Lost and Found Again

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.

Diamonds Last Forever

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.

Is it Gay to Get a Blow J From Another Man

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.

Merkin Bitches

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.