Dota - Acefondu

Ok...so apparently there is someone out there naming themselves "acefondu" in the game of Dota online. I take offense to this only because he is harming my good name of AceFondu. I have long been AceFondu online in various forms and am very surprised to see someone else even use the name for how obscure it is. I also lost the name on Twitter too, I wonder if it is the same guy?

In any case apparently, he has been a naughty Dota player and shows up on a few ban requests. Be that as it may, let it be known that THIS AceFondu has never played a game of Dota in his entire life and never will. I find it to be a boring waste of time and consider myself a much more cultured gamer able to play multiple games rather than use all my time into one...very tedious game like Dota appears to be.

As often as I post and ridicule games like this and WoW for their soul sucking merits it should be clear to my fellow readers (not that there are any) that I am in fact not this person. It is unfortunate my online persona name had to be taken by someone. I do not claim to be the first AceFondu (though I assume I was) since it's really impossible to pinpoint so I'm not here to lay claim over the name. But considering how many places I have it registered one could easily infer that I am also the one playing Dota which I am not, and it offends me as a gamer that my online persona could be tarnished by the likes of a rouge Dota player. It wouldn't be so bad if they played nice and were friendly, as I like to represent myself online, but sadly this is not the case it seems.

I only discovered this person by getting randomly AIMed by his fellow Dota cohort, or rather, another name of his perhaps. This rude person would only repeat what I said to him instead of converse with me in an adult manner.

Still, it is rather amusing to google search AceFondu and see countless posts by me online in various gaming forums and only see a few sparse posts in Dota from this fellow and he claims to be AceFondu over me? Very odd indeed. I only hope the spread of my name does not hinder other gamers online thusly tarnishing my otherwise good name known across other online games like Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, and so on and so on.

Hopefully, though, next time someone searches Dota with AceFondu this article comes up better explaining my situation. Thank you dear readers for supporting me, and to the rouge child-like AceFondu out there...please grow up and live a better standard of the pseudonym of AceFondu.

Zelda Skyward Sword - Worst Zelda Ever?

Before anyone goes crazy and accuses me of giving Zelda the whip (see picture) for baseless reasons please note that Zelda does not deserve a free pass either. Like any game it deserves the critical eye just as much if not more so than any other game. With that, fellow gamers, ask yourself this question: What is the best part about a Zelda game? Is it A. Dungeons; B. Boss Fights; C. Unique Items; D. Story; or E. The random mindless traversing/backtracking between dungeons. If you answered anything but E, then unfortunately Zelda Skyward Sword is not the Zelda you are looking for.

Zelda Skyward Sword probably wants to be known best for its use with the Wii Motion Plus, and while I will be sure to criticize that in a moment too, let it be known that 90% of this game is taken up by running around the land in search of meaningless garble just to get to the next dungeon.

Gameplay:

Admittedly, Zelda has been known to do this since Ocarina of Time but to what extent? A few casual hours of exploring the world, followed by a half hour of focused time on how to get to the next dungeon was the norm for most Zelda games and no complaints there. But Skyward Sword takes that idea to new heights! Between the third and fourth dungeon I shit you not I spent nearly 5 hours roaming around doing fetch quests for various characters until they finally gave me what I wanted...a god damn entrance to a dungeon! I actually fell asleep during this period, and I rarely if ever fall asleep during a game but this was such a mind numbing experience I zonked out like a light.

The worst part of this running around is the severe lack of exploration. Zelda games of the 3D age have been for the most part hilariously enjoyable to roam about in. Searching towns, talking with NPC's, doing side quests, playing mini games, finding boundless amounts of secrets, but this game? This game has practically none of that. The "roaming" consists of ONE town, boring NPC's, boring side quests with little to no payoffs, and a relatively empty sky to fly around in. Also, the game only has 3 areas to go to...THREE! How many years was this game in development? But really, those 3 areas are it, and they aren't very big either. I'd argue the north-east section of Wind Waker is twice the size of each of these areas.

Of course, size is nothing without content and shockingly despite how small these areas are they also have very little to do in them. Sure, you go back to each 3 or 4 times before you're done with the quest but the only thing you do in those areas relates to the main quest. There's nothing really to explore in the areas. You only unlock new parts of the areas with the items you get from the dungeons too. I am very flummoxed by the idea that it took Nintendo this long to make a game smaller than even a Game Boy sized RPG...and yet take just as long if not longer to beat with the insane amount of fetch quests you have to do.

Add insult to injury another part of this game I cannot stand is your "guide," or the "navi" of the game. I hate her so much I forgot her name so there! She is the blue bitch that tells you what to do every step of the way. Despite her constant blathering I still had to use a strategy guide to tell me where to go next once and a while. Still, she becomes a nuisance once you're in a dungeon. I never get lost in a dungeon, I needed the guide for the random bullshit fetchings you have to do to GET to the dungeons in the first place. What annoys me is when she's basically solving the dungeon puzzles for me. That's the BEST part about any Zelda game is how to move through the dungeons and she's sitting there blathering on in every room telling me how to do this or that. SHUT UP backseat gamer!

What I hate most about her though, his her dumbass expositions. Whenever a plot element is to be revealed or explained she has to SKATE around like a fucktard whilst telling you the story. Like...why? Stop it! It's irritating. Coupled with her bullshit noises she makes while she speaks my mental stability really begins to lose the battle for sanity after a couple minutes. Seriously, this character ruined what little fun I was having playing this game.

Not all is bad about Skyward Sword. As I mention in the title, while I feel it's probably the worst Zelda I have ever played that by no means it is the worst game ever. The dungeons are still really good fun, the boss battles are okay, and the items range from neat to this is stupid. Never the less these moments make the game somewhat playable and fun...until you get to the motion controls that is...

The motion controls...work...That's about the highest compliment I can give them. So they work, big deal, does that make it fun? The answer is no, not at all, and no. The game uses the Wiimote as if it was your sword, so while you're resting your hand down playing the game Link is running around with the sword pointed out like a jackass. What makes this 1:1 sword movement stupid though comes down to the enemies you fight. They are all basically exactly the same. They have defense spots and their only weakness is what they're not defending at the time...so you swing at it. Sometimes this works, sometimes the Wiimote doesn't swing exactly how you wanted it, but I'll call that user error and give the game the benefit of the doubt.

My point being is that this isn't any fun. I'm not enthralled by having to swing a certain way against every enemy I come across just to be successful. Eventually, I just started throwing bombs at them. Not even joking. The game suddenly became much more enjoyable hucking bombs at enemies rather than flailing around finding their weak spots. I actually got a good chuckle at some of the enemies reacting to my bomb hucking, like the plants that actually eat them and blow up. Moral of 1:1 ratio sword fighting is:

1:1 ratio sword fighting < blowing shit up.

Another complaint I have is Link's stamina bar. What Link HAS a stamina bar? Why? No seriously, why? As I started playing I began to think, ok, maybe they put in some interesting gameplay element with Link not being able to run for very long...then they didn't! No, unlike, say a good game like Shadow of the Colossus where the stamina gauge was a genius gameplay element Link in this game...just really fucking sucks at being Link. Consider EVERY other Link could infinitely roll across the fields of Hyrule while this one has to take a breath every 3 rolls, or 10 seconds of sprinting, this Link is clearly the worst Hero we have ever had the displeasure of controlling in a Zelda game. PROVE ME WRONG!

Lastly, I'd like to complain more about the motion controls. Why did they feel the need to add it to literally everything you do in the game? I get the sword fighting, shooting arrows with the pointer, and MAYBE even rolling the bombs which is kinda fun. But you have to wiggle the nunchuck to roll? WHY? You have to guide Link with it while swimming? Everything you do is tied somewhere to motion controls. You can't once just relax and play the game, you have to be physically active with it too like some mental patient or those annoying cousins that would move the controller around like a steering wheel in a racing game and make a bunch of obnoxious racing car noises!

Oh...and the items in this game suck too. Look at that PICTURE! A WHIP? FUCK THAT!
So older Zelda games...cool boombarangs, giant hammers, giant ball and chain, a lens that sees through walls....and here we have a Whip and a bug that you guide around areas to hit switches...ugh...

Not to mention how god awful the shields are in this game. They break! They ALL break! And they look stupid too. But seriously, how am I expected to have a realistic combat experience if my god damn shield keeps breaking? I just flat out quit using it, what's the point?

Story:

The game starts off well enough and you get a sense of Zelda being a real person with real feelings...then she goes away and we're left high and dry with that stupid blue bitch I discussed earlier. Honestly, Twilight Princess's Minda was such a HUGE leap forward for the Zelda series in characterization. She was amazing, funny, witty, and heartfelt. She was the best character Nintendo ever made and her replacement? THIS! I couldn't be more appalled. I could try to be more appalled but I would not succeed.

So the story more or less stops right after Zelda gets abducted. You see some gay dude...who pretends to be evil...but he's just a little fucktard. I mean seriously, we go from big giant evil Ganon to this androgynous little punk? Where is the sense of danger here? I'm more threatened by some of James Bond's cheesy villains. That's really the story from here on out. Evil gay dude threatens you now and then mentioning evil things he wants to do and most of those evil things involve making you collect more bullshit to get to the next dungeon.

Music:

Finally a fully orchestrated Zelda game! Too bad the music isn't very good...

Graphics:

Awful. They seriously don't look finished to me. Some of the textures are muddy, I swear there are things missing shadows, and overall the game is pure ugly. Wind Waker for instance, though different, appeared finished and consistent throughout and easily the best looking Zelda there has ever been. This game? Not even close. Probably doesn't help that I play the game without component cables on an HD TV. GET WITH THE TIMES NINTENDO!

Conclusion:

All my bitching aside, if you can tolerate hours and hours and hours and HOURS of bullshit just to get to the admittedly amazing dungeons then go ahead and play this Zelda. Truthfully, your time is much better spent going through any other Zelda game for a better gameplay experience....even if you've already played it before.

*Used Hookshot to escape from this game!*

Mario Kart 7 - Best Mario Kart ever?

I'm glad they called this game Mario Kart 7 to save me the pain of looking up how many there have been up until now, though, at the same time isn't it REALLY weird that this is called Mario Kart 7 when there's never even been a Mario Kart 2? Anyway...every iteration of Mario Kart has added some new value or improvement, but none have really pulled all that value together into one Kart game up until now.

The SNES game gave us our start of wacky Kart racing. The N64 gave us 4 screen local play (which is still amazingly fun to this day). Gamecube gave us character specific items/strategy. The GBA version was the first handheld Mario Kart and had the most tracks of all. The DS gave us our first online play experience (which was terrible). And the Wii gave us online play that worked very well along with...*sigh* Bikes.

But now we finally have a game with great online play, no bikes, no snaking (though I liked that), and the mild addition of gliding and underwater racing. The game is as it's been for years but now it's accessible, portable, and fine tuned with the advancements of years of progress.

Gameplay:

The Mario Kart gameplay hasn't really changed since the N64 games where they added drift boosting. And really that was the last actual innovation to the driving mechanics of the game. Otherwise, new items were added to this game though not nearly as awesome as previous games. The raccoon tail item was added here...and it feels like the worst item in the game. It basically allows you to swing wildly and smack nearby karts. The problem with it is often hard to get that close to others, and it stays in your item block while it's in use. Which means you can't get a standby item while you have it and it stays out pretty long too resulting in missed opportunities for more items.

The other item they added is lucky 7 which gives you 7 items to use. This is pretty cool, but it has some flaws. The star and the mushroom can actually be stolen by opponents that run into those items as they swirl around you. Not as lucky as you'd hope!

The tracks are where the meat of the game lie though, and like previous Mario Kart games all the tracks are fun and interesting. There are a few fresh ideas in here too like the musical note track and the shifting tracks where each lap the track becomes something different. Also, with the addition of the underwater and gliding options some old tracks provide new ways to traverse them.

Speaking of the gliding and underwater stuff it doesn't really add a ton to the gameplay, however it gives a certain freshness to the gameplay. Also, no longer fearing the dreaded water is pretty cool. In some levels the gliding lets you take a different course on the track which is fun, but overall the gliding is kind of unfortunate. In older Karts we were accustomed to getting blindsided by the lightning attack just before a large jump and falling into a ravine. Never before has this been more apparent than in Mario Kart 7 gliding over large pitfalls. What's worse yet is now shells follow you into the sky to ruin your day, especially the blue shell. The gliding soon becomes more of a detriment than anything else.

Kart customization is also enjoyable in this version. In previous games some Karts would be vastly overpowered (tank in DS, Funky Kong Bike Wii) but here there appears to be no apparent Kart juggernaut that is heads and tails above the rest. The game is still early in it's life to be fair so not too many exploits have been found yet, but it really seems like the balance is solid. I've played a good 50 matches online so far with the very first Kart available and normally get either 1st or 2nd place, if not bungling entirely and getting near to last on rare occasions. But that's Mario Kart, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

The only downside is the lack of characters in this game. No Waluigi or Diddy Kong, but that's not really that big of a deal. The core of the game was rarely measured by how many characters the game had, but it also doesn't feel like Nintendo couldn't have added more characters without much effort either.

Graphics:

Probably the best looking game on the 3DS thus far. The 3D works very well as expected and everything modeled nicely. I guess the water effects could look better though. I would have liked to see water effects akin to Mario Golf on the Gamecube. i know that's an obscure reference, but that game had some of the best looking water ever!

Sound:

Classic Mario Kart tunes and some new ones. They are great as always and I guess that could be a complaint too. The music at times feels so familiar that often I forget I'm hearing a new track as opposed to some I've heard for years in previous games.

Story:

This section shouldn't even be allowed here for this game. So I'm ignoring it now...

Go away!

Multiplayer:

I rarely do a section on multiplayer but I'll make an exception with this game. On the Nintendo DS gamers were for the very first time introduced to what a Nintendo experience online could be like. Boy were we disappointed! Sure the game ran alright, not much lag, and the game was fun enough but the way it was handled was so atrocious. You could only have 4 people at a time, finding games took forever, and you were forced to race in 4 straight races like a cup from single player. The problem there is when other racers were mathematically going to lose, they would drop out. It was NIGH impossible to actually finish a 4 game set.

Thankfully, Nintendo has learned a lot since then and now each race is it's own race and you are given points for your placements. There is no tournaments or cups, just one race after another. I guess the addition of a "cup" mode would have been fun though. I haven't tried out the battle mode online yet but I imagine it's as good as the Wii one. Though from forum posts I've read the battle mode in this game is not very good...Not sure how they could mess it up.

Conclusion:

If you have a 3DS there is little choice but to get this game. Considering the severe lack of games on the system at the moment there aren't many other titles to give you the kind of extensive amount of fun that this game can give. With endless online enjoyment and two sets of 4 cups to compete in, there is a lot of Karting to be had here.

*Gets hit by blue shell*