Stuff I Found While Out Hunting

I recently went out and picked up a few games.

Strider: First Impressions

Today's video gives my first impressions of the latest game in Capcom's Strider series.

Planning To Late Adopt PS3 or Xbox 360 Consoles and Games? Buyer Beware!

Fanboys yelling at each other on message boards, delayed launch titles, and console shortages during Christmas. Yeah, it’s console release time. With the release of Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles, the 8^th console generation is officially here. With this comes a great time for late adopters, collectors, and cheapskates. Consoles and games from the 7^th generation are about to become very affordable, and the deals will become quite enticing, but all isn’t health packs and blue koopa shells.

The biggest concern one should have is the dependence so many titles have on online patches. This is the first instance we’ve had where some console games have needed downloadable patches to properly function. This means a percentage of titles simply won’t function correctly if at all. Also, at some point all of those titles you heard folks talking about playing online wouldn’t be possible. This isn’t unique to just consoles, but it is definitely not as easy to work around on consoles.

Another problem lies with the consoles themselves. For all intents and purposes, the 7^th console generation saw a fail rate the likes of which many modern gamers have ever seen before. The Red Ring of Death was a nightmare for the Xbox 360, with many gamers going through several consoles before giving up on Microsoft’s console. Sony had several problems of their own with Playstation 3 consoles being affected by console failure errors indicated by a yellow light. The led to a lot of console gamers either giving up completely or venturing into PC gaming. With the dependability of PC gaming and its graphics superiority (if you have the right components), More and more gamers became console expatriates.

Any gamer worth their salt knows how to find great deals on treasures they missed earlier on at the end of a console’s life. The conundrum lies in whether all the intangibles involved in dealing with online dependency of some games in this generation have made it a tough row to hoe for some. Will “retro hunting” for the 7^th generation even be as fun as it is for previous generations, or is it pretty much a bust? Maybe some of you will find great deals on collector’s editions for the price of a budget title. Will we see a sad pile of First Person Shooters and Sports games in the corner of a local Gamestop? Hopefully the need to have everything online won’t make this entire console generation landfill fodder within the next 5 years.

How WayForward Resurrected Greatness With DuckTales Resmastered

Today's video takes a look at the Wayforward developed remake of Capcom's legendary NES title, DuckTales.

Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5: So Much Awesome, So Little English

This video is all about Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5, an import Bullet Hell shooter for the Xbox 360 from the good folks at Cave.

Borderlands 2 = LOOT!!!!!!!

                In October 2009, GearBox and 2K Games released a video game that a lot of people overlooked initially. They released Borderlands which was a First Person Shooter with RPG elements built in. It was a well put together game that left the gaming community anticipating the sequel.  Move the clock forward three years and Borderlands 2 has come out just in time for the holiday season.  Borderlands 2 adds new playable characters, an actual villain, and the one thing that made the first Borderlands such a fun game, LOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

                When you first start playing Borderlands 2, you have to decide which character class you will choose. The class choices are Siren, Engineer, Assassin, Mecromancer, and Gunserker.  Each character has a different talent that you unlock at level 5.  Every time you level up you get a skill point to assign to a different skill tree. Each character has 3 skill trees that vary depending on the character. After you have decided on your character class you start the game and are immediately introduced to the antagonist of the game.  Unlike the first Borderlands, this game has a clear villain.  His name is Handsome Jack, and he spends a lot of time verbally harassing you.  The whole story revolves around you trying to stop Handsome Jack from gathering Eridium and awakening “The Warrior”, a mystical entity that can destroy the world. During your play through you will encounter characters from the previous installment that are there to help you on your journey.  Also different areas that you visited in the first game make an appearance in this game as well like Fyrestone, which was the place you first visited at the start of Borderlands.  While there is a lot going on with the story, what keeps Borderlands 2 as a huge game are the plethora of side mission. The good and sometimes bad idea about having a lot of missions is that they have a chance at becoming repetitive, but there are such a variety of missions that you will never get bored playing them.

                Gameplay in Borderlands 2 is very streamlined and simple. If you have played a First Person Shooter before, then you have an idea at what the button layout is. While Borderlands 2 is a very good single player game, it is best played with a group of people online.  Up to 4 players can play together in an online Co-Op game and fight the good fight to defeat handsome Jack.  The Co-Op aspect of Borderlands 2 was the major selling point to this game.  Adding more players to the game not only increases the difficulty of the enemies you are facing, but it also gives you better loot, whether it is Grenades, Shields, Guns, Relics, or Class Mods.  Nothing is more pleasing than trading loot with your fellow players. Maybe one player is better at using a Sniper Rifle where as you are better with Shotguns. This allows you and your team to play to each other strengths.   

                Overall Borderlands 2 is a great game, but it is not without its flaws. During my pIaythrough I experienced a lot of texture pop-ins when entering new areas and opening containers.  Also during my initial playthrough I received a lot of fire elemental weapons, which isn’t a bad thing, but a vast majority of enemies I faced were fire resistant.  These problem may vary depending on your console (Xbox360 or PS3), but they are small problems and do not take away from the game itself.  I would say if you are looking for a great FPS with RPG elements attached, and gameplay that keeps you wanting to continue playing, then I would suggest you pick up a copy of Borderlands 2.  Being that this game recently came out; it will run you about $50 - $60.  If you can afford it, pick up a copy next time you see one.  

Dust: An Elysian Tail First Look

             As most gamers know, Xbox Live has released their Summer of Arcade Titles.  For the uninitiated, it is basically 4 featured arcade games that are released every summer. Games like Trials HD, Limbo, and Shadow Complex have been some games that have been released in previous summers. Today I decided to pick up one of the games from this year’s Summer of Arcade, and give a quick first impression about it. The game I chose was Dust: An Elysian Tail. It is an Action RPG from the people at Humble Heart Studios. The game focuses on Dust, a rabbit like creature that awakes with some of his memory erased, and his 2 companions, Ahrah, a mystical talking sword, and Fidget, a flying squirrel who is the guardian of Ahrah.  The first thing most gamers will notice when they start the game, is how gorgeous the game is. It’s a 2D platformer, with 3D visuals and style. If you have ever played Odin Sphere, this game will remind you of it. From the hour I have played so far, this game also looks like it takes a page from the Metroid series.  I have come to a couple of areas where I couldn't advance, but later on found the tools needed to get into those areas and had to backtrack. Some gamers might get annoyed by this, but I feel I will thoroughly enjoy it. Gameplay in Dust is very fluid and easy to pick up and begin playing without some of the learning curves some other Action RPGs have. The voice acting so far is spot on and the main characters are all enjoyable in their own way. Even though it is early in my play through, I am convinced that this game will be one to remember.  I am looking forward to getting deeper into the game, and uncover the story that goes along with it. 

  

Lollipop Chainsaw: Gaming Pariah, Champion Of Equality, Or Just A Game

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The climate in gaming right now is a precarious one. Gamers, much like so many other segments of society have become far more segregated, which brings about brutal instances of discrimination and a climate where many gamers feel left out of not just the player experience, but also in the lack of representation with regards to characters and the stories they tell. The lack of meaningful female protagonists in video games has led to every game featuring one being placed under quite the microscope. No recent game featuring a female lead has been under as much scrutiny as Lollipop Chainsaw. The game proved to be a lot of things to different people; to some, it’s just a game that happens to star a female character, to others it’s full of objectionable content that proves to be a bit much, while to others it’s something else entirely. I fall in the latter, with the game proving to use it’s seemingly crude content to speak to much larger issues within gaming.

Lollipop Chainsaw’s story focuses on a high school cheerleader named Juliet Starling, who happened to be celebrating her birthday on the day the events of the game take place (that’s actually an important plot point). On her way to school to meet up with her boyfriend, Nick, zombies attack the school and all hell breaks loose. What Nick doesn’t know is that his lovely seemingly harmless girlfriend is a member of a family of zombie hunters. Juliet calmly pulls a chainsaw from her purse and administers violent chainsaw death to the undead occupying San Romero High, but not before one of the zombies takes a faithful bite out of Nick’s arm. Faced with the choice of killing Nick and letting him become a zombie that she’d have to eventually kill anyway, Juliet makes a bold decision that actually puts the wheels of one of the most important story facets of this game into motion. All of the stuff I just mentioned happens in the prologue level, by the way.

If the story feels like a campy Hollywood horror movie, it’s because the game’s script was written by James Gunn, who was responsible for the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, Scooby Doo, and Slither among other films. Strangely enough the seemingly cheesy writing Gunn is known for seems to work well within the confines of a Grasshopper Manufacture game. Neither takes themselves seriously, and that helps breathe a lot of life into the zombie action game genre, which has been beaten to death over the years. The one thing that felt a bit overdone at first was the overuse of certain phrases being levied at Juliet during the course of the game, most notably in the first level. My concern seemed to wane however when the encounter with the first boss took place and you realize this was a big portion of the theme within the first level. You see, the first boss hurls vicious insults that actually take physical form that can damage Juliet. It’s literally the personification of the phrase “words can hurt”. For those who can see what’s actually happening there, it can prove quite the teachable moment.

Then there is the plight of Nick, who during the course of the game has moments where he’s treated like an accessory for Juliet during her mission. The rest of the Starling family actually does a lot to belittle him as well. It’s quite the interesting piece of reverse objectification that yet again will become quite apparent to those who get it. Sadly, for the commentary hidden with the game’s writing, many gamers that the message is supposed to impact will completely miss it; while some gamers will be instantly put off by the way the message is made and will decry it.

At its core though, Lollipop Chainsaw is an action game with typical modern hack and slash game problems. The core game play runs the risk of becoming repetitive on multiple occasions, the camera can prove to be problematic at several points, and there are a few moments where the extra weapons seem shoehorned in. One such moment was the Zombie Baseball segment of level 2. There are moments where the auto aim was absolutely frustrating, and there seemed to be points where Juliet’s Chainsaw blaster could not fire around Nick, which left him vulnerable to enemy attack. These minor gripes aside though, you’ll have an absolute ball cutting zombies in half, and the boss fight are a blast.

Lollipop Chainsaw won’t be for a lot of gamers, in fact, a lot of them will be down right offended. It does however succeed in one important facet, that being it turns the mirror on the player and forces them to confront their treatment of other gamers. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a very fun game, and if you get nothing else from Lollipop Chainsaw, you’ll get a good time.

Look What I Found At Wal Mart