, but the collection disc I played Metroid Prime 1 and that was it. Final Fantasay 8 on PSP...not beat. Actually, let me make a separate list:

Copies of games I own and have not played/beat. If I list it in both (or all forms) that means I never beat the game at all.

Metroid Prime 2: Wii
Metroid Prime 3: Wii
Assassin's Creed: PC (steam)
STALKER: PC/PC (steam)
STALKER Call of Prypit: PC (still wrapped)/PC (steam)
LittleBigPlanet: PS3/PSP
Fallout New Vegas: PS3/PC (steam)
FEAR 2: PC (steam)
Far Cry 2: PC (steam)
Final Fantasy 8: PSP
Super Mario RPG: Wii
Zelda Ocarina of Time: 3DS/Gamecube/Gamecube
Mega Man Zero 4: NDS
Shank: PC
Dead Space: PC (steam)
Max Payne: PC (steam)
Max Payne 2: PC (steam)

Ok so you get the picture? SICKNESS! I have it I'm sure. But, I'm doing better. I decided not to buy Assassin's Creed 2 on steam for $5 yesterday since I already own it on PS3 and KNEW it would end up on the second list! What would be the point!

So I guess my point is you don't really own a game until you own it twice! ...or more!

*Hi my name is Acefondu...and I'm addicted to buying games for no goddamn reason.*

Why Mainstream Media Sucks at Video Games

Every day I read the regular news from aol, Huffington Post, New York Times, ABC news, yahoo, and when I come across articles related to video gaming I always cringe. I don't believe I have ever read an article from mainstream media about video games that had anything remotely accurate to say. From games make our kids violent to very simple when does the game release, mainstream media gets it wrong and gets it wrong all the time.

Just this morning I saw an article in Huffington Post, Top 5 Video Games and of course I come across an immediate error in which the author believes Mario Kart 7 comes out 04/12/11...Now I get that he is doing that stupid thing where he puts the day first then the month so he's technically correct, however, he also lists Saints Row 3, Dance Central 2, and Lego Potter all of which say "Out Now." So...what Mario Kart 7 isn't "out now?" I don't get it? Why be so inconsistent. This was written TODAY, it's not like he wrote the article weeks ago and then posted it.

Still, that is a minor gripe...the real travesty is the games he listed. Like, seriously Dance Central 2? Lego Pottter? Heck, I wouldn't even put Mario Kart 7 up there. Not ONE game he put there deserves a top 5 spot as a universally acclaimed top 5 of the year game. It's not that it's just an opinion, it's that he's SO off base with his picks that he is clearly just plain wrong. It would be like picking Batman and Robin as a top 5 best picture of the year or something. Now, I absolutely hate the Modern Warefare games but even I would put it in a top 5 for games of the year, or at least not bat an eye at someone else doing it. That pick makes sense, it's the most sold game of the year clearly it's not utter trash like...Dance Central...

I see this all the time though. Yahoo will post articles like best games of the 90's and have games from 2000's in it, or they'll go on to exclaim the death of Nintendo during their peak years of the Wii. Annalists will declare gaming overall to be a failure opposed to the onset of iphone gaming and farmville... Wild claims, inaccurate information, and overall poorly written articles from people who clearly know nothing about video games.

So why doesn't mainstream media carry video game industry experts? I mean really, it's a billion dollar industry and growing. It surpassed gross revenue's of the movie industry a couple years ago and still mainstream media knows more about what George Cloony had for breakfast than what caused the infamous Red Ring of Death in Xbox consoles...which was akin to reporting on a big box office bomb, or the death of a famous actor. Everyone knew about it...except mainstream media still touting Microsoft's unwavering dominance.

I wish I knew why they sucked so hard at covering the video game industry. It isn't difficult, they are an open book of nerds and polygons. But it is clear they don't take it seriously. Probably because of a lack of an audience is my only guess. Us gamers are growing up though, reading the real news and interested in the business end of our hobbyist interests, and they can't get it right! Why report on it at all then? Just stay out and let the gaming media handle it.

On my way to work in the morning I have to endure talk radio as my only means of entertainment since I really hate pop music and commercials. Why is there no video game radio? Maybe it's on satellite radio, I'm not sure. I would love to start up my own video game radio if I knew it'd be a success. Plus it would help to have a co-host...meh.

Point of the story is mainstream media needs to either hire ME or quit reporting news on games all-together. Thank you!

*Go Squirtle, attack NBC with watergun!*

Skyrim - Aimless Journey

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a lot of things; it's a large open world game, the fifth in a long standing highly respected series of games, a game of the year contender, and a marvel in technological achievement in video gaming.

Like most of Bethesda's games, their strength lies in the journey you take to complete them. The tasks you are given on the other hand aren't the most interesting, aren't the most challenging, and are really glorified fetch questing giving the player a carrot on a stick guiding them through what would otherwise be a game too big to be played but more enjoyable without the carrot to begin with. Skyrim is no exception to the Bethesda rule, build a large, detailed, gorgeous world rife with characters, scenery, ambiance, and history and fill it with missions that a common courier would naturally accept and complete with ease. Within the first 45 minutes of playing this game my quest list had grown to no more than 15 quests all of which were go find this, deliver these, or collect x number of whatever. I was so compelled to complete these quests that I immediately struck down the hag that walked up to me on the street telling me to gather wolf pelts, robbed her corpse and stole the nearest horse in town. That was the best quest I did up until that point, and it wasn't on my quest list.

Gameplay:

Which leads me to my main point about these kinds of games Bethesda is known to make, they are at their most fun when you aren't doing what you're supposed to do. The main quest lines or side quests never really amount to anything grand or even all that interesting. But going off the path, traversing a mountain or discovering a cave that wasn't marked on your map previously, finding a wild unicorn, or swimming under the ocean into the unknown provides the most memories and excitement that no amount of "deliver this" quests could ever offer.

For the uninitiated, the Elder Scrolls games are large sandbox role playing games where you are usually the character to save the world from some random threat. The game is played largely in first person view in the magic and swords vein and handles like a clumsy hack n' slash game. I say clumsy because the battles you encounter throughout the game all play out exactly the same way. In a good hack n' slash game normally you develop different tactics against different enemies, but in Skyrim one size fits all and that's partially the fault of the AI and partially the fault of the upgrade system.

Still, if you pick a heavy melee character you will always encounter every resistance by rushing up to the enemy and slashing away. If you have a magic using character you will stay at a medium distance casting spells. There's also the sneaky assassin character you can make, but in my experience the AI doesn't really make this type a feasible or practical build. You certainly can TRY to get through the game doing critical strikes in sneak mode against everything in the game, but it quickly becomes a nuisance getting the AI to look the other way. Further adding to the AI issue is the dungeons or castles you explore are ALL hallways and long corridors with very few open spaces outside of the over-world. Because of this fact sneaking up on enemies is nigh impossible when you can't actually flank them.

So the battles quickly become very repetitive, but admittedly an improvement over the previous game Oblivion. In Oblivion the AI wouldn't even react to being hit which was irritating. At least in Skyrim when you slash something you get some satisfaction out of it. Also there are death scenes against enemies reminiscent of Fallout 3 and New Vegas which are VERY satisfying no matter how many times you see your character lob a head off a guy. It's probably always satisfying just because it breaks away from the monotony of the battles you have throughout the game.

The level up system is vastly superior to Oblivion also. Here you level up and gain perks for your most often used attributes and the perks themselves are very satisfying to acquire and add noticeable improvements to your character. My personal favorite is probably the speech perk that lets you sell anything to any vendor nullifying my constant headaches of finding the correct merchants to offload my shit unto. It's the kind of thing that makes me not ever want to go back to Oblivion.

Story:

The story in Skyrim is you are the Dragonborn, a human with the ability to speak the Dragon language who is foretold to save the world from the dragons. The rise of the dragons is something of legend as in the Elder Scrolls games they have always been extinct. Their return should have been something amazing and interesting, but the writing here makes the whole experience dull and uninteresting.

There's really nothing to get excited about, no obvious villain to hate, and no one to really cheer for. You don't really care whether the dragons dust the world or not since there's no one in it to care about. Every character in the game teeters so gently on the line of good and evil that you can't honestly decide to sympathize with them or begrudge them, not that there's much to go on in the first place.

The stories that are good and interesting come in the guild quests. These quest lines have interesting characters, funny quests, and downright offensive quests too. It amazes me that in these games the guild quests are always longer and more enjoyable than the main quest line. Oblivion is no different, and to some extent the same can be said for Fallout 3.

Graphics:

The environments are beautiful, some of the best landscapes I've ever seen in a video game...as long as there are no character models to get in the way. That's not to say Skyrim has the worst character models I've ever seen, but they are pretty awful. Still, as long as you're not looking directly at them and instead gaping at the sprawling landscapes this will be one of the best looking games you'll ever see.

Music:

The music in Skyrim is another huge improvement over Oblivion. While Oblivion did have one really awesome overwolrd theme it didn't really have anything else of note. But every piece in Skyrim was epic and made even boring moments of the game somewhat exhilarating.

Conclusion:

Skyrim is a big beautiful place filled with many things to do. Even though the most interesting thing to do is simply to explore the world, that in and of itself is worth the price of admission. Gamers of yore (like myself) oft dreamed of games like this, nearly borderless exploration with intrigue around every corner and that's what Skyrim offers. Fighting Dragons becomes stale after a while though...and sometimes they die on their own falling out of the sky...they really become non-threatening 20 hours into the game. It's odd they made the Dragons powerless compared to a roaming Giant arguably the strongest enemy in the game.

One thing I would like to see this series do is add large scale enemies, or big one shot bosses. Playing Dark Souls and running across a huge Hydra, or fighting a Dragon that actually is threatening made me long for an epic fight like that in Skyrim. I just like having my RPG's offer an Emerald or Ruby weapon if you will to test the limits of my character, or overcome the fight in a strategic way of sorts. Swimming in the deep oceans of Skyrim I always wanted to see a Kraken just come out and eat me, or do battle with one. Just something awesome like that, something memorable to the journey instead of trees, rocks, rivers, cliffs....mountains and fetch quests.

Alas it is not to be in this game, but it's still worth playing since it's the best open world game available these days.

*I had something for this part of the review, but then I took an arrow to the knee*

Dark Souls - Review

After 55 hours I have finally exited the hazy underbelly that is Dark Souls. I believe I have improved my skill at From Software's "souls" series as the last game took me 65 hours, and it was a shorter game overall.

The follow up to Demon's Souls was something none of its fans saw coming. We were all pretty sure Demon's Souls was a one shot, a cult favorite if you will. Hell, the game starts up with a warning that the online service could be cut at ANY time, and we were given specific dates over the course of the game's first few months when exactly they were going to cease the online service since they didn't want to plug in more money than they had to on a game even the developer didn't really believe in. And rightfully so, I mean here we had a game that went against every convention known to the successful video game formula learned over the past decade.

1. Gamers like their hand held and not to be frustrated.
2. Gamers like maps that tell them where to go.
3. In RPG's gamers like many easy encounters with semi challenging bosses.
4. Death is not a punishment, and is mostly a meaningless occurrence.
5. Gamers like having many NPC characters assist throughout the game.

Demon's Souls, and Dark Souls are not this type of game at all. They are the exact opposite, and yet they gained quite a following. While that was all well and good for Demon's Souls, Dark Souls wanted to take that to the extreme. It may have went a LITTLE too far in not wanting the gamer to like it sometimes, like evil curse frogs permanently halving your HP and enemies that break all your equipment. Despite that however, Dark Souls does an even bigger disservice to itself by being a technical tragedy.

Story:

Demon's Souls never really weaved a good yarn, but what we were given was enough and the atmosphere really shined through and it all felt like a dream of sorts. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy and ready to dive into a new game plus. Dark Souls starts off with an amazing opening cinema making me think they tried even harder to insert some kind of nifty plot. The first cinema tells us there was a war between 4 powerful humans and the dragons which culminated in the destruction of the world for the most part, but also the extinction of the dragons...except only 1 hour into the game a large red dragon lights your shit on fire. Wtf?

Okay, fine, whatever. I wanted to fight dragons anyway so good for me then. From there we are not given any real story direction until near the end where a giant...um...demon brontosaurus head tells you to light some flames or some shit. Then you do...and the ending is literally 10 seconds long and doesn't explain anything at all. I was extremely disappointed with the end of this game. Putting in 55 hours for absolutely no ending was a letdown.

I get that From Software doesn't care about a plot, or characters, or anything like that and I'm ok with that. I wasn't expecting anything amazing, but I expected SOMETHING. They went through all this trouble to create this large world filled with atmosphere and history, with kings and demons, monsters and heroes, a broken world you set out to fix and then...nothing. Why was I here? Even the most simple of explanations would have satisfied me for an ending. Just something, anything, to make me feel like the actions I made in the game meant something to that world I was so wrapped up in for over two days of playing time.

Even Nintendo understands that a gamer should feel like they are playing for some reason. Mario is out to save the princess, and he does. That was always good enough for me. But you know what would have ruined even that most basic of plots? Beating a Mario game, and then not seeing Mario actually save the princess. That would be the equivalent of what Dark Souls did. I beat the game, never saw a conclusion, and then boom credits. To make it worse, after the credits which I was holding out on something happening, they show the opening in game cut scene of the game where you immediately begin your new game plus....terrible.

Gameplay:

The gameplay of Dark Souls is the crux of the enjoyment. The system was perfected in the first game, and they didn't change the formula which is fine by me. Everything about the combat itself is great, it all works in theory...and I'll explain more on that in a bit.

You are given a stamina bar which can be broken by enemies if you block to much, or dodge too much, or attack too much. The stamina bar is more important than even the health meter in this game. It also lends itself very well to allow the player to change their style of play. If you want to play a heavy defense character then you can't roll well or avoid enemies and it all reflects back to the stamina meter. Want to be speedy and fast? You can, but you won't do as much damage as you are using lighter weapons. So with that playstyle you have to know every enemy to avoid them as much as possible.

The game itself is predicated on the idea that you have to learn every path, every enemy, every shortcut, and every boss in the game as you play. As the game advertises, you will die all the time. But with every death you learn where you went wrong and try again, or change your strategy. This was the case in Demon's Souls, and SHOULD have been the case with Dark Souls. While in theory, it is the case with Dark Souls, the technical shortcomings of the game means you have to fight the bugs while fighting the programing bugs if you get my meaning.

There are so many problems with this game it really hinders the experience. This game was not finished in my opinion, problems were not ironed out.

The first issue I began noticing is the input delay, or something I came to call input memory. The game seems to employ an input memory, and I don't think it's on purpose because it isn't consistent. The easiest way to explain this flaw is if you are fighting an enemy and press attack, then press attack right away after doing that or sort of "mashing" the attack if you will, your character will do a second attack despite you wanting to roll away after the first attack.

At first, I thought this was a way to hinder mashing and make the player think out every button pressed. But many times as I adhered to this button memory policy the game would just randomly NOT remember my next input like I thought it was doing. I would OFTEN attack, then heal knowing I'd have stun time on my enemy to do so. Then I would just sit back and wait for the heal....and it wouldn't come and boom, death happens. Other times I would mash heal and it wouldn't come then either. However, I would have times where I would attack then mash dodge roll and sometimes he wouldn't roll, or he would roll then roll IMMEDIATELY again even though I only wanted one roll!

Even STRANGER issues would happen while holding block. Sometimes I would be indecisive and roll after an attack but quickly change my mind and block. My character would hold up his shield for a good 10 seconds or more, and then I would attack. However, pressing the attack button would cause him to ROLL! What the hell?? This would happen more times than not, and enough times to realize it wasn't my fault.

A lot of these issues occur mainly in laggy situations. Yes, this game is TERRIBLY laggy. Demon's Souls was a very smooth game, but they made Dark Souls an open world game where it basically loads shit as you go. Clearly this was the first time they've ever tried this and I do not recommend they try again until they get it right. But seriously, this game lags hard, nearly all the time. At one point I was fighting 3 large Cats in a forest and my PS3 started crying! What I mean is the framerate went down to like 5 frames per second, it was atrocious. I have NEVER witnessed a console game lag quite that hard. I have had Fallout 3 dip to maybe 15 FPS during the Broken Steel DLC and that was awful too, but Dark Souls has quite a few moments that destroy any Fallout 3 mishaps I had.

The lag really destroys a lot of the fun that could have been had in this game. I died more times to lag than my inability to play correctly. From boss battles, to basic catwalk crossings the lag has murdered me in ways I never thought lag could. A simple walk across a long plank turns into a guessing game with the wonky lag and input delay issues. What I learned is never try to run along narrow areas in this game. The run button is the same as roll, which would normally be fine, but with all these technical issues sometimes you never know if a run will randomly turn into a roll if the camera suddenly veers toward a large set piece that didn't fully load yet...

It is a damn shame too because all of this could have been avoided if they followed the same style as Demon's Souls. If this game was level based it would have been lag free like the first game was. And really, why wasn't this level based? Sure feeling like you are in one large interconnected place is cool and makes navigation far more of a gamble and exciting but if the overall experience is ruined because of it, then it's not worth it. In the end the game felt level based anyway as every area is distinctly different from the next. It is sort of like if you were playing a Mario side scroller and at the start you are in a desert level and halfway through you enter a jungle. It is jarring, and unnecessary.

The positives of the game are many though, and for the most part outweigh the bad. The bosses are many and varied, they are all fun and interesting too. The levels are large and confusing, and nothing feels inviting. As you progress the areas consistently feel less and less inviting which is really nice as it goes well thematically with the game. The best aspect to the game is the atmosphere which is unlike any other game out there. The atmosphere this game creates really puts you in a place that feels alive with death and darkness. It is not a friendly feeling but that is part of the game's charm. Venturing into the constant unknown becomes an addictive prospect. Never knowing what challenge lay before you, and in one area that is pitch black you REALLY don't know what to expect. This is largely what makes the game still enjoyable over the technical issues.

Another positive is the upgrade system. Grinding for materials is a LITTLE easier this time around as the basic upgrade material for most weapons is something you can buy. Although, on the flip side the upgrading is also a little more annoying since this is an open world game the blacksmiths are all scattered around. So if you want to get to one, and you're halfway across the world...well too bad. Or spend hours backtracking to get to one...which happens often. Luckily the developers took away the carry limit from the first game too. How annoying would this game be if you had to backtrack to the start to shift around your inventory constantly? Glad that isn't the case here.

Oh, and this game has a Covenant system where the player can join factions of NPC's and carry out smaller tasks that are all REALLY poorly explained. I never understood any of it and I think I did a lot wrong. By the end nearly all my NPC's that I had at the start were gone, or killed by someone, and I had a 160,000 soul sin debt to be cleared (which means I did a lot of bad things apparently and to clear my sins I'd have to pay out the ass in souls). But what the fuck did I do? I have no clue. It's not clear, it's not explained, it makes no fucking sense and I hated it.

Music:

The music is probably the biggest improvement made over the previous game. The music is much more profound and varied here. It fits and improves the atmosphere most of the time. I don't understand the choice of music for the final boss though...I mean I like it but I don't understand it. The song is very light, and almost sad, and is all piano. But why is it like that? Is the boss a tragic figure? Is he holding onto or defending some ideal that is being threatened by the player? We don't know, and never find out but that is an issue with the story not the music. But the boss LOOKS super evil and mean so again I question the choice. There was not much direction given in the story department. It's like the composer had his own idea and just went with it. Props to him then for giving more character through music to the characters than the writers did.

Multiplayer:

Dark Souls employes the same aspects of multiplayer as Demon's Souls for the most part. There are no longer any world tendencies but being able to invade or assist other players is all still there. I don't think that it works as well in this game though as it did in Demon's Souls. Because Demon's Souls was level based it was easier for players to get to a boss door in ten minutes or so and camp there to find allies for assistance. Dark Souls being a large open world players are spending more time traveling around than plunging into boss fights. It was VERY difficult, and often impossible for me to summon assistance.

I managed to summon help once...and I thought I was getting online help and all was well. However, I later discovered that the help I summoned was NPC's programmed to assist in that fight! Also, early on I got invaded and won...but I later discovered that invasion was a planned NPC! Apparently, there are quite a few moments like this throughout the game where you can summon NPC assistance. I legitimately got invaded ONE time in 55 hours (and I won hahaha) but that is ridiculous. In Demon's Souls I got invaded SO many times that eventually I turned off the online just to get through the story unimpeded. Dark Souls online just plain doesn't work as well as Demon's Souls.

Conclusion:

Dark Souls was a let down overall compared to Demon's Souls. It could have been just as good if they added an ending to the game, fixed the lag, and handled the placement of merchants a little better. Demon's Souls was a game I could find no flaws in aside from boss AI being really susceptible to long distance bow attacks with no repercussions...but that was amusing not really a flaw. It is still a very good game though. But if you never played either of them play Demon's Souls first, and not for any continuity because they don't have any, but because it is the better game.

*Died again......died again......died again......died again.......died again......*

Star Wars Force Unleashed II

The first Star Wars Force Unleashed rode the wave of the hack n' slash genre that Capcom vaulted into perfection with Devil May Cry...but with lightsabers. Let it be known that I LOVE Devil May Cry'esque games, and I LOVE Star Wars so for me it was a marriage made in heaven.

But it was more than that, the first game had it all. Great characters, an interesting take on the Star Wars universe, and it made a wonderful tie-in with all loose ends wrapped up nicely at the end. It was a perfect little package with of course some gameplay flaws, (but if you were like me you played it SO much that you used those flaws to your Jedi advantage) and it was just plain fun.

I assume when they made it they didn't expect the game to do well so a sequel was really out of the question. Well it did well, really well! Fans saw past the complaints of the common game review and saw how much fun the game really was, and the game boomed. Sadly for the plot, the game didn't call for a sequel and really anything they did would end up being, to use the pun unintended, "forced."

Gameplay:

And forced it was...Star Wars Force Unleashed II feels rushed in every conceivable way. The first game you could upgrade a lot of different abilities for Starkiller, but they chopped that in half with the sequel and you only upgrade your force powers. You only get one new force ability and, admittedly it's really funny. Mind Tricking enemies is a gas because they do quite a few different things when you do it.

Lightsaber play is...terrible. They took away combos in favor of just mashing square. In the first game you could strategically use a set of combos that you spent your time upgrading, in the second game there are no noticeable combos. It's really a let down...On the plus side you can decapitate and cut off limbs in this game! And it STILL GOT A TEEN RATING!! WTF?

Enemies are a real let down too. The first game, a lot of reviewers complained that your force powers felt useless after the third level because you fought a lot of enemies that resisted one force power or another, or maybe all of them. They are dumb...because enemy variety that forces strategic battle adjustments means I am having fun and being challenged...not brainlessly spamming lighting everywhere like you can do in this game. That's right, I am BLAMING the game reviewing community for ruining the enemy variety of this game. You literally only fight stormtroopers through the whole game and it is quite boring...mind tricking aside. But I really think the think-tank of this game thought, "Yeah, they were right. Enemy variety is stupid! Let's make this game piss easy and only give the player the easiest enemy type, susceptible to ALL of Starkiller's god-like force powers!" And it was thus...

And even while all these shameful changes were made the gameplay is still fun to me. This is the kind of game I like best, so I can still enjoy the game multiple times...which is easy to do because the game is only 3 hours long. My point being is you really have to love the hack n' slash genre to give this game a pass, which I do for the most part. I lament at what it could have been of course, but I still can enjoy what it is.

Story:

Even with all the gameplay problems, the story is shockingly the most disappointing part. The first game was cleverly written, characters had emotion and wit, they were likeable too. With this game, there is nearly no character interaction, Proxy is entirely absent who was hilarious in the first game, Starkiller's love interest has more on-screen time as a hologram than her actual character, Kota's character has changed ENTIRELY for no reason and not in a good way, and Starkiller and Vader...are totally lame here.

Kota was the wise old fart Jedi in the first game...in the second game he barks orders and wants military strikes worse than President Bush. Also, he's a tactical moron as Starkiller in one scene comes up with the only obvious idea they can pursue while Kota struggles to form coherent thoughts. He's just a completely different person and I don't get why.

Vader in this game has really no likeable agenda in this game. His original plan to overthrow the emperor with Starkiller was a very ingenious plan that I could get behind. Here he wants to make a Jedi army....and it makes NO sense why. He decides to endlessly clone a Jedi with mega amounts of power whom turned on Vader on a dime for a hot babe and a rebel cause in his heart....and the cloning process retains the thoughts and memories of the original for the clone... Either Vader is the DUMBEST Sith in the galaxy, or he is a Rebel in secret...or the writers are the dumbest people ever of all time the end. I mean seriously, he is deliberately making hundreds of superhumans who are ALL bent on killing Vader and ending the Empire. Good job there Vader...I doubt the Emperor approved this...Furthermore, as a character here Vader is a one line wonder. All he ever says is how he's "going to destroy you!" You being Starkiller of course. He says it SO many times. I would love to see the script for this game.

And that brings me to Starkiller who in the last level says "I'm going to kill you!" to Vader somewhere near 27 times, and hearing it that many times in under 20 minutes really starts to wear on you. Aside from Starkiller's lines being utter trash, his character is totally panned in this game. He doesn't really know if he is a clone or not, Vader says he is, Kota says he isn't...It's pretty clear Vader is right considering all the Starkiller copies you run into who DO use force powers and Kota's ONE argument against him being a clone is "They've never cloned a Jedi before!" You know...except all those Jedi in the glass tubes up there...attacking me in the last level with force powers...yeah them? Dumbass. Still, the official word is out...and never resolved. His love interest doesn't care he is a clone...well actually we don't know that because she doesn't have any lines or thoughts on the matter. They didn't write them in, we just have to assume she's cool with it.

Also, they tried to play up that Starkiller "may go crazy" like all the other clones. This is mentioned once...and they never actually pursue that idea. Though, he does enter Yoda's psycho cave and see's bullshit...I'd say he's crazy! Also, piece of advice...NEVER ENTER Yoda's cave of crazyness! People be trippin' in dat cave.

Graphics:

It looks as good as the first game did, which is not bad and sometimes really good. There are only 3 different places to look at though which is a damn shame. The game is THAT short. But I have nothing against the graphics of this game, it looks just fine. And I love pre-rendered cinema's, that is all.

Music:

They use Star Wars music....if you don't like that then you are not a human being and don't deserve to live.

Conclusion:

If Force Unleashed II had maybe 2 more levels with story in between them this game wouldn't be that bad honestly. Some character development with Starkiller peppered in and it would have been fine. But they ignored everyone, decided to essentially not write a story at all, and just let Starkiller yell "I will kill you!" a hundred times and call it good. I guess the ONLY way to write a worse love story than George Lucas is to not write any dialogue between the lovers at all and let the audience believe they spoke through the force...which is what this game did.

And again, I did enjoy the game, it is fun to play. But it is not worth $60, and even the developers apologized by releasing a planned $10 bonus level for .99 cents since they knew the main game didn't actually have enough content. The game sold poorly, really poorly. There probably won't be a third game which is a real shame for a few reasons. The "story" of the second game leaves us extremely unsatisfied and in a quandary. Vader is captured...and they fly away. Clearly they planned to have a third game this time which is NEVER a good thing in video games.

The first game they laid it all on the line, did their very best because they didn't think there would be another game. This game they knew there would be a third game so they half-assed it and basically assumed what they didn't do in this game they'll do in the third one. What they didn't expect is gamers recognizing they made a bullshit cash-in and NOT buy the game. So...now we probably won't get a third game...hell they even cancelled the port of Force Unleashed II for the PSP. They didn't even bother. It is a really sad way to end it, and as far as I know Force Unleashed II is not canon to the Star Wars Universe but the first game is. So I can happily know that Starkiller died a hero as he should have...the end.

*Jedi waving his hand at me, "Star Wars Force Unleashed II is not the droid you are looking for." "Droid?" I respond. "Oh...um...well...FORCE PUSH!" The Jedi scrambles away embarrassed of his failed mind trick ploy.*

Mass Effect 2: Effective Improvement

To sum up my thoughts of the first game in this series would be to call it a blithering pile of doggie doo would probably be giving it far too much praise. The game had issues ranging from the AI to an unholy inventory system, with a bad overall plot that wasn't fully realized and characters that I couldn't give two shits about and couldn't even remember half their names.

Thankfully Mass Effect 2 improves in most of these areas but still retains some glaring flaws keeping shy of being a decent RPG. If there's one thing I have learned about playing Bioware games it's that I find I like them only when reflecting on the characters in the game. It seems to me that the more I like the characters in a Bioware game the more I can overlook issues I have with it, and enjoy my time with the game. This is true of Knights of the Old Republic 1, but not 2, Dragon Age 1, but not 2, and in this case Mass Effect 2, but not 1. Bioware games as I have noted all have pretty lame overall plots and setups but relatively great characterization depending on the game.

With that said, let's dig into Mass Effect 2.

Story:

The story of Mass Effect 2 is you are Commander Sheppard...and you just died! But then you are brought back together by Cerberus who apparently was some evil doing organization in the first game that I must have completely ignored because I really didn't recognize them here...But your main character knows them and doesn't trust them one bit! You meet up with the "Illusive Man" who might as well be the cigarette smoking man from X-Files, or the G-Man from Half Life. We never learn one goddamn thing about him, who's side he's on, how he's so well informed, or...well...anything at all and that becomes a MAJOR disappointment for me at the end of the game.

Needless to say the Illusive Man is your tour guide giving you all the vital info you need to get to your next mission. Bioware's formula if you haven't already been privy to it yet is go here, here and here, collecting this, that, and the other thing until we have them all to finish the final level. In both Mass Effect 1 and 2 that "collection" of things are people and spells out your entire mission list for the game. That's right, your main mission in this game is to recruit a crew...

In a good game I'd expect the crew to join as the plot develops, but nope, not in the Mass Effect series! Instead of actually completing important objectives, learning about the enemy, and all the while gaining support for your cause along the way in some natural story arcing pace, Mass Effect's formula is thus: create characters, give them wacky back-stories and call it a day. It becomes so tirelessly formulaic that it becomes really hard to care about the overall goal of the game which you learn is to stop the "Collectors," which is a mysterious alien race who has been capturing Humans.

Just as in the first game you are constantly told about the imminent threat of the Reapers and how dangerous they are and you never actually fight any, in Mass Effect 2 you also hardly ever fight any of the Collectors. Thankfully, at least you do fight them once and a while but the larger threat, the Reapers, make ZERO appearances in this game. All the while you are given hints that the Illusive Man is the real danger, but he never presents himself as evil in the game despite our heroes assertions. Once again I'm playing a game without a real antagonist and it bugs the shit out of me.

So the "story" boils down to go here, recruit this guy, and then solve some problem he's having. Those are the main missions, and takes up 90% of the game. The rest is just the last level where you take out the Collectors. The entire mission of getting a crew then killing off what is essentially the B team of evil all feels like it should have been done with as a mid-point to the game...not the whole damn game! I mean you just don't care enough about the "Collectors," they aren't that threatening, and really never play out as final boss material.

It's just so weird that with TWO games now telling us again and again how badass and evil the Reapers are and to never really have us confront them is entirely too annoying and pathetic. It's like if I played Final Fantasy 7 and never once fought Sephiroth, barely heard about him or saw him, then was told at the end of the game that he was so stupid evil he will wreck your face in Final Fantasy 7-3 coming out in 8 years...oh and never shows up at all in Final Fantasy 7-2. I just can't understand a series where it's central villains are played down SO much and yet remain the topic of imminent threat to our heroes. Oh, but hilariously the galaxy doesn't seem to give a shit about the Reapers because there is no evidence of Sovereign's attack in the first game which was so ridiculous I had to leave my chair and punch a defenseless baby sea cow. I mean honestly! The entire Citadel ran in panic of it, it blew up all sorts of shit, and has it's own goddamn action figure for sale in a local market. YES YOU CAN BUY something called Sovereign in the game, but OH the Council denies Reaper existence. What a load of shit.

All I see these two games as is super filler. Stuff we don't need to see or hear about, it's padding. Bioware wants this series to be a trilogy, so they avoid a climactic battle with the villains they set up until the final game just so they can have three games. This just proves a severe lack of creativity. There's no reason we couldn't fight the Reapers in the first two games, or learn more about them, or give a shit. Plenty of good trilogies allow the main villains to play a central role in the conflict throughout. It seems to me like Bioware avoids it because they are horrible writers and think that if a conflict occurs with the Reapers at ALL then it has to be the last one too. I mean, how can I, an audience member care in any way about the Reapers as a threat when I am told essentially nothing about them? Well I can't...and they had TWO FUCKING GAMES to tell me about them!

Graphics:

This game is jaw dropping beautiful. Great set pieces, textures, ambiance, everything is really well done. Character models are really neat too. I was on the PC version so I do have a few complaints. Firstly, you are given nearly no customization options which is terrible. I couldn't set the anti ailising at all so I had to deal with jaggies until I told nividia to override the game and force AA in. So happy nividia lets me bitch slap games that won't let me customize.

My other issue is character reactions. This is more of a programming compromise Bioware made than graphics but hear me out. Every conversation you have with anyone in the game plays out generally exactly the same way. You both stand and get over the shoulder shots, then the other character with step back a bit, then in the next dialogue sequence he'll pace back and forth. Granted this doesn't happen with sitting characters or ones in a small room but anywhere else in the game you will see this crap over and over again. It bothers me that different races and species will pace exactly the same as all the others! They would have been better served to have species act differently during conversation than other species. Reminds me of Star Ocean 3 where Cliff would ALWAYS pound his fist into his hand regardless of what he was talking about. He could be like "Let's go!" *fist pound* or "My name is Cliff" *fist pound* or "I like cheese" *fist pound* It just comes off as unnatural and irritating.

Gameplay:

Ok, here is where I saw a ton of improvement. Enough to make me actually enjoy the game. First and foremost the inventory system is gone, literally. They scrapped the idea of having items at all in this game which is fine because clearly they couldn't get it right in the first one. No more having to sift through unsorted guns, ammo, and upgrades for hours on end ensuring you have the best shit equipped, now you have universal upgrades, ammo is used as a sort of bio power or selectable on the fly, and there is nothing really to keep track of. Sure, some may be annoyed that your customization options are a bit limited now and that may be true but honestly you only lose a SMALL amount of customization for a vastly improved and streamlined inventory, ie none at all. I found it very refreshing to play an RPG where I didn't have to eyestrain at every little tiny stupid fucking item. It made me very happy.

Gunplay is improved and at the same time confusing plot-wise. The game has a better cover system in general, the AI is greatly improved on both sides, and being able to select the type of bullets you want on the fly is a godsend. Everything here I feel was an improvement. I would only like to see a bit more command options for your allies. Selecting the AI to use a bio power for instance I lament that I also cannot select the target they use it on. Often they will hit nothing at all, or not the enemy I want them to hit. It's a small complaint, but an odd omission from the team that gave us KoToR which let us choose what enemies we wanted to hit with all AI allies.

What I do NOT understand about the guns in this game is why they have bullets. This is set in the future of ME1 where there was no ammo and guns shot forever with a cool down. Here...you run out of ammo? How is that an improvement? Like...what gunsmith two years after ME1 decided infinite ammo was worse than finite ammo? It makes NO sense!!!

I do not miss the lack of a rover to traverse planets either. What a pain in the ASS that was. It was fun at first, but after doing just that for 20 hours I was ready to kill myself. Mass Effect 2 instead just lets you scan planets for minerals, which is also really boring but far quicker. Personally, I would just say screw all of that and allow the player to buy the needed materials, or do something fun like manage a workforce dedicated to mining those minerals and you could decide if you want slaves or an actual paid team. It would be simplistic and not overbearing in any way. Also, it would be totally non-intrusive as you would get minerals automatically on a periodic basis. And those periods can be controlled by the player if you put more of your resources into your staff you get more minerals sooner, and so on. So instead of gambling your time with needless mini games you actually invest your money into it giving it a much more strategic and satisfactory feel.

But I digress...

The game itself becomes very formulaic even by Bioware standards. You get essentially 2 missions per character and you don't have to do both. One mission you save the character, or recruit them, the other mission you complete some objective or tie a loose end they want tied. Every mission is exactly the same though. You go to a place with long hallways and kill shit until you get to the end. Sure some have mild creativity peppered in like solving a murder, or luring out an assassin, but none of that is ever fully realized. But that's it, that's all your missions.

Characters:

I really enjoyed the characters of Mass Effect 2 over 1 by a longshot. They were much more interesting this time around. And yeah there were a few duds, but mostly I cared more for them here than anyone in the first game. My favorite character was probably Mordin followed by Jack. Mordin was more interesting than all of ME1's characters combined. I just really loved how he was behind the genophage, and the justification of doing it. The political comparisons can be made today easily. How our country (USA) decided to go into Iraq to prevent war, the idea of attack them now before they attack you later mentality despite Iraq never being an imminent threat of any kind. Much like the Krogan not posing a threat to the galaxy but they decided to play god and lower Krogan fertility to control their population thus removing their perceived "threat." While Mordin's choice was more scientific than ours it still raises the same questions and brings up wonderful points and things to ponder.

There were plenty of other characters in this game with similar interesting plots, but I don't need to go into them. It's just nice that more care and attention went into thinking about these characters than the ones from the last game who felt way more stereotypical and boring than anything else.

Music:

This was another large improvement. Mass Effect 2 had some pretty dramatic moments where a good score was needed and the music came through here. ME1's music was often lacking, or just not there as the majority of that game was very slow and plodding with nothing going on. ME2 has moments of danger with large set pieces crumbling and many things going on which helped allow for more music.

Conclusion:

Mass Effect 2 had many much needed improvements over the first game but it was still heavily lacking in story and pacing. This is something I still feel western developers are struggling with in gaming. I mean how can you justify having TWO games where your entire goal is to assemble a team and then have the final conflict be against something that isn't perceived as the main enemy? I just don't get it. If Mass Effect 3 is entirely about collecting various characters to do your bidding as the Normandy slave driver Commander Sheppard then I'm going to be pissed! He is a well established mother fucker and there is NO reason he has to do his own casting calls every fucking game. I just don't find that to be compelling use of gameplay, I really don't.

In a good RPG you have your cast of characters early on and you are always in pursuit of your overall goal with your allies in a similar mindset. With Mass Effect the main goal is totally ditched in favor of gathering allies and solving their completely unrelated issues. Hell, basically NONE of the cast on the Normandy could give two shits about the Collectors or stopping them. Grunt just wants a good fight, Mordin wants to study them, Jack owes Sheppard a favor, Tali owes Sheppard a favor, Samara...owes Sheppard a favor, and Thane gets contracted. The two Cerberus members and Legion are the only characters with an honest to god reason to go after the Collectors and the Reapers. It makes me believe more and more that all Bioware does is sit in a room and come up with characters to put in their games and main story be damned.

I will say this though, the ability to kill off or save your squad is greatly improved in this game. The choices you get endgame are FAR greater than anything ME1 gave you and your choices there really do feel like a "Mass Effect" will occur from what you did. I applaud that.

*ME2 is like stepping in dog shit only to discover it was just a clump of mud, so it's not that bad after all*

Preparing for Final Fantasy XIII - 3

In case you may not have heard, Square Enix decided to license the name of Final Fantasy XIII - 3. That's right, they are planning to make a 3rd Final Fantasy XIII even before the second one has released. Apart from the ridiculousness of creating a third game to a 13th installment of a franchise, the idea they would even consider it before the second game of the 13th installment of a franchise has come out baffles me.

What we can already conclude from this is the following:

1. We now know the "story" of Final Fantasy 13 will not conclude in the second game. So we know there is no reason to even traverse that game until the third one gets a release date.

2. Square apparently liked Final Fantasy 13, its world, and its characters so much that they are betting on it succeeding for 3 whole games. Knowing this I can now release what little faith I had left in Square.

3. The battle system will not change...and this is probably the worst part. We will have to endure that awful battle system 2 more times. Or not because if you are smart like me you won't play it.

4. We won't see Final Fantasy 15 for many years, or possibly never. If these games do as poorly as I suspect they will, Square may at last give us the Final Fantasy. Considering the series has been in a downward spiral since Final Fantasy 8, it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

5. I don't really have anything for a #5, but having only 4 bullet points sounded stupid.

So there you have it. Final Fantasy 13-3 coming to a store near you in the very distant future. Can you really handle more stance dancing, corridor running, and characters you don't know enough about to care? I know I can't. But Lightning is kinda hot, maybe she'll wear less and less clothing in each sequel much in the same way X-2 was handled. Ah, who am I kidding, it's not worth the 40 hour long hallway. Although you could get a lot of good ass shots as she runs...

*"Final Fantasy XIII-4, yeah we're just trying to milk our game engine until it pays for itself."*

Prince of Persia Sands of a Headache

Ok, I know this is one of those "classic" games that I shouldn't poop on and recognize that it's an early work of amazingness...but honestly I can't for the life of me find anything redeeming in this game or the series for that matter. So on another great Steam sale I got every Prince of Persia game ever made for like $11 and of course I started with the first in the series Prince of Persia Sands of Time.

Story:

It started off compelling enough with an interesting narration at the opening and a siege with an Arabian setting. You and your father set out to overthrow a castle place thingie and take all the goodies. You come across a wizard guy who tells the Prince to activate the hourglass for some totally not sinister reason...(the wizard is a copy-paste Jafar from Aladdin). It had the makings of a really cool tale with some kind of twist involving evil hourglass sand that turns people into...mummies? zombies? zomummies? I don't know, but the story takes a huge dive from the moment he cracks the hourglass open and everyone goes all undead on you. You meet this dancer girl who has immunity to the evil plague sand like the Prince does and you traverse the castle to restore order to the chaos. Of course the very first thing you do is restore the castle's "defense system" which activates super ridiculous elaborate traps that only end up hindering you.

So from this point on the game is a huge facepalm as nearly every obstacle that you face is of your own doing because you activated the traps. Also, the story completely stops for the next 7 hours. It is entirely driven by getting to the next room, leaping around a bit, and then getting to the next room...where you leap around a bit. I was going to put that in the "Gameplay" section but since the story apparently turns into a tale about how a Prince can make ridiculous leaps all over the place...well I guess I had to mention it.

And then...you fight the wizard which is the game's only boss battle, and it's not a good one either. The wizard barely puts up a better struggle than some of the basic enemies and I'll get into more of that later. I have to instead go into super mega detail about the cataclysmic events that take place at the end. You beat the wizard and restore order to the hourglass however, that reverts everything back in time before the siege and the Prince goes to warn the dancer girl he found to prevent what just happened in the game...

And then I woke up from a bad nightmare and none of this ever happened, and I never played the game!

But then I woke up again remembering that I DID actually waste 8 hours playing this pile of poo and screamed in horror!

What a twist...

Gameplay:

Alright, so the story was a drag, big deal this game was touted as being a classic video game so the gameplay has to be great right? Well...no not really...no.

The combat is pretty awful honestly. Basically you have to get every single enemy in the game into a stun point where you can then stab them and turn them back into sand. This right here annoys the poo out of me because you have to finish off EVERY god damn enemy in the same way. Either they get knocked down to be stabbed, or you stab them first to freeze them and then slice them to scatter the sand. There really isn't any combat tactics to be had here. Plus there are only a very small handful of enemies to fight.

But that's ok, because 90% of what you do in this game is leap around a room for hours and hours on end. After playing this for 4 hours I came the conclusion that this game is literally the very worst parts of Assassin's Creed 2. My most hated parts of course being the ones where you leap around a room for an hour to collect 1 of 6 keys that eventually nets you the best armor in the game. Except...that with Prince of Persia...that is ALL you do! The entire game! Just when you think they couldn't throw another room at you to leap around in...they throw another room for you to leap around in.

It goes beyond repetitive, it gives the word repetitive a bad name. It took me a lot longer to beat this game than it really should have because after a while I could only do one room at a time before I got a headache from sheer boredom. I mean the worst part of it is probably that every room is nearly identical to one another, you really start to lose track of how many times you solved a "leaping puzzle" the same way over and over again. There's only SO much creativity that can be thrown around with leaping to one unassailable ledge to another.

Alright, I also want to take a small jab at the logistics of all of this too. I get this is a video game, I know it's not meant to be realistic in any way...but HONESTLY how the fuck do normal human beings traverse this castle? If you've played this, you should immediately understand where I'm coming from. It's not like this castle has been destroyed or maimed in some way, but EVERY single god damn room appears entirely unpassable unless you have a time rewinding device (which the Prince has) and cat-like or god-like jumping and wall running abilities (which the Prince has). Any normal dude would walk into one of these rooms and say, "Where the fuck are the stairs?" Like is this some kind of fucking joke? Who built this god forsaken building? HOW did they build it when there ARE NO STAIRS! Literally, there are no stairs in any of these rooms. The only way to get around anywhere to flip on poles, run on walls, and climb very out of place ladders. Even in the FUCKING courtyard just getting up to the fucking gazebo is nigh impossible! Also...WHERE ARE THE TOILETS?

Ok...I went too far there but you get my point. Still, one last thing to mention gameplay wise is the device that lets you rewind time. This is a pretty pointless tool honestly. The game works and acts much like other fail 3D platformers where your next leap is not only obvious, but totally staged. By that I mean, you point him in the right direction and press "jump" and he'll go there and never miss. This isn't Mario where you have to have skills, and practice, and know your distances. You know...an actual platforming game? So the time re-winder lets you fix your mistakes if you happen to leap like a freak to your death.

That's the game though...dancer chick tells you what you need to do in a room, you do it, move on, partake in a terrible combat system, lather rinse repeat for 8 hours.

Sound:

The voice acting was good, and a few lines actually had me laughing. I mainly enjoy how the Prince looks down on the dancer chick and acts all high and mighty. What I found strange though, is how he jumps back and forth from empathizing with her to condescending her. And I get that it should be a character arc thing where he progressively warms up to her...but like I said, he randomly jumps back and forth with it. In one room he will scoff at her and in the next want to make sweet sweet love to her...then in the next he wants to leave her behind... It doesn't progress well...sorry erm...off topic now...

The music is ok I guess. It's very..."Arabian" and let me tell you it sounds EXACTLY like you think it will.

Graphics:

I can't complain here, it's an older game so yeah it doesn't look great but it doesn't look bad either for it's time. There are no glitches, everything runs smoothly and is textured well enough. The camera can be awful at times but is more often than not good enough. I know that should go under gameplay but I ranted enough there =)

Multiplayer:

None. And that's a positive honestly.

Conclusion:

To be perfectly honest, I would have had a less scathing review of this game if I hadn't also played the very latest game from the series Forgotten Sands. I put in maybe 13 minutes so far and that game...is...exactly...the same as Sands of Time. Now I'm all for a successful formula returning for new and exciting challenges in an updated game but MY FUCKING GOD it's literally the exact same game. You enter a castle under siege, some evil sand causes the undead to uprise, and then a guy turns on the "defense system" **they actually call it that in both games** and you have to avoid these traps. But not only is the setup exactly the same as the first game, but the "traps" are EXACTLY the same. Giant swinging logs with spikes? Check. Wall pole-axes swinging down at you? Check. They are all there, and all avoided the same way as the previous game.

There are very minor improvements to the wall running...but the combat is largely the same only improved by the fact that I don't have to dagger stab every enemy I see. It's still really bad though.

So yeah, playing 13 minutes of the newest Prince of Persia makes me hate the oldest one even more. To see a series go through like 5 games to have THAT much stagnation shocks me to the core. I mean yeah, Mega Man had 10 games where they were all exactly the same, the difference there is that gameplay didn't need improvement. Prince of Persia needs TONS of improvement. It just wasn't fun...ever. Not a single leap fulfilled me since they are pre-programmed jumps, not one battle was satisfying in the way God of War or Devil May Cry satisfies me, and the story was garbage. It was a trial to go through to say the very least.

*...changes are coming*

Console Generation VII - All the Good It's Done

Now, I disliked basically everything that Acefondu did about this current generation. In fact, I probably disliked it even more. However, I try to be a positive person, and so I can't help but want to find the good in this. I've been floundering on where exactly to start this for several days, and mostly what I've come up with is separable into two simple categories: Hardware and Software.

Hardware:

There are certain things about this generation of consoles that, simple though they may be, are truly excellent and often glossed over- wireless controllers. On this front, the clear winner is Sony. Not only wireless, but rechargeable! Everyone else still requires AA batteries.

Another good feature is that the hardware basically guarantees good graphics. Even the very worst games on the market look decent. Honestly, this is the best I could come up with. Based solely on hardware, this was a disappointing generation to say the least.

Software:

Here's where it truly shined. Some of the best games I've ever played have been released in this generation among the deep sludge of FPShooters and grizzled space marines. We're talking whole franchises I have come to love, like Bioshock, Dead Space, InFamous, Assassin's Creed, and let's not forget the cream of the crop- Batman: Arkham Asylum. These games are all truly excellent, and great starts to a whole new world of gaming. So much so that they deserve their own article, and I'll elaborate on them all later.

Instead, I choose now to post something of a rebuttal to a part of Ace's article: his complaint about sequels.

Firstly, I find his statement about game series rarely reaching so many sequels before now to be a bit silly. After all, our two favorite franchises of all time, Mario (his) and The Legend of Zelda (mine) have such high numbers of sequels that it's actually difficult to nail down just how many there are. (Mario has 115 titles to his name if you count side games and sports and whatnot, and Zelda has over twenty.) The reason that there haven't been so many sequels to series until this point is that they simply hadn't been around long enough. Of course the longer a game franchise is around, the higher its number of sequels go. That's just logical. Secondly, the more sequels quality companies make to quality games, the better. Every new sequel is an opportunity for a good game. Some of the many many Megaman sequels were excellent, as Ace himself pointed out in his most recent article. Thirdly, sequels aren't harming the new in the industry. All the new franchises I mentioned weren't hindered by the fact that there's now eight Silent Hills. In many cases, not only have the sequels NOT hit critical mass, but they've reached a finite ending. As of now, at four games, Snake's saga in Metal Gear Solid is over and done with. There may be more games on the horizon, but we've effectively wrapped up the character in style.

Another truly excellent addition is DLC, and online download networks, when utilized properly. I love replacing old PSX games with PSN titles, and I especially love the reasonably priced DLC you can get for many new games. Mission packs and new content are always welcome.

Basically, what it comes down to, in my thought process, is that as long as the games themselves don't suffer, the generation was a success. This generation has brought with it many, many evils. the FPS plague, the obsession with repeating successes of other companies instead of finding their own, the casual gaming market. However, buried amongst the filth are several new games and new standards that make it all worthwhile. At the end of the day, this generation has delivered a lot of fun, and isn't that what truly matters?

The Death of Mega Man

Keiji Inafune left Capcom some many months ago, and it seems as though that has pissed Capcom off more than I had hoped. I pondered what would happen to our favorite blue bomber once its creator left. I assumed Capcom would continue making great Mega Man games and little would be lost. If anything I thought maybe a new director would breathe a little life into the series. I of course, couldn't have been more wrong.

Capcom as far as I can tell has all but decided that Mega Man is no longer a viable mascot character. Admittedly, his games haven't sold well the past few years apart from the DLC games of Mega Man 9 and 10, and in Japan Battle Network is a really strong series. As a whole though, the Mega Man property is not nearly as lucrative as it once was.

Despite that, I believe there is something more to this story that fans will never really know. Just how badly did Keiji piss Capcom off? I mean, he really must have upset them greatly. After he initially left, Mega Man Universe was immediately cancelled which was supposed to be a sort of Little Big Planet meets Mega Man. It was pretty far in development too, they had trailers for it, and even a pseudo release date planned. Now that didn't really register with me too much at the time as far as just how badly Capcom is trying to keep Mega Man titles off the shelves.

Just this past week Capcom cancelled Mega Man Legends 3 on the 3DS. They were going to release a demo to see how viable the game would be before actually finishing it. However, they never even let the demo get released to see how well it would do. That strikes me as very fishy. Initially they said to the fans that if the Mega Man Legends 3 demo got enough attention and downloads that they would make the full game. Why suddenly deviate from that plan and pan the game? It makes NO sense. But ok, whatever, the Legends series was probably the least lucrative of all the Mega Man spinoffs, I get the decision.

However, it's this last bit of news that strikes me as odd. Capcom just earlier today announced a follow up to Marvel vs Capcom 3, called Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. They also released the names of the new combatants the game will have. Before I mention who is in and who isn't let me tell you that Capcom had polls on their website of characters people wanted to see, and more often than not Mega Man or Mega Man X would appear in the top 5 for the Capcom side of the game. He is, however, nowhere to be found on the new version of MvC3.

What strikes me as REALLY fishy about the choice to leave him out though, is who they put in. They put in Virgil from Devil May Cry. WHY? They are rebooting the Devil May Cry series, GOD knows if Virgil will even BE in that reboot. So we have Zero in MvC3 who was put in before the Keiji fiasco and Dante, but no Mega Man who is the star of his series but they add Virgil? At this point, it's a blatant snub.

Clearly there is no question to me now that Capcom has lost faith in the Mega Man brand as it stands now. Whether we ever see Mega Man again is something I doubt heavily, but it IS Capcom after all and rarely do they ever let a series die off. But this is a rather strange series's of occurrences against Mega Man. If I had to make bets, I would say one of two things will happen.

1. Capcom is going to revamp Mega Man into something brand new yet familiar like they did with Street Fighter 4.
2. We never see Mega Man again.

What I'm 99% sure of is we'll never see Mega Man 11, or a new Mega Man X. The Zero series on handhelds died several years ago so we won't see that again either. Hopefully, I'm wrong and we see Mega Man soon. He's my second favorite video game character of all time. I enjoy every Mega Man game made apart from the Battle Network games, and I could play Mega Man games through a Mega Man 100 if that ever happened.

It saddens me to think he may be gone. Honestly, it kills me inside as a gamer to think it. The way of gaming as I knew it is dying off making way for FPS after FPS. If they make a Mega Man FPS I'll probably assassinate myself. I know there's a fan game of a Mega Man FPS, that doesn't count. Like music though, what you grow up with ends up being what you like most and all the new stuff is crap. I feel video games will have the same stigma among people. Despite my bias, I think gaming fans can agree that watching Mega Man get sent to his unceremonious death is very sad.

*21 Charge Shot salute*

Crysis 2: Everything that's Wrong with Gaming Today

If you have rummaged through earlier posts of mine you'll note that I have become somewhat of a PC gamer. I enjoy PC games more these days with their mod communities and customization, mouse control especially for games like this, and the online communities are generally older and easier to get along with.

Crytek made an amazing game some years back called Crysis. It was the Mount Olympus of graphical benchmarks for PC's. To this day it's used as a benchmark to see just how good your PC is. Though it is being slowly replaced by Metro 2033 and Witcher 2, it had a really good long run. Graphical benchmarks aside, it was an amazing adventure. Beyond its lush landscapes lay a great foundation of gameplay, utilizing suit powers and allowing the player to plan how to attack every situation. I played through it 3 or 4 times and always doing things differently each time. The story was simple, but compelling and succinct. It made sense and didn't leave you scratching your head. The ending was a cliffhanger and left us really wanting Crysis 2. Let me just say that not only wasn't this cliffhanger resolved, it was left entirely ignored as if it never happened.

So Crysis 2 finally comes and Crytek brings the game to consoles. This of course is an immediate detriment to PC gamers. Crysis 2 by comparison to Crysis looks awful. The textures are not nearly as crisp, the environments are unimpressive, and the scope of the game in all has shrunk significantly. They all but abandoned the first game's story for console gamers who had no history with the first game. You could play Crysis 2 without ever playing Crysis 1 and not be lost. What doesn't make ANY sense though, is if you HAVE played Crysis 1 you will be SO lost playing Crysis 2. If I went back in time and didn't play Crisis 1, maybe Crysis 2 would make sense....maybe.

Gameplay:

Crysis 2 is flat out a downgrade in every conceivable way from Crysis 1 and the gameplay is no exception. In Crysis 1 you got FULL suit control. You could switch from Power, Speed, Armor, and Stealth whenever you wanted, and use them strategically as you want. In Crysis 2 there is no Speed or Power anymore. Speed is the WORST offender in my opinion because it's permanently on. Every time you run your suit power drains. What sickens me is you aren't even running in what Crysis 1 would consider "speed" mode. In Crysis 1 you ran like a rocket. It was brief sure, but it was a great way to bum rush a guy or escape a heavy firefight. In Crysis 2...you just run, like ANY normal human being yet your suit energy gets drained. This is supposed to be the SAME suit from the first game right? How then did it suddenly get shittier? Well it did and we're stuck with it.

Losing Power annoys me too. With Power on in Crysis 1 it was a gamble, you did more damage but were highly susceptible to dying really fast. I loved this gamble myself. Often I would use it against tough foes that took too long to kill, and I'd quickly use Power mode to dispatch them. It felt great, like a strategic move in combat. It was risky and fulfilling. Do we get ANY of that in Crysis 2? Nope, there is no Power mode.

What Crysis 2 does add are suit upgrades with RPG experience points and it added stealth killing. The stealth kills are fun admittedly but it wasn't anything you couldn't also do in Crysis 1. Instead of sneaking up on guys in Crysis 1 and unloading a silencer in them, in Crysis 2 you get to just press a button for a cinematic stab to the neck. The suit upgrades is the bigger addition however it's utterly stupid. The upgrades you get are mostly pointless. The only ones that make a big impact are the stealth ones, such as longer stealth power and silent steps. With those two equipped you are basically invisible to enemies. All the other upgrades are super shitty and don't matter. Like enemy sensor. I never actually got that one because your mini map displays your enemies, what the hell is the point?

Other minor additions to gameplay is being able to run and slide or jump and use a foot stomp move. I barely used either feature as they were pointless and more than not left you open for attack rather than safely shooting behind walls.

The enemies in this game were shitty too. Also, no final boss fight really pissed me off. Just like Bioshock 2, it made no sense. Crysis 1 and Bioshock 1 BOTH had final boss fights. Their sequels did not. WHY? But anyway in Crysis 2 you fight normal humans for a few hours then it's all aliens, of which there are only 3 types and 1 giant robot walker thing and you only fight 2 of those so I don't really count it.

The aliens are admittedly more fun to fight in this game than Crysis 1....but they don't make ANY friggin sense story wise. They look COMPLETELY different from the first game. They are literally a completely different species in my opinion. What's really dumb though is they're basically de-evolved from the first game. In Crysis 1 all the aliens flew around, in this one they are biped...WHY? Why did the aliens get worse all of the sudden? They JUST started their assault on earth after being awoken and suddenly they opt to NOT use their airborne comrades? Where are they? Did I really kill all of them in the first game?

Really I can't get over how completely different they are from the first game. As far as I can tell it was never explained why they look so different. In the first game they were basically robots, in this game they are full on aliens. It just doesn't make any sense, and you'll hear this complaint A LOT in my review of the story.

Story:

It didn't make ANY god damn sense!!!

SPOILER ALERT

In the first Crysis, at the end of the game we see our hero going back to the Island from whence the aliens came to stop them, then the credits rolled. Ok, are we caught up now?

END SPOILER

In Crysis 2 we open to...New York with a band of half-wits trying to defend it. They immediately get pwned and Prophet is inexplicably right there to fish what will become the main character of this game out of the water. Prophet kills himself and gives the new guy the suit.

Right there I had to stop the game. I had SOOOOO many issues with this after playing Crysis 1. First off, why aren't they on the island again? Where is Nomad from the first game? He's never spoken of, he's the main god damn character! It's as if he never existed at all! What the hell! My second issue is how in the holy fuck does Prophet give the new guy the suit? It's explained in the first game how these suits are symbiotic to the host and if you die, the suit literally burns you to ashes leaving no trace of your existence.

My question is how the FUCK did he get the suit off? He shouldn't be able to! Crysis 2, later in the game even points this very fact out all by itself. At one point the evil dude of the game goes to GREAT LENGTHS to take the suit off of you to use if for himself. He has a SHIT ASS TON of equipment lined up to get the damn thing off of you. He doesn't succeed by the way. So here we have Prophet in the opening of the game taking the suit off bare handed and later in the game they revert back to the first game's claim which is you shouldn't be able to take it off through normal means.

That was JUST the first FUCKING cinema and already I found like 4 plot holes. Not withstanding the incomprehensible nature of our new alien friends, this game may as well not have been called Crysis 2 at all. Just to tie it up, do we ever find out Nomad's exploits on the Island? No. Do we ever figure out just how in the hell Prophet got off the island? No. The island was supposed to be VERY important, and instead we get a defend New York story with none of our Suit wielding combatants like Nomad or Psycho (who by the way was the best character in the series).

Ugh, ok so I accept that I'm some new guy, fine. So immediately you're contacted by some random hippie character who still thinks you are Prophet. And as before you're a silent protagonist so he never opts to tell this hippie dick that you are NOT in fact Prophet. This will present another glorious plot hole later. First I'd like to identify, not exactly a plot hole but something that REALLY pissed me off.

So the hippie guy wants to meet up with you ASAP. You go through many stages trying to get to this dick fuck. Finally, in one level he is surrounded by the enemy on all sides and you have to break in and save him. You break in, shoot up all the dudes, but the hippie guy is nowhere to be found. Ok, so I think he gets captured, big whoop.

THE VERY NEXT CUT-SCENE:

Hippie Guy: "I fucked up"

I don't remember the exact next quote but he basically says he "fucked up" and left the place he was surrounded on all sides by to....get this...try to save his girlfriend..or go to his girlfriends house...something like that. I about shit a brick.

1. How did he escape? If he was in SO much peril HOW did he get out?
2. His girlfriend is never mentioned again.
3. If his ultimate goal is to meet up with Prophet WHY not wait?
4. Again, suit guy is a very good bodyguard. Wouldn't it have been smarter to wait for him and then save the girlfriend? YES!!

Fuck me this is beyond stupid.

So here's that plothole that I mentioned earlier. You FINALLY meet up with hippie guy who when he meets you is immediately thrown that you are NOT in fact Prophet. So much so, he suspects you are there to kill him and then he pulls a gun on you. This is where the idea of having a silent protagonist is utterly retarded. He could have told the hippie guy from the start what happened, and avoided this ugly incident. Furthermore, he doesn't even explain himself when the gun is on him. The suit RANDOMLY projects the game's first cinema which is a recording Prophet made...on the suit...which he wasn't wearing at the time...I have no idea how that worked....Anyway, so Prophet's message plays which gets the hippie guy off your case and he trusts you now. Thank god Prophet had the foresight to know he was recruiting a fucking mute and made that message!

It's at this point I mentally gave up on the story. The game drags on and you meet the old guy who started the suit program and wants the suit for himself to live longer and save everyone from the aliens. Once he fails to get the suit off he suddenly turns good guy and helps you out through the end...it's senseless just like everything else. I mean, your character had no reason NOT help stop the aliens in the first place. Why wouldn't the old man just wait for your character to stop the aliens then take the suit? No he has to fuck you up a bit, realize he's being a dick and then assist in you in the mission you were already fucking on in the first place! FUCK this is dumb!

Oh, and at one point in the story they threaten to nuke the aliens if you don't succeed in your mission in a certain time limit. In the first game it is discovered that nuclear warheads EMPOWER the fucking aliens. It gives them ENERGY! HOW was this forgotten? Did they just not tell anyone?

"You know sir, I think it'd be a good idea to tell the rest of the military that nukes don't work on these aliens."

"Nah, fuck that, let them figure it out."

Now, granted they never launch the Nuke so I didn't get to bitch about yet another plothole where the Nuke fried the aliens (which it shouldn't) so that's good they avoided that. But for them to even suggest a nuke makes me want to punch small baby Panda's for just how fucking dumb it is to suggest.

It actually gets dumber. The very end of the game made zero sense. Maybe I have to watch it again, I don't know. I still can't piece together exactly what happened. But basically you complete a mission destroying some alien power towers, get launched out of the last one and a cinema plays showing you rise up and Prophet's voice plays and he says he's Prophet...So Prophet came back to life? ....Somehow? WTF?

End Credits...

My only thought was what the hell did I just see? And I turned the god damn abomination off and played something good....

Sound:

Great sound as usual. Loved the gun sounds and I really enjoy Crysis's soundtracks. They are all fitting and give an air of futuristic war. It's good shit, can't say much else. Oh, -10 points for your main character causing plotholes because he's a silent protagonist. Yeah, that's in the sound department. Oh, and the voice acting in general was terrible. WHERE THE FUCK IS PSYCHO? He would have made this game a billion times better. "C'mere moppet!" - Psycho says to a Korean.

Graphics:

I went over this a bit earlier, but the graphics are worse than Crysis 1 by quite a bit. That's not to say the game looks bad though because it doesn't. I'm not a graphics whore by any means, but it would be embarrassing to me as a game developer to say that a game I made 4 years ago looks better than a game I just made. I mean it will confuse people in the future I bet. Playing Crysis, then Crysis 2 and saying "What the hell is this garbage?" Kind of like watching the old Star Wars movies and then the new ones which look better despite being prequels. It's all kinds of fucked up.

Multiplayer:

I actually tried to get into this, but it's too terrible. Finding a game is really hard, and most of them don't start. Furthermore, this game is bugged to hell and 90% of the time the game does NOT recognize that I'm online. I have to reboot the game 9 out of 10 times before Crysis 2 goes "Oh, yeah I see now, you ARE online! You can play now." I have no idea how to fix this error. From what I understand though it doesn't approve of Wifi connections. Sadly that's the only connection I have so fuck it, can't play online.

Conclusion:

I titled this with "Everything that's Wrong with Gaming Today." Specifically what I mean is Crysis 2 catered to console gamers and abandoned its core audience which is what a LOT of developers are doing these days in different ways. Whether it be to the casual crowd, or selling out making yet another FPS game, developers these days just don't give a shit about their fans. It's like when Epic Games called their fans thieves and refused to continue the Gears of War series on the PC. People pirated Gears of War on the PC and it didn't sell well, so Epic just said fuck you to PC gamers. It doesn't help that Gears of War is one of the shittiest PC ports in existence either. So really it's their own damn fault.

Also, the crappy story. Games these days are so poorly written, far worse than even the bad translated games of yore. I don't think developers hire writers anymore, really I don't. They probably let the clerical staff, or the janitor write some shit down and they use it. That's what this game felt like. It felt like whoever wrote it honestly never played the first game at all nor knew it existed and probably wondered why the executives kept insisting he title the game "Crysis 2."

This game should not have been called Crysis 2. It should have been called "Aliens fuck up New York," it would have made SO much more sense.

*This game sucked*