Game Bros' Super Gamer Review: Champion Edition

We're Back Jack

2010-11-06T22:49:00.003-05:00

After some time away Brian T. and I have felt the need for a comeback. Not like there was much to walk away from before, but everything has to start from somewhere. So after some discussion and contemplation we have both felt that the best approach to this blog would be if we went strictly retro. It isn't that we are against next gen gaming or anything like that, we just know that we do not have the resources to write reviews and give opinions on new releases. By the time we get our hands on a new game, play it, and review it; it is about 2 to 3 weeks after 100's of reviews of that same game have been written. At that point who would really want to read what we have to say, unless you just feel that we are amazing at what we have to say. That is why we think a retro blog is our best bet. Even though the games we will be talking about have long come and gone, they still hold that place in gaming history and for that should never be forgotten. Plus when it comes to retro gaming it is sometimes hard to find a game worth taking the time to play, so hopefully this blog can help with that matter.

Just in case anyone has that burning desire to know what happened and why we left the blog for almost a year, I will tell you. In December there was a major overhaul so to speak at the Mac (short for Maciano's where we work). Since then it has been continuing to get overhauled, but at least now it is a little more manageable. Brian T. has since moved back to Chicago. I guess to resume working as a male prostitute. He said that suburb cum just never tasted the same as it did back home. What that means I don't know but I'll just leave that one for you to ponder. Basically life just got in the way. We never stopped playing video games, its just that playing video games in the free time we had was more important then writing about video games. No offense to all 3 of our followers. Either way we have agreed to revisit this side project of ours and revamp it hopefully making it better than it was before.

-Brian R.

infinity ward and activision

2010-03-04T11:31:00.004-06:00

So the big news this week is the shake-up over at Activision with Infinity Ward. In case you haven't been keeping up, earlier this week the heads of Infinity Ward, Vince Zampella and Jason West, were fired for apparent "insubordination" and "breach of fiduciary duty." Yesterday, the two former Infinity Ward heads filled a lawsuit against Activision for breach of contract, among other claims. Chances are you already know what's going on, so let's move on.

Activision. Electronic Arts. Ubisoft. What do three of the biggest publishers in the world have in common? They are notorious for over-saturating their market and killing off their most successful franchises. Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Medal of Honor, Prince of Persia, Madden, etc...the list goes on and on. These companies force developers to churn out yearly installments of their most successful games, as well as tons of spin-offs and DLC. Consumers get sick of the same shit over and over again (Madden), or they can't afford to keep up with the massive amount of micro-transactions to keep their games fun (Guitar Hero), or the game quality eventually just suffers from a poor development cycle (Tony Hawk).

EA used to take most of the flak for this behavior when their sports and fps titles were dominating the market. Now that EA has milked most of their franchises dry and sales are slipping, they're no longer the dominating force they seemed to be 5 - 8 years ago. Activision, pardon me, Activision-Blizzard is a fucking powerhouse right now thanks mostly to Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and World of Warcraft. Blizzard is fine...they've got WoW, they've got Diablo III coming out, and if all else fails, they can finally make a Starcraft sequel. But things aren't looking good on the Activision side of things. The Tony Hawk series is literally a joke at this point, people are finally starting to get burned out on Guitar Hero, and now they've lost Infinity Ward, the developer that FINALLY got the console FPS right (fuck you, Halo) with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. So what does this mean for Activision and the entire CoD franchise?

Well, for the time being, it means absolutely NOTHING. Treyarch is doing this year's installment of Call of Duty, and the map pack DLC for Modern Warfare 2 will still be developed by Infinity Ward for release this year. Next year, on the other hand, will probably see the downfall of CoD as Activision has stated that not only will they continue the main Call of Duty series, but they are going to start making non-FPS Call of Duty titles too, including an action/adventure title slated for 2011.

Basically Activision lost their best developer with IW...the guys who created Call of Duty, made it huge, re-invented it, then made it even bigger. Instead of slowing down and making sure they don't fuck up the series with sequels and offshoots, they are plowing right along sticking to their predictable release schedules. Right now Activision is just trying to push as many Call of Duty games out while the series is popular since they can sell titles based on the name alone. Inevitably, Activision will do what they do best and kill Call of Duty by over-saturating the market. In the mean time, Infinity Ward founders Zampalla and West will no-doubt move on and create a new FPS franchise under the umbrella of another major publisher. So fear not, you'll be back playing a new Infinity Ward title soon enough. Now, let's just hope that Treyarch can deliver a solid follow-up to World at War this fall, before Activision runs CoD into the ground.

-Brian T.

super street fighter: the movie!!!

2010-02-22T22:26:00.006-06:00

I have nothing to say that is more important/awesome than what Brian R. posted below right now so I figured I'd throw this video up. Amongst all the new character announcements for Super Street Fighter 4, this little gem was posted over at Event Hubs earlier today and I thought I'd share it:

Anyway, tomorrow is Heavy Rain's release and all of a sudden I'm not sure if I'm going to pick it up immediately. I only say this because I just finished Mass Effect last week and Mass Effect 2 is looking more than a little tempting right now. Decisions, decisions...

-Brian T.

Dreamcast How To

2010-02-22T22:03:00.005-06:00

If you read my last blog entry I talked about being able to play burned games on the Dreamcast. Just in case anyone is interested in doing it themselves I thought I would post links for everyone to get the ROMs, the program to burn the games, and a video tutorial on how to use it. This way you too can burn games for your Dreamcast and have access to over 250 titles, both domestic and import for your Dreamcast.

First we should start with where to download the ROMS (games). I use two places, both equally. They are both good except EMU Paradise has faster download speeds. Both though are through servers which allow for a steady, consistent, and safe download. WARNING: Be careful where you download ROMS from. There are a lot of bogus websites out there that claim to be ROM sites that do nothing more than infect you with a virus. It has happened to me and it just happened to Brian T. recently. So be careful and just go to the 2 sites that I have listed here.

EMUPARADISE
DCISOZONE.com

Once you have a game downloaded you will need to decompress the file. They come as a Rar file which is similar to a Zip file. There is a free program called WinRar which can be downloaded here. Just install it with the recommended settings.

After you have downloaded and installed WinRar you need to locate the ROM file in Window’s Explorer. Once you find it right click and pick “extract here”. Sometimes the CDI file will be directly extracted or sometimes it extracts sub RAR files that are numbered 01-?. If this is the case just right click on the first numbered RAR file and pick extract here again and then you will have your CDI file, which is the disc image of the game.

Now that you have the CDI file you need to burn it to a CD-R. Make sure it is a CD and not a DVD. There are several programs that you can use to burn disc images but the main one that I use is called Discjuggler, which only handles CDI files. It can be downloaded for free from here. Now this is only the demo version which gives you unlimited access to the program, but limits you to only being able to burn up to 700MB. This is fine because the CDI files never exceed that limit. When installing Discjuggler just do the recommended installation.

Now to setup and use Discjuggler you will need to watch this video tutorial. It will explain everything you need to know about burning the games to disc, which is relatively easy.

If you don’t like this video you can search youtube for a bunch of other videos with different ways to do it. I use this method because you change some settings under the advanced burn options, which is how I have always done it and haven’t had any problems with any games yet. But some people don’t change those options and say that the games work just fine too. I guess you can play around with it a little bit and figure out the method you like best.

Once that is complete you are ready to go. Sometimes if it does not self load you may need a boot disk. Just in case I placed the link here. I have never needed it yet but I have it just in case. Also you do need it to play imports. Enjoi.

-Brian R.

Lost and Found Again

2010-02-21T15:00:00.003-06:00

As of late I have been struggling to find a good topic to blog about. One reason is because we are in the first quarter of the year and all of the big titles were just released for the holiday season. I will say that there are some big titles coming out in the next couple of months such as FFXIII, SSFIV, and Heavy Rain next week; but these last few months have been rather slow, at least for me. So I found this awesome website called Racketboy, which is a retro game site. Going through there must haves and undiscovered gems section for the Dreamcast I found a game called Cannon Spike. Basically it is a shoot-em-up that uses Capcom characters. I haven’t played it yet but I am soon and will review it then. Getting back on track, my purpose for this entry is simple and I will get to the point soon enough.

Basically after I saw that game on Racketboy I went to go and download the ROM. FYI if you have a Dreamcast that was built before October of 1999 you can download any ROM off of the internet, burn it to a CD-R, and put it in your Dreamcast and play it. If you have a console with a later build date all you need is a boot disk to play the game, which can be downloaded at the same site that you get the ROMs from. Anyhow as I scrolling through all of the games for the Dreamcast I kept seeing game after game that looks awesome as hell. And I thought to myself here I am complaining that I have nothing to play, yet there is a whole library of games for the Dreamcast that I have access to.

Long story short I went on a downloading spree and grabbed about 10 new games to try out for the Dreamcast. Unfortunately I did not get any blank CD-R’s until yesterday so I have not had an opportunity to play any of them. But the time is coming soon enough. So the point of everything is this. I was forced to go through my collection of games to find something to play because I wanted to play a game that had real purpose other than just killing people like in Modern Warfare. After doing so I was more than excited. You will be surprised if you went through your collection and realized how many games you probably have that you never finished, or maybe never played because it is part of a retro collection.

So what did I find? A fighter for the Saturn that I never played that Brian T. let me borrow, Knights of the Old Republic for the original Xbox that I started a long time ago and never finished, a booklet full of various Dreamcast games that I had downloaded and burned but never played, and Army of Two for the 360, which I borrowed from someone a long time ago and haven’t played yet. I guess it is just one of those out of sight out of mind things, because I keep all of my games in a cabinet, and usually the ones I am not playing are buried in the back behind the couple that I am playing and my controllers. What I need to do is convince my wife to let me build some media shelving so that way I can have everything out on display, which will hopefully keep it from going unforgotten. Take the time though to go through your collection of games and let me know if you find anything that you forgot about or never even finished or never played for that matter.

-Brian R.

the sega channel

2010-02-18T00:40:00.005-06:00

Who remembers the Sega Channel? Chances are, very few of you. It was a service that was offered through your cable provider that basically gave you an endless rotation of fully playable Sega Genesis games via an attachment that resembled the 32X. Here's a picture I found of it that a very awesome dude somewhere took:Oh Sega, and your crazy Frankenstein experiments of the mid 90's...how I miss you. But focusing on the Sega Channel, I had it and it was fucking awesome.

Every month, there would be an average of 70 games available that you would just download and within minutes be able to play. Here's another lifted image that shows the main menu:
This was the shit to have. The Test Drives section was where you could play demos of games before they were released. Sometimes the full games were even available. Not only were games available to play before their release, but you could play imports as well. For example, until the release of the Sega Genesis Collection (PS2), Golden Axe 3 was never available in America...except for the Sega Channel, of course. As you can see from the image, most genres were represented so no matter what mood you were in, you could find a game you would want to play. Toward the end of the service, games were rotated even more frequently, giving you well over 100 different titles to choose from per month. Popular titles. Obscure titles. Exclusive titles. Every awesome game you remember for the Genesis plus every awesome game you've never even heard of was at your disposal 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There were a few downsides though. You could really only play one RPG at a time because you could only have a single save file for ALL of the RPGs. This meant that if you wanted to play through Shining Force II and Phantasy Star III, you would have to beat them one at a time and within a month in case they weren't carried over from month to month. Hell, it was almost pointless to start an RPG at the end of the month because you never knew if it was going to stick around for another 30 days. The other major annoyance was that Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Mortal Kombat 3 for whatever reason, were both split into two games. For example, Mortal Kombat 3A would have half of the characters while Mortal Kombat 3B would have the other half. You could never play with a full roster in either game which almost made them pointless. There was also a cheats section that would list cheats, tips, and codes for games available that month but there was no way to choose the cheats you wanted to view. Instead, you had to sit and wait as they slowly scrolled across the screen. And if you missed a particularly long password you would have to wait until the list reset and started scrolling over again. But all in all these are minor nitpicks considering what I'm about to tell you could blow your mind.

It was only $13 a month. Yep, around 100 games per month including imports, demos, and unreleased games for only $13. Clearly the biggest sign the industry has changed, the Sega Channel would never be allowed to happen now. Now that the industry seems to be moving more and more toward micro-transactions and dlc, this would be considered charity. The Sega Channel cost $13 per month and offered damn near every single Genesis game available on The Virtual Console, Playstation Store, and Xbox Live Arcade combined. Unfortunately, the Sega Channel launched nationally only about a year and a half away from the release of the Saturn and the announcement that the Genesis was to be discontinued in 1995. This basically sealed the fate of this wonderful service and it was labeled a failure with only 150,000 total subscribers by the time Sega pulled the plug in '97. The Sega Channel was apparently available to over 20 million Americans with cable, but only 150,000 households subscribed. Insanity.

It's interesting to note as well that the Sega Channel laid the groundwork for Xbox Live. Sega used their experience with the Sega Channel to create the Netlink for the Saturn (that's a whole blog by itself). After the Netlink failed, Sega used that groundwork to create SegaNet, which laid the groundwork for Xbox Live. Anyway, somebody please tell me I'm not the only one who got to experience this wonderful part of video game history...

-Brian T.

360 Gamer POV on Heavy Rain

2010-02-14T21:11:00.004-06:00

Finally the PS3 has an exclusive that can actually rival the competition. At least that is what it seems from playing the demo for Heavy Rain the other day. I have never played a game like this and really all I can say is that I was hooked and left wanting more. I am not going to go in to much detail because I think Brian T. did a good job at doing that, but I just wanted to briefly touch on my feelings about what is to come.

Being a person who heavily favors the 360 over the PS3, I found the controls to be a little difficult. Not so much as to how they were set up, but since a lot of the game is controlled by timed button pushing, it becomes a little difficult if you do not have the layout of the controller memorized. So I found myself hitting the wrong button from time to time but it was never a devastating problem. It is a little weird with some of the other button combinations but after a couple of tries it was fairly easy to pick up on.

I played through the Detective Shelby scenario 2 times and both times were different. Each time it started and ended the same; it was the content in the middle that was different. The first time I played through I angered the hooker and she would not talk to me about her son. It wasn’t because I was trying to anger her; it was just my inability to push the correct button. The second time through I again pissed her off but was able to lay a guilt trip on her at the last second, which got her to talk. I am pretty sure that if I played through a third time I can make her talk without any anger or any form of guilt, therefore giving one single scenario three possible forms of gameplay. Not to mention that once you get her to talk you begin to ask different questions depending on which button you push. If this were to follow suite with the first half of the scene, then you are looking at up to 6 different ways to play one particular scene, hypothetically of course.

This seems to make the replay of value of this game very high. Talking with Brian T. he said that in order to get the full experience it is recommended by Quantic Dream to play through the game a few times due to the changing content depending on how the game is played and because of alternate endings. The big question for me is; is it a buyer or renter? Well I can say that I am going to rent it through Gamefly first and give it some good playing time. If I absolutely need to have it I will eventually buy it, but I think that playing through it a few times will be more than enough to satisfy me. Later on I most likely will pick it up when the price is down to $20 or $30.

From a heavy 360 gamer this is definitely a game to play even though it is exclusive to the PS3. It may be difficult to pick up on the controls at first, but once you do I think that there will be no disappointment. After almost losing my PS3 I think it is time that I blow the dust off of it and give it the fair shake it deserves. Besides Heavy Rain, I know that I am getting Super Street Fighter IV (solely to kick Brian T.’s ass) and Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3 (only because the PS3 version is in 1080p and the 360 version is in 720p) this year. So at least I will have 3 games for the console compared to the many that I own for the 360. Comment and let us know what you all thought of the demo.

-Brian R.

Heavy Rain Demo Review

2010-02-12T23:04:00.006-06:00

Heavy Rain has easily been one of the most anticipated games for the PS3 since it's debut showing at E3 in 2006. With it's release just 11 days away, Sony has finally released a demo to the general public on PSN. I just finished playing it, and I'm eager to write about it.First of all, this game is not going to appeal to a lot of people once they have a chance to sit down and play it. The game is essentially a playable movie where you control the most minute actions of whatever character you are playing as (there are four playable characters). Most games have you running and shooting things or flipping switches to advance the story and gameplay, but Heavy Rain instead has you do minor tasks like retrieve items from your pocket, knock on doors, and simply talk to people. It sounds silly, but the game does a good job at utilizing the controller to make you feel like somewhat of a puppeteer. Control can be especially disorienting at first since you have to hold R2 to walk while you guide yourself with the left analog stick. By the end of the demo I'd gotten a pretty solid grip on the controls, but I could still feel that they were going to take some getting used to...they're unique to say the least.

If you played Indigo Prophecy (PS2, XBOX), then you already have a good idea what this game is about. In fact, Heavy Rain already appears to almost be a sort of "re-imagining" of Indigo Prophecy. Besides the obvious gameplay and story/tone/theme similarities, there are smaller comparisons to be made like the measuring of rain (Heavy Rain) vs. snow (Indigo Prophecy) throughout the story. Those who played through Indigo Prophecy know that Quantic Dream dropped the ball with the second half, and it would appear as though they're trying to get it right this time around. And so far, I'd say they've succeeded. The entire point of this game is to get you wrapped up in an intense and completely bizarre story that consists of multiple entwining character paths. Don't bother trying to get an idea of what's going on from the trailers, this is a story so involved that playing through the two sequences available in the demo will still leave you with no real idea of what's happening. That's not a bad thing though, as things are interesting enough to keep you frantically curious as to what is going to happen next. Heavy Rain is a game that once you start, you're going to have no choice but to finish.

Of course the graphics are worth mentioning and yes, they are fantastic. You're not going to forget you're playing a video game, but the character models are very detailed. I must admit though, they're not as mind-blowing as I would have expected. The textures and character models are unbelievably detailed, but I honestly feel that facial movements, and hell most "movement" in the game, could have used a bit more work if they're really wanted to impress. I think that a more realistic physics engine would have complimented the realistic graphics better. Just a minor gripe, but those hoping that Heavy Rain would be a visual revolution for gaming are no doubt going to be a little let down. The rest of the production work is top-notch with a wonderfully subtle soundtrack and universally solid voice-work.

The demo lets you play as the grizzled, broken-down, asthma-inflicted detective Curt Shelby and drug-addicted FBI agent Norman Jayden as they pursue two completely separate paths while tracking a serial killer known as "The Origami Killer". Both characters offered very different experiences. Shelby's scenario has an action sequence that plays out very similarly to the action sequences from Indigo Prophecy. Fights mostly consist of attacking, blocking, and counterattacking via timed button presses and analog stick movements. It's definitely interesting and you can tell that the aim was for you to feel like you're "acting out" many of the actions through various controller uses. Jayden's scenario focused on the use of his special glasses and glove which give him the Terminator-style ability to analyze people and environmental objects while combing a murder scene for clues. For example, you can analyze DNA on an object and have full visual access to that person's "file" within the FBI's database. I actually enjoyed the investigating and exploring quite a bit, though pressing R1 constantly to scan the environment for clues will no doubt eventually get tiresome.

Unfortunately, the demo is fairly short, so that's about all there is to write about. If you can get into the controls, you'll get into Heavy Rain. Even if you don't get into the controls, you'll probably still be sucked in by the story and interesting cast of characters. This game is another definite try before you buy, so I recommend checking out the demo for yourself if you have the chance. I'm curious to hear what other people think about it, especially those who didn't know what to expect from Quantic Dream. As for me, I love story-driven games so this is a must-buy on the 23rd.

-Brian T.

Sega's Back

2010-02-08T21:07:00.008-06:00

Last Thursday Sega dropped a huge bomb with their most recent announcement. I know that I am super psyched about it and just in case you are still in the dark about what is going on; it pertains to a blue blur, rings, emeralds, and side scrolling. If you haven’t guessed by now Sega is going back to their roots with Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. Don’t reread the last sentence because you really read what you are thinking; a whole new Sonic in its original fun to play form. That’s right they finally realized that the Sonic franchise has been crap ever since they decided to venture into the world of 3D, so now we are getting a whole new classic Sonic game built from the ground up.

There is not a whole lot to go on yet. Everything I have found out is from the website for the game, which you can go to HERE. There is a short video with a blip of gameplay in it but other than that there is nothing more than some concept art and a news link. Other things that I do know are that it will be released in the summer and will be available on XBLA, PSN, and Wiiware. Also there is a 4th platform which is rumored to be the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. The supposed story to this speculation is that there was an error on the website’s part that allowed you to see all of the platforms it will be available on, which now they only show the 3 consoles and a group of question marks. But if it is coming out on the PSN then most likely you will be able to play it on the PSP also, which is a bonus for me.

There is still a lot of time between now and summer, and already the anticipation is eating away at me. Growing up and still to this day Sonic the Hedgehog is one of my favorite games. Even though I know that most of the newer Sonic games are going to suck, I still get excited about them and usually get let down when I finally play them. Any newer Sonic game is no comparison to the enjoyment that I get with the first 3 Sonics and Sonic CD, and finally now we will have a chance to play a new Sonic game the way it is meant to be played.

-Brian R.

no objections here...

2010-02-03T23:36:00.005-06:00

I love the Ace Attorney series. The Phoenix Wright trilogy of games is one of my favorites ever, and although Apollo Justice wasn't quite as awesome as I'd hoped for, my excitement level is maxed out as Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is finally almost out on the DS. Like most of us in the U.S., I was first drawn to the series when the GBA Phoenix Wright titles were ported over to the DS. I thought it looked interesting and I really wanted to yell "Objection!" into the DS' mic (which I did once and then I immediately felt like an idiot). I grabbed the first game on a whim and quickly became a diehard fan of the series.

The new Edgeworth game coming out this month on the 16th completely changes the look and formula of the series and takes it in a new interesting direction. The problem with this series is that it's very difficult for me to recommend to people. As much as I find this style of game enjoyable, I know that anime-inspired courtroom drama/comedy adventure games aren't for everyone, especially when 90% of the gameplay is spent reading. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, it's a definite try before you buy. Apparently Capcom agrees and you can play a demo of the new game right here:

-Brian T.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is Awesome

2010-02-02T22:14:00.010-06:00

Finally I got another Nintendo Wii last week. Once again it wasn’t as easy as just walking in to the store and buying one. Well it was but only after a week of phone calls and searching online. I had the same problem the first time I got a Wii, except that time I found out Meijer had 50 of them in stock for Black Friday. So I stood in line from 8pm until 5am the next morning. I ended up having to leave because I got the flu and came down with a 103 degree fever while standing in line. My mom and wife got stuck waiting in line with my 6 month old son. Good times for them ;).

So after spending about $500 this time to get the system, 2 complete controller setups (one remote, one nun chuck, 2 motion pluses, and a classic controller), and a game; I am finally back on the wagon. What game is it you ask? Well let me tell you. It is Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and boy have I enjoyed it every minute I can since I bought it. Hands down this is probably one of the best fighters that I have played in awhile.

I don’t even know how to convey the awesomeness of this game to you as a reader. So let’s begin with the presentation and looks of the game. Outstanding is a good way to describe it. It is comical and cartoony but not in a bad way. There is this 1970’s cartoon feel to it which is well suited for the overall game. Either way the colors are bright and fun and in some weird way it brings out the fun in the game instead of the seriousness that can come with fierce competition from other foes. Also you will find that you are not turned completely off by the music. Its soundtrack is tolerable in comparison to other Capcom soundtracks (SFIV) and at some points even enjoyable.

The button layout is simple but yet again well suited for this game like everything else. Like Brian T. said there are only 3 attack buttons. This is a great way to allow easier control of the characters making it possible to string together some devastating combos. The fighting style amongst the characters is unique to everyone allowing you to alter your gameplay dependent on who you are fighting with. There are endless hours of enjoyment with this game from mastering characters in arcade mode to cracking skulls online with the ultimate duo: Polimar and Casshan. Yeah that’s right that is my super head stomping team right there.

At first I was iffy about this game because it seemed slow and clownish, unlike other fighters that I was used to i.e. Marvel vs. Capcom and SFIV. But after a few rounds and some getting used to, the paced picked up and the graphics were more than appealing. This game is a definite one to own and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It definitely made the Wii worth owning again. Just in case you are all wondering the win loss record between Brian T. and I is 18-15, and I am the one with 18 wins.

-Brian R.

A Penny for your Thoughts

2010-01-29T16:54:00.010-06:00

Yesterday my wife and I decided to rearrange our living room. We wall mounted the TV again and did it right by running all of the cords through the wall and ceiling. But when I moved my PS3 I heard something inside of it and I have caught my 2 year old son sticking stuff, mainly change, in the CD loading slot before. Already the anxiety had set in. I was so upset I picked up the PS3 and started shaking the shit out of it to try and get whatever it was out; real smart huh?

I then proceeded to turn it on for some idiotic reason and it turned on but you then heard this load grinding gears noise since whatever was in there had managed to lodge itself in the gears which spin the disc. I just kept thinking to myself over and over again that there is no way I am going to get this fixed or get a new one if it is totally broke. Now I am sure by now that someone reading this is thinking that I should have called Sony by now and set up to get it serviced. Well I did, but I was still uncertain of doing that at the moment because honestly my pocketbook can’t afford a $150 repair.

Finally I am at a point of no other options but to call Sony. After explaining everything to them, they basically tell me to take the console and throw it away if it is not working. Why you ask; because if you send anything in to be repaired and there is a foreign object in the bluray drive they will not repair the console and simply return it to you unfixed, still containing whatever it is that might be lodged in there. What, are you kidding me! How is it that it would cost more to me as a consumer to go and buy a new console as opposed to having the bluray drive replaced if it is unfixable? Were they trying to tell me that the bluray drive itself costs more than the whole PS3 unit as a whole? I doubt it, but like every retailer out there they see it as an opportunity to make me as the consumer go out and spend another $350 on a new PS3 instead of spending maybe $150 on repairing the one I already own. It is nothing more than a scam of a marketing ploy.

At this point I had no option but to try and fix it myself. What could it hurt, because even if I totally screwed it up I wouldn’t be out anything right? After some research on the internet and thanks to YouTube I found some good videos about dismantling the PS3 and the bluray drive. The hardest part was finding the necessary torque bolt to remove the initial screw to take the casing off the PS3. From there it was a breeze and luckily for you guys I took pictures.

This first picture is what the unit looks like with the outer casing removed.

Next you have to remove 7 screws to remove the inner casing that holds the CPU and bluray drive in place.

Here you can see the CPU and the bluray drive on the right. The bluray drive is not screwed in, so you can pick it up and disconnect the ribbon wire from the underside to completely remove it from the console.

Once that is out you need to flip it over and there you can see the motherboard for the bluray drive.

The next step is to unscrew the six screws on the bottom of the drive to remove the motherboard and the casing for the optical drive of the bluray player. Also you need to unhook all of the ribbon wires from the motherboard itself to completely remove it.

Once the casing is off you are left with the optical drive itself. At this point you are only 4 screws away from opening it entirely.

Now that it is opened you can clean the lens or remove a 1962 penny from your bluray drive, which may cause the gears of the drive to jam, whichever suites you best.

From here you just work in reverse to put everything back together.
Now mind you I have no computer repair experience at all. This is the first time I have ever done something like this and if I must say it was pretty easy. As long as you can follow directions you should not have a problem if you were in a similar situation. All together it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish, and now my PS3 is in full working order again. Long story short, I have a working PS3 again and I saved myself the cost of a new system. Thanks Sony for being a bunch of greedy a-holes and forcing me into a position to fix it myself.

-Brian R.

Side Note: My son was nowhere near my PS3 yesterday. So I have no idea how long that penny had been sitting in the bluray drive before it finally dislodged and caused some damage. It is kind of funny if you ask me, but if I had to guess it had been in there for at least a week while I was watching movies and playing LittleBigPlanet.

tatsunoko vs. capcom first impressions

2010-01-26T23:08:00.007-06:00

I currently own 46 different fighting games. At one point or another, I've probably owned over 60, and I've played at least 100 different fighters. Today I picked up Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars for the Wii and can already say that it's a possible top 5 for me. Capcom fucking nailed it, plain and simple. Brian R. didn't think I'd be able to pull myself away from the game long enough to write anything about it, and he's kind of right. This game is way too much fun. While nothing can touch Capcom vs. SNK 2 for me (fact: best fighting game of all time), TvC is already blowing away even it's own competition.

First of all, this game looks great. If you have component cables, the first thing you'll probably notice when you start playing is that the graphics are all very bright, clean, and crisp. Capcom has a knack for taking advantage of the best aspects of the Wii (RE4, Okami, Zack & Wiki, etc.) and TvC is by far their best effort. If you don't have component cables, you can grab some from Amazon for 6 dollars shipped. The music has all been enjoyable and is definitely a step up from the weak Street Fighter 4 soundtrack. Animation is extremely fluid, as you would expect from a Capcom fighter. The presentation is superb, and shows yet again that developers can definitely get a lot out of the Wii if they actually try.

I've only played using the classic controller, but control is spot on with it. You'll quickly get used to the layout, which is stripped down and designed very simplistically. There are only 3 attack buttons, which may sound limited, but the simplified control scheme is definitely welcome considering you've got enough madness to worry about on screen without having to deal with the silly control options you have with the Wii (I know Brian R. and I aren't the only ones excited for these). Since this game was designed from the ground up for the Wii, this is one of the few Capcom fighters that doesn't make you feel like you're at a disadvantage if you aren't playing with an arcade stick, though they are available for purists. The remote/nunchuck option doesn't even look like it's worth trying, and I honestly feel that the Gamecube controller is the most poorly designed controller I've ever used, especially for fighters. Get a classic controller if you don't already have one.

Brian R. and I played at least 15 or 20 matches online tonight. As with every Wii game, the online is way more complicated then it should be, but it gets the job done. Matches were relatively lag-free and overall I'm really happy that the online isn't broken. I still cannot fathom how Nintendo could screw up the online for Super Smash Bros. Brawl so badly, but you finally wipe that memory clean because Capcom pulled through and has given us the best online experience we could hope for on the Wii. I hopped on for a few random ranked matches and was destroyed immediately by some dudes showing off their newly unlocked hidden characters. I guess I still have quite a bit of practicing to do. As a side note, there are some nice touches from SF4 like icons for online play.

Oh yeah, and I guess I should probably mention that this game is unbelievably FUN. I feel that in terms of gameplay, it blows Marvel vs. Capcom 2 out of the water. Trust me, it won't matter that you're probably not familiar with a huge portion of the cast; you won't be complaining about the lack of recognizable characters once you actually start playing as some of them. In fact, I honestly think that I prefer the overall selection of Tatsunoko fighters over the Capcom characters. Keep in mind that I have yet to unlock any of the hidden characters, but I'm really enjoying the interesting new cast. I played the original Japanese release last year, and this update is an improvement is every way, especially with the addition of 5 new characters and the subtraction of that fat fuck, Hakushon Daimao:

I also played through the arcade mode once and was very pleased. The post-match character dialogue is interesting, and if all the endings are anywhere near the quality that Ippatsuman's ending was, I'm literally excited to beat the game with every character. There is also a fun mini-game during the credits sequence which actually unlocks ANOTHER mini-game in the form of an old, arcade-style top down shooter.

But hey, guess what? Writing about this game is way less fun than actually playing it. And I'm assuming that reading about me playing it is even less fun. So go buy it and we can play together. My TvC friend code is: 2751-2516-5019.

-Brian T.

wii thoughts

2010-01-22T09:55:00.007-06:00

While we cool down and head into the slow season for games, many of us are clamoring for all the big spring titles. And while everybody is bitching about Splinter Cell and Super Street Fighter 4 getting pushed back, chances are that you've overlooked at least a few solid gaming experiences in the past few months or are so focused on the big action titles coming out, that you're going to end up missing some of the smaller releases. Now is the time to catch up!

If you own a Wii, bust that shit out. I'm sure a lot of you look at the Wii like some sort of board game that you only take out when you've got friends or family over, while you rely on your PS3/360 for your "hardcore" games. If you're convinced that there aren't any single player experiences worth having on the Wii, you're not paying attention. No More Heroes 2 is out next week and if you like anime, hack-n-slash games, insane gore, or absurd humor, this game is for you. Chances are you didn't play the first one and missed out on one of the most unique titles of this generation. Then again, you probably also didn't play Madworld, Nights, Muramusa, Zack and Wiki or any other great Wii game that got lost under piles of 1st party Nintendo titles and 3rd party shovelware.

Unique gaming experiences clearly have nothing to do with technology so do yourself a favor and FINALLY play Okami if you haven't. Looking for an RPG? Get the new Phantom Brave. As I mentioned in my last blog, Nintendo are essentially the reason you've never heard of some of the best Wii titles. Even I forgot that Little King's Story came out last year and was apparently really, really good. Nintendo only cares about how well Mario, Zelda, and Metroid sell. They tend to treat the Wii as nothing more than a vessel for updates to their tried-and-true classics. That's why the Gamecube went under, and that's why the Wii is going under. Until it does though, there are plenty of overlooked gems on the console.

Also keep in mind that Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is out here in the U.S. next week and after spending a couple of days with the Japanese release I can definitely say this is a must-own for any fighting fan. I'm not familiar with 90% of the Tatsunoko characters, but this only made the game feel fresher. Plus the Tatsunoko side ended up being awesome (I'm looking at you, Yatterman). If you enjoy Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for more than just it's roster, you MUST own TvC. MvC2 is fun, and despite the high level of play potential, it is unbalanced and essentially feels less like a fighter than Capcom's previous vs. efforts. While TvC definitely has plenty of moments of insanity, the action is slightly slower then MvC2 and fans of traditional 1 on 1 fighters will find a perfect balance.While I'm still on the topic of upcoming Wii games, a reader mentioned Monster Hunter Tri. Both Brian R. and I have been looking into the Monster Hunter series after a co-worker started playing it nonstop on his PSP. I've been keeping an eye on Monster Hunter Tri since Capcom announced in 2007 that it was being moved from the PS3 to the Wii. Monster Hunter is a craze of Pokemon proportions sweeping Japan on the PSP, and while the original U.S. PS2 release of the first title was marred by poor online PS2 support, Capcom may very well strike gold and create a legitimate console MMORPG for the Wii.

The Wii has obviously been the biggest disappointment for a lot of hardcore gamers expecting a revolution in the way we play games. Hell, the fact that Nintendo changed the name from Revolution to "Wii" should have been our first warning that things weren't going to go smoothly. Still, like so many others, I stood in line on launch day, bought a Wii, played it a lot, and then...stopped. Luckily, because of Cheap Ass Gamer, I've been able to start catching up on some great titles for super cheap. Madworld for $13 shipped is a steal. Start there.

-Brian T.

Another Year, Another Chance for my PS3

2010-01-21T23:41:00.003-06:00

Seeing the great debate beginning to brew over this next gen console subject, I can’t just sit on the sidelines and let this one go. If my opinion matters one bit I would say that next gen consoles overall have been a failure, but don’t take that out of context though. There are great games, enhanced graphics, and better game control; but if we look at the hardware associated with the Wii, PS3, and 360, we can see that there have been letdowns with all three systems.

Like Brian T. said the Wii is nothing more than a glorified GameCube. It is a GameCube with motion control. For a long time now I have felt that the Wii was nothing more than a test; a test to see how the public would accept a new form of gameplay. Unfortunately it is widely accepted by all demographics from young to old, to people who really don’t even play video games; therefore causing Nintendo to continue pushing this console. There also is a serious lack of quality software support for this system but yet I can guarantee that Nintendo is raking in the cash, and because of that there is no need on Nintendo’s part to change a thing at the moment.

Then we have the 360. Overall we are looking at a pretty good system. They have support through other social networking communities such as Facebook and Twitter, along with a great library of games. There online service is above average and you can see that paying for the service definitely makes it worth the $50 per year. What the system lacks is the dependent hardware to run the console. System hardware failures plague the console with the Red Rings of Death and the E74 error code. Like Brian T. said too, it is ridiculous to spend $300 - $400 on the system then have to go spend another $100 on a wireless network adapter to get online. You would think since networking technology is not advanced rocket science; it would be built in the system or made affordable at least, but once again the system makes money even with its flaws, so why change what in terms of profits is not broken.

Finally there is the PS3. Let me say I have been let down by this system from the time I got mine and more so then the latter two. One of the biggest disappointments for this system is the lack of software that is available for the system. If you need someone to blame for this you can thank Sony for not providing the training and information that was needed for these developers to program the games. I can see how these game developers did not want to spend the money to train programmers to write for this system when they could just release it on a more popular, easier to work with system like the 360. To this day I still do not own a PS3 game. There hasn’t been a game yet exclusive to the system that I feel I need to have, and if there is a game that is multi-platform I always get it for the 360. But before you can complain about the software I think it is only fair to look at the system itself. We are in the 4th generation with the PS3. If you go here you can see a chart of all the different PS3’s and what hardware they contained.

It’s seems to me the PS3 has taken steps back instead of moving forward to try and provide a better product to their consumers. Look at the 360 for example. They have increased their hard drive space, replaced their original processors with better ones, and added more services to system. The PS3 has removed the flash card reader, removed backwards compatibility, reduce the number of USB slots, and taken away the removable hard drive. So how do they justify the price of the system? Sure they increased the hard drive space, but they removed everything else. No wonder we have seen a price drop in recent months.

That is not all that lets me down with the PS3. The PS Network; now there is a joke if I’ve ever seen one. Sure it is free, but what do you gain by having a free service: lag, poor support, and limited connectivity. If I was partial solely to the PS3 I would be more than happy to pay for my online service to ensure excellent service. Also I need to mention Home. What a waste of time and effort there. If I wanted to participate in something of that nature I would go and play The Sims. At least that way I wouldn’t be subjected to endless advertising. Plus it is completely annoying trying to have a conversation because it is a pain in the ass to type everything when 95% of the people don’t have headsets. Tell me why is there no Bluetooth headset included with the system? This is similar to Microsoft not having Wi-Fi built in to the system. Why not include something that probably costs them pennies to make compared to the $100 it costs us to buy it. When is enough, enough?

Where are we left as gamers when the companies that we support seem to not really care to support their consumers? And it is not only Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony; it is the software companies that support the consoles too. If you read my earlier blog “Diamonds Last Forever” you can see how I talked about there being a lack of games on next gen consoles that take gaming to the next level. There are no revolutionary or breakthrough games on any of the 3 major consoles today. Gaming has reached a standstill in some respects. Hopefully with the introduction of Natal we will see a shift in gaming. We will see what next gen gaming should be and hopefully get everything we should be getting out of these consoles. I know though that a magic wand shaped like an ice cream cone will not be the answer to this. It will be yet another let down from Sony. Maybe they finally realized this and that is why the date has been pushed back so that way they can try and save some face. Let me know what you think and how you feel about today’s gaming companies.

-Brian R.

video game pms

2010-01-20T20:47:00.007-06:00

I'm in a bad mood. I'm taking a break from the insanely frustrating process of trying to get my 360 online to set up a Live account. To keep it short, because of the layout of my house and electronics, I have to use Internet Connection Sharing through the PC in my room to get my 360 online which may require me to change my router's IP address which is way more work than it should be. Microsoft's greed once again finds a way to piss me off. I mean, seriously guys...the fucking Wii has built-in Wifi, yet I have to buy a $100 proprietary brand adapter to get the 360 to do this? FUCK YOU.

So Microsoft is on today's shit list for me, how about Sony? Well, it would appear that yesterday they delayed the release of their still-nameless motion controller. Am I mad about that? No, I don't really care...at all. All this did is remind me how stupid Sony has been this generation. Year after year they keep making mistakes from botched launches, to ridiculous amounts of PS3 upgrades/downgrades, to the completely useless PSP Go, to the hilariously underwhelming Playstation Home. The list goes on. Sony already has one failed peripheral on the market with the PS3 Eye. Why introduce another one that is just essentially another Wii remote controller?

I own a Wii, a PS3, and a 360. Everybody always argues which console is better, which has the best/worst games, etc. People are too quick to pledge allegiance to a console or company these days. Despite the success Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have all had over the past few years, I don't think any one of them has actually done a good job and provided an overall positive experience.

Nintendo beat the shit out of Sony and Microsoft this generation with a repackaged Gamecube. Creative, yet shrewd as hell, they found a way to offer a new twist on the last generation that ended up being a lot more fun than the competition offered at the time of it's launch. Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn't know the meaning of quality control and allowed their console to be overrun with shovelware because it kept units flying off the shelves. Because of this, many truly awesome Wii titles were lost in a sea of bullshit and suffered sales so poor that 3rd party developers are ceasing to make hardcore titles. And there's the mostly terrible online experience. And there's the failure to support external hard drives (the SD card update "solution" is bullshit). And Wii Motion Plus should technically be free for us suckers who paid $40 dollars for remotes that should have had 1:1 tracking in the first place. Sony is stupid, but Nintendo is greedy and oblivious.

Sony finally saw the PS3 come out on top last year. A handful of 1st party exclusives like Infamous and Uncharted 2 really gave the console some footing and developers are finally, kind of...mostly getting the hang of programming for the console. Other than those positives, you can refer to all the bullshit mistakes Sony has made in the paragraphs above. The motion controller will fail because everybody already owns a Nintendo Wii, and guess what? We're all bored with it. If Sony thinks they've got the sequel to the Wii on their hands, they are wrong. Find a way to fix support for the PS3 Eye and PSP Go before you rush another expensive piece of technology on the market...

I mentioned Nintendo being greedy, but obviously the greed crown really belongs to Microsoft. The 360 has had the steadiest level of success despite manufacturing hands-down, the absolute least reliable game console in the past 20 years. Many people own beat-up, dusty NES consoles that work better than their 360's. Microsoft's business model is obvious in the way they handle the 360. Moreso than any other console, it is a financial vacuum and they still aren't that reliable. But whatever, I've spent too much time writing this. I guess I should go figure out how I can get my Live account set up so I can throw some more cash at Microsoft...

-Brian T.

I don't ♥ Gamestop

2010-01-17T13:35:00.004-06:00

Gamestop is a name that has become house hold in the world of gaming. They are everywhere and they have almost monopolized the video game market. I know that I shop at Gamestop or used to as of last week. It is impossible to not shop there especially if you are in the market for used merchandise, or what they refer to as “pre-owned.” I have finally been pushed over the top though with their unappreciative attitudes, over priced “used merchandise”, and under purchased trade-ins. Their sales tactics are more annoying then helpful and if you have a question about anything, don’t expect an answer given by a majority of the employees to be helpful.

My dislike for Gamestop has become so much that it has finally driven me to shop elsewhere unless it is unavoidable. By now as a gamer I am sure that you are aware of the fact that you can pre-purchase or reserve a title long before it is released. So then why is it then when I am in the process of reserving a game do I always get asked if I would like to reserve any other game? Obviously at this point I am well aware of their reservation process and if I had wanted to reserve any other games I would have done so from the start. So please don’t ask me. Then there is the pricing on the video games and I am not talking about new games, but their used crap. How is it that you are going to sell me a game for $5 less than if I were to purchase it new, but if I were to trade that same game in, for store credit mind you, you will only give me a fraction of that price. Here is a hypothetical situation just in case you are unfamiliar with their ridiculous rip-off policies. Brand new a game costs $59.99, used it is $54.99 but if I bought it new or used and went to trade it in for store credit; I would get $20 or $30 max. That is in some cases more than 100% profit and possibly even more if you consider the fact that I have to use that $20 or $30 in the store to purchase more stuff. It is not like it is cash in my pocket. What a fucking rip. These plus other little things here and there have become too much, but it wasn’t any of this that finally drove me over the top.

This type of shit I have dealt with for years now and tolerated. It wasn’t until recently that I was driven over the edge to the point where I said enough is enough. Long story short, I called Gamestop to see if Assassins Creed qualified for a promotion that was taking place. They said it did so I went to trade it in. When I got there I was told that it did not qualify and that I would get $5 for the trade in. After some back in forth arguing I was finally asked who I talked to. Luckily I got his name and bingo I got $20 for Assassins Creed (mind you I only paid $17.99 for it used from Gamestop, so essential now I got paid $3 to own and play the game for almost a year). After that the assistant manager that was ringing me up just completely lost his shit. He start banging the crap out of the keyboard on his computer, throwing the game I was trading in around plus the game that I was buying, followed by a long string of god damn its and Jesus Christ’s. Then it escalates to the point of the assistant manager reprimanding and belittling the employee in front of Brian T., two mothers and their kids, and myself. Now between you and me I didn’t give a shit about how he was reacting and if anything I was getting a good laugh from getting one over on them; but with my hate for Gamestop I saw yet another opportunity to get more out of them by complaining about this negative experience to their corporate office.

The next day I filed the complaint with their corporate headquarters. After sitting on hold for about 10 minutes I finally got through to someone and explained the whole story. Once again I was put on hold only to hear after about another 5 minutes of silence that my complaint will be filed to the district manager. So I wait, and after about a week with no response he finally calls me. Once again I explain my situation to him. He goes on to inform me that both employees were assistant managers who are in line to get their own stores in the next year and that their behavior was unacceptable. Thanks, I know or I wouldn’t have called. Then he continues to tell me that this situation was a great training experience for his employees. He finally goes on to end the conversation with and I quote, “Thank you for bringing this situation to my attention. We are handling this internally and using this information to better help employees learn how to better handle themselves. We appreciate having you as a Gamestop customer and look forward to your future business with us. Goodbye.” What the fuck is that bullshit? If I were to go out and ream a server in front of a table about a mistake I made, A. I would no longer have a customer and B. if I wanted to keep them as a customer I would need to basically give them the store with gift certificates and what have you. But what did I get; nothing more than a thanks have a nice day, and come buy more overpriced crap from us. Well thanks for letting me know that I am nothing more than a number to you and that you have zero care in your customers. Why would you when you are arrogant enough to think that if he doesn’t come back I will have 3 more behind him. Well I used to think like that and now with the dwindling economy and the increase in competition, I am wishing that I treated every customer like family instead of a paycheck.

Today there are more and more options when it comes to video game sales. There are the big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target, online stores such as eBay, Gamefly, and Amazon, and even new retailers similar to Gamestop, like Play-N-Trade and Gorilla Games. Amazon, Gamefly, and the new video game retailers all take in trades either for cash or credit like Gamestop, and now you can also purchase used games from Wal-Mart. Plus the extra benefit to Play-N-Trade and Amazon is that you are not limited to purchasing games and accessories for 3 systems (360, PS3, and Wii). You have access to everything video game related, anything from a NES game to a Sega Dreamcast VMU. Having those options makes shopping there that much more appealing. I should mention also that every where else’s deals, trade-in offers, and prices on just about everything are lower than anything that you can buy at Gamestop. With all this said it leaves me to say that I am done with Gamestop. The only way I would be compelled to step foot in that store again is if I were given a gift card. It is your choice if you want to continue to support Gamestop and their bullshit antics; but I would highly recommend that everyone start taking the time to shop elsewhere instead of trying to fill that instant gratification with Gamestop. Comment back and let me know what you think about Gamestop and if you too have had enough.

-Brian R.

Gamestop, Pawnshop

2010-01-12T18:25:00.005-06:00

Nobody likes Gamestop. We all have our reasons, but at one point or another we all end up hating Gamestop. It could be the constant sales pitch from the moment you walk into the store until the moment your transaction ends. It could be the fact that 25% of floor and wall space in the store is not filled with games, but advertising and empty boxes for games that aren't out yet. It could be the dishonest or incompetent employees and managers out to get higher MSTs, Subs, and Reservs that don't know half as much as most of their shoppers. But we deal with it because we're lazy. And that is why Gamestop, the biggest video game pawn shop in the country, has achieved such a high level of success. I've begun to ween myself off of Gamestop, and I recommend you do the same.

Let's start with brick and mortar retail store alternatives. The majority of us don't have independent video game stores, but new franchise chains like Play and Trade and Gorilla Games are beginning to pop up. Brian R has actually looked into franchising a Play and Trade and received an e-mail detailing plans for expansion. What they have planned for the Chicagoland area is huge and gives the strong impression that they intend to be major competitors to Gamestop. Play and Trades are hit and miss though. Owners have full control over inventory, pricing, and trade-in value so your shopping experience can be different from store to store. One store may carry games as far back as Atari 2600 as well as imports, while another store may just have a similar inventory to the Gamestop down the street.

Of course there are major chains like Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. that are always options. As the electronics manager at a Target, as well as a former Gamestop employee, I can definitely say that if you are looking for a new release, you'll have an easier time getting it at Target. Gamestop always tries the hard pitch about reserving games to ensure you get a copy, but on average, Target will get 3 or 4 times as many copies of a game and bigger titles are replenished faster. You'd be surprised at some of the more obscure titles that arrive at the stores as well. RPGs and fighters get pushed out of the system fast and are often marked clearance before their first price drop so make sure you check the clearance endcaps.

This still leaves you with few other options than Gamestop to sell games through. There are a few Best Buy locations that used to give huge amounts of store credit for used games, but over the years, their trade-in values have evened out with Gamestop's. If you have a Disc Replay nearby, they tend to give you as much cash as Gamestop gives store credit for games. Other than that, when you do trade-in at Gamestop, be sure to check their promotions to make sure you get the most you can get. Oftentimes employees will not give you promotions because they either don't know about them, or don't know how to use them properly.

I tend to do a lot of my game shopping online. Besides having an unbeatable, endless selection, the best prices and trade-in values will be found online. I've been a member at Cheap Ass Gamer for the past 6 years and it's definitely the place to go for a comprehensive list of all the best video game deals online and in-store. eBay is usually the first stop for most games over a year or two old. Amazon and Gamefly are two excellent online retailers as well. Amazon gives bonuses for reserving games, so Gamestop isn't the only way to get your preorder bonuses. You don't have to be a Gamefly member to take advantage of their great sales either.

As for selling games, Amazon.com seems to give the most credit/cash. Prince of Persia for PS3 was worth $5 store credit at Gamestop, while Amazon gives $10 cash (via various convenient payment options). Selling games to Amazon and other online retailers is extremely easy. You type the game/dvd/cd you want to sell, they give you a value, you add it to your cart, they send you a shipping label, and then they send you the money upon receiving the package. And then of course, if you actually want to make the most money you can, you could stop being lazy and start using eBay.

Unfortunately, as many analysts and game journalists have predicted, video game retailers may eventually become obsolete as developers continue to push online distribution as a cheaper, easier alternative to retail. Eventually all of our games will come directly from the Playstation Store, the Xbox Live Marketplace, Steam, etc. and just go directly onto the massive hard drives future consoles will have. We'll also have hoverboards and be able to teleport and all of our guns will be lasers...you know, eventually. In the mean time, Gamestop remains the most popular video game retailer. I just figured I'd let you know there are a ton of other options.

-Brian T.

Tree Hugging Hippy Crap

2010-01-11T16:02:00.003-06:00

I don’t know if anyone takes the time to actually read our blog but if you do kudos to you. So if you do then you probably remember a blog from about a month ago, give or take, that Brian T. wrote about in regards to a game on the PS Network titled Flower. For days all I heard at work was how amazing the game is and how I need to go buy it. Then he continues on to say that it is such an awesome game that he can’t even describe it to me that I should just go and buy it. So I did and let me say I am pissed that I wasted fucking $10.

Where should I start with this crap? First there is not excitement. You float around like a fairy traveling from flower to flower, and once you get to a flower I guess you use your magic fairy dust to make it bloom. Please note that one of the selling points for Brian T. was that every flower that opened there was the pluck of a guitar string. Wow talk about fun. Eventually you continue spreading fairy dust until you make the grand poomba of all blooming objects come to life, a tree. Second this game might be fun if you were 12 years old, had a vagina between your legs, and your room was painted pink and decorated with hello kitty fatheads. It’s fortunate for me that I have none of these things, making me have zero interest in this game. According to Brian T. you can find magic flowers in every level that will unlock trophies; but who the hell wants to keep floating around as a pedal of a flower for any given amount of time looking for the special magic flowers. Not me. I could barely choke my way through the first level from start to finish let alone waste anymore time looking for these mystical flowers hidden throughout the levels.

Even right now as I am writing this he is standing over my shoulder arguing with me about how “peaceful” the game is and that I am looking at it in the wrong light. Boo hoo because when I play a game there is nothing more peaceful then blowing some assholes head off with my ACR in Modern Warfare 2. I need some real action in a game, not this boring tree hugging waste of time that you get with Flower. I guess in order to enjoy this game you must either need be extremely stressed out and don’t want the aggravation of playing a real game, or you need to stoned, really stoned. Neither of those things happens for me. I can say that visually the game does look good, and it is probably the best use I have ever seen of the Sixaxis controller. But if you are looking for some real excitement in a game, I need to inform you that you won’t find it with Flower.

-Brian R.

dark void - self explanatory

2010-01-08T12:39:00.008-06:00

So who's excited for Dark Void? Anyone? I'm going to guess that you're not. I know I'm not. Hell, even Capcom, the publisher of the game, isn't excited. Not only have they pushed the release date back right before releasing the demo, but they publicly stated in an interview with Kotaku that "Our experience...has demonstrated the difficulty of outsourcing the development of new titles to overseas companies." Because of the failure of Bionic Commando, and the impending failure of Dark Void, Capcom have stripped all original title development rights from their western studios and will only allow them to work on sequels, dlc, etc. while the Japanese teams handle new IPs. Wow...that's pretty harsh. I mean, Bionic Commando bombed pretty hard, but the fact that they've already given up on Dark Void before it's release is a huge statement...so how bad is this game?

The first thing I noticed upon starting the demo up is that the protagonist looks a lot like Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series. And then he talked...and guess what? They are voiced by the same fucking guy, Nolan North. Are you kidding me? Not only did they to create the most generic-looking guy they could, but they still found a way to make him look like Nathan Drake and, hell, just to seal the deal he even has the same voice. Smooth move...I'm sure no one will ever catch that. I probably don't even have to say it, but yes, they also have nearly identical personalities too. But let's move along to the gameplay.The above image looks like it could have been taken from Dead Space, another exaomple of this game's identity crisis. Dark Void actually focuses on both aerial combat and exploration, as well as Gears of War style "hide behind an obstruction and shoot until all the bad guys are dead" action. Flying around on your Rocketeer jetpack sucks. Aiming is even worse. It's not fun and I never feel like I'm flying...I feel like I'm floating wildly through the air. Nathan Drake/Dark Void guy can yell "whoo hoo!" as much as he wants, but there is nothing exciting about flying in this game. You'll be glad when you shoot down all the generic robot sentries out of sky so you can get on the ground and fight.

So when you're on the ground you have a big gun and you shoot aliens. I have nothing good to say about this aspect of the game either. The cover mechanic is pointless because the enemies are too retarded to pose a threat. Speaking of the enemies, for a second I thought I was playing a really shitty version of Metroid Prime 3. Yeah, if Metroid Prime on the Wii got raped by Gears of War, and then Warhawk for PS3 flew overhead and took a massive shit all over everything. That's pretty much how I would describe this game. I know it's just a demo, but why the fuck any developer would waste their time and money working on this uninspired garbage is beyond me. Make sure you don't make the same mistake.

-Brian T.

necro...phelia

2010-01-06T10:07:00.005-06:00

So I just discovered something that I believe makes me a gigantic nerd as well as an out of control SF trivia fanatic. Unless you care about completely obscure Street Fighter trivia, you may as well stop reading now and wait for the next blog post. As for the rest of you, check this out...Necro from Street Fighter III originally made his first appearance in the awful Street Fighter offshoot that Capcom made called Street Fighter 2010. Proof:I actually spotted this while watching the hilarious new Angry Video Game Nerd review of Street Fighter 1 and Street Fighter 2010. Necro can be seen in action at the 12:17 mark throwing a crate at Ken. For those of you who've never heard of or played Street Fighter 2010, I'm sure the screenshot above doesn't make any sense. Real quick: This was a "sequel" to Street Fighter that starred Ken in a robotic Mega Man styled suit in a Mega Man styled platformer set in the future. Yeah...stupid, I know.

Anyway, I just figured I'd throw this up here because nobody seems to have made that connection before. Obviously the story in SF2010 is not canon to the SF universe, but it's still interesting to note the first appearance of a character that would take over 10 years to show up again. It's also yet another reason why I love Capcom and their dedication to fan service and self-referencing. Fuck, I'm a nerd.

-Brian T.

the rpg genre needs a phoenix down

2010-01-04T20:55:00.005-06:00

This is actually going to be a 2 part blog. What started initially as me finally giving my thoughts and impressions on Final Fantasy XIII ended up spiraling out of control into 2 separate blogs. Unfortunately, now I can't even discuss FFXIII until I get something else out of the way...what has happened to RPGs? Seriously, what the fuck happened to the RPG genre? And I'm not talking about World of Warcraft or Mass Effect or crossover games like Borderlands or Fallout 3. I'm talking about JRPGS, or Japanese-styled RPGs like Final Fantasy, Shining Force, Golden Sun, etc. Name your favorite RPG and I bet you it probably didn't come out on this current console generation.

The 360 has been out for over 4 years and the Wii and PS3 have been out for over 3 years now, yet there are absolutely ZERO must-own RPGs that have been released on these consoles. Ports do not count. Downloading Final Fantasy VII from PSN or grabbing the Wii remake of the PS/SAT title Baroque doesn't count. Within the first 3 years of the PS2's life it saw 2 Final Fantasy titles, a Xenogears sequel, started the Kingdom Hearts franchise, got new Suikodens and Star Oceans, plus a ton more. And for the most part, these games were all good.

As it stands now there are hardly any RPGs I want. Valkyria Chronicles looks like it's probably the best RPG out right now. There are a handful of other games like Lost Odyssey and Eternal Sonata that look pretty good, but I would hardly say they are must-own. I find myself replaying RPGs I've already beaten or scouring the PS2 bins at Gamestop for "new" RPGs because I would honestly rather play Suikoden 3, a game that's 7 years old, than Blue Dragon. Check out the following:

-29 Playstation/Saturn traditional JRPGs have an average game ranking of 80% or higher
-28 PS2/XBOX/GC traditional JRPGs have an average game ranking of 80% or higher
-Only 6 Wii/PS3/360 traditional JRPGS have an average ranking of 80% or higher

I grabbed that data from Game Rankings. I think that pretty clearly shows the obvious downfall of the RPG. Once great franchises like Shining Force and Xenogears were driven into mediocrity at the end of the last generation and consequently seem to have no hope for any sort of revival any time soon. Games that were hyped up like Blue Dragon and Star Ocean this generation have turned out to be massive disappointments that couldn't deliver. To make matters worse for console RPGs, rising development costs have led to developers focusing more on the huge installed fanbase on handheld consoles like the PSP and DS which are far cheaper to develop for. Dragon Quest has moved exclusively to the DS, while Square created a bit of an uproar by making Final Fantasy Crisis Core a PSP exclusive. Hell even the sequel to the critically acclaimed Valkyria Chronicles for PS3 is going to the PSP.

So what's on the horizon? Obviously we have Final Fantasy XIII, which no matter what anyone says or does will be huge. SquareEnix have yet to make a poor entry in the main FF series (Crystal Chronicles can suck a (_)_)===D), so I don't see any way that they could drop the ball with FFXIII. The GBA released 2 of the best RPGs in recent years with Golden Sun, so I'm glad to head that Nintendo FINALLY announced a new Golden Sun title...but wait! It looks like that's going to the DS. There are new entries in the Arc and Tales of series' for all 3 consoles, but very few of those games have ever been truly great so I'm holding out any sort of judgment until their US releases. What am I missing? Is there anything else?

It seems as though the entire industry is kind of hoping that Final Fantasy XIII revives the genre, and I can only hope that it does. Check back in a couple of days for my FFXIII impressions.

-Brian T.

Diamonds Last Forever

2010-01-03T15:42:00.007-06:00

Starting from NES all the way up until now, what games can you remember in say less than a minute? Super Mario Brothers 3, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Halo, Resident Evil, and Final Fantasy VII are a few that pop in to my head. But for you did any come to mind that were on a next gen console. Are there any games that you own for your Wii, 360, or PS3 that you know you will refer to like you do with the above mentioned games? I don’t think so, and I am sure most of you can say the same.

Now I know you are all thinking by now, “What about Modern Warfare and Assassins Creed?” Well I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. Yes Modern Warfare is a game that will never be forgotten but was it revolutionary. I can say that is was revolutionary for first person shooters, but once all the fat is peeled back, it is still a FPS. Then there is Assassin’s Creed. To me this game is revolutionary but will it be remembered? I think it could have been but with its repetitive boring story line, it will be forgotten. So we move on to Assassin’s Creed 2, which is an awesome game but it is nothing more than what the first Assassins Creed should have been but wasn’t. It will definitely be remembered but unfortunately all of the revolutionary aspects of the game were already done in the first one. So I would have to put these games in the maybe pile.

I have been talking about this for a while with various people, Brian T. included and no one can pin down a single game on a next gen console that just says wow this game made a huge impact on me. This is a game that I will revisit every year or so. I began to look forward at upcoming releases and a couple come to mind that may do that. I am talking about Splinter Cell: Conviction, Final Fantasy XIII, and Gran Turismo 5. Why do I think these games might be revolutionary; because if you have seen videos for Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo then you will see that visually these games have been taken to the next level. But is it the game itself that is revolutionary or the system hardware that is responsible for the visual experience that will be tied to these games. I would say a little of both, but I would think that it is mainly the console hardware itself that allows these games to look the way they do. Then you have to take into account the amount of time that went in to these games. We are looking at 4 or 5 years of development on these titles. From a gamers stand point it is definitely worth it because then we get an awesome game, but from a company’s point I can easily see how it wouldn’t be beneficial because of the amount of money and time it would take to create the game. A good example would be Gran Turismo vs. Forza Motorsport. Turn 10 has already produced two games compared to Sony’s half a game (Gran Turismo Prologue). Both Forza Motorsports were great games, and I do not think that any more time put in to the development of the games could have made them that much better than they already were.

Finally there is Splinter Cell: Conviction. Let me start by showing the video of the co-op gameplay that was recently revealed.

I have never seen a game rely on so much interaction between players before. It definitely puts your characters life in the hands of the other player and vice versa. It also shows the amount of teamwork that will be necessary in order to complete the missions. From what I can tell, and from what I have played, I have never seen a co-op mode go in to as much detail as this game looks like it will. My anticipations are high for all 3 of these games to finally come out because I want to see if they live up to their expectations.

Personally I think we have reached the thresh hold of what we can do as long as we are stuck sitting behind a controller. Everything that can be done has been done, and anything semi-new that gets released is nothing more than an extension of a previous game style or an improvement on an existing game engine. Adding more and more buttons is doing nothing more than making too many options for developers and too much confusion for gamers. I believe that once Natal is released for the 360 we will start to see a change in gaming on a revolutionary scale. We will see games played and interpreted like we have never seen before. Or on the other hand it will be a huge failure and be nothing more than a skateboard peripheral that is absolutely worthless and overpriced. Let me know if you think differently and if there are any games that you think paved new ways in gaming since this generation of consoles has been released.

-Brian R.

another subliminally pro-saturn entry

2009-12-22T02:07:00.006-06:00

I want you to stop for a second and think about how many different game controllers you have actually held and played with for different consoles over the years. Go as far back as you can remember. You didn't have to own the game console, but if a friend did, it counts. Keep in mind that the Genesis, Saturn, XBOX, PSX, PS3, NeoGeo CD, and many others actually had TWO distinctly different controllers. I have used 18 different controllers for home consoles. 18. That's a lot of controllers. The strangest thing though is how little they've actually changed.If you think about it, controllers basically took 2 paths. There is a Nintendo path...and there is a Sega path. Both Nintendo and Sega started with extremely similar-looking controllers for the NES and Master System respectively. But when the two launched their 16-bit consoles, the real innovation began. Let's start with the Genesis. First Sega released the 3 button pad, establishing contour and the "boomerang" shape that is still prevalent today. They soon released a six-button version that, while smaller, made all games (especially fighters) easily playable on the Genesis.

Nintendo came out of the gate with an awesome controller with the SNES as well. It had triggers and the 4 face buttons were arranged in a diamond shape. Moving along the timeline, this diamond-shaped controller and basic SNES design should be noted when you consider how Sony got into the console business. For those of you who don't know, Sony was originally hired by Nintendo to create a disc-based add-on for the SNES to compete with the Sega CD. Upon the Sega CD's massive failure, Nintendo basically fired Sony and decided to stick with cartridges for the N64. Sony took what they'd been working on and and made it into the Playstation...which destroyed the N64 without mercy. The funny thing is though, the original Playstion controller was basically identical to the SNES controller. It added another set of triggers and the exaggerated boomerang shape, but even the diamond-shaped button layout was the same. Hell, the Dualshock 3 is essentially an SNES controller with analog sticks attached if you squint at it hard enough.

Sega, on the other hand, stuck with the 6 button route, added triggers, and created a controller that many argue was FAR more comfortable than the PSX controller for the Saturn. When they released Nights, they also launched a new 3D controller with an analog stick which essentially became the Dreamcast controller. Just in the same way that the Dualshock 3 is an SNES controller, the XBOX 360 controller can be traced directly back to the Genesis just by looking at it. The basic shape and contour match and the analog stick placement is identical to the Saturn/DC controllers.

Nintendo basically decided when they launched the N64 that they were never going to made a good controller again so they released the horribly designed N64 controller which many games required you to have to jump back and forth between the d-pad and the stupidly placed analog stick. While fans of Goldeneye swear it's a great controller, everyone else realized it sucked. It also started Nintendo's trend of making their buttons whatever the fuck and size and shape they want. The Gamecube controller is a disgusting little mess and as much as Nintendo is once again trying to revolutionize controllers with the Wii, that controller pretty much sucks too for most practical games.

It's interesting to note that while I grew up mostly on Sega systems and the Saturn controller is my favorite controller of all time, I actually find the Dualshock 3 to be the best controller on the market despite the fact that I was never a huge fan of the SNES design. What about you guys? I'm curious to see if people who grew up on Sega systems prefer the 360 controller and if SNES owners prefer the Dualshock 3. Comment back and let me know!

-Brian T.

Next Gen Console Hardware: "Failed"

2009-12-21T21:00:00.003-06:00

Like I was starting to say before Brian T. swooped in and exploited my sexuality; you would think that with the advancement of technology today we would not be seeing the failure of next gen consoles like we do. For instance my Sega Genesis worked flawlessly up until I sold it, and I am pretty sure that it is still working today if it was taken care of. I never had a problem with my NES except for the pins wearing out from heavy usage. That is to be expected though and it is not a direct result of hardware failure, but with newer consoles though it is the complete opposite. Recently I read that 60% of UK Xbox 360 owners surveyed have experienced some sort of hardware failure. That is a staggering number, which to me is unacceptable. I myself have experience hardware failure, 2 times with 360’s and twice with Nintendo DS lites.

First let me start by saying what happened with my 360’s because these were the ones that are really comical and painful at the same time. FYI, I am on my 3rd 360 now. So I got my first 360 in the Summer of 2006. From the first minute it always seemed load, but everything I read and everyone I talked to said it was normal. Eventually after about a year and a half it got to the point that it was loud enough to hear it upstairs in the bedrooms. So after about a year and a couple of E74 errors I decided to call Microsoft. The conversation got to the point that I asked the technician if he wanted to hear the sound my system was making and he said sure. After turning it on and him hearing it I was quickly asked if there were any smoke or flames emitting from the unit. All I could do was laugh, and was told since it was two weeks out of its original 1 year manufacturer’s warranty I would have to pay $100 to have it fixed. That’s bullshit if you ask me so I put it up on eBay.

My second 360 was yet another console sporting the Zephyr chipset. I got a good run out of it, until it finally red ringed on me on November 9th, 2009. And if anyone recognizes that date it is the day before Modern Warfare 2 launched. So of course I instantly went in to panic mode. And in case if you don’t know there are 2 ways that a 360 can red ring. One is a prolonged period of different sorts of malfunctions, and the other is just a sudden 3 red rings with no warning what so ever. Mine was the latter of the 2. And if you go to Wikipedia here it will show you a list of all of the different sorts of failures that can be experienced with the red rings. I experienced them all. Since my 360 still would kind of work I decided to trade it in to Gamestop and upgrade to an Elite. Long story short, I take it to Gamestop, he turns it on, goes to play a game and it freezes. Then he turns it off and turns it back on and sure enough it red ringed right in front of him. So I got screwed on the trade in price but ended up with a new Elite that is quieter and cooler than any 360 I have owned.

Finally we move on to Nintendo DS Lite. I have had two that have failed on me. The first one the display went bad and by bad I mean that the picture was pixilated. The second would only charge if the unit was on. As soon as I would turn it off it would stop charging. Both times I was able to warranty it out and have it replaced with a “new” refurbished unit.

So I guess the gist of this blog is to hear if anyone else has had any of their own misfortunes with any of their consoles. It seems that these failures are becoming more and more common. I am also curious to know if you have, how was your experience with their customer service? For me Nintendo hands down had the best service. They sent me a new unit before I had to send in the broken one, which is better because that way I do not have to wait for them to get the unit, check it out, make a decision to repair it or replace it, and then send it out. Microsoft should consider taking this approach because with the sheer number of 360’s that fail, it would only be fair to us the consumers.

-Brian R.

flower POWER!!!

2009-12-16T11:17:00.005-06:00

I feel as though the world of gaming journalism, as well as the gaming community have all let me down. Apparently, a little game called Flower was released in the Playstation Store on February of this year and nobody thought to tell me. To be fair, the only thing I really cared about on February 2nd was the imminent release of Street Fighter 4 so I'm sure I had tunnel vision when it came to games that didn't have hadoukens. I can easily see how this title could slip by unnoticed, forever forgotten by all but a small few...but I refuse to let that happen. This game is fucking amazing and everyone with a PS3 should play it at least once.I was watching the X-play Video Game Awards show last night and I kept seeing this game nominated for different awards. I thought to myself "How the hell is this game getting nominated for so many awards when I've never read or heard a single review on it?" I remember seeing it in the Playstation Store while browsing and I vaguely remember seeing a screenshot when Game Informer previewed it earlier this year in the DLC column, but that's it. So I decided to go ahead and just download it on a whim.

Wow. I literally started laughing to myself within 10 minutes of playing this game because it was blowing my mind. The question "Are video games art?" has been answered and the answer is a strong, confident FUCK YES. All you essentially do is control the wind using the Sixaxis controller and any button of your choice as you blow petals off of flowers in vast, richly-detailed natural environments. When you blow a petal off of a flower, it blooms and you accumulate more petals onto your windstream. The more flowers you cause to bloom, the more life is restored to the world. If this sounds like an extremely abstract description of the fantastic Okami (PS2/Wii), then I guess you would be far off. And the comparison is a welcome one. The visuals are quite often awe-inducing. The music is phenomenal and works in many ways like the game REZ (DC/PS2) where your actions in the game directly control the music. For example, whenever you pick up a petal a chime or a piano note may play. Continue picking up strings of petals and you will add entire arrangements to the music that are always perfectly in time and perfectly in tune.

There is one drawback that may turn some people off from this game though and I should probably address it. Like many original downloadable titles, this game is short. Apparently you can complete the game and unlock all the trophies in under 5 hours of play. I find this to be completely justifiable considering the price is only $9.99. Most new games are $59.99 and give you an average of 20 hours of play, so in actuality you're getting a pretty awesome deal. I used this same reasoning to convince everyone I knew to download the WiiWare game Lost Winds. Trust me, you won't be complaining about the price or length once you actually sit down and play it and can appreciate what this game is all about.

I know I'm almost a year late on this one, but better late than never. Go download and play Flower right now. I gotta go try to squeeze a few minutes of play in before work...

-Brian T

Is it Gay to Get a Blow J From Another Man

2009-12-14T19:00:00.005-06:00

You would think that with the advancement in today’s technology, somebody would have invented an authentic virtual reality experience that simulates another man giving you, the player, an intense blowjob. Many of you may remember in the 90’s when rumble vests hit the market. These vests would basically just vibrate in the same way that controllers do today, but at the time, the vests were marketed as authentic accessories that could simulate every punch taken in Mortal Kombat and every cumshot to the chest taken in the hard to find N64 classic “Cumshot City: Wet and Wild”.

What I, Brian Rossi, would like to know is…when are we going to get a next-gen update that will finally allow me to live my true gaming fantasy of getting a sick, nasty BJ from another man? Do we really need another Halo or Madden game on the market when we don’t have a single homoerotic oral sex simulator? No. Let’s get it right people. You wanna fix the economy? Fix the housing/mortgage crisis in America? Do you want our soldiers out of Iraq? Call your local congressman and demand what all freedom-loving Americans want…a Wiiware download where you use your Wii remote as an anal or oral probe.
-Brian R.

saving sega

2009-12-10T00:13:00.007-06:00

Capcom announced Mega Man 10 today for WiiWare which is pretty awesome. I'm a pretty big Mega Man fan, so it's always nice to see more of a classic. The game will have the old-school 8-bit look, which I still commend Capcom for doing with Mega Man 9. Updating the classic gameplay for newer generations has given us some good and some not so good Mega Man titles, but how many times have you ever seen a developer actually go back to what made the original titles so good in the first place?

Sega, out of any publisher or developer, has had one of the biggest falls from grace in video game history. And while their hardware decisions in the mid and late 90's had the biggest impact on the company, Sega has fucked up even bigger with some of their biggest money-making franchises. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is Sonic and the fact that there hasn't been a great classic Sonic game in over 10 years. Somehow Sega makes money off of the mediocre and shitty Sonic games they put out and continue to drag this legendary gaming icon through the mud. The closest attempts at classic Sonic gameplay recently seemed to be the Sonic Rush series, and even those took too many steps away from the original formula. But what if Sega just went all out and made a Sonic the Hedgehog 5? All sprites, all midi. It would cost them nothing and they could release it digitally at $14.99 and make a killing.

What about Golden Axe? The first 3 were classics (I was lucky enough to play the 3rd as a kid through the Sega Channel), but I remember for the Saturn title, Sega decided to make a fighter. It could have been cool, but it kinda sucked. And then after a 10 year hiatus, Sega put out Golden Axe Beast Rider as if to say "Hey, remember those really awesome Golden Axe games you used to play? Well this game is a bomb that will destroy every good memory you ever had about the series...fuck you." Why doesn't Sega just made Golden Axe 4 and give us a proper beat-em up. Or better yet, Streets of Rage 4!

Anyone remember Sega's laughable almost-attempt at a new Vectorman title?You can see why this piece of shit got cancelled...at least they came to their sense with this one. They still managed to fuck up classic franchises like Shining Force with bland titles that had nothing to do with the original games for the Genesis and Saturn.

The point I'm trying to make is that Sega needs to stop trying to find shitty new ways to ruin classic games and just go back and pretend it's still the early 90's. When Golden Axe Beast Rider was announced, nobody got excited. Nobody cared. All you had to do was look at the game and see that it wasn't Golden Axe. If Sega wants real Sonic fans to get excited about the next Sonic game, maybe he shouldn't look like fucking Taz. This could easily become a two-part blog, but I'm going to stop myself now before I start thinking about all of the ways that Sega has let me down.

-Brian T

Glitching is for Pussies

2009-12-06T14:24:00.003-06:00

It has been a couple of weeks since I have written my last blog entry. Main reason being I am getting fucked in my ass at work, which has left me little time to do so, and the little time that I do have I would rather be playing video games then writing about them. I am sure you all can understand that. The only game that I have been playing since November 10 is the new Call of Duty, and I am sure the same goes for most. It is an awesome game all around. The campaign is good, most of the special-ops are fun, and without a doubt the online play is amazing. But like any game it isn’t perfect and it mainly isn’t the games fault itself.

The fault comes from the douche bags online that can’t just play the game the way it is meant to be played. What am I talking about? Let’s start with the huge increase in the amount of faggots running around with grenade launchers now. I guess since they can’t rack up kills with the martyrdom perk, they need to just run around blowing everybody up. Then there are the douche bags that do nothing but run around with the double shotgun setup and do nothing but try and stab you. Why would you want to do nothing but run around and stab people? How could that be any fun? If anything it is just fucking annoying. It goes against the entire concept of the game. You remove any skill or challenge that you would face if you just played the game the way it was meant to be played. And last but not least the gayest of them all are the idiots who run around using the javelin glitch. Their goal is to run and try and stab you, and if you kill them while the glitch is in affect it automatically sets off the javelin. The other thing they try and do is find your spawn point so they can run in and kill themselves along with 3 or 4 of your teammates. What the fuck is this. This is all bullshit. Play the fucking game right and stop being such pussies. I cannot stand people who fucking cheat. Grow some balls and play the game fairly. Your numbers don't mean shit and the win is worthless if you have to cheat to get it. And just in case you don't know what I am talking about here is a video of the javelin glitch.

So can all of this be overcome? Of course it can. If you are good and can play the game right, then these pussies don’t stand a chance. Let them continue what they are doing because other then pissing me off, once the game is over I still come out on top, even with their bullshit tactics. I can only imagine what kind of shitty numbers they would put up if they weren’t doing this.

I am curious to know what you all think about people you meet online. Also I am curious to know what you think about the maps on Modern Warfare 2 because if you ask me I think they are just mediocre. Comment back and let me know.

FYI for everyone. If you are like me and sick of these cheating bastards, report to Microsoft that they are using the javelin glitch and they will get their xbox live accounts banned.

-Brian R.

More SSFIV

2009-11-29T12:09:00.004-06:00

So...Black Friday. What a disappointment. I only made 2 game-related purchases, but I did manage to snag Samurai Showdown Anthology (PS2) for $20 which is sweet because it's out of print and usually sells for around $50 on eBay. It would've been nice to pick up New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii, but I guess I'll just have to wait on it.

Anyway, some new Super Street Fighter 4 info was released last week, and I can't help but comment. The addition of Cody, Guy, and Adon got me all pumped up a few days ago, and then this image...If you click on the image, you can clearly see Guy blocking a thrown kunai, which are the little daggers that Ibuki uses in Street Fighter III! This confirms that the final character announcement will include 1 more new character and more than likely 2 Street Fighter III characters. As a big fan of SFIII, I'm glad to see that Capcom is actually listening to their fans. Ibuki, Makoto, and Dudley are the 3 fan favorites, so in addition to Ibuki, I assume we'll be seeing at least 1 of the other 2.

I'm already thinking ahead with this game and I wonder...will we see a third version of Street Fighter 4 hit stores? We got 5 versions of Street Figher II, 3 versions of Alpha (4 if you count Gold), and 3 versions of Street Fighter III. They could potentially add every character they missed in Alpha and III, plus new ones. The current character total is 31, with 3 more left to be confirmed. Can you imagine if they added even more? Capcom could easily give us a 40-42 character game with a 3rd installment. But will people care?

I would love to see every Street Fighter character ever added to SF4...but then again I would also love a new Darkstalkers game. Or a new Final Fight game. Or a new Capcom Vs. game. Or a new Powerstone game. Or Rival Schools. Or hell, let's get a completely new fighting franchise going! I guess all we can really do is buy Super Street Fighter 4 to show Capcom that people are serious about fighting games still. The success of SSFIIHDR, SF4, and MVC2 should be plenty of proof, but it seems as though Capcom needs a bit more reassurance.

-Brian

lazy dudes

2009-11-25T13:25:00.004-06:00

Thanksgiving week has always been hard on me as a gamer. All the commitments with the family/girlfriend/new in-laws tend to get in the way of being able to sit down and enjoy a game for 2 seconds. Add to that an insane work situation, and it's understandable that I haven't been able to really play anything the last few days. Luckily, I've got Black Friday to (kind of) look forward to.

For those of you who don't know, Cheap Ass Gamer is the place to go to find the best video game deals online or in-store. It's a wonderful place, check it out. They've got a huge article on the front page highlighting all of this years' game-related deals. Hell, I was I was looking up deals just now, I got distracted by Gamestop's Buy 2 get 1 free deal and am very tempted to get a bunch of super cheap games I've always wanted to play on the PS2. I saw NeoGeo Battle Coliseum and it was all downhill from there...

Anyway, I'm hoping to snag some sweet deals this Friday. And hell, if Amazon has Black Friday deals as good as last year's I won't even have to leave my house. Good luck to all of you out there Friday morning...be safe and don't be an asshole. Enjoy your Thanksgivings blah blah blah...

-Brian T.

holy shit

2009-11-19T12:30:00.003-06:00

I got my first arcade cabinet last night. I was walking to work and saw that someone had left it out by the curb for garbage! I freaked out and tried to find a way to pick it up or at least tell some friends about it who could pick it up for themselves. Unfortunately I had no luck and had to just keep walking my ass to work. 5 hours later when I'm coming back home, assuming I'd missed an awesome opportunity, I saw it from a couple blocks away. I sprinted toward it, made some calls, bought some casters, and slowly moved that thing down the block to my house.
So now I have an old arcade cabinet in my garage...and it looks awesome. The cabinet and wood are both in fairly good shape. It looks like it didn't take too much of a beating during it's time in an arcade in the 80's or 90's before it was taken home. When I plugged it in, some lights near the buttons lit up, but I got no sound or video. None of that matters though because I don't give a fuck about Asteroids.

I am going to mod the hell out of this thing! I don't know the first thing about anything electrical, so I'm not even going to try to restore it. Instead, I'd rather replace the tv screen and upgrade the control panel big time. I wanna completely repaint the cabinet as well. It's always been a dream of mine to get an arcade cab and find a way to make it play Street Fighter. I'm thinking I should just completely gut everything and start fresh. Ideally I would like to be able to have games run off of a console in the cabinet that I could switch out whenever I wanted. I think the most difficult and expensive part is going to be the control panel...it looks like a lot of work to replace it.

Basically I just wrote this to express how pumped I am to get this thing and how excited I am at the possibilities. When I actually start working on it, I'll post updates on the progress. In the mean time, if someone knows how to mod arcade cabinets or can point me in the direction of some helpful websites, that would be very much appreciated!

-Brian

"clever wii pun"

2009-11-18T13:05:00.004-06:00

Wow...so New Super Mario Bros. came out yesterday for the Wii and I didn't even know. Where the fuck have I been? How could such a major release of a new Mario game slip by completely under the radar? Hell, I love rail shooters and I've been pumped for Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles and I just found out that came out yesterday too. How am I missing these releases?

Well, to be honest with you, sometimes I forget I own a Wii. Games that I wanted more than anything to be good (Muramusa) ended up being huge disappointments at a time when I felt it was crucial for the Wii to get some must-have titles. I really enjoyed Madworld, but I played it for 3 or 4 hours at a friend's house and pretty much felt like I'd already beaten it. I'm pretty sure Sam and Max was the last new Wii game I bought until last week when I was able to snag House of the Dead Overkill for $12 new. Thanks to Cheapassgamer.com for that find. Are World of Goo and Little King's Story the only crucial games that came out since then?

We all know that Nintendo, as well as 95% of developers, dropped the ball with the Wii. Brian and I were discussing the Wii yesterday about how it was a cautious experiment by Nintendo to try something new that worked and got really big. The fact that Nintendo was basically able to nearly double the longevity of the last gen consoles (PS2, XBOX, GC) is a testament to that. No matter how you look at it, the Wii is a last gen system that decimated the 360 and PS3 in sales for 2 years. That is still impressive to me. Brian is convinced that Nintendo's next console could very well be the definitive home gaming console upon it's release and that Nintendo will once and for all take the video game crown. We'll see...but in the mean time I've got that damn system in my room thirsty for a few more gems before it's replaced.

There's still plenty of time and plenty of potential must-have releases planned for the Wii. New Metroid, Mario, and Zelda titles will ensure we get another 2 years out of the system before we get to see what Nintendo has in store for us next. What else is there though? Any RPGs on the horizon? Comment back and let me know! Help me catch up and get the most out of this thing...after all, I fucking waited in line in the cold on launch day for it. Also, get ready for a review later this week on my most hated Wii game...No More Heroes.

-Brian T.

Final Fantasy XIII 03-09-2010....Hopefully

2009-11-16T22:03:00.009-06:00

March 9, 2010. That is the newly announced release date for the long overdue, highly anticipated Final Fantasy XIII. I don’t know about you but I am fucking psyched; especially since it comes out 4 days before my birthday, which will basically guarantee me to get it on its release date. I don’t know where to begin with this game. As of right now I don’t know much except for bits and pieces here and there, but what I have seen gives me the chills.

Probably the best thing to do is let you see firsthand how amazing this game looks. If you watch this video just be sure to pay attention to the minute details that were put into this game such as the stubble on the guys face in the beginning of the video.

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIII | TGS 09: Official US Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Visually this game looks flawless. I don’t know about you but at times I felt like I was watching a movie. Seeing the cut scenes, the care to detail, and the perfection of the backgrounds gives reason to the amount of delays and push backed release dates that we have seen. Thinking about it though, it isn’t a big surprise considering the shoes that needed to be filled with the first release of a true Final Fantasy game on Next Gen Consoles. This game needs to be epic, it needs to show that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series goes above and beyond gaming and has the ability to make the gamer feel like he is living that story. There is so much in developing a game of that magnitude. You need the music, the story itself, the visual experience, the gameplay, and the characters themselves to make you feel like you need to play this game, because if you didn’t it would almost be like you are missing out on a piece of history.

As you can obviously tell the Final Fantasy franchise is one of my all time favorites. I can still remember beating the first one on my NES or the first time I summoned the Nights of the Roundtable in the FF VII, and hopefully with this one I will have memories. I am sure a lot of people are second guessing the release date of this game. It isn’t surprising considering that it has been in development forever. But do you really think Square Enix would take the time to write a script and hire some tool to read it if it were not true. I don’t think so, and that is why I really think this is the actual release date this time. I could be wrong but we will see. In the meantime here is the video that was released to announce the release date. Let me know if you think this is true regarding the date for this game.

More Final Fantasy XIII Info

Merkin Bitches

2009-11-16T15:43:00.005-06:00

Up until a couple of years ago, I hated first person shooters. I thought they were relatively boring and repetitive. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy Doom and Wolfenstein 3D on my PC, but I went from those to Halo; but to me Halo sucks and there is no convincing me otherwise. It wasn’t until the first Modern Warfare came out that I really go into FPS’s; and not only did it get me in to FPS’s, it also got me heavy in to online gameplay. Because up until this point my main focus of playing a game relied more on the single-player more than anything, where now I feel it is more balanced between single and multi-player.

So after a couple of months of hearing people say how awesome it was, I finally gave it a shot. At first I was fucking horrible at it. I mean I was complete shit. I continued playing though getting better every day, and I can thank online play for this. I know if I would have only played the campaign I think my feelings would have stayed the same about my hate for shooters. From there I moved on to World at War, and by this time I was just walking all over people. I was killing mother fuckers, sicking dogs on their asses, and just downright making people look like bitches. Between Modern Warfare and World at War I spent countless hours running around merking people for the fun of it. But that was then and this is now, and as of last week we were finally able to move on to the next Call of Duty installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Let me just start by saying that Infinity Ward took an already awesome fucking game, and made it fucking more awesome. I have already put in almost 20 hours of gameplay in to this game and I haven’t even owned it for a week. It is fucking intense and I have loved every minute of it so far. The campaign mode is fun to play but it does seem a little short. If I had to compare the two Modern Warfare’s, I would have to say the first is better, but on the other hand though the online play, which was amazing on the first Modern Warfare, is even better on MW2. The maps, the quality of gameplay, and the graphics make this game stand out above all of the rest. The addition of death streaks, new perks, no more martyrdom and juggernaut perks, and the customizable kill streaks help to make the improvements over the first Modern Warfare. But why should I continue to review a game that I am sure most have played already? I’m not, but I just wanted to touch on those few features that helped me enjoy this game that much more. Either way if you have not had the chance to play COD MW2 then let me say that you are missing out. I would highly recommend any of the 4.25 million people who haven’t bought this game yet, to go out and buy it because if you love online gaming or killing people then this game is right up your alley.

This past week I have already seen the announcements for Call of Duty 7. Activision is obviously following suit by having Treyarch develop this title. No details have been released but I think it would be safe to assume that we will be looking at another WWII shooter. What I am anxious to see is what changes we saw in MW2 get carried over to the next installment. I don’t know about you all but I would like to see a Call of Duty set in the Vietnam era. I know it wouldn’t have a happy ending, but it sure would be fun trekking through the jungle killing Vietcong. I am sure everyone has their own opinion on MW2, but is there anyone out there who didn’t like this game. Let us know with some comments. One last note, if any of you think that you can show me up in MW2 I would love to see, because I know I can hand you your ass. Look for brofilone13 on Xbox Live.

punch, punch, punch, GIANT PUNCH

2009-11-12T13:34:00.007-06:00

Where the hell are all the beat em ups? I'm talking old-school, arcade style, multiplayer beat em ups. Just you and a friend or two roaming around beating the shit out of anything that moved, picking up weapons, and eating random food you find in broken objects. Streets of Rage, River City Ransom, Golden Axe, Battletoads, Final Fight, etc...the list goes on. We all know the big classics. Lately through classics collections, I've been able to play quite a bit of these games and learn about new ones. You owe it to yourself to grab Capcom Classics Collection vol 2 just to play Knights of the Round...you won't be disappointed.

It's easy to remember the big ones from the 90's, but what have we seen recently? We're not even getting remakes of the classics and I can't remember the last 3d beat-em up that came out. What made the transition from 2D to 3D so difficult? I've played very few 3D games that have gotten it right. The Warriors (PS2/XBOX/PSP) is very possibly the best one that I've ever played. Even if you're not a gigantic fan of The Warriors like me, you'll still enjoy the hell out of this overlooked Rockstar gem from a few years back. I also thought that Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks (PS2/XBOX) did a fantastic job at capturing the old feel of playing through one of these games with a friend. But what else has there been in recent years?

Why has the transition to 3D been so difficult for this genre? I recall The Bouncer being my first major disappoint when it was released after it had been hyped up to revive that dead scene. For some reason that game holds a special place in my heart, but I will admit that, yes, it sucks. Remember the transition into 3D for Final Fight? Probably not. Hell, don't even look it up...you'll be embarrassed how such a classic franchise could turn out such an awful game. You don't even have to play any of the newer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games to know that they suck, but unfortunately I have and even the HD Remix of Turtles in Time is weak as fuck. Are games like Dynasty Warriors really the closest thing we have these days?

I'm holding a copy of Streets of Rage in my hand trying to figure out 5 old-school styled beat em ups that I've played in the past few years that I actually liked. Please somebody, it's really not that hard. I just wanna hang out with a friend and beat up some thugs. Until some developer can figure out a way to make that fun on my PS3 or 360, I guess I'll just have to stick with the classics. I really hope that Capcom JP will give us a new Final Fight done properly now that Street Fighter has become so popular again...

-Brian T

Apples to Oranges

2009-11-10T15:07:00.009-06:00

For about the last 6 months now I have wanted a PSP. My original reason for wanting it was I figured my only real expense was the initial start up costs of the system, a Pandora battery, and a memory stick. At the time I was looking at spending only about $100 total for all 3 things. I figured since I paid almost nothing for it I could take the risk of cracking the system and download my games for free. If I fuck it up it isn’t really a big deal to waste another $40 and get a new PSP 2000. But since my hookup got fucking shit canned at Gamestop, I am now looking at paying about $120 - $150 for a PSP 2000 system alone. So what do I do now?

Well since I am paying full price for the system I have to take a few things into consideration. Do I want a 2000 or a 3000? Both are one in the same with a few minor differences. One thing I do know is I don’t want a PSP Go because it just looks fucking gay and it has a smaller screen plus you lose the UMD slot. Also with the system sliding open, I can see it being more prone to break. The 2000 has the Darth Vader special edition PSP, which I can get for $120 used at Gamestop. But the 3000 has the Gran Turismo limited edition bundle right now for $199.00, which comes with the system, Gran Turismo, and a 2 GB Memory Stick. To me this seems like a decent starter package at a good price. Plus I would also be getting the system brand new instead of used, yet another plus. I guess the deciding factor would have to be whether or not I want to crack the system.

After long hard consideration of this I have decided that cracking the system isn’t worth it. Here is why:
• I eventually will end up with too many games, so many that I do not know what to do with
• With a huge library of games I can never focus on one from start to finish
• I can emulate on my computer and DS; so do I need to emulate on the PSP
• I will have to use outdated firmware
• Games are affordable because I would be happy with buying older games since I do not intend on using my PSP for other than playing single player games (not too worried about online play)
• I would not be allowed to play downloaded games from the PSN store without an extreme amount of work to do so if the system were cracked
• PSN’s store has an amazing library of download content for the PSP that I do not want to miss out on. Plus it is cheap.

Considering all of this I am going to go legit on the PSP. Now it is just a matter of which system. And to be fucking honest I really don’t care. They are both quality products. The only real difference is that the 3000 has some better hardware and technical features over the 2000, for example the display.

I would like the 3000 but I wouldn’t complain if I got the 2000. I would really like to know everyone else’s opinion on which system I should get, and why. Comment back with what I should do.

-Brian R.

samurai showdown...rpg?

2009-11-06T10:39:00.005-06:00

I remember sometime in 1997 I had the option to get either a used Playstation or a used Saturn from Funcoland. My best friend had a Playstation with Crash Bandicoot, Twisted Metal 2, and Resident Evil and my brother and I loved hanging out with him because we'd always get to play some amazing games. We were really tempted to go the Playstation route. Instead, we looked back at the countless hours we spent with our Genesis and the Sega Channel (you can count on a whole blog dedicated to that amazing service next week), and decided to get a Saturn.

Within a couple months, I could already feel that the Saturn was on it's way out. The game magazines announced fewer and fewer new titles every month and the wall space at all the game stores was dwindling. In a sort of quest for some new games I ended up deciding to start importing Saturn games. And that's when I found it...Samurai Showdown RPG, or Samurai Spirits Bushido Retsuden. Clicking that link will bring you to a page of screenshots which you must look at.

It was probably about 10 years ago when I stumbled across this game on a hunt for a Samurai Showdown game. My 13 year old brain could not believe what I was seeing. At this point in my life, I was officially a gamer and I mostly played RPGs and fighting games. So for me to see a Samurai Showdown RPG was basically like the first time you ever jerked off...it was awesome. The battle system looked incredible. Instead of pressing "attack" repeatedly to grind through battles, you actually have to input special move motions like in the actual Samurai Showdown fighters. My mind was blown.

Unfortunately, I knew no Japanese and to this day refuse to sit with a translation guide to play an RPG that isn't in English. There was no way I could truly enjoy what people online were describing as an amazing mix of Final Fantasy and Samurai Showdown. I had no choice but to forget about it...until now. A decade later, I think I may actually be able to play this game. All I need is about $200 for a Neo Geo CD and a copy of this game. Some awesome dude is doing a full translation for this game that can be played on the Neo Geo CD. Check this video out and try to tell me this doesn't look cool as hell.

-Brian T.

Nobody Likes Sloppy Seconds

2009-11-06T01:01:00.005-06:00

I wonder if writing a review for a demo is even appropriate but I just find it awfully convenient that the demo happened to be released a few short days after the reviews of the original Left 4 Dead. Like I had said before L4D has solid gameplay. Unfortunately I think that was the problem with the development of the original L4d; they focused too much on the engine and gameplay and focused way too little on content. I had hoped that with L4D2 they would have realized their shortcomings with the original and would take a potentially good game that just fell short, and improve on it. I think it would be easy because the workings were there, but they just needed to add a little TLC.

I was getting excited as the anticipation to play the demo grew as it was downloading. I feel you should all know that there I really want to like this game, there are just certain factors of the game itself that hold me back. So the demo starts and the opening clip gets me even more excited, but then for me it all goes to shit. It starts flashing all of the things to expect with L4D2. NEW CHARACTERS, 5 NEW CAMPAIGNS, and NEW GAMEPLAY MODES; wow I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a game of the year edition of the original Left 4 Dead with the extra download content all in one. But wait there was none of that fucking promised download content. Why, because it was turned in to a new Left for Dead. Then the disappointment starts to brew. So I begin the demo and instantly I feel that I am playing the original game again. No zoom on weapons, same run and gun, and same bullshit. Where’s the new guns, the new style of gameplay, where was anything new. Eventually I came across an assault rifle, which I couldn’t zoom with surprisingly, unless if maybe I was just pushing the right stick in wrong. They added melee weapons, which were fucking useless when being attacked by a horde of zombies but once you pick up a melee weapon, you lose your pistol. That was just fucking gay and stupid. So really what is new? They couldn’t have just made some map packs available and offer a download for a gun pack.

I know I know that this is just a fucking demo. But if I were Valve I think that since I already have a critically acclaimed game, I would not need to offer a demo to show off what can be found in the original. You would think that they would want to give a sneak peak at what is to come. Maybe not put all their fucking cards on the table, but just enough to get people whet. That is why I think they really do not have much to offer, or I could be completely wrong and the full release of the game will make me eat my words. Either way I am still going to give the full game a try because part of me still wants to like this game. I am curious to know what everyone else thinks of the demo so far, or hear any opinions that you might have in regards to Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2, which is set to release on November 17.

-Brian R.

first blood

2009-11-03T13:01:00.005-06:00

Alright people, I've got some random game-related thoughts. I'm having trouble thinking of a blog because I can't seem to focus on one particular topic right now. I just got the new Game Informer in the mail and I'm inclined to write about the random shit I'm reading about. First of all, the new layout fucking sucks. I hate it. It reminds me so much of a 90's game magazine, but not in a nostalgic way - in an outdated way. For example, the reviews sections reminds me of if you stuffed EGM and Gamepro's review sections in a blender and pressed LAME. I'm not a fan. But whatever...I'll get used to it and I'm sure I'll be fine with it in no time.

I keep getting more and more pumped on Heavy Rain. I enjoyed the hell out of most of Indigo Prophecy and have a lot of faith in Quantic Dream. It would seem that Sony has quite a bit of stake in this title and the long devolpment time leads me to believe that there will be a lot riding on it. I'm sure Sony is doing everything in their power to ensure that Quantic Dream are able to make the game they are promising us with these trailers. I really hope that this game doesn't do what Indigo Prophecy did and ruin an amazing story and fantastic character development by becoming completely retarded when you hit around the 80% mark in the game. It really seemed like Indigo Prophecy was rushed toward the end and it just completely fell apart. Hopefully with Sony's money backing this, this team can create a mind-blowingly unique gaming and storytelling experience with Heavy Rain. I've got my fingers crossed.

All of the Metal Gear content on the PSP is really making me wish I had one. After all, it was in fact MGS 4 that pushed me over the edge to finally get a PS3. Speaking of the PSP, what is with all the awesome PSP shit in the Playstation Store? I was browsing through the PSP demos and decided to take a look at all of the content available for Sony's underrated/overrated handheld. The awesome Capcom support alone blows my mind. Powerstone 1 and 2. Darkstalkers. Street Fighter. Mega Man. Capcom Classics Collections. That's just off the top of my head. I really, really, really (emphasis on really) like the idea of being able to own a portable gaming system where I never have to step foot into a store and I can still get awesome games and demos on a constant basis. From my house. In my room. In my bed. I definitely need to get a PSP this holiday season...maybe I'll get lucky and snag a Black Friday deal.

Holy Shit. Black Friday is 3 and a half weeks away. Hopefully all of the ads start to leak this week and I can start planning my holiday game shopping accordingly. I went shopping early on Black Friday for the first time last year and saved so much money getting stuff for other people that I was able to guiltlessly snag some awesome video game deals for myself as well.

Anyway, the last random thing that's on my mind is...when the fuck are we going to get a new Rambo game stateside? After the success of last year's Rambo, and the official announcement of Rambo V, now is the perfect time. I'd love to see a first-person shooter where you get to play as Rambo very much in the style of Call of Duty. I'd also love to see a 3rd person shooter ala Gears of War. Imagine Rambo getting the Gears of War treatment by Epic...awesome. Hell, even if it was like MGS3: Snake Eater, that would be sweet. What kind of a Rambo game would you like to see? Comment or tweet back.

-Brian T

Nobody Likes to be Ass Fucked

2009-10-31T01:02:00.006-05:00

So I was just going to let Brian have the Left 4 Dead blog but with it being Halloween and all, and with my hate being so great for this game, I cannot resist. The problem is where do I start; and do I even fucking waste the time giving credit where credit is due?

I suppose I will start with the good, what little bit there is. Left 4 Dead has solid gameplay and controls. There you go, that is it.

What, were you expecting more? Like what about how the zombies constantly generate in a new place every time. Are you fucking kidding me? Is it mentally fucking possible to even remember where each zombie would generate from considering the mass amount that flock you at any given moment. Come on we are not playing Mario Brothers on the NES anymore. We have advanced enough to make sure that there is enough content in a game anymore to make it almost impossible to remember where enemies come from, regardless if it is random or not. Right or wrong, and that alone is not the only shit that was weak as hell in the game though.

Next we have the major lack of weaponry and the similarity and repetitiveness of every goddamn level. Does anyone remember in Clerks 2 when Randal described the story of the Lord of the Rings in about 1 minute? Well I will do the same but in about 10 seconds. Here we go. We start at the beginning, fill our ammo and fight for a health pack if we are playing co-op, regardless if you are out of health and almost dead, start running and shooting, and finally get to the last door, hopefully before some asshole closes it on you, and then repeat again. Fun right? Then there are the weapons. Talk about a huge let down, only 4 weapons and some grenades. Fuck the fact that the weapons are upgradeable; a fucking Uzi is a fucking Uzi. And really we should say that there are only 3 guns because who really tries to use the sniper rifle when you are being gang raped by a hundred zombies. Because of that this is how Left 4 Dead made me feel, gang raped for $60 worth of bullshit.

But we were all taught that we should learn from our mistakes. Hopefully Valve got this same life lesson at one point in time. In less than 3 weeks Left 4 Dead 2 will hit the shelves. Will I buy it though? No, but I am definitely going to rent it. I believe that everyone should get a second chance. Like I said the gameplay and controls were real good. If they add more weapons and change up the levels a little, then I think that Valve will have a real solid game on their hands. Lastly I didn’t think I should bring this up but should I mention that fact that Left 4 Dead 2 is probably nothing more than promised DLC for the original Left 4 Dead. Who else feels like this is a gang rapping? Let me know by commenting back.

-Brian R.

"Good...bad...I'm the guy with the gun"

2009-10-30T11:53:00.006-05:00

If you haven't watched Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness, you need to immediately get up, go rent/buy them, and watch them consecutively...then you can join the rest of us super rad people here. Trust me, you'll thank me. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Evil Dead trilogy is a series of 3 films written and directed by Sam Raimi that star cult classic Bruce Campbell. Unfortunately, this is a video game blog so I'm not going to go into detail explaining how incredible the movies are, but what I will go into detail about is the first Evil Dead game for Playstation, Evil Dead: Hail to the King.

First of all, take a look at the packaging, pictured above. You don't have to know shit about Evil Dead, you don't have to know who the hell Ashley J Williams is, you don't need to know the first thing about Deadites, Boomsticks, cabins, or time travel. All you need to see is Ash on the cover of the game, covered in blood, holding a chainsaw over his head and you know this game is going to be super duper badass. Well, hopefully. At this point we can only assume it's going to be awesome. Upon starting up the game you'll notice that Bruce Campbell lends his voice to create a very convincing Ash. The game takes place after Army of Darkness so Ash is already a seasoned Deadite killing machine at this point and has plenty of sweet one-liners to top it off. In fact, pressing triangle actually just makes Ash say a one-liner at any time. Definitely a nice touch.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning. You have to watch a little movie explaining the premise blah blah blah. When you get to take control of Ash the very first thing you're going to notice is...well, the control setup. I should probably mention right now that this game is a major Resident Evil clone. It's pretty shameless sometimes. The controls are the same so you have to rotate Ash and press up to move forward. The game also uses prerendered backgrounds, limited inventory, item boxes, and an identical save system to Resident Evil. And I'm not saying this as a bad thing; I love Resident Evil. Obviously the backgrounds still look pretty good by today's standards because they're prerendered, but any 3d model looks exactly how you'd expect it to look for a game that's just about a decade old.

So you start off in the original cabin which looks amazing, and you have a chainsaw and an axe. So far everything I've said sounds pretty cool...but then I actually played the game...and unfortunately it kinda sucks. As much as I want to love it, it's not very good. The nostalgia will wear off quickly as you become unbelievably frustrated by the awful fighting mechanics and constant onslaught of enemies. Everything awesome about this game is offset by how annoying it is to fight. As soon as you start to explore the cabin, some sort of flying demon appears that can swipe at you from pretty far as well as spit across a room. Unfortunately the fixed camera and sub par control response made my first attempt at this game a complete failure. I could not get a bearing on where the stupid demon was so I could attack it. So I basically ran in circles wildly and died within 45 seconds. I restarted and ran into a smaller room where I could plainly see where everything was and proceeded to button mash square to chop the stupid fucking thing nearly 20 times before it died. SHITTY.

And that's just one enemy. If you can force yourself to keep going, probably for the sheer fact that Bruce Campbell does an awesome job with the voice acting, then you'll eventually be swarmed by enemies that you can only attack one at a time. You have a goddamned chainsaw for a hand...that's fucking awesome. Unfortunately it's pointless using it when up against more than one enemy because you're completely vulnerable when you do. There are other little things to nitpick about, but again, any problem you have with the fundamental mechanics of the first 3 Resident Evil games is going to transfer over. Don't like the inventory system or the save system from RE? Then you won't like the inventory or save system in Evil Dead either. Either way, nothing can top how awful the fighting is, so really nothing else even matters.

The bottom line is, if you love Evil Dead, you should own this game just because. You can find it pretty easily on eBay or in stores that sell used Playstation games. The Dreamcast version seems slightly harder to come by, but most DC stuff is these days it seems. If you're not familiar with Evil Dead, then you probably don't need to waste your time. It's not the worst game I've ever played, but it's not good either. Believe it or not though, I still like it a lot more than either of the Evil Dead games on PS2 or XBOX.

-Brian T

Look at me, I'm in a Nutshell

2009-10-27T12:02:00.005-05:00

I still remember my first real experience with video games. I was about 4 or 5 years old and my grandma’s neighbor got a Nintendo. I can picture in my head the awe that everyone had once it was set up with Mario Brothers playing on the screen. Unfortunately I only got one crack at it and I died trying to jump on the first goomba.

I will be brief with the earlier systems because I did not have much as far as a library is concerned due to the fact that I was fucking hindered by being a kid and only got games on special occasions… i.e. holidays and birthdays. I owned all of these consoles in this order: Atari 2600 (thanks to my dad), NES, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Game Gear, Playstation, and Xbox. I got my PSX in high school and let me say that video games were becoming less and less important in my life at that time. I stilled played them, but they fell second to friends and partying and I was usually partying while playing them. I got an Xbox when it came out, but I was really, really heavy into the partying. I sold it and then about a year later got a second one only to sell it in a month. So to be honest I would really say that my gaming career went on hold in the PSX era if you can even call it one. The time period between PSX and Xbox 360 is kind of foggy for me and it was no one’s damn fault but my own. And trust me I know that I missed out on a lot of good shit that was associated with the PS2 and original Xbox; but I have time and am slowly going back and making up for shit missed.

In my time I have come across some bad ass games that I will always remember. Mario, Sonic, Excitebike, Zelda, Tony Hawk Series, The Secret of Monkey Island, Dragon Warrior, FFVII, Destruction Derby 2, Skitchin’, Sewer Shark, Street Fighter II’ Special Champion Edition, Mortal Kombat 2, Eternal Champions, and RC Pro-Am are just to name a few. So don’t get discouraged and say you can’t trust my judgment based on my history, which might not be as extensive as the next persons. That doesn’t change the fact that I know what’s good and what sucks. Besides, just because I didn’t play them when they came out doesn’t mean that I don’t sit at work and play them on emulators for my computer. You gotta love free shit.

By now I am sure you are wondering what I do have to work with and talk about. Well as far as consoles go I have an Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, and a Nintendo DS Lite. I am in the works of getting a PSP 2000. Why a PSP 2000? Because the PSP Go is a fucking piece of shit joke. Who only wants to download games? No resale value, what if you hate it you are stuck with it, and it makes it harder to pirate games (jk). Emulators that I have are NES, Super NES, N64, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color, PSX, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Neo Geo, and Turbografx 16. Some of these are on my computer and I have some for my DS too. I have every NES rom, SNES rom, N64 rom, Gameboy and Gameboy Color rom, Gameboy Advance rom, about 200 DS games (.nds files), every Genesis, Sega Cd, and Game Gear rom, about 35 Dreamcast games (.iso files), every Neo Geo rom, and I am working on building my collection of PSX, PS2, and PSP games (.iso files). So as you can see, I do not fuck around when it comes to video games. Slowly I am working my way to filling up by 2 TB external HDD with rom’s and iso’s.

My goal is to fucking own it all. But most of all I still want a Neo Geo, a Turbografx 16, an Atari Jaguar, a Sega Genesis, Sega CD, and a 32x. Basically I am working at attaining everything that I wanted or had as a kid but don’t have now. Someday I will have them but in the meantime I obviously have more than enough to fucking go around. Can you beat this or even match it? I would like to know. Plus I am always interested in new and improved emulators, so let me know where to get them and how well they work.

-Brian R.

Zombies Ate my Neighbors

2009-10-27T11:42:00.010-05:00

I was 8 years old when my Dad showed me Night of the Living Dead. I had never experienced actual fear until that point in my life. When I went to go to sleep that night all I could think about was what I would do if there was a zombie outbreak. Since then I have fallen in love with most things zombie related. A lot of people have. And because of this, zombies are popping up all over the place. And people are eating up all the bullshit. Anything with a zombie on it is automatic gold these days it seems. Though not as trendy and topical as vampires, the general consensus is that zombies are "in" right now. And leading the zombie army on the video game front is the wildly popular Left 4 Dead and soon to be released sequel.

If you think I'm about to suck this game's dick and sing it's praises, you're wrong. I honestly don't see what the big deal is. I will say up front that I have only had about a half hour with the PC version. I'd been super excited to check it out for months and when I finally got the opportunity, I was completely underwhelmed. It was just an FPS. The zombies were intense, but there was nothing truly scary. It was fast and...uh...there were a lot of zombies onscreen at once. But no matter what, I always felt like I was constantly just spinning in circles firing blindly at the ridiculous masses of zombies.

There's nothing that makes Left 4 Dead feel like legit zombie survival experience. Throwing a ton of zombies at me isn't going to scare me any more than if I was being swarmed by a hundred of anything. If 100 chickens were running at me, I would be equally scared. Personally I think that the Nazi Zombie mode in Call of Duty: World at War is the best zombie survival game I have ever played. In Nazi Zombies you're holed up in some small area fighting off waves of zombies as you rebuild barriers over windows and try to upgrade your guns.. You're fighting for your survival in a place you can't escape from..kinda sounds like Night of the Living Dead actually. Or Dawn of the Dead. Or Day of the Dead. And that's the way it should feel. Left 4 Dead has you running and gunning through a lot of zombie infested cities...kind of like Land of the Dead. And you know what? Nobody likes Land of the Dead better than Night, Dawn, or Day.

Essentially Left 4 Dead and Nazi Zombies are doing the same thing. You have four maps to choose from. You can play with 3 other people online. You fight waves of zombies with various guns. Unfortunately I never felt like I was up against a zombie horde in Left 4 Dead. I felt like I was shooting a bunch of zombies trying to get to the end of a level. Little things make a difference as well. For example, Left 4 Dead technically has 8 weapons whereas, depending on the map, you'll have at least 15 weapons available in Nazi Zombies. Left 4 Dead gives you infinite ammo on your pistol and you can dual wield them as well. There's no infinite ammo in Nazi Zombies so you always feel that every shot counts. Nazi Zombies is basically a mini game and it's better than Left 4 Dead.

I can't be the only person who has figured this out. Anyone agree? Disagree? Are you planning on picking up Left 4 Dead 2? Comment or tweet us and let me know! Also check back later in the week because I'm gonna be playing the hell out of surprise halloween themed game for a special review!

-Brian T

War What is it Good For

2009-10-20T19:04:00.011-05:00

Up until Call of Duty 4 I was never much of a First Person Shooter kind of guy. With the exception of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom on PC, I hated FPS’s. Halo especially, which I still hate to this day. I played Bioshock when it first came out and didn’t like it. All because I had some hate towards FPS’s, I think I didn’t give some good games the play they deserved. And to be honest I think the hate stemmed from the fact that I fucking sucked at them. When Modern Warfare finally came out I decided to give them one more fare shake. Besides all of my friends were playing it and everybody kept saying how amazing of a game it was. So I bought it, got good at it, and now I fucking love shooters. And I’m pretty confident in saying I will fucking hand most people there asses in COD4 or COD 5. With that said maybe I should go back and revisit Bioshock now.

This last week I have been playing Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. This is a fucking cool ass game that I think should a got a little bit better of a rating across the board. Unfortunately I only had the opportunity to play the campaign mode because I was so stuck on that, I never got a chance to play any multiplayer online. Codemasters set out to create a game that simulated and presented the feeling of realistic all out war. With this installment of Operation Flashpoint, I think they have succeeded.

Bad Ass Shit:
• Open World Setting – Allows many options when confronted with challenges. Flanking enemies, going head on, or avoidance all together
• Real Reaction to Injury – Getting wounded in the leg makes you limp and you can’t run. If you are wounded in the arm you can’t steady your weapon as well
• Weapons – Very realistic. Switch from single shot, burst, or full auto. Grenade Launchers, RPG’s, mines, and various grenades. Gun firing ranges are realistic and hit detection is above average.
• Artillery and Missile Strikes – Fucking awesome. The look and devastation that is caused makes this an awesome addition to your arsenal when it is available.
• Vehicles – Flying a helicopter is like using a flight simulator
• Realistic Simulated War – This game can make you feel like you are really in combat

Shitty Shit:
• Sound Effects – Had the surround sound turned to “11” and still thought I should be feeling these explosions not just hearing them.
• View in Vehicles – Could only look forward when driving or flying. Thought you should be able to turn your head and look out the side windows.
• Button Layout – I don’t know if it could have been better or if I am just stuck on Call of Duty’s button layout.

Indifferent Shit:
• The Story – Sets up real well but once the game starts it is just mission after mission with no fillers. But realism is the goal and that is how it would be in real life.

I wish that I would have had more time with this game. Unfortunately Gamefly fucked me and didn’t send it out on the release date so I got stuck renting it. I could have almost bought it with the amount I ended up spending on late fees. But the real question is; is this game worth buying? For me I would have to say yes ...kind of. This game does kick ass. Even though I did not experience the multiplayer, from what I have read about it, the game there is some real potential there. Unfortunately the game is fucked by poor timing. If you’re like me with 2 kids, a wife, a full time job, and no money tree in the backyard, then you need to prioritize which games are a must. With Forza Motor Sport 3 coming out next week and Modern Warfare 2 coming out next month (both a must have for me), I would much rather wait until after Christmas when all the price drops start to happen. Maybe I’ll pick up a used copy then. That way I can fully enjoy the game in its entirety at my pace because this game is definitely fucking worth it. Has anyone else played it and agree/disagree? Comment back and let me know.

-Brian R.

give me all your 360 games

2009-10-20T15:05:00.006-05:00

So thanks to Brian, I now have an Xbox 360. Finally, I'd been putting off getting one for the longest time, but I finally knuckled down and shelled out the money for one. I spent all my money on the console so I don't even have any games. Brian let me borrow Assassin's Creed and Skate 2 to play until I can grab a few games of my own. Until then I'm living in 2007 playing Assassin's Creed for the first time. I won't waste anyone's time going into detail on my opinions of this game that most of you have already played, but I will say I'm liking it a lot thus far. Either way, the point of this particular blog entry is simply to express my joy. Of course now I'm posed with a very big question...what game do I buy first?

The first game I got for the Atari 2600 was Space Invaders. The first game I got for the NES was the classic SMB/Duck Hunt combo cartridge. My first Genesis game was Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition. My first Saturn game was Christmas Nights. DS, PS2, GBA, XBOX, DC, WII, PS3...I remember my first game for each new console. I want to make this first purchase count. I have a pretty decently-sized catalog of games to choose from and I think I've got it narrowed down to a few right off the top of my head. Keep in mind I'm trying to go with 360 exclusives.

-Dead Rising is probably at the top of my list right now (barely) for the simple fact that I fucking love zombies. This is definitely more intriguing to me than Left 4 Dead. Plus I gotta get acquainted with Frank West before TVC comes out next year...

-Mass Effect looks amazing. It looks so amazing that I actually know almost nothing about it. I remember people talking about how great it was when it came out and I remember all the positive reviews, but I didn't have a 360 so I didn't want to get myself all psyched on a game I couldn't play. But now I can play it and I bet it's cheap as hell.

-Gears of War...I have mixed feelings on. I've never been blown away by this game because I've never felt comfortable playing it. But it's cheap and I'm willing to give it a serious try.

-Blue Dragon got me super pumped a while back when I first started reading about it and then after it came out it was buried in a sea of mediocre reviews. But you know what? I've played plenty of RPGs that were supposedly mediocre, but I loved nonetheless. Legend of Dragoon (PS) is a perfect example.

Do I go with one of those 4? Viva Pinata? Crackdown? Lost Odyssey? What have I been missing out on? If you had $20 - $30 to spend on a 360 game, what would you get? I'm trying to stick with games I can only experience on the 360, but I know some multiplatform games are better on the 360. I'm actually looking for some reader feedback on this. Everyone and anyone with an opinion on the matter should let me know, preferably by the end of the week. Friday is payday and I haven't bought a game for a couple of weeks...

-Brian T.

and suddenly our blog name makes sense...

2009-10-13T17:29:00.007-05:00

Hi, I'm Brian Tasch. I'm a Steet Fighter fanboy. I have Ryu tattooed on my arm. I own just about every Street Fighter game released in the US, as well as a few imports. I will buy anything SF related...comics, clothes, manga, posters, action figures, anime, controllers, and yes, the 1998 JCVD Street Fighter movie. I love Street Fighter more than a person should love a game. If the disc for SF4 had a bigger hole in the middle, I would probably try to fuck it. So I'm sure you can imagine my excitement at the official announcement of Super Street Fighter 4.

First off, let me say that anybody who didn't expect Capcom to release another version of SF4 is a fool. Either that or they've never played a Japanese fighting game before. Every Street Fighter has at least 3 upgrades/sequels...even the shitty EX series. Hell nearly every fighting game in general has at least 1 or 2 incremental upgrades. Depending on the franchise, a lot of these games don't get released in America...but that still doesn't change the fact that truly competitive fighters are designed to be tweaked and rebalanced. I honestly don't understand why people are so up in arms about SSF4. Why would you NOT want more characters, backgrounds, ultras, and moves? Why would you not want shitty characters to get better or overpowered characters/moves to be nerfed? How many of you would honestly choose Street Fighter 3: New Generation over Street Fighter 3 Third Strike? Probably none of you. So for all the complaining people are doing, I don't really see the downside to having another Street Fighter game be released.

People are going to find a way to complain about anything they can, but let's be honest: Super Street Fighter 4 is probably the best direct upgrade to a numbered SF game...ever. It took 4 versions of SF2 to add 8 characters and we're getting at least 8 in the very first sequel. There are going to be 33 characters in SSF4...that's INSANE. Alpha 3 is the only SF game with more characters on it's roster with 36 fighters, but it still took Capcom 3 years and 3 versions of the game to get there. Add to that necessary balance tweaks (which believe it or not, ALL fighters need), new moves and ultras, new backgrounds and music, better online, bonus stages, and new challenges and you've got an amazing retail upgrade to one of the best fighters ever made. How can you possibly complain?

Obviously nothing is official in terms of pricing yet, but we have been promised that it will not go for the full $60. Realistically I see the game retailing for $30 to $40...and I'm definitely leaning toward $40. Brian mentions that he wants to see it go for $20 and cited recent GTA expansions as a price model. GTA isn't made in Japan though. Plus we're getting all new intro and ending movies for all the characters. This seems like a much more expensive expansion. The cost to not only add all the new content, but to localize the game must be taken into account as well. I'm not saying I wouldn't love to pay $20 for this game, but I would expect to pay at least $30. Also, don't think for a second that Capcom wouldn't charge you the same amount of money for a retail package SSF4 as they would if they were somehow able to make this DLC by the spring. They're trying to make money. It would cost more for Capcom to patch SF4 than it would be for them to simply add to SF4 and re-release it. The more Capcom makes off of this, the more fighters we're gonna see from them. The fact that Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is even being released in the US is a testament to that.

But you know what the best part about Super Street Fighter 4 is? Do you know what's better than new characters, new ultras, balance tweaks, bonus stages, etc? What really makes it worth it to go out and buy a brand new hard copy of this game? We will never have to listen to "Indestructible" again.

Super Street Fighter 4 is a long way away (spring 2010) so you can rest assured I'll be discussing it quite a bit as new information becomes available. For now I just wanted to tell everybody to chill out! We should be stoked for an upgrade to an already amazing game, not nitpicking and complaining. The fighting community is the biggest it has been in years and it's almost entirely because of Street Fighter 4, like it or not. Keep playing Street Fighter 4 and then go out and buy Super Street Fighter 4. And fight me and Brian. Our PSN IDs/Gamertags are along the sidebar. Do note though that I think I have a fairly annoying Bison.

In Your Face Bitches: Super Street Fighter IV

2009-10-13T17:27:00.005-05:00

This is fucking bullshit. This was my first thought to the announcement of Super Street Fighter IV. All I could think was that Capcom was getting the breast pumps out to start milking there consumers even more in a money stricken economy. I know why they would do it, because who doesn’t like money, but as a consumer you can’t help but feel like you are getting raped in the process. Then I began to think why it wouldn’t just get released as a game add-on or expansion pack made available through DLC. So many questions came about without any answers. Then the next day came the official announcement and the releasing of some of the details of the new game. From that my demeanor started to turn from anger to anticipation.

One thing that made the official announcement of SSFIV even better was the statement made about the price. It has been said that we are not going to see a “new release” price tag on SSFIV but it will be listed at an upgrade price. Thank god because all I kept trying to figure out was, how do I explain to my wife, who hates video games by the way, that I am spending $60 on a game that I technically already have. Trust me it would be a tough sell, and with having 2 kids I don’t always have $60 at my disposal. What I would like to see is what was done with the expansion packs for Rockstar’s GTAIV. The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony were both released with a $20 price tag. To me that was a great move on their part because it allowed them to generate even more revenue off of the same game without making people second guess whether or not they should buy it. Unfortunately I do not see that happening with SSFIV, because they are not simply creating an expansion or another game based on the same workings as the original, but they are adding and changing things to hopefully make SFIV an even better game.

So how do you make a game even better? One way to start is by adding new characters. Who doesn’t fucking like new characters? It has been said that there will be up to 8 new characters added to SSFIV but the rumor mill on the internet is saying that there may be up to 10. As far as new characters announced go, they have officially announced 3, and 2 of them aren’t even new, new characters. So far there is T. Hawk and Deejay. Hooray for that considering I never even played as them before. T. Hawk to me just looks like another Zangief. Slow, huge, and strong. The videos of Deejay that I have seen look pretty awesome. He looks like he has some nice special moves along with the ability to link in some nice combos. Then there is the new, new character Juri. I haven’t seen much video showing some real game play but what I have seen is her ultra combo, and it looked fucking awesome. But I could have been blinded because her opponent was M. Bison, I love seeing M. Bison get his ass handed to him. Fuck that stupid head stomp move. Anyhow I hope to see some new characters and some old favorites added to the already large list of fighters. But who am I kidding. I know that even if there were 100 characters I would still pick Ryu every time. What can I say; he is fucking awesome and easily the best Street Fighter character of all time.

Other features and game tweaks are also expected to help change the overall appearance and feel of Street Fighter. We are going to see a balancing and reworking of every original character in Street Fighter IV. This too is awesome. Why, because I am sick and fucking tired of all those douche bags who play with Sagat and think they did something amazing when they win a match. I am sick of getting a standing strong kick to the head and half of my life being taken away. That one is for you Tats008. There is also going to be some other added features like bonus stages, new background stages updated online play, and new intros for all characters. On a final note I have also read that there is talk about how the video replay might get changed also. That was a huge letdown when they released the Championship Mode update for SF4. I was pissed when I found out they only let the top 5,000 ranked players upload videos, which basically meant almost everyone lost that option after a couple of days.

So why wouldn’t you want to buy this. It looks fucking amazing. New characters, game tweaks, video uploads, all at the low price of hopefully $30. But wait there is still one more thing, GAME LOBBIES. Now we can take the nostalgia that we all had when we were kids playing Street Fighter 2’: Champion Edition on our Sega Genesis’s with all of our friends, and now do the same from our own homes. Winner stays and loser goes, bitches.

Brian R.