Hello, what's this? It seems some copies of God of War III shipped with a breakdown of the game's nutritional value! Yes, really. Yes really. Yes really.
(Click to embiggen.)
Oh alright I'm lying. Good job cracking the case there, Chief No-Fun of the Inowannas.
This week is a pretty good week for video games - take a look at the post below if you need a reminder about what's coming out. The big one is obviously God of War III, which I reviewed last week and quite enjoyed. Of course, the new Pokemon games will probably outsell it and everything else release this week, which includes some very strong titles.
- I'm curious about THQ's Metro 2033, although I haven't really heard much about it one way or the other. I contacted the publisher about setting up an interview but heard nothing back. Oh well.
- I loved Dragon Age, so I assume that I'll love Dragon Age: Origins Awakening. Apparently, the core game is required to play this retail expansion, so if you were looking for a lower-priced entry point to the series, you're out of luck.
- Command and Conquer 4 is a game that I'll probably play eventually, and I stress the word "eventually." The great thing about the RTS genre is that you can revisit them years later and the gameplay (usually) works just as well as the day it was released. It's hard to say that about most other genres - try playing an FPS that's even a couple years old. It can be tough.
- I've heard good things about Infinite Space, the Nintendo DS title from Bayonetta developers Platinum Games. I may check it out, but I hardly ever play my DS anymore, thanks largely to my iPod.
- Speaking of the iPod, I spent a ton of time this week playing the iPod version of Crush the Castle. Expect a full review soon, because I just can't stop talking about the damn game.
- I'm almost done with Dante's Inferno, a game that I hate but am determined to finish for some reason. I've been thinking about writing a piece comparing it to to God of War III, but we'll see if I actually get around to it.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:16 AM Mar 08, 2010
I play a lot of games, but I don't buy a lot of games. I'm not saying this to brag - free games are just a reality of the games journalism world. I mention this because the actual purchasing of games is something of a rarity for me now, but I actually did a fair bit of shopping over the last few days.
- I've missed evening of MW2 multiplayer lately, as I gave up on that game when the bugs and exploits were reaching their peak. After reading several reviews I decided to pick up Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in hopes that it will scratch that particular itch.
- A friend recommended the budget-priced horror game Deadly Premonition, which is receiving some of the most wildly divergent reviews I've ever seen. It sounds so strange that I have to check it out, even though there's a fair chance that I'll hate it.
- After reading this article, I decided to grab the iPhone game Valet Hustle. I haven't checked it out yet, but I've very curious to see how a casual game attempts to convey a social message. At only a buck, it's by far the cheapest purchase I made in the last few days.
- I also grabbed an Xbox Live Marketplace points card while I was out buying things. I'm behind on quite a few pieces of DLC I'd like to check out.
- I may not have purchased it, but God of War III showed up at my house late last week. The embargo on reviews actually lifted today, so I'm sure you'll start seeing reviews by this afternoon. My personal review will be coming a little later in the week. So far it's awesome, of course.
MINNEAPOLIS - Hot on the
heels of revelations that Apple Inc. used child labor in its manufacturing
plants overseas, equally damning charges have been leveled against Village
Voice Media for having exploited manchild labor at gaming blog Joystick
Division.
"No comment," said
Joystick Division's editor, a harried-looking J. M. Zoss, as he hurried from
his palatial estate into a waiting limousine. "Talk to my attorneys. Talk to my
attorneys."
Mr. Zoss may not be
talking, but evidence revealed so far is hard to refute. According to
testimony from current and former Joystick Division writers, the game blog has
knowingly used manchild labor since the beginning.
Last Monday, I collected a bunch of random thoughts in a single post. Guess what? I'm doing it again, and will probably continue to do it from now on. In a sense, I'm embracing the essence of blogging; writing about a bunch of crap that's on my mind. But since this is and always will be a blog about video games, I'll spare you my thoughts on topics like Wes Anderson, humor in music and/or Will Ferrell. Hint: I don't like any of them.
Over the last few days, I've spent an inordinate amount of time with downloadable games. Codes for several downloadable games were sent my way recently, so I spent much of the weekend's gaming time checking them out.
- I played through about a third of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom the other day and generally enjoyed it. Like Braid, it's a game that fills you with significant satisfaction when you solve its puzzles. Expect a full review in a couple of days.
- The Lazy Raiders contest is full of some hilarious entries. You've got until Midnight tonight to enter. James Hawkins' review of the game is coming in the next few hours.
- A small German game developer called One More Games sent me a code for their iPhone game Doppelganger, which is essentially the board game Memory. It's pretty simple but I actually quite enjoyed it, thanks to some clever presentation.
- Speaking of the iPhone, I've decided that I have a completely unhealthy relationship to the game Fieldrunners. I have yet to beat Grasslands on Extended mode Medium difficulty, and it makes me crazy. I find myself getting angry at the game, and yet unable to stop playing it. It's like an abusive spouse that I can't divorce.
- In other non-DLC news, it looks like we'll have a new reviewer joining the JD crew soon! I'm very excited to have this person aboard and look forward to his first review.
I've openly
bagged on Dante's Inferno for months. I've made comments that could easily be
categorized as any or all of the following: dismissive, snarky, bitchy
(assuming heterosexual men can be bitchy; I believe they can), pompous, nasty,
bratty, cruel, and unnecessarily harsh.
Asked by Joystick Division editor J. M. Zoss if
I'd like to review it, I declined: "What's the
point of writing one more awful review of the game?" I sniffed.
(Keep in mind this was weeks
before the game was even released. There hadn't even been a review written of it, much less an
awful one.)
I had
deemed the game horseshit the moment I heard of it; casting aside accusations of
confirmation bias with a guffaw, every bit of Dante's Inferno news between
announcement and launch only encouraged my suspicions. In the week prior to
Inferno's release, I toiled away on an elaborate piece lampooning it; the
possibility the game could turn out to be an interactive masterpiece and make
all my work a waste of time never crossed my mind.
I know how
this sounds. If I heard some game critic openly declaring his disdain for a
game months before even playing it, I'd wonder if he was a narrow-minded blowhard. Or at least
be curious to know why.
Well I can tell
you why, if you want to hear me out.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:50 AM Feb 22, 2010
After posting the Just Cause 2 videos this morning, I've found little else I'm excited to write about, so I figured that I'd just share some random thoughts with you folks this morning. Hope you like brain dumps! Hey, it's a blog. I can do this shit.
Finished BioShock 2 over the weekend. I didn't enjoy it as much as James did, although I completely understand why he liked it as much as he did. But the reason that I liked the original BioShock as much as I did is that I saw "big questions" in it, like the nature of free will. BioShock 2, despite its strengths, didn't have that.
Some, but not all, of the winners of the Sam Jackson iPhone case contest have sent me their addresses. I haven't sent anyone's prizes out yet, because I'm lazy and I'd rather not go to the post office multiple times. You're ruining it for the rest of them, people!
My copy of Heavy Rain arrived late last week and I think I'm almost done with the game. It's pretty cool, although it won't be for everyone. I'm excited to share my thoughts on it with you fine folks.
I have yet to touch Dante's Inferno. I hear it can be finished in a little over five hours.
Both the response and the traffic numbers have been positive to JD's new direction. We're still ironing out a few kinks, but I'm happy to say that readers seem to like our new focus on original content. Thanks, readers!
Last night I installed a program called PS3 Media Server on my PC. Despite the name, it streams all the movies on my computer to the Xbox 360 in my living room with very little fuss or muss. Not sure why I didn't do it earlier.
Dante's Inferno has finally arrived, and, well... it's not good, people. But come on, how could anyone really be surprised? When the
best you can come up with in a game version of one of the greatest literary
works of all time is: "The player will sew a cross to his chest and beat
the shit out of demons - oh, and there'll be tits!", even the most
forgiving gamer has to roll his eyes.
This doesn't mean Dante's Inferno won't be successful. It might even do well - why wouldn't it? I refer you
to Paragraph 1: Demon-Punching, and Tits. You'd have to be pretty new to this to underestimate the appeal of either. In fact, Dante's Inferno could even be
so successful that we'll not only get a sequel (an appalling enough notion),
but EA and other publishers will start looking at other literary classics to
shit all over with a derivative, dopey game.
And
there are so many great books that could make for a laughable game if we follow the Inferno model, slashing 95% of what made them great and then fornicating on top of the 5% we kept. Let me
show you how it's done.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:36 AM Feb 03, 2010
As I mentioned before, there are some changes coming to Joystick Division. You've already seen a few of them by now, such as more frequent site updates and a couple new writers: Owen Johnson and James Hawkins. Several other new writers have joined the JD squad as well, and I was hoping to get most of them up and running this week. But plans are for fools, so it looks like most of the new writers will be starting up next week.
I spent a good chunk of time this week talking to game publishers about upcoming events, so one of the things that's coming in the weeks to come is more first-hand coverage of video game-related events. There are a few other things in the works that I can't yet divulge, but I think we'll all be excited about the new features coming to the site!
The new month is bringing with it some changes to Joystick Division. You've already seen some content by new writers Owen Johnson and James Hawkins. This week, even more new staffers will be starting up, as with the week after that. By the end of next week, the new plan for JD will be pretty obvious. We're still going to be bringing you multiple video game news posts per day, but we're also going to have at least one piece of "feature content" every day.
"Feature content" can mean a few things: hands-on previews, opinion pieces, top ten lists, event coverage and more. But in short it means original content. We know you have your choice of video game news sites, and we appreciate everyone who chooses us for their game information. Unlike many news items, our feature content won't be available anywhere else. It will be fresh, thoughtful, funny, smart exclusive content. And by the end of next week, we'll be bringing that content to you at least five times a week. So keep checking back as we start rolling out the new content for JD!
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:22 AM Jan 28, 2010
It's time to reveal a secret to you fine folks, a secret that's... not really secret at all. Many of you already knew this or suspected it, but Anton Gordon was actually a pen name, one that I'm retiring as of today. My real name is J. Matthew Zoss (or Jeremy Zoss, if you prefer. Or just Zoss. Or JZ. Whatevever). That's me being terrorized by CliffyB in the photo above.
I've been working in the video game industry for about seven years now, and you may have seen my name in some other publications. The reason I started writing under a pen name is... well, just for fun, really. A friend asked if I wanted to start writing for JD in my spare time and I said yes, not thinking I'd become as seriously invested in the site as I did. I also wanted to experiment with some different writing styles, as you can see in some of my goofyearlyposts. But I quickly defaulted back to my normal writing voice, and you can be sure I never changed a hint of my opinion because I was writing under a different name.
The reason I'm sharing this now is because I've been offered the opportunity to step up and take the reins of Joystick Division as its new Editor In Chief. I'm going to be bringing some changes to the site, all of which I think you'll enjoy. You may have noticed that we have a great new writer on staff, Owen Johnson. There will be a piece by another new writer this afternoon, and in the coming weeks you'll start to see content by many more. The new JD staff features some names you'll recognize if you're a long-time reader, as well as some talented veterans of other gaming outlets. It's all very exciting stuff, and Joystick Division is going become better than ever!
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:10 AM Jan 13, 2010
You either think this homemade sweater is awesome or terrible, and your reaction says a lot about you as a person. Instructions on how to make this terrible, awesome thing can be found here. See the back of the sweater after the jump!
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 11:06 AM Dec 31, 2009
There's a whole lot of nothing going on in the world of video games today, so I'll just wish you a Happy New Year's Eve and move on. I'll be playing some Rock Band tonight at my brother's party - hope your evening is similarly fun and nerdy!
It's probably too late to grab these for this year's Christmas, but it's never too late to start planning for next year, right? Tech blog Walyou has a bunch of other ornaments on display, so head over there to see more controller ornaments, arcade cabinet ornaments and more.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 12:00 PM Dec 24, 2009
It's Christmas Eve, and all is quiet in Joystick Division land. The snow is falling, the Xbox is glowing with a festive red ring, and a Goomba just delivered to me a mug of hot chocolate. I'll be posting a few fun Christmas-y things here over the next couple days, but otherwise I'll be off enjoying the holiday. I hope you do the same!
Here's my first holiday gift to you: a swank 8-Bit Christmas tree!
Joystick Division can't always be your main source for the greatest original video game content on the web. Anton and I try our bests, but the man keeps us down. Therefore, we will show some love to our fellow gaming publications and link out to what we're reading throughout the day. The content you'll find in this post will mostly be features, interviews, exclusives, etc. Hope you enjoy and spread the love this holiday season, gamers!
You're being warned ahead of time: I'm going to get worked up in this post over something that many of you may see as a small issue. This story begins with a pretty harmless news itme: Brutal Legends is getting a new DLC pack. The pack features a pretty decent amount of stuff: new weapons, new costumes, new maps and new heads to put on "Mount Rockmore." That's all good, and the price isn't that bad ($5 on PS3, $6 on Xbox 360).
What's got me in a tizzy is a particular part of the pack, an item called the Oculus of the Lost. It helps point the way towards collectibles that you haven't yet found. Here's why this bugs me. There are two kinds of DLC, the kind that expands a game (new maps, new weapons) and the kind that fixes problems (patches, title updates, etc). The Oculus of the Lost, to me anyway, is the latter. When I reviewed the game, one of the problems I had with it was how little guidance there was when searching for all the different collectible doodads you need to find in the game. I'm not the only who had this problem. I'm not saying I need my hand held - plenty of games have systems that guide you to the general direction of a collectible without just handing it to you (Crackdown, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Infamous, etc). The Oculus of the Lost seems to have been designed specifically to address an issue that was pointed out in review/user feedback. I'm of the mindset that anything designed to correct a game design flaw should be free.
Like I said, this may be a small issue. The DLC pack, overall, seems like a good value. But in my mind, The Oculus of the Lost should be offered for free as part of a title update to all players, and those who want to pay extra for the rest of it can choose to do so. Seems like a fair compromise to me.
I'm still a little Mega Man happy today after posting about the Doom II mod yesterday. Today, I caught some really cool cosplay pictures from AnimeFest '09 of some really dedicated Mega Man Legends fans.
You can find more from these cosplayers by checking out Hopie-chan on Deviantart. I'm also really glad they specified Mega Man Legends because the Mega Man 64 was terrible.
In addition to the Holiday Gift Guide we ran recently, here are a few games we've deemed worthy of your attention before you head out into retail madness tomorrow. We don't have time to run full reviews on everything, so instead we've got a few little capsule reviews for you to munch on.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:36 AM Nov 11, 2009
I must confess a certain weakness for Lady Gaga. Oh, I don't care about her music one way or the other (although "Poker Face" is a decent pop song), but I'm constantly entertained by her videos and stage performances. The woman is clearly either an avant garde genius or a complete nutjob. Either way, it's worth watching.
Her latest video, "Bad Romance," feature a cameo from a certain video game controller, although blink and you might miss it. Still, it's enough justification for me to post it.
Happy Halloween, everyone. I hope your costume displays as much flair as our good friend (and former Joystick Division writer) Chris Ward´s does. Personally I´m far too lazy to put this much effort into a costume, which is why I´m always impressed with people who actually follow through on these projects. Enjoy the video and your Halloween parties, everyone! Video taken from Chris´s hilarious World of Ward Crap webpage.
Sony has several very strong things going for it right now, such as the price cut and the PS3 Slim and Uncharted 2, a game so well-liked that it's killing me that I haven't played it yet. Then there's Sony's new "It Only Does Everything" ad campaign, which is just killin' it. The latest ad is above, and I think you'll get a kick out of it. After all, it features a "VP of Epic Footage."
What is the origin of this highly suggestive image you ask?Why it's a fellatio emporium in Japan's red light district. COME ONE, COME ALL!
Want to see some other NSFW images of the old gal? Then head on over to former Joystick Division writer Chris Ward's terrifyingly awesome World of Ward Crap blog to learn the horrible truth. You've been warned.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 12:34 PM Oct 12, 2009
This video is like the perfect storm of video game commercials. It's weird, features a J-Pop soundtrack and a hot woman dressed as a video game character. It's not as titillating as some Japanese game commercials, but something told me you folks would still want to see it.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:34 AM Oct 08, 2009
On October 10th, hordes of the undead will appear in Minneapolis. They will appear by the thousand, with only one thing on their rotting minds. No, not human flesh. Beer. This Saturday is the 5th Annual Zombie Pub Crawl, the original and largest zombie pub crawl in the the world. Starting at Gold Medal Park at 4 PM, over 5,000 zombies will march through the West Bank of downtown and partake in beer, bands, undead karaoke and more.
Now, this isn't strictly video game news, but somehow I thought it would be of interest to many gamers. After all, we've shot so many zombies over the years, isn't it time for a truce? If you're in Minneapolis this weekend, why not join a zombie for a drink and start the great Zombie/Human peace treaty of 2009? Or maybe you're a zombie yourself. If so, you really have no excuse not to go.
Maxim isn't the first place I think of for fun video game lists, but writer Jesse Thompson has put together a fun slate of awesome, overlooked sports video games. As you can probably tell by the total lack of sports game coverage on this site, they're not exactly our thing. But I love how this list reminded me of those rare instances where I've played a sports game and actually enjoyed it. Although I have to dock Jesse a point for excluding Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball. I know it sucked, but that doesn't mean I didn't play it for hours.
Ahh, The Matrix franchise, how far you've fallen. Over the weekend, MMO The Matrix Online shut down for good, putting another nail in the coffin of The Matrix as a gaming franchise. Although my interest in the series was killed by the second and third movies, my heart goes out to those Matrix Online players who stuck with the game until its very last day. MMO site Massively has a photo gallery chronicling the final day of The Matrix Online and the last group of players to enter the Matrix. You can check it out here.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:13 AM Jul 22, 2009
Like a good and proper nerd, I'm heading out to the San Diego Comic Con today to bring you some fine photos like the one above, as well as some hands-on impressions of games and other such goodies. I may or may not be posting later tonight, but check back all weekend for our Comic-Con coverage!
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:13 AM Jul 13, 2009
This will be my last post on the OWSS09 project, I promise. But I had a few more thoughts on the experience over the weekend. Now that I've finished all three games, I had some realizations about the genre and why it has such a wide appeal, as well as why some players just don't get into open-world games.
Obviously, open-world games aren't popular because the offer the most geographical space. "More" only equals "better" when there's more to do, not just more places to visit. A good open-world game does (or should do) three things successfully: World-building, Offers Tactical Freedom, and Creates Chaos. Now these aren't the only things an open-world game does (GTA IV got a lot of praise for its story, for example), but these are three aspects that most open-world games do well, and between the three of them, they help explain the popularity. They bring a lot to the table, and thus different aspects help them appeal to a wide audience. Here's how the three contenders stack up on these different aspects.
World Building: Both Infamous and Red Faction do a great job of bringing you into the game world. Infamous features a convincing decimated city where every building and street feels real. Red Faction's Martian setting is similarly convincing, but I'd have to give the edge to Infamous for the sheer density of its world. Creating a convincing (semi) real world environment is a tougher task than building a sparse Martian landscape in my mind.
Tactical Freedom: This may be the weakest point of all three games. All three games feature missions that force you to stick to pretty rigid paths, and all three have moments that let your imagination run wild. But I'd have to give the edge to Red Faction, even though so much of it devolves into "go here and blow this up." I was discussing the game over the weekend with another player who also just finished it, and we quickly determined that we'd completed several missions in entirely different ways. Where I had leveled a building to kill some targets, he'd rigged their cars with explosives to ensure they didn't get away.
Creation of Chaos: The winner of this category is Prototype, hands down. In Infamous you can permanently rid areas of enemies, lowering the madness level. In Red Faction, causing damage brings down the same Martian enforcers time and again. Only Prototype lets you slice down hundreds of characters in seconds, throw tanks at helicopters and eat soldiers and wear their skin as a disguise. Prototype is at its best when you wallow in its madness.
So there you have it, my final thoughts on OWSS09. I hope this experiment was of some interest to you folks out there in JD land. If so, maybe next year will see OWSS10! Or not.
Note: With compliance of the FTC's new guidlines on blogs, all three games were reviewed based on final boxed product provided by the publishers.
At long last, it is finished. With today's review of Red Faction, I have completed all three of this summer's big open-world games. To recap, here are your scores:
Prototype: 3 out of 5 Infamous: 4 out of 5 Red Faction Guerrilla: 5 out of 5
Despite a spread across the three games, all three are solid games that I'd easily recommend to certain gamers. Even Prototype, the lowest-scoring game, is a great fit for that type of player who thrives on the frantic police chases of the GTA games. Infamous is one of the best PS3 games to date, and I'd recommend it to any PS3 owner without hesitation. And while Guerrilla is the best-scoring game, it's not going to be for everyone (see review below). But overall, each is a fine game in its own right. When I started this project, I didn't expect to have as much fun as I did, as I tend to play more linear games than these normally.
So what did I learn from this experience? First of all, that I'm an idiot. All three of these games are huge, and I could still be playing any one of them. Had I taken on only one, I probably could have completed more of the side missions/achievements/etc. I also learned not to tackle such an ambitious review project in the summer, when there other things to do besides playing games. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go outside now. Haven't seen the sun in a while.
Okay, so this video really has very, very little to do with gaming. There's a Guitar Hero controller in it, and that's about it. it's hilarious, so you should watch it. But think about this: Only a few short years ago, only hardcore gamers would recognize a Guitar Hero controller if it appeared in a late night skit. Now you've got them appearing as props on Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon demoing Project Natal on his show. It's happening whether you like it or not, folks. Gaming is going mainstream.
At the end of last week's episode of Zero Punctuation, motormouthed game review Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw challenged the developers of Infamous and Prototype to produce mock-up images of the other game's protagonist in drag. Behold, the terrifying results.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:07 AM Jul 01, 2009
Man, OWSS09 is simply killing me. Infamous is done (review here), Prototype is about 80% complete, and Red Faction is about halfway in the bag. Of course, I brought this all upon myself, although a dead Xbox certainly hasn't helped the speed of this project. But while we're waiting, what's your take on these games? I suspect few of you are playing all three at the same time, because you're all much smarter than me, but I know many of you are playing one or two of them. So what's your take? Let's hear your thoughts in the comments secion.
Want to know why gamers have a reputation for being immature? It's because of stuff like this G4 segment. Of course, by posting it here, I'm just playing right into their hands. You win this round, G4.
I'm really not the type of guy to buy replica swords, I prefer to leave that to my cosplay obsessed brethren. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's a time and a place for everything. It's just I don't bust out my Ichigo "Bleach" outfit with my trusty Zanpakutō unless I'm at an anime convention and am expecting to land a night with a slightly fugly iteration of Rukia. But enough about my sex life (or lack thereof).
What we have here ladies and gentlemen is probably the most exiting cosplay accessory that we've seen in quite a while. Nero's sword, "Red Queen" (from Devil May Cry 4) is one of the most badass pieces of replica fakery you'll ever lay your eyes on. You'll have the ladies (and some men) swarming upon your person uncontrollably if you wielded this thing in full costume at your next cosplay meetup. I'm sure some of you might be a little disappointed to find out that the Red Queen isn't life sized, but at 42" long, do you really need it to be?
Created by United Cutlery, well known amongst the fantasy sword wielding crowd; this sword is really pretty sweet. Word is that Capcom is premiering this bad boy at Comic-Con as an exclusive. But if you're really a hardcore DMC fan or just need a cosplay sword that doubles as a chick magnet, then you can vie for one in an auction on the Bud K catalog site. It will cost you no less than 280 dispatched evil souls for this one.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 12:59 PM Jun 29, 2009
I am honestly happy about the respect being shown Michael Jackson after his death. Personal issues and legal troubles aside, the guy was a really talented person and he wrote some truly amazing music. Without him, we never would have had the Moonwalker video game or this totally not dated report on the game. Watch and be transported to a simpler time, back when MJ was known for his talent, Sega made consoles, and Mary Hart's hair looked like a poodle.
Hey folks. There's not a ton to share on my massive OWSS09 project, largely because the sudden demise of my 360 has put me solidly behind schedule on the project. That being said, I've been making forward momentum on all three games, thanks to occasional access to friends' 360s and a PS3 that works just fine. Make your own joke about under-use here.
Infamous: I'm trying to focus primarily on the story missions, and even still I feel like there's a lot of game ahead of me. I'm currently stuck on a mission that tasks me to protect an armored bus. It's the only mission so far that's given me a real challenge, as Infamous does a really nice job of steadily increasing your powers. Also, I'm apparently playing on Hard, as determined by the game. After a few intro missions, the game sets difficulty for you based on your performance.
Red Faction: Red Faction: Guerrilla, despite its nifty innovations like the destruction engine, also feels the most rooted in the Grand Theft Auto formula. While I'm not a big fan of GTA, I'm simply loving Red Faction. I could do without all the "drive here to start mission" bullshit, but that's really all I don't like about the game. The destruction tech is amazing, and Guerrilla gives you a lot flexibility on how you can achieve your goals of liberating sections of Mars. You can completely ignore missions and focus on destroying your enemy's property to lower their control of an area, which is brilliant. It's a game that's fun - something that's forgotten in too many games.
Prototype: I have the least time invested into Prototype, and so far I haven't discovered anything that I really love about it. Many people seem to dig its free-roaming chaos, but that hasn't done much for me yet, and neither has the story. But I still have literally dozens of powers to unlock, so there's a good chance I'll come across something that tickles my fancy. We'll see.
Here's another example of why gamers are awesome. Behold, Resident Evil 3's Raccoon City recreated in as a Left 4 Dead mod. Zombies X Zombies = Double Badass. Check out the mod's official site here.
Thanks to a loaner Xbox, I've finally gotten a chance to check out our third and final entrant in the OWSS09 competition: Prototype. Honestly, Prototype was probably the game I was looking forward to the most of the three, largely because I loved Radical's last open-world game, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Unfortunately, Prototype is, thus far, my least favorite. I don't want to compare the three games just yet and I'm very early into Prototype's campaign, but so far I'm not wowed.
The first hour of Prototype consists of small chunks of gameplay sandwiched between lots of cutscenes, menus and loading screens. I'm sure this will improve as the game goes on, so I'm not ready to dock it any points just yet. The graphics seem a lot shakier than I expect given some of the gorgeous screens I've seen, and I've already run into a handful of bugs. But on the plus side, I love the sprint move, which automatically hurdles you over anything in your way (including cars and buildings), and the jump mechanic that worked so well in Ultimate Destruction is back here and every bit as fun. Overall, I'm willing to give Prototype the benefit of the doubt - after all, I thought Infamous started slowly as well, but it later blossomed into a great game.
While you're waiting for me to get my 360 fixed so I can post my reviews, here's Cnet's Dan Ackerman on the differences between Infamous and Prototype, in handy chart form.
Infamous vs.
Prototype
Infamous
Prototype
NYC-inspired open city environment
Yes
Yes
Mysterious terrorist attack causes military to seal off
the city
Yes
Yes
General chaos in streets/breakdown of public order
Yes
Yes
Protagonist searching for answers as to why he suddenly
has superpowers
Yes
Yes
Required to fight both the military and mutated bad guys
Yes
Yes
Said superpowers upgradeable by earning XP
Yes
Yes
Can scale the sides of buildings, glide through the air, and jump really far
Yes
Yes
Drop by your friend's house to pick up missions
Yes
Yes
Dubious ethical choices required
Yes
Yes
City is fully populated with people you can't talk to and
cars you can't drive
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:13 AM Jun 17, 2009
As if playing massive open-world games wasn't time-consuming enough. So last night I was minding my own business, playing Red Faction so I can bring you good people a review in the most timely fashion possible. I'm not exactly a super-speedy reviewer, and I'm hip-deep in my most ambitious review program ever. So naturally, this is the perfect time for my Xbox to red ring. Again. Time for XBox number five. Sigh.
Well folks, look for Infamous to be the first OWSS09 contender to get a full review. Prototype and Red Faction reviews will follow just as soon as I have a working console. Oh Microsoft, gotta love your hardware.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:27 AM Jun 15, 2009
I've now had a chance to check out two of the summer's bit open-world games now that I've played through the opening chunk of Infamous and now Red Faction: Guerrilla. As with Infamous, its far too early to pass judgment on Red Faction, but overall it's off to a strong start.
If Infamous is a super-powered Assassin's Creed, then Red Faction: Guerrilla is a sci-fi Grand Theft Auto. As part of a rebel group on Mars, Red Faction changes you with rolling around the planet and destabilizing the evil EDF's hold on an area, which is accomplished by completing missions and blowing stuff up. Completing side missions opens up story missions, and when you complete enough of those the bad guys move out of the area. I dig this territory control aspect, but the real star of Red Faction is the must-discussed destruction.
Pretty much anything can and will get blown up in this game. You don't have to wait long until you destroy your first building, and watching stuff crumble is immensely satisfying. I haven't gotten to the more advanced destruction yet (like weakening bridge supports), but so far taking stuff down is a blast (haha). However, most missions seem to rely on it. Will overuse of its gimmick make Red Faction wear thin? It very well might. I guess we'll see.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 11:31 AM Jun 10, 2009
My first contender in the Open-World Superhero Smackdown 2009 (OWSS09) showed up in my mailbox yesterday: Infamous by Sucker Punch. I've had a chance to sink a couple hours into it now, and early word is good. I have yet to check out Red Faction or Prototype, so it's too early to say who will take the crown as the OWSS09 champion, but Infamous started the competition out on a good foot.
Honestly, Infamous isn't quite what I expected it to be. I was expecting more of a gritty Crackdown, but what I got was a super-powered Assassin's Creed. You're not an indestructible building-leaping tank in this game; you're a parkour artist with some special powers, yet still quite mortal. My favorite aspect of Infamous thus far is how restrained the climbing is. Unlike Crackdown, if you want to reach the roof, you need to climb. Unlike Assassin's Creed, scaling a structure doesn't feel automated - your character doesn't simply find a route up a wall. You need to figure it out, making every building feel like a puzzle. I've leveled up a couple powers so far, but I'm hoping I never improve my climbing ability to the point that I don't have to think about it anymore. It's what I like best about the game at this point, but we'll see how that changes as our little competition continues.
In the last few weeks, there have been three high-profile open-world games starring people with extraordinary destructive abilities: Infamous, Red Faction Guerrilla, and Prototype (on sale today). Each has something about it that's interesting, be it environment destruction, branching stories, or shapeshifting mayhem. Like many of you, I couldn't decide which of these games to play.
So I decided to play them all.
Starting this week, I'll be updating you with impressions of these three games, with final reviews as soon as I can get to them. Three huge games, only one me. I haven't even started them, and I already think that I may be crazy. I guess we'll see.
EDIT: A friend just told me that a story about games I'm going to play isn't interesting. I suppose that's hard to argue. But if I disappear off the face of the Earth, at least now you'll all know why.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:21 AM Jun 08, 2009
Like most of you, I didn't go to E3 this year. They wanted me to come, but they said that I couldn't bring my Bengal Tiger with me. I don't go anywhere without Sir Stripeyton, so I stayed home with my cat, an internet connection, and 40 pounds of raw tapir meat. Now that the show is done and I've caught up on all that went down there, I present Joystick Division's Totally Legitimate Best of E3 Awards!
Nintendo and Sony both held their E3 press conferences today, and I'll have the videos of both up for you fine folks tomorrow. Sony debuted its long-rumored motion controller, as did Microsoft yesterday. Both technologies look cooler than anything the Wii can do, but can either company create software for their devices that connects with audiences the same way Nintendo does? I doubt it.
Overall, Sony's conference was decent, with glimpses of God of War 3, MAG, Gran Turismo 5, and the surprise announcement of Final Fantasy XIV. Nintendo, however, shit the bed. They showed off a few new titles that will please fans (like a new Team Ninja Metroid game and Super Mario Galaxy 2). But it was sandwiched between too much self-congratulatory crap singing the praises of Wii Motion Plus, DSi's sales and the Wii Fit Phenomenon. And then there was the completely surreal Wii Vitality Sensor...
Okay, so here's the deal, folks. I was worried that JD's coverage was getting a little too next-gen-centric, so I've been making an effort to cover more stuff for the Nintendo platforms. Sometimes its easy to do so, when I'm reviewing a solid DS game or covering a Wii sequel that seems to be going in a daring newdirection. But then sometime, you get... this.
Sorry Wii, sorry Sega. I'd love to love you both, but sometimes you just make it so goddamn hard.
It wasn't long ago that I shared a trailer that made me instantly want to play FEAR 2, but this video for Let's Tap had exactly the opposite effect on me. Not only do I never want to play this game, but I can't imagine why anyone would. And is it just me, or does the dad in this video look like the evil genie from Wishmaster?
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:57 AM Apr 16, 2009
This just in. John Madden, the face and voice for the last 167 years, has retired. In a show of solidarity, EA has announced that their long-running Madden NFL series will be retired along with it. "We simply couldn't keep the series going without him," said EA spokeperson Dirk Longwood. "After all, John's the main attraction for most players. That's why we include an unlockable Madden swimsuit pictorial in every game."
When asked for comment, Madden stated that he plans to make the jump to EA rival Activison Blizzard by joining World of WarCraft as a football-obsessed troll.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:15 AM Apr 15, 2009
I've heard a lot of people talking about this game, and all of them seem to be excited about it. While I do understand that the folks at Platinum Games have some serious pedigree behind them (the creators have worked on games like Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe and Okami), everything about this title makes me go "Ugh...seriously?"
In case you have taste and haven't been following this game, here's a detailed list of why it's retarded. No, I haven't played it, but hey, this is the internet! Since when do you need to have facts to form an opinion online?
Before Anton left for the week, he left his keys under the Joystick Division Headquarters doormat along with the following note:
Gary,
Just a few reminders:
1) Water my fern, and sing it a lullaby on Tuesday and Thursday. I don't care if you think it's dumb, I read a study.
2) None of your "parties". On that note: leave the petty cash alone. We don't have a category in the chart of accounts for "A little bit of p" for your "d".
3) Post the weekly Fan Art column.
Otherwise: there's beer in the fridge, don't worry about the cat's litterbox, and just know I might've installed nannycams anywhere.
A. Gordon
Admittedly reasonable, modest expectations overall. Alas, I blew the first two almost immediately... so I figure I should at least get #3 done, or I'll never hear the end of it.
Click on through for a selection of the lamest, weirdest, worst and most sexually disturbing Street Fighter fan art around!
It's been a little quiet around JD the last couple of days, and next week looks like it will be as well. My day job as international superspy/fashion model/auto racer has been keeping me busy, and I'll be gone all next week. But I'll be back on the 13th, and you might see a few familiar faces around these parts while I'm gone.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 11:22 AM Apr 01, 2009
There's a lot of exciting news out there in the video game world today. Big announcements have come pouring out about Metal Gear, Killzone 2, Dragon Quest, the 360, the PS3, the Wii and more. The problem is that it's all bullshit. Happy April Fools Day, everyone. Make sure you keep the date in mind for anything and everything you read today.
In last week's Prince of Persia edition of Weekly Fan Art, I ended with a call for suggestions on what series I should tackle in the future. Smash Bros. was the first thing shouted out, and man, what a subject it turned out to be. You see, the recipe for a quality WFA is a combination of shitty drawings (obviously), "chibi" versions of characters, crossovers with Sonic the Hegdehog for some reason, and a healthy dose of homoeroticism. The Smash Bros. fan community delievered on all fronts, with the exception of the Sonic crossover nonsense, because he's already in the game. I could probably use Smash Bros. for a subject for weeks, and the giant fire-shitting Bowser above only scratches the surface of what you're about to see.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 11:32 AM Mar 23, 2009
Aww yeah. What's the best way to start your week off right? Coffee and donuts? Hookers and an eight ball? If you answered "Weekly Fan Art, of course!" then you have serious problems. I don't know about you, but this column makes me cry every time. Then again, I do have to clear my search history every time I put one of these together, so my wife doesn't inadvertently discover that I was looking at pictures of Scorpion sucking Sub-Zero's dick. I wish I was kidding. Anyway, this week's entry on the Prince of Persia is mercifully fellatio-free!
One of my personal favs, Mitch Krpata, has posted an indispensable guide to sniping in Killzone 2 over at his blog Insult Swordfighting. Read it and improve your game 110%.
On March 8th,
GameCyte.com announced it was no more. Anton Gordon brought the notice to my
and alumnus Chris Ward's (who's happily and hilariously serving at
WorstCartoonsEver, go visit sometime) attention, and we couldn't help but be a
little extra interested since, the way I see it anyway, GameCyte and Joystick
Division are interesting footnotes in each other's biographies.
So, if you ever read video game blogs, you're probably already aware that Resident Evil 5 was released today. Because I have a time machine and can travel into the future*, I've been playing it for a few days now and hope to have a review up early next week. But I'll tell you know that you should probably go buy. That's largely because it's a very good game, but also because the release schedule looks... a little bare for the next few months. Sure, there are some interesting smaller games here and there, but Resident Evil 5 looks like the last Triple-A game for the next few months. Let's hear your impressions, folks!
*Or Capcom sent me a copy. I forget which. Time travel is horrible for your memory.
The topic of PlayStation 3-exclusive software has been on my mind lately. Maybe because I just reviewed Killzone 2, or because of the heated conversation about God of War III's ability to move consoles. Or perhaps because Gary's recommendation really made me want to play Valkyria Chronicles. Whatever the reason, PS3 exclusives are on my mind. Maybe that's why I think MLB 09: The Show might be the PS3's sleeper hit.
Now, I don't really play sports games, so I couldn't fairly compare MLB 09 to any other baseball title. But in doing my daily game site browsing, I kept seeingthetitlepopup. It's neck and neck on Metacritic with Killzone 2. So what do you think, folks? Can a sports title like MLB 09 be considered a "killer app?" Would the world's best baseball game be enough to get you to buy a console I don't know? Please educate this poor non-sports gamer on how much these games mean to you.
I've reached the end of Killzone 2's campaign but still need to sink more time into the multiplayer, making this the perfect time for another Battle Report. Having reached the end of Killzone's brisk campaign, my mind is more or less made up on the single-player experience. As I said in Battle Report #1, Killzone 2 is a remarkably solid game. But to me, it takes more than being solid to achieve greatness.
Many of my quibbles with Killzone 2 come down to matters of personal taste. For example, I prefer the campaign to have an ebb and flow, the core action peppered with slower moments and bits of gameplay that shake up the core game mechanics. The last two Call of Duty games did this quite well, as did the venerable Resident Evil 4. But Killzone 2 is straight-up action from beginning to end, with little variation and only rare moments that break up the standard gameplay. While it's not my taste, I can understand why some gamers would crave this. After all, why would you buy an FPS if not to shoot copious amounts of bad guys?
I also would have preferred more variety in the weaponry. I spent about 90% of the game with one variation of a machine gun or another, and most of the other guns wouldn't feel out of place in a WWII game. The only truly unique guns are the Helghast electricity gun and the bolt launcher, and neither shows up more than a couple of times. Then again, the electricity gun is so effective that it would be potentially game-breaking if it were more common.
Although I said I'd be covering multiplayer in this report, I'm apparently a filthy liar. I'll be saving that for the full review, which will be going up in the next couple of days.
This will be my last blurb on Street Fighter IV before my full-fledged review, which I'll try to get done by this weekend or early next week. "Why so long?" I hear some people saying. "Gamespot has had their review up for like 3 years!" A fair enough question... there are two reasons:
1) Unlike the Gamespots of the world, I got Street Fighter IV at retail on launch day like everyone else, and
2) I want to get as much time online and against friends as possible, because let's be real: that's where the meat of the game is.
Click through for thoughts on The Ken Problem (i.e., the fact every scrub, noob, chump and asshole online picks Ken and spends the entire match spamming fireballs and dragon punches), and my newly-budding romance with Blanka!
My copy of Killzone 2 arrived a little over a week ago, and I've been playing it every chance I have since then. I am by no means ready to review it, as I'm not quite at the end of the single-player campaign and I'd like to spend more time with the multiplayer. But given the massive interest in this title, I wanted to get some initial thoughts up ahead of the review.
I really have to wonder how many people are on the fence about Killzone. The game has attracted a devoted following ever since the unveiling of the much-discussed E3 2005 footage, and after such a long wait, I'd have to assume that most gamers who were salivating for the game have already bought it. Has it been worth the wait? Read on.
I almost let this one slip by. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li opens in theaters today. Of course, it's going to be somewhat hard to find, opening on only 1,000 screens. For comparison, recent Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire is playing on 3,000. Anyone going? The lack of reviews on Metacritic is not a good sign. Could it possibly be that the Van Damme version is better?
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 12:12 PM Feb 27, 2009
Holy crap, did someone declare second Christmas and not tell me? After a bit of a lull during January, it feels like we're back in full-blown mega-game onslaught. I just finished Halo Wars, and jumped right into Killzone 2 (review soon-ish). My copy of Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? just showed up, as did FEAR 2. I've also got Afro Samurai and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (Hey, I hear it's good!) on the way, and unfinished copies of about a half-dozen other games lying around. And to top it all off, Resident Evil 5 is just over two weeks away.
What are you folks playing these days? Is your backlog piling up as quickly as mine is?
As a kid watching Michael Jackson turn into a werewolf on MTV, I never could've imagined all the twists and turns his life would take in the following quarter century. I kinda suspect he didn't see them coming either - especially the bit about having to sell off all the outrageous crap he's accumulated over the years to, you know, eat.
But in late April, that's exactly what's happening: piles and piles of Jackson's possessions are being sold to the highest bidder. The catalogs have been posted online, and let me assure you: they're fascinating. Some of the furniture this guy has looks like it was pulled out of a pharaoh's tomb. Best mindless surfing I've done in a long time.
So why is this here, on Joystick Division? Well apparently - and unsurprisingly - Jackson had a full-sized arcade at Neverland, because one of the five catalogs is almost entirely that sort of thing: pinball, air hockey, those awful "skill"-based prize machines - and yes: many, many arcade games.
Some good ones, actually... and seemingly in very good condition. The ones that caught my eye: a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga cocktail, Super Street Fighter II, the full-sized sit-down Galaxy Force, Donkey Kong and Mortal Kombat, in addition to a few "ultracade" type machines that play practically everything. The estimates they've set are also fairly reasonable, though I wonder if people will pay more for Michael Jackson's Lethal Enforcers or Michael Jackson's Virtua Racing.
But seriously guys: can you imagine owning an arcade game that was in Michael Jackson's house?
And am I the only one who would give it a thorough wiping down first? Nothing's worse than a Dig Dug that smells like Jesus Juice and boyflesh.
Interesting to see how it's being slightly re-branded for the Wii's less hardcore, more casual audience!:
Sorry... I just couldn't help myself.
In all seriousness: I'm going to take the minority position and say a Wii version of Dead Space has the potential to be not just as good as the 360 or PS3 versions, but better. Sure, not in terms of graphics (getting it to look as good as Resident Evil 4 does would be acceptable), but in terms of gameplay Dead Space is a natural fit on the Wagglebox. Think how much easier will it be to surgically slice off limbs when you can twist the Wiimote with your wrist for specific angles (rather than cycling through angles via a button).
Oh, and if you're interested: click on through for a sweet Joystick Division wallpaper featuring Wii Isaac, or as I dubbed him: "Miisaac".
But I'll get to that in a second - first, a thought experiment: Let's say the American arcade scene is moribund at best. And let's say, in spite of this, you release a highly-anticipated game into that scene like SFIV. Now let's say you release a home version in a few months with home-exclusive characters. Haven't you effectively driven a stake into the heart of your arcade unit?
Back in the day, Capcom had it the other way around: First there was the arcade SFII, and when the arcade SFII: Championship Edition came out, then they released SFII on consoles. When SFII:CE came to consoles Capcom released SFII: Hyper Fighting in the arcade, and when that finally came home Capcom rolled out Super Street Fighter II in the arcade, and so on. Basically, there was always a reason to go back to the arcade; they weren't sending people home for good.
Now I understand the arcade ecology isn't robust enough these days to do it that way, but it does make me wonder if, once the console port hits, Capcom will update their cabs to include the home characters. If not... what'll be the point anymore?
Thoughts on El Fuerte and E. Honda(!), along with videos, after the jump.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:51 AM Jan 28, 2009
A friend of mine sent this story my way this morning. It seems an Indiana woman is reporting that her daughter's copy of Baby Pals for Nintendo DS contains the message "Islam is the light." What's more, this is the second toy she's purchased that's contained the exact same message! Sounds like Mohammad is personally going after her kids.
The first link has a report on the story, as well as video of the original news broadcast that broke this shocking news. Both the mom in question and the reporter seem horrified and offended that a game that's rated E would contain the word "Islam." Based on their reaction, you'd think the game spews radioactive waste and AIDS blood.
Personally, all I hear is a babble that kinda-sorta sounds like the aforementioned phrase - it could easily be "it's it's a light" or "pizza is all right." And would this story even have been reported if the baby said something like "Jesus is the light?"
Happy Inauguration Day, America. This is your President, John Henry Anton... oh, sorry. I've been spending too much time in Fallout 3's bleak, bombed-out version of Washington DC. What I meant to say is that Joystick Division congratulates President Barack Obama on his inauguration today and regrets that we can't be there in person to witness this moment in history. That's because I'm one of those fatties that needs two seats on an airplane, and who has that kind of money in today's economy? If you're like me and you'd like to celebrate the occassion but aren't one of the millions who phyiscally descended on the capital, here's how you can visit DC without leaving the house. After the jump is a list of games that have featured Washington DC as an in-game setting. It's your patriotic duty to play one of them today!
After learning only a day or two ago there was a SF4 arcade cabinet in Arizona, I decided to take a field trip to the AZ Mills Gameworks to check it out.
First things first: I can't tell you how disappointing Gameworks is for someone who came of age during the era of seedy corner arcades. It's hard to explain what the American arcade scene was like to people who are too young to remember it... suffice it to say: Gameworks is a very sterile interpretation of it. While there were a few massive family-friendly arcades back then (usually attached to a miniature golf park or something), more often they were dank, grimy little dens that had more in common with a dive bar (or at best, a pool hall). When I used to play SF2 in high school, I was typically surrounded by scary older kids who set ashtrays on the cab and smoked as they played, fistfights broke out in the parking lot every night, and the noise was so deafening all you could ever really make out in the din was - sometimes - the Mortal Kombat announcer demanding you FINISH HIM. The carpet looked like it was collected from an Indian casino, there was no lighting beyond the glow of the screens, and the whole place smelled of adolescent male B.O. and ozone.
In short: it was paradise. If they added strippers to the mix I never would've left.
In lieu of this, walking into Gameworks and seeing little girls bouncing up and down on Dance Dance Revolution while their parents have a chef salad upstairs is still a little jarring for me. They do have one little corner of the second floor stocked with older titles in faux-wood cabs - a Mario Bros., a Tetris, a Missile Command - but even if you just try and focus on that little nook, you're not fooled, it's not the same. I might as well take my Vietnam vet father to the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland and ask him if it reminds him of Southeast Asia.
Okay, that's enough "Back in my day..." stuff. Back to Street Fighter 4...
Gary and I are different in a lot of ways. He knows what a "shoto player", while that kind of crap makes my eyes glaze over. I'm more into shooters and American developed games, and only one of us has Voltron pajamas. I'll let you figure out which one. But probably the biggest difference between us is that I'll accept games from publishers, while Gary doesn't. Morals or something. This is all a long-winded way of saying that a copy of Skate 2 showed up at the Anton-plex last night. My initial reactions after the jump!
I realized today that most of my adult life has been spent anticipating the release of some miscellaneous bit of geekery, and have been celebrating 3 or 4 nerd Christmas Eves a year for decades now.
I'll give examples: the first I can remember was the anticipation of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. If hype can be orchestrated, Nintendo of the late 80s was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, stringing along fans of the original for years with little breadcrumbs - the occasional screenshot in Nintendo Power, a map of the first dungeon months before the game even was released, dubious "chip shortages" delaying the game further - until kids like me were planning a Heat-like heist on Nintendo of America HQ just to get a copy. Eventually Adventure of Link finally landed, but some new game replaced it, and I've pined away for some game, one after another, ever since. This extends to movies, too. For more than a decade I've been in a state of perpetual anticipation, first for Star Wars prequels, then for the Lord of the Rings films, then for Batman movies, now for Watchmen and The Hobbit.
Philosophically, it's a horrendous, poisonous way to approach life, always waiting for things, always fixated on a future event rather than the present. But it's such a normal part of my life as a geek it's hard to imagine being any other way.
That being the case: I've composed a list of the Q1 2009 games I'm obsessing over (in chronological order). Click through to see mine and add your own.
Here's a funny little web tool that was sent my way: the Unofficial Microsoft Points Converter. Like web-based currency converter XE.com, you simply enter a number of Microsoft Points, and it converts it to real world money. The results are given in several currencies, so you can see how the points are valued in dollars, pounds, euros, and more.
The site also lays out how much it would cost you to buy chunks of content. Purchasing everything available on the Xbox Live Marketplace will run you $9,452.19
Welcome to the first installment of what promises to be a horrifying regular feature here on Joystick Division! Inspired by our much more frequently-updated sister site Topless Robot and its emotionally scarring Fan Fiction Friday column, I bring you Weekly Fan Art! Celebrating the lamest, weirdest and most vomit-inducing video game fan art, I figured I'd start things off with the biggest game mascot of all time: Mario. There are literally thousands of Mario art pieces out there, including some which are truly very cool. These, however, are not cool at all. Hit the jump to revel in the shittiness!
Courtesy of Play-Asia, I now am the proud owner of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes for the Nintendo Wii... which, as an import title, I cannot play* on my North American Wii.
The sad thing is: I knew this when I bought the game. But I have a history of buying games I can't actually play just because they were games I had to own. Other examples: Phantasy Star: Generation 1 and 2, Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box, and a Street Fighter II JAMMA board.
Among many others.
Anyone else suffer from this peculiar weakness?
*: I understand there may be a way to play this game on my Wii, via some sort of shennanigans with Twilight Princess... must do research. If someone knows where to point me, drop a note in the comments.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 12:56 PM Jan 07, 2009
To help ease the aching void in my soul left by all games that aren't Fallout 3, I picked up Sega's much-maligned Incredible Hulk game the other day. I figured something mindless and disposable might be what the doctor ordered, and I loved its spiritual predecessor, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. I fired it up, expecting the worst, and was pleasantly surprised to discover... it's not that bad. Sure, it's got a glitchy camera, some lame missions and spotty graphics, but the core gameplay is fun in a casual, low-stress kind of way. The Incredible Hulk certainly wouldn't have made onto my Best of 2008 list had I played it earlier, but I'm not regretting the $25 bucks I dropped on it either.
Note: If you're thinking of playing VC and/or haven't gotten to Chapter 7 yet, this post contains very minor SPOILERS.
As someone who's been a Sega fan since the SMS days (yes, I'm old), it's hard for me to admit I haven't really loved a Sega game for years and years. The last Sega game I really went bananas for was Skies of Arcadia*, and that was back in 2001. Other than the little thrill of seeing Green Hill Zone in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it's been pretty sad since then. Sega is like the god of the Old Testament or George Lucas: rather than nurture they prefer to test the faithful, inflicting plagues, boils, poverty and even Gungans to see how devout they really are.
But then I found Valkyria Chronicles. Yummy.
While Anton was lost in Fallout 3's bleak horizon, my end of '08 and beginning of '09 has been spent playing VC. And even though I'm only about halfway through it, it's already a game I'd mention as a personal all-time favorite.
I've just come off days of trying to get through the most brutal map in the game so far, the Chapter 7 desert battle against Emperor Maximillian's ridiculous, factory-sized tank. After slipping through every battle prior with little trouble, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this one. It took me a half dozen failed attempts to finally eek out a narrow victory... but it was so pyrrhic I went ahead and reloaded anyway, just because I couldn't stomach all the (permanently) dead team members.
In shame, I finally turned to YouTube - and watched a much better player blow through the map with ease. I was dumbfounded, but also intrigued: I hadn't realized how shallow my understanding of the game was, or the number of strategies I had been totally ignorant about. Just watching the video has improved my game tenfold.
Anyway, this game is AWESOME - a must-have for any PS3 owner. And for other VCers having trouble with that sonofabitch in Chapter 7, I've linked the YouTube video.
*: Probably not coincidentally, Valkyria Chronicles came from the same crew that did Skies of Arcadia: Sega WOW, formerly AM1 and the brains behind the fucking awesome Streets of Rage and the even more fucking awesome Phantasy Star... so maybe I'm not a Sega fan at all, maybe I'm more precisely a Sega WOW fan.
Amidst questions like "Was the Secret Service in the other fucking room or something?" and "Doesn't it look like there had to be a second shoe-er?" (rimshot!), some people are finding... other ways to pass the time after Bush had a pair of size 10s hurled at him in Iraq: namely, making a Flash game of the event. You have a time limit, pick from a variety of non-deadly projectiles (e.g. a fish, an iPhone, an Elmo doll) and try to hit the leader of the free world for gold and points... er, just points actually.
Free tip from the tinfoil hat brigade: don't enter a name in the high score list. For all you know the fucking feds set up this game to see who plays it, and thus whose phone to tap and taxes to audit.
Normally I don't bother directing our readers to Penny Arcade, for two reasons: first, you should be going every day anyway; second, if I actually felt the need to alert you all every time there was something worth seeing over there, that would be the majority of our posts. But this simply couldn't pass.
Per their holiday tradition, the guys are thumbing through hundreds of photos of fanmade "dickerdoodles" - for the uninitiated, snickerdoodles in the shape of a cock - and Gabe (a.k.a. Mike Krahulik) has set up a gallery showing off a heap of the entries.
I have to say, I am shocked and delighted there are so many deeplydepraved gamers out there (and mesmerizingly game girlfriends/wives). I'm also fascinated by the apparent widespread familiarity with pornographic tropes, referenced in virtually every other picture - there's cookie deep throating, frosting facials, and even some sugary bukkake action.
I even saw a couple instances of bestiality.
You can see the debauchery HERE, but be warned: it's full-on pastry porn, some of it as dirty as anything you've ever seen save for the fact the onscreen phallus is flour, butter and sugar.
(P.S. You may be wondering why I would pixelate a cookie phallus in the pic above. It's actually because I think it makes it look even more dirty.)
So says the handy-dandy graphic at my Xbox.com account.
This experience is teaching how me heavily I lean on the 360 in terms of my gaming habits. I own every "active" platform, so I do have a Wii, PS3, DS and PSP sitting here to distract myself with... but I doan wanna. I want my 360.
Part of it is my backlog. If you're any kind of active gamer, you know the story: there's always a game or two or five you've had waiting in the wings - maybe still in the plastic wrap, maybe been sitting there for months - but you just never find time to get to it, mostly because New Games You Have To Have keep coming out.
Currently, I have a backlog of 1 game for the PS3, 1 game for the Wii, 2 games for the DS and 0 for the PSP. For the 360, though, I have 5. FIVE GAMES waiting to be played, which spiked since my 360 went on the fritz a few weeks ago - the problem is I keep buying the games I want, even though I don't actually have a 360.
(Just for trivia, the oldest title in my backlog is Tales of Vesperia.)
It's weighing heavily on my conscience. Every time I walk through my living room, I feel guilt. I find myself looking at Left 4 Dead and Prince of Persia the same way I do that set of dumbbells I bought 38 months ago and have not used in 37.
Still, I think it has value. It forces the respondent - assuming he's actually putting some effort into it - to seriously think about his job and how he does it. I'd love it if every reviewer filled it out, even if they didn't ultimately share their answers with readers (though I'd love to read everyone's)... I think it's a worthwhile exercise.
Anyway, I did it too (you can read it after the jump). And even if you aren't interested in my answers, you might be interested in the questions, as readers, thinking about what you'd hope a reviewer to say.
Richard Connelly over at the Houston Press' blog Hair Balls tipped us off about the ongoing lawsuit accusing Nintendo's little development piggies of stealing motion controller technology, and going "Wii, Wii, Wii" all the way home (and THAT, my friends, is the last Wii play on words in existence. Thank you, it's been a good run).
Whether or not Motiva, the company bringing the suit, are owed money or are simply lying seems trite next to this amazing quote from lawyer Mark Lanier, who attempts to rain soundbites like Spiny Eggs from his Lakitu cloud of ludicrous legality and ends up sounding like an idiot.
"Nintendo makes games where you get to play a thief, but that doesn't give them the right to be one," Lanier says.
Ho, HO! What a wicked bon mot! Except Nintendo has never, I believe, made a game (much less "games" in the plural) where you play a fucking thief.
Of, I could be wrong...Mario's kind of a dick for assuming all those coins are "finders keepers." Here are some obvious, gaming-accurate quotes this guy should have used to prove to Nintendo that he knows his shit:
1. "Nintendo steals patents the way Like-Likes steal Link's shield."
2. "As Motiva slept by the campfire, Nintendo snuck in with its rucksack and stole our patents. Unfortunately, even though we woke up and kicked the shit out of them with our Golden Axe until they fled, it was not enough."
3. "Nintendo stole our patent—but not to give to the poor, as in the Nintendo licensed version of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which actually got the Nintendo Seal of Approval."
4. Donning a white mask and pink robe, Nintendo stole our patent right off our back...which made the most hideous, squalling sound every to come from a crying patent."
5. Think of our motion technology patent as a hamburger. Think of Nintendo as the 8-bit Hamburglar from the Nintendo game MC Kids. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I think you see where this is heading.
I have to confess: I've never been that big of a PS3 fan. Part of it is the hassle: it seems like every time I turn the damn thing on, I have to download an update, putting whatever I had in mind on hold for 30 minutes while it slowly goes about making some subtle change I usually never notice afterward. This makes me less inclined to turn the console on, which means longer spans of time go between turning it on, which means there's more likely to be some update when I finally do turn it on, which means my annoyance with the process is simply reinforced.
Add the facts that I'm not a fan of the DualShock's ergonomics, I don't find most PS3 exclusives that compelling, and my Achievement Whoredom slants me towards the 360 versions of multiplatform releases... so when I do boot up the PS3, it's more likely to watch a Blu-ray than play a game.
Today was different, finally tearing myself away from Fallout 3 (look for my review soon) and turning on my PS3 for the first time in... I don't even know how long (could it be months?), lured back by a particularly tempting duo in my backlog: LittleBigPlanet and Resistance 2. After a half hour of downloading and installing updates, I was ready to take my first few steps as Sackboy.
So while I've got the machine back in my gaming rotation: I saw tons of games I'm totally unfamiliar with in the PlayStation Store. Which are the gems I should be downloading and playing?
Inspired by Chris Ward's initial thoughts on Guitar Hero World Tour, I bring you Anton's introduction to Fallout 3! Like many of you, I picked up the Xbox 360 Collector's Edition of Fallout 3, the game certain to be in serious contender for Game of the Year honors. I've only got about an hour invested in it right now, but I'm already glad that I'm not the one reviewing it for the site. Already, the scope of the game is overwhelming. So far, I've crafted a character who looks a lot like Robert Downy Jr. in Tropic Thunder, battled oversized roaches, committed murder, donned stolen Vault guard gear and shook down a nervous prostitute for money. And I was planning to play as a good guy!
What about you, oh irradiated reader? How have you spent your first day in the nuclear wasteland?
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:22 AM Oct 27, 2008
Everybody knows what's happening this Friday. That's right, it's screening of "The Bamboo Flute" at the Kumar Shahani Film Festival! But for all you plebeians who lack what I like to call "fancy culture," it's also Halloween. Yes, it's once again that fabled night when children become panhandlers, sorority girls dress like sluts and throw up in the bushes, and nerds everywhere hit thrifts stores in search of parts for their homemade Marcus Fenix costumes. What say you, oh Joystick Divisionites? What video game-themed costumes are our millions of loyal readers planning to unleash upon the world? Let us know, or better yet - send us pics!
Kotaku has an interview up with Grace Kim, Playboy's Miss November. You may wonder how that's game-related, other than the fact that gamers tend to like the naked lady pictures. Well, it turns out that Ms. Kim left a plumb job as Activision's PR lead for the Guitar Hero series to pose for the magazine. You really don't need me to say anything else here, except that there's another sexy (sfw) photo below the jump.
MSNBC has a story up today about Tennis for Two, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Yep, you read that right: Tennis for Two was cobbled together by a nuclear physicist a half a century ago, in 1958. It uses an oscilloscope as a screen and you can hear the thing's guts clicking and whirring as you play (check out the video above, but try to ignore the weirdo music someone saw fit to add). If you're in NY, you can even go and see it for yourself tomorrow... see the MSNBC story for details.
This was a bit of a shock to me since A) I've always considered myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to video game trivia, and B) I thought 1962's Spacewar! was the agreed-upon first video game ever. Turns out people have been lying to my ass. Reading up on this a little, it seems a tic-tac-toe game preceded even Tennis for Two (OXO, circa 1952) making it the earliest, however Wikipedia cautions: "there is a patent dating from 1947–1948 that describes a missile simulation game utilizing a cathode ray tube."
Well, I guess "video game history" is another thing I can add to my list of things I thought I understood but apparently don't. Some other recently added items:
The differences between the Senate and the House
The name of that one part under my car that's dragging on the ground
Sex
Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation
OXO (Windows version... in the original, you dialed your choices on a phone)
Ok, ok...these weren't emailed to me, they were found online at various gaming sites. But, with these gourds as your inspiration, there's still time to send your entries to joystickdivision@gmail.com for a chance at that sweet, sweet free loot
Though I've barely scratched the surface of it, I just wanted to drop in and say how giddy I am about Dead Space so far. Brilliant visuals, brilliant 5.1 sound, and - most of all - brilliant immersion, with not a single thing the player experiences that's outside of the "reality" of the game universe. There isn't even a HUD or inventory screen in the conventional sense.
This is a problem. With Fable II, Far Cry 2 and the newest DS Castlevania due next week, I really don't know how to fit in all this awesome gaming. Thank god LBP was at least delayed a week.
Ubisoft have unleashed some clever viral marketing on Amazon.com, offering up items for "sale" that could help you overthrow a small African country, such as a flamethrower, a glider, and even a mercenary. All of these items are, of course, promoting Ubi's new open-world shooter Far Cry 2. It's a clever little idea, but one that might lead to some consumer disappointment. After all, if I order a flamethrower, I expect a flamethrower to be delivered, dammit!
Props to Kotaku for discovering Ubi's online weapons cache.
We officially declare the end of "video game cake" season, and the beginning of Video Game Pumpkin season. Send your best video game pumpkin carving(s) to JoystickDivision@gmail.com, and the winner gets a special prize from all of us at Joystick Division! We can't promise it won't be a flaming bag of Nokia N-Gage phones on your doorstep. Man, those reek! We'll post the sweetest gourds leading up to Halloween, the bestest holiday of the year (suck it, Bastille Day).
RULES: One of the following items should be in the picture so we know you carved the pumpkin yourself and didn't just image search something (slacker): a gang sign, a cat, a joystick, a game controller, a Blue Pig Ganon, a copy of Aquaman for the Xbox or a picture of Billy Mitchell in an American Flag Tie.
Here's my entry, unsurprisingly. Happy carving, folks.
Playing Fracture for an upcoming review, the one thing that continues to disappoint me (well, one of a few things) is its woefully generic-to-the-point-of-cliche-bald-space-marine-with-sci-fi-football-pad-armor theme. Seriously guys: how do you pitch this look with a straight face anymore? I would be pretty ashamed to actually suggest at a board meeting: "Hey, we could make our main character a bald space marine, and set it in a dystopian near-future!" Christ, you fucking hacks! Have some self-respect!
*deep breath, count to ten*
At least Sarah Palin: Guardian of the Northern Frontier has a unique angle going for it. Click through to help Sarah shoot down incoming Russian missiles and occasionally bullseye the sundry moose. No shooting wolves from helicopters, though - maybe they're saving that for the sequel.
There's been a lot of talk lately on Joystick Division about the gaming press, largely about what a sorrystate it's in. A while ago, Gary, Chris and I discussed reviewing the various gaming magazines that are released every month, and I had that idea in mind when I discovered this:
The worst question EVER asked by a member of the gaming press.
Seriously.
Click the jump to read the worst example of game journalism you'll ever see.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 12:09 PM Oct 03, 2008
So, my Bargain Hunting column hasn't been as regular as I would like. Perhaps I'm not getting enough fiber. But anyway, have I got some news for you fine folks! What's better than cheap games? Free games! Midway has released three free games on download sites like FileFront and Gamer's Hell: The Suffering, Area 51, and Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War. The Suffering is good, Area 51 is worth checking out for David Duchovney's hilariously sleepy voice work, and Rise and Fall is shit. But hey, they're all free!
THQ has also released the original Full Spectrum Warrior on FileFront, also for free. All games are obviously for PC only. I'm of the mindset that PC gaming is for snobs and French people, but I'm also of the mindset that almost any game is worth it for free. Cheapwads rejoice!
Got a lead on hot video game deals? Send 'em to antongordonwrites@gmail.com
Been playing Mercenaries 2 the past couple days, and so far, so good. To me it delivers something I was deeply annoyed GTA4 didn’t: freedom, in a big way. Specifically, the freedom to approach the challenges the game lays out for you in any number of ways rather than revoking player options for the sake of a mood, cinema, or scripted sequence. As I complained in my GTA4 review:
Why do I have to follow the biker gang on a motorcycle when a perfectly good car is right next to me?... If I know where someone is escaping to, why can’t I just go directly there and wait for him, rather than have to stay within 50 yards of his entire, erratic flight?
So far, Mercenaries 2 hasn’t done nearly as much of that. When you force players to play by the rules in a genre that’s built on the concept of being rule-free... um, there’s obviously something wrong with the formula there. (More after the jump!)
Due to some very positive, very flattering feedback on the illustrations I did for our Bionic Commando Rearmed discussion (which you can find HERE), I was persuaded to do some more, this time of a few Bionic Commando villains. Click on through for a peek, BC fans…
You may ask "Gary, what does this have to do with videogames?" Well I'll tell you: I'm retiring from gaming altogether to watch this video over and over until I die.
UPDATE: Apparently the video was yanked off YouTube for being a terms of use violation. I guess I'll stick with gaming, then... but if it shows up again, the retirement's back on!
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 10:12 AM Aug 28, 2008
Yesterday I went to GameStop to pick up Contra 4 to keep me busy on my flight to PAX. While I was there, I picked up Spider-Man 3 for Xbox 360 at the low, low price of $8. Yes, I know it sucks, but I've played the rest of the series and I'm a completist. Today I went to Target for some last minute supplies, and I noticed the Eye of Judgement bundle with camera was on clearance for $35. I didn't buy it, but I may snag it when I get back because Sony's got some cool stuff on the way for that camera (I could care less about the game).
Where do you folks go to hunt for video game bargains? Online? In stores? Gypsy Caravans? Send your best bargain hunting tips to antongordonwrites@gmail.com and I post the best ones here on the site to share with the world.
Posted by J. Matthew Zoss at 11:18 PM Aug 25, 2008
Summer is the time for game conventions. It's nice out, and it's hard to spend the entire day in the basement working your way through Strategy RPGs. So what better way to get out of the house and enjoy some social time than to head to one of the many fine game conventions held this time of year? Of course, E3 has come and gone with a whimper, it was too expensive to jet off to Germany for the Games Convention in Leipzig, and the Tokyo Game Show is out of the question. Too many Godzilla attacks. There's only one option left: don your finest cosplay and head for the Fifth Annual Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle!
I've spent the day burning incense and intoning softly muttered chants in preparation for Bionic Commando Rearmed, due on XBLA sometime late tonight. I'll be downloading it the moment it appears on the service, but I won't actually be playing tonight - not when I'd have to keep the volume low out of consideration for the sleeping girlfriend. No, I'll wake up early tomorrow like it's Christmas morning to play it first thing, 5.1 surround fully operational.
You might ask why I'd even bother downloading it tonight, then, if I'm not going to play it. Because I'm downloading it out of respect.
Bionic Commando is - for my money - the best game to ever appear on the NES, and easily makes my all time top 5 across all platforms. I recommended Nathan "Rad" Spencer as an addition to Super Smash Bros., and was happy to include him in our banner.
Meditation is key in readying oneself for a remake of the greatest game ever from the greatest console ever. You gotta get your chakras and chi and shit all wired tight, yo. If your mind and spirit aren't properly aligned on being humble and worthy for such a game, bad shit can happen. Like when that Hebrew accidentally touched the Ark of the Covenant and was struck dead. Don't download BCR casually or play it flippantly, lest
...oh yes: lest. You use words like lest and thy and thou and even verily when discussing things like Bionic Commando...
you find yourself transformed into a pile of charcoal briquettes in front of the TV.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm late for my mescaline enema.
When I wrote my original "4 Things Billy Mitchell Will Never Own" article---one of the original Joystick Division articles that put my enormous package on full display---I totally forgot to post one important item in my Pac-Man collection: the original Michael Kupperman artwork I got when I quit Wizard Magazine...
Jump for the story behind the artwork! You know you want it...
I know a lot of people loved the Pac-Man action movie trailer from a while back, but the guys that made this can have my babies. "We can kill this thing, we always could have. We just have to touch it." Finally, Clyde--the Screech Powers of the ghost faction--gets his heroic dues. And I can't deny that I'd like to introduce Dinky to the Pac-Man canon more often. Poor Dinky.
Sure, Xbox Live has had some great content in its time. Geometry Wars. Pac-Man Championship Edition. Reefer Madness. Naysayers can bitch about the $50 a year XBL costs, but talking like grown-ups: it's still the best online service around.
This opinion was cemented in my mind only 10 minutes into The Machine Girl, a Japanese straight-to-video release that dethrones the mighty Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky as the most insane, retardedly violent laugh-out-loud funny terrible-but-in-a-good-way movie I've ever sat through.
(And I've sat through many.)
I'm not going to spoil any of the movie's lunacy, but here're the basics: Cute Japanese school girl who loses an arm after trying to avenge her younger brother's death at the hands of a ninja yakuza family has a gatling gun attached to the stump and goes on a blood-soaked revenge bender (revender?).
The body count is through the roof. There's an evil, Lady Macbeth-esque yakuza woman who kills people by thrusting her bladed drill bra into them during an embrace. One person is stabbed through the back of her head so the knife comes out her mouth, causing her to vomit blood and puke all over until she dies. The gatling gun flays a person's head at one point, stripping all the flesh off but somehow leaving the skull and eyeballs intact to - naturally - scream at the camera. And someone gets their arm breaded and deep-fried into a two foot long hunk of tempura.
It might've been disturbing to watch had there been a budget to speak of. As it is, I think they spent all of 82 bucks on mannequins, fake blood, and a garden hose nozzle to create arterial sprays.
It's the feel good movie of the summer. Just rent it.
Is it possible to love/laugh at a game as much as I love/laugh at 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which unironically drops this Fall? Since Kotaku ran the newest, Awesomely Stupid Trailer, I thought I'd let you fine folks know what runs through my brains after reading the incredible press release...
Posted by Jonathan McNamara at 5:03 AM Jun 12, 2008
The internet can be a pretty messed up place sometimes. Sure, the information super highway is a shining example of freedom of expression at its finest, but it has a tendency to expose me to things I don't want to know about.
Case in point, some guy identifying himself as smorrill1 has started an entire series of YouTube videos called $5 Assassin based on this first post in which he has constructed the hidden blade from Assassin's Creed using an old umbrella shaft and a few rubber bands:
He gets in close on his web cam, staring into our very souls with the cold eyes of a dorm room assassin and says, "There's no blade on it yet, but really I can attach whatever I want to the end."
Like what? A "bang" sign? A boxing glove? The sheer number of possibilities boggles the imagination.
I'm getting ready to complete my thoughts on Wii Fit for the next edition of Game On, and it occurs to me how stupid this all is: Nintendo dropping an exercise game on America in the middle of the most beautiful weather of the year (*claim VOID in contiguous states with shitty weather). Why in the hell would I want to hop up and down on a balance board when I could be throwing beer bottles at passing semi trailers, and running like hell? Now THAT'S good exercisin'!
Then it occurs to me, as if Shigeru Miyamoto himself whispered it into my ear, that once attention is turned from the Xbox and PS3 pissing contests that are Better Graphics and Faster Processing Speeds, the next logical step would be to move gaming outside your living room and into a real world environment.
I have a closet full of videogame stuff – literally: a closet, full. In truth it’s more of a closet-and-a-half, the boxes beginning to creep out the door a few feet into my office.
It’s a little bit of everything – old consoles (I’m especially proud of my TurboDuo modded with an S-Video output), reams of old magazines (the first couple years of Nintendo Power, practically the entire catalog of Diehard Gamefan), and a veritable Tutankhamen’s tomb of preorder bonuses and collector’s editions stretching back decades. Offhand, I’m having trouble thinking of a videogame relic I don’t own, aside from a Neo-Geo (but I’m looking).
So in a way, my girlfriend couldn’t possibly know all the shit I've got squirreled away - how could she, when even I’ve lost track?
Just the same, there are a few things I’ve made a point of her not knowing about, because... well... there'd be too much explaining. You understand. And since she only reads Joystick Division when I insist… we’ll just keep this our little secret, ‘kay?
I doubt I'm the first person to admit hoping that there would be something really wrong with Grand Theft Auto IV, just so I could learn a few valuable lessons about the corrupt, ass-kissing nature of the game review business and the general perils of buying into hype. There's just one problem: It is as good as everyone says. The graphics are somewhere between "good enough" and "damn that's pretty"; the character animations are exquisite, the gameplay is exciting, and Liberty City is, at least from what I've played so far, one of the most eye-catching, detailed and explorable gameplay worlds of all time. There's some of the usual GTA issues -- I expected and got at least one hair-pulling mission that required way too many tries, a few other missions that required some "what in the hell is happening" trial-and-error, and a fair amount of long-hike chase missions that tested my patience -- but it's more or less impossible to make a Grand Theft Auto game without those things. The real problems that drove me completely insane in the previous games are largely solved: gunfights are kinetic and easily controllable, with a useful cover system that changes the whole dynamic of what used to be a massive headache of a gameplay mechanic; icons are clear and easy to spot; navigating between checkpoints and mission markers is done through a simple and intutitive GPS system (though it still leaves you on your own to discover useful shortcuts along the way) ... you'd really have to scrape the bottom of the bitch barrel to find something serious to complain about here.
Last night, LA gallery Machine Project hosted an event where guests could try their hand at a projected, wall-sized game of Donkey Kong, Missle Command or Pac-Man using a similarly-scaled (i.e., massive) Atari 2600 joystick.
According to Machine Project’s website, the joystick – built by artist-slash-mad genius Jason Torchinsky – is 15 times normal scale, making it about 5 feet tall and all but impossible to work on your own. This results in team efforts as seen below, where you work the bottom part while your girlfriend works the actual shaft... um… what was I talking about?
I love hip hop. Since this is a video game blog, you may think I'm going to tell you how hilarious MC Chris is or something, but I actually mean hip hop by actual non-nerdcore rappers and not someone whose biggest claim to fame is yelling a lot on Sealab 2021 and insulting Kingdom Hearts (though that's still a pretty decent claim to fame if you ask me). I have over 20 hours' worth of music by Wu-Tang and Wu-affiliated artists on my iPod, seeing Afrika Bambaataa live at the Foundation ranks up there with my happiest memories ever, and if my apartment building caught on fire one of the first things I'd rescue would be my 12" copy of the "Life Is... Too $hort" single. You know why I couldn't get excited for Super Smash Brothers Melee? My version already came out years ago. Redman vs. Crazy Legs is like my Snake vs. Kirby.
Gary and I are different in a lot of ways. He knows what a "shoto player", while that kind of crap makes my eyes glaze over. I'm more into shooters and American developed games, and only one of us has Voltron pajamas. I'll let you figure out which one. But probably the biggest difference between us is that I'll accept games from publishers, while Gary doesn't. Morals or something. This is all a long-winded way of saying that a copy of Skate 2 showed up at the Anton-plex last night. My initial reactions after the jump! 
Here's a funny little web tool that was sent my way: the Unofficial Microsoft Points Converter. Like web-based currency converter XE.com, you simply enter a number of Microsoft Points, and it converts it to real world money. The results are given in several currencies, so you can see how the points are valued in dollars, pounds, euros, and more.
