Obligatory post here. The boys from Champlaignge Illinois have really upped the ante of crazy sit. If there were any illusions about GTA being worth even looking at compared to this, those are gone now. I’m trying to stop myself from a pre-order. I will not be able to. The ripping on Mass Effect alone is worth it. The video below already lists it as game of the year and it’s tough not to simply agree.
Category: TV Games
Bayonetta 2–on wiiU?
The video is supergreat but on the Wii U? Really?
Shaolin vs Lama (classic!)
DOTA 2- down the fucking rabbit hole (again)
I got into the beta of DOTA2 awhile back and after installing my only experience with it was waiting for a match to start and then quitting after about 2 minutes. Given that I played the early versions of DOTA as part of my (and everyone else’s) Warcraft 3 addiction, I didn’t think I was missing much. How good could it be? It’s a bunch of WC3 heroes fighting each other on the same map over and over and over again and I’d done that before. Plus, I remember it being pretty boring compared to a straight up WC3 match– you do only control one hero after all.
However, I’m eating a bit of crow meat now–I’ve played some handful of matches here and there and am largely hooked– every time I win one of those boxes, I buy a 2$ key (the game was free after all so I feel I owe them something!). So my few and dear readers, I will likely post a terrible amount of DOTA stuff in the next gaggle of months until the addiction passes. The realization that I liked it hit me last night when I actually called it the Cosmic Encounter (the best board game ever made) of video games– in that the basic premise is very simple and easily understood, but the sheer asymmetry of the number of heroes turns it into something completely different every single time. What’s more, even if you suck really bad, you can still contribute to your team if you have a basic understanding. Going into a server assuming you will be THE carry in the game is setting yourself up for disaster, but pushing lanes, support and ganking are doable with just a bit of practice.
Please note the most popular video game on the planet is effectively a DOTA clone (League of Legends) so the addictive qualities speak for themselves.
What will happen to Saint’s Row?
As predicted awhile back by just about everyone in the games industry, THQ bit the dust last week and was carved up by it’s competitors right quick. While I care about Company of Heroes, I care about Saint’s Row more after the amazing third installment. I think Volition was the real prize out of the grab bag of studios THQ dropped when it died. Volition got picked up by Koch Media out of Germany (no relation to the Tammany Hall style Koch brothers that rape the Midwest of resources) with a rather large bid.
So the last thing I heard Volition was working on was a stand alone add on to Saints Row 3 where Aliens attack the city–looking like it features giant Kaiju style monsters as well which would be fantastical in every way. Given that I doubt anyone would want to mess with a good thing–this will likely come out but after that? Can there be a Saints Row 4? Will they move to some other type of game in the interim? We’ll be watching.
Just in case you forgot:
Anarchy Reigns – Griefing out of the gate
Anarchy Reigns. Best way to describe it is Twisted Metal without the Cars or an insane Power Stone. You run around and punch people and use specials and it’s pretty crazy. I jumped right into Multiplayer and after two rounds– the greifing began. When in a multiplayer Deatchmatch room that requires X amount of slots (say 4), it’s possible for a single player to bomb the whole lobby by constantly entering, selecting that they are “ready’ then un-readying it before the timer countdown locks the room. This happened for about 8 minutes before I quit and went to the campaign game. Gamers will grief whenever they can, naturally, but this type of shit should have been foreseen. The game has been out in Japan for a long while now. You can’t tell me NO Japanese tried this same shit to bomb a lobby?
Anyway, the rounds I got in were chaotic, but fun. I’ll put up a full review when I get through a mess more of the game.
The Carnivore who’s discarded womanhood!
Ah the new fighting game smell! I can’t stop myself– ok well I have– I didn’t go in for Skullgirls or Arcana Heart nor the Tekken vs Street Fighter malarkey–but I have a weakness you see, even if a game is so far from targeting my demographic group of ancient occidental old men, if I hear it’s good, I just have to try the fucker. Despite the fact that Virtua Fighter 5 is Marianas Trench deep and I have yet to come close to mastering even one character and despite the fact that while I have played 40-50 matches of KOF 13 online, I haven’t even scratched the surface of that game in the least. These two reasons alone, not even counting Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Blazblue, are enough to say “never buy a new fighting game,” but again, I cannot stop.
So here we have Persona 4 arena by the same people that did Blazblue (and hence Guilty Gear) and it’s about some high school kids that go inside their fucking televisions and fight each other in some strange show. They fight with swords and guns and folding chairs but more importantly, they fight with these strange robots called ‘personas.’ Now, just like Guilty Gear and Blazblue, it’s expected that the plot of any fighting game in this type of insane genre will also be insane so there you have it. Going inside TV’s, fighting on TV, using strange robots (are they robots?), saying stupid stuff in high pitched voices, beating up their friends and asking if they are OK afterwards, etc. Anyway the game is based on some extremely popular RPG series that I’ve never played. While the character designs are great, they just have to LOOK good, it doesn’t really matter what they say or do because despite any type of ‘plot’ it’s still just a fighter and that’s all it has to be.
Gameplay wise, from my initial plays, I would say the game is a bit less insane than the Guilty Gear series and certainly less than Blazblue. One thing that is noticeable off the bat is the ease of combos. You can pull off some insane combos with just pressing the same button and with some mix ups, the combos can hit into the 30’s pretty easily. I haven’t studied the system enough to really know why or how this works, but I shall because, so far, it is quite a fun game. While I like Blazblue and really liked King of Fighters 13 for awhile there, there is something about each that just doesn’t grab me–both are very very difficult games to get good at. KOF has never been combo friendly by design and Blazblue is really a massive amount of memorization because combos are so long and most of the good ones have multiple cancels within them. Whether it’s the hop-tech in KOF or just the insane amount of combos you have to pull off to win in Blazblue, I’ve been in the market for something that is a bit more grounded, but that doesn’t have the screen mobility constraints as Street Fighter 4. Granted, kids going inside TV’s and fighting each other is pretty off the wall, but the fighting system, maybe because of the easy combos, doesn’t smack me in the head like Blazblue saying “you will never be good enough at this to enjoy it” yet.
The roster is mostly chicks with various weapons with a few dudes peppered in there. There’s only one effeminate guy in the group which is good because, you know– Bridget from GG was a pretty tough pill to swallow when you found out ‘it’ was a boy– and with so many female characters, I was afraid this would turn into an Arcana Heart/ Skullgirls that I would simply embarrassed to play in front of the family or friends. There are enough dudes to go around and while not filled with grim swordsman that I would like (ala Last Blade), there are some GIANT AXES in play to make up for it, in fact two of the characters are named AXE. Since these are high school kids, it’s not like any of them are very badass, but some of their personas ARE. One design looks like a greek statue holding a globe with the chest cut out and a dude sitting inside on a chair another is a massive demon that bursts out of the ground. The personas aren’t on screen all the time, but when they are it’s pretty fawesome.
So fuckall I am glad I got this. I’m probably going to only get to play against my kids but I will go online and get my ass kicked this weekend. Every once in a while you will get matched with someone that is near your level of play so I’m hoping that happens. If not, it’s fun to see the fireworks as one gets run down.
This is the world mat lives in
Anarchy Reigns: Bayonetta!
Platiunum games was being very coy not announcing that Bayonetta was in the upcoming punching game Anarchy Reigns, but they finally let the sexy cat out of the bag which means I get to make a post with a bunch of pictures of Bayonetta and her booty. I think you’ll agree this is a good thing. Like I said, this is going to be a SLEEPER hit if it’s anything like the amazing and astounding Urban Reign for the PS2. People won’t buy this until a year or so after release when all the copies go for 100$ or more, so get it right away when it comes out and you can see THAT ASS!
As an aside: I did throw down some (albeit single player) Urban Reign last night, Anarchy Reigns spiritual successor and it is still one of the best PS2 games there is. If you have a PS2 sitting around and want to find a use for it for a few weeks, Urban Reign is where it’s at.
Kingdoms of Amalur: The Same’maning
I LIKED the demo. I bought the game. The demo SOLD me on the game. I especially enjoyed the combat. The fighting felt solid and fluid. I had control of the action and it mattered that I timed my blocks, dodges and attacks. I was playing Skyrim at the same time and was amazed at how much better the combat felt in Amalur. The skill choices in Amalur are spread out over three main character types. These skill trees seemed cool and interesting in the demo. The game let you spread your skill points over the three skill trees, never locking you into any particular path (this is the first problem and you’ll find that out much later). So as I said, I LIKED the demo. That is where I should have stopped myself I think.
Insert EA rant: People this is a EA game. FUCK YOU EA. I can safely say I will not buy another EA game ever. When I pay 60 dollars for a game I don’t want to be reminded about DLC EVERY FUCKING TIME I START THE FUCKING GAME EA! I don’t want to see that fucking STAR by the Downloads menu item in the main menu for the game EVERY FUCKING TIME I PLAY! YES I SEE EA THAT YOU WANT ME TO SPEND MORE FUCKING MONEY! YES I SEE EA AND NO I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING BUY ANYMORE EA SPACEPISS! EA GET THAT GOD DAMNED STAR OFF MY SCREEN YOU FUCKING COPORATE FUCKASSES!
So here’s how Amalass plays. You’ll play the game for about 3-4hrs and more or less at this point you done EVERYTHING in the game. From this point on you’ll be playing a rehashing of more or less the same enemies, quests and find similar loot for the next however many hours you choose to spend playing. AND YOU CAN SPEND A SHIT TON OF HOURS PLAYING THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER. I was maybe 20hrs in when I finally stopped with the non-main quest shit and just powered right through the main quest in 6hrs. I didn’t need to level up anymore and the game was fucking so gawd damned easy on normal. I just got to a point in the game where I was fucking bored and upset with how generic and shitty everything was feeling and said, “Okay, how about now I just win this shitty game.” And so I did, I followed only the main quests, running from yellow circle objective marker to yellow circle objective marker, skipping all the useless dialogue, fighting the same fights over and over and won.
Yes you get more skills on your way to the fucking boring ending but the new skills don’t do anything that great! I got a crowd control skill that I had to use over and over as a melee fighter. Unlocking shit skills that have to be used is a GAY! Where is my choice now? I level up and if I don’t use these new skills I lose. Fucking dumb. AND if I do use them I win instantly. The game is balanced in this strangely perfect way, when you are doing the “right” thing the game is insanely easy and quickly becomes boring after your 10-12th victorious battle.
OH ya I tried to play a fight/thief character, it FAILED. Once I respected and put all my skill points into the fighter tree I instantly became 100% more deadly. ? Why the fuck let me break my character by spec’ing into two or SHIT three trees at once? Is that some way of making the game cooler? Here gamer, put points into any tree you want. If you happen to use only one tree, BINGO you’re good! If you experiment with using multiple trees, FUCK YOU, you’ll hopefully get around to respec’ing into one tree only and quickly see HOW FUCKING WRONG YOU WERE!
The game is worth 10$ tops! Normal people will play 4-6 hours and stop cuz that is all the fun there is in the game. Shitty buffet trough feed americans will play all the fucking way through and buy all the DLC and want more. This game is the mount everest of mediocrity and I climbed all the way to the fucking top and took a GIANT piss on the dead diabetes ridden gamer corpses that littered the peak.
All that said I did craft a fucking KICKASS great sword that did 50+ more damage than anything I found in the game, so that was cool. The crafting system was cool. The fighting system is cool for 4-6hrs. The animations/enemies are very Todd McFrainer or whom ever the fuck that comic guy is. The world art is okay, very wow’ish but it’s fine. I can’t help but think a great number of people wasted a HUGE amount of time making this incredibly so so game.