Retro Goodness Coming To XBLA

I was originally gonna talk about something completely different today, but I saw a few upcoming XBLA games that got me geeked...so I figured I'd tell you about them. Two of the titles mentioned in this post were recently released, and will be reviewed this weekend.

Moon Diver - With Moon Diver, Square Enix hopes to make up for the utter travesty that was Mindjack. If you are unclear on Moon Diver's gameplay and why it seems familiar, it's because the game was born in the mind of the creator of Capcom's legendary action game Strider. This one hit PSN a few months back, and got a lot of praise by players and reviewers, which warranted an XBLA release.

Bangai O: Missle Fury - A sequel to Treasure's classically vicious arcade style shooter, Missile Fury looks to have some of the same classic gameplay with a gloss of high definition graphics thrown on top.

Guardian Heroes HD - Treasure resurrects one of their classics in the form of Guardian Heroes HD. While it will contain both versions of the classic game, Treasure promises that there will also be extra gameplay modes included in the final product.

Radiant Silvergun HD - A high definition remake of the holy grail for shmup players. Treasure's classic shooter is scheduled to land later this year, with hopefully the same gameplay that made the original so great.

George Romero Puts Some Of His Zombies In Black Ops

So, as cool as the zombie expansions for the Call Of Duty games have bee, I've never wanted to buy a Call Of Duty game. I say, if I'm going to fight off a zombie horde in a first person shooter, I'll play Left For Dead. The latest expansion for Call Of Duty: Black Ops, entitled "Call Of The Dead" might change my mind, though. For one, it was written by the great George Romero, the king of the zombie apocalypse film, and the cast features Sarah Michelle Gellar, Danny Trejo, Michael Rooker, and Robert Englund. I seriously haven't been this enthusiastic about possibly buying an Activision game, let alone alone a Call Of Duty game, in a while. This expansion alone kinda has me considering getting Black Ops.

Check out the trailer and some bonus footage below...

Avoiding Getting Robbed Over PSN And Xbox Live

On the heels of the massive shutdown of PSN, and Microsoft reportedly working to prevent such an attack on Xbox Live, gamers have become increasingly nervous about using their personal info online. While some things are necessary to set up a PSN or Xbox Live account, some of your more sensitive financial info can be spared from your online gaming resource of choice by using something most of us are not willing to buy, prepaid gamer points cards. Now, I'm not sure how things work on PSN, but I'm sure one of those visa gift cards can work to buy DLC, while one can buy prepaid cards for different amounts of Microsoft points and Xbox Live subscriptions. Nintendo even supports this notion with gift cards available for Wii Points in various amounts. Such a handy tool may come in handy for gamers needing their online fix in this time of trepidation for your personal info. Word is that PSN will probably be up by the time you read this, and many gamers have saw fit to already cancel the cards attached to their PSN account, so my advice would be to use alternate means to get points for that latest round of DLC or the next great downloadable game.

I may be stating the obvious, but for some gamers, it clearly wasn't.

Gamer News Brief - 4/28/2011

It's been an odd time for gaming news lately. a lot of things haven't been happening in the video game industry, but the few things that have happened are pretty hot issues. Let's take a quick look at these issues and I'll give my take on some of these.



Recently, G4 reported that an attorney is planning on filing a class action suit against Sony. The suit was filed on behalf of the 77 million worldwide users of Playstation Network, and accuses Sony of gross negligence in regard to securing sensitive consumer information. This is the latest shot in the mounting backlash against both Sony and the unnamed hackers involved in the security breach. With Sony being so tight lipped early on, I wondered who was at fault. I sincerely feel bad for the gamers affected by this, but I don't feel bad for Sony, because I stand by my theory that their arrogance caused this.



The votes were counted, and the next cover athlete for Madden NFL 12 will be Cleveland Browns' Running Back Peyton Hillis. Hillis won the fan voting with 66% of the vote over Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick. When asked about the "Madden Curse" that has affected everyone besides the former Raiders coach since Garrison Hearst was supposed to be on the cover of Madden NFL 99, Hillis said his faith would allow him to disprove such things. To me it seems like PETA got everybody they could to keep Vick from being the first two time Madden cover athlete, but somehow I don't think Vick or Eagles fans are that concerned.



Finally, in what seemed to not be a big shock to those within the industry, Nintendo has announced that a new home console is in the works. It is currently codenamed "Project Cafe", and according to Mr. Iwata it will allow Nintendo to take a different approach to gaming. I'm intrigued to see Nintendo's new console, but I hope whatever Nintendo releases isn't used as a shovelware factory like some developers treated the original Wii.

The PSN Outage Is As Much Sony's Fault As The Hackers'

As of this writing, Playstation Network has been down for five days, and gamers are far from happy. Many have speculated that this shutdown is a result of an attack by a group of hackers who have attacked the Playstation servers in response to Sony's treatment of a fellow hacker. All the while, flame wars between PS3 and Xbox 360 fanboys have been popping up all over the Internet, with fans of each system going from merely discussing their system's tech to calling people all manner of insulting things. At the end of the day responsibility must be taken, and I propose that Sony take the hit for this because of their arrogance.

To prove my point, let's go back to the days of the original Playstation console. Smart gamers were able to figure out that a Pro Action Replay and a spring was all they needed to play bootleg games, and it caught on big time. This primarily explains Sony's PS1 redesign which removed the expansion port. Sony took a hit, but not a huge hit. That hit wouldn't come until probably a decade later. The Playstation 2's hacking wasn't as big a problem mainly because the system didn't have built in web connectivity, but Sony's first attempt at cracking the portable market would be the one that stirred hackers to action.

The Playstation Portable was touted by Sony as being highly secure, despite all of it's connectivity. Hackers discovered holes in the early firmware of the PSP and got to work, this explains the multiple redesigns and firmware updates that the PSP has experienced over it's nearly 6 year existence. It also explains why the original "1000" model of the PSP is so popular among tech savvy gamers. I personally know folks with PSPs that bootleg all of their PSP games and have multiple emulators running on it.

This brings us to the Playstation 3 and Sony's arrogant claim that the system couldn't be hacked. From there, several hackers set about to make Sony's claim come back to bite them...hard. The hackers then not only found a back door into the PS3 firmware, but they then gave the world instructions to do it themselves. Sony, in response, filed lawsuits that were only succeeding in making them look like heartless monsters to the gaming public who have grown tired of increasing game prices and decreasing overall game quality. The hackers, who have apparently grown tired of this mistreatment, have proceeded to drop worm programs into major servers and Sony, not knowing what else to do, have shut down PSN until they can fix the problem.

Most of this could have been easily remedied if Sony just states what anyone with computer knowledge already knows: if a piece of hardware has a place to install and store software, it can be modded. Sony's Arrogance cause this for them, when they could have just done the same thing Microsoft does yearly, and ban XBL accounts using modded hardware, if you ban them based on IP address, it remedies your problem, but what do I know, I'm just a gamer.

At the end of everything, modding a system is illegal, even though you have purchased the device you are modifying. This makes little sense, but it's the way things are now. You may have to get used to outages like this one, and realize that as long as Sony continues to exhibit the arrogance they've displayed recently, this WILL happen again.

Mortal Kombat Brings Back The Ultra Violence In a Beautiful Way

Back in the early 90s, Midway gave us a gift of beautiful brutality in the form of Mortal Kombat. The game became so heralded that Congress ordered a series of hearings into violence in video games. The Mortal Kombat series spawned several sequels and spinoffs, but nothing is better than the core games in the series. The folks at Warner Bros. Interactive knew this and after acquiring the rights to Mortal Kombat from the now defunct Midway, went into action returning MK to what made it great.

For starters, WB Interactive enlisted the good folks at NetherRealm Studios to bring their re-imagining of the classic fighting game to life. The first thing they did was bring the Story back to it's early 90s roots and adds a pretty solid combo system. Secondly, they updated the old characters with new costumes and animations, and gave the classic locales a great coat of polish. All of these things make Mortal Kombat pretty good, but what makes it more than the standard fighter is it's attention to an actual storyline and a multiplayer experience that while not perfect, makes this game more than a standard fighting game.

The story mode in MK starts with the end of MK Armageddon, and Shao Khan is poised to take final victory and destroy Earthrealm. At the last second, time is set to rewind and we are taken back to the beginning of the events of the first game. From here the story mode puts players in the role of various characters in the game, and takes players from MK1 to MK3, and does so quite well. In addition to the story mode, there is also a challenge ladder that gives players an opportunity to play through several different scenarios. Completing tasks in the Challenge Ladder and story mode gives players tokens that can be redeemed in the "Krypt"where players can unlock costumes, stages, concept art, and other goodies.

The single player modes are cool, but nobody plays a fighting game for that, and I'm pleased to report that the local multiplayer is a gem. At the time of this review, I hadn't had the opportunity to play online, but if the local multiplayer is any indication, the fights in this game will be as crisp and fluid as any Super Street Fighter 4 matchup. Most MK fights come in one on one and two on two tag matches. The latter can be played between two players or four. Four player fights are less frantic than one would want in the standard 2D fighter, but it is pretty good nonetheless. I will warn though, that much like other fighting games, much of the replay value is rooted in finding a good fight, so if your circle doesn't have other MK players available, you may be out of luck.

As for the actual gameplay, the ultra violence that made Mortal Kombat a gaming staple almost 20 years ago is still there, but it feels less gimmicky with the inclusion of quite a capable combo system. special attacks stream between normal punches, kicks, and throws in a beautifully brutal tapestry in the hands of a capable player. That's not to say that the classic accessibility of the original MK isn't here. In fact, beginners can get into MK quite easily if they can learn one important rule: uppercuts and roundhouses are top of the food chain. Through the course of fights, a meter on the bottom of the screen build up and it can be used to perform super moves. If a player can build this meter fully, they can execute a devastating X Ray attack which deals heavy damage. Fights can be ended with the traditionally nasty Fatality moves, as well as some hilarious Babality moves. Over the course of the game, more moves can be unlocked, and the effectiveness of them can't be denied.

The version of MK I was able to review was the Tournament Edition. While it lacked the figurines and bonus content included in the "Kollector's Edition", it did however, include one of the most well put together arcade stick released commercially since the Street Fighter 15th Anniversary stick released a few years ago. the controller alone is worth the price of the overall package, but I have one gripe with it. To it's credit, the arcade stick included in the Tournament Edition handles great on non MK games, but it can be awkward playing Marvel Vs. Capcom with it. This is primarily because the button layout is suited mainly for Mortal Kombat ALONE, so if you plan to use this as a do it all stick, you may be disappointed, but if you are a collector who may occasionally use it, it might be worth it for you.

Mortal Kombat is not just a trip down memory lane for nostalgic gamers, but it is the best way to reintroduce and evolve a series simultaneously.

Portal End Themes And Their Subtle Awesomeness

I have to make an admission: I am mildly obsessed with the end theme of Portal. The song wraps up every drop of GlaDOS' sarcasm dripping evil into a melodic three minute package. The song was so good that it was included in Rock Band 2. With the release of Portal 2 happening recently, and with it's review coming soon, I figured I'd bounce around the Internet and track down the end theme to the new First Person Puzzle game. What I got was good, but really could have been better. Both are below, feel free to judge for yourselves.