Matt Morrison Friday, June 18, 2010 at 3:31PM So I was going to do a complete breakdown of all the news at E3 this year, but due to technical difficulties, it looks like that won't happen. Instead, head over to Giant Bomb and read Marino's excellent breakdown of all the major news.
JJ Wilkinson Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 4:38PM I saw this and I had to share it. It looks like the Metal Gear franchise is taking a new direction, but it doesn't look bad at all. It looks really bad ass.
Matt Morrison Monday, June 14, 2010 at 10:23AM
Project Natal, the motion control device for the Xbox 360 revealed at last years E3, is now officially known as Kinect. The name and numerous details were revealed last night at maybe the craziest press event ever. No pricing was announced, but several games were shown, and many of them had additional details leaked from a USA Today story which was published early. The games include:
Also last night, Flash ads from an Italian website purportedly leaked the design of the new "slim" Xbox 360.*
Looks kind of like a bad PC tower to me. The new design reportedly has a 250GB hard drive and built-in WiFi. We won't have to wait long for confirmation on this one, as the Microsoft E3 press briefing begins at 1:00 EST. We'll have all the coverage you need of the event as soon as it's over.
JJ Wilkinson Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 4:22PM 
Lets just get this out of the way, Saints Row is a Grand Theft Auto rip-off. That being said, it is one of the best GTA clones, partly because it doesn't take itself seriously. What makes Saints Row different then other open world games is that it realizes that people only want to cause death and destruction, and it is designed as such. You can cause all sorts of destruction in Saints Row 2, not just because its fun but its an essential part of game play. And its not just killing people either, its also about random mini-games, like a base jumping mini-games, and mini-games involving a sewage truck and fecal matter being sprayed everywhere. Most of these mini-games are necessary to continue playing the story missions, which are usually the most exciting missions. The story is kind of bland in the beginning, but it got more interesting toward the end. The story is mostly held together by the fantastic voice acting and charming characters. Unfortunately, you are usually forced to complete the same sort of mini-games over and over and over again in order to get to the story missions. By completing story missions though, you take control of more of the city, and you get upgrades and weapons. When things get boring though, I usually like changing up my characters looks. The character customization is pretty deep, allowing you to choose even their taunts and walks, my favorite walk being one of the many pimp walks (yes I said many). You can even customize your vehicles, from everything from rims to increased health. Vehicles are very important, considering that the game world is massive, and traversing it on foot is nearly impossible. Saints Row 2 is the kind of game that is a non-stop thrill ride, it isn't perfect, but if you can work through its little faults you'll find an amazing game.
Final Rating: A
Matt Morrison Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 1:50PM 
Rumors of Hulu being integrated into the Xbox dashboard like Netflix have been floating around for a while, but today, well-trusted news source Reuters is reporting that the streaming TV website will be coming to Xbox in "the next month or two". This monthly fee will apparently only apply to older episodes of TV shows, with currently-airing programming remaining free. Personally, as someone who has tried using various methods to get Hulu on my TV, I would gladly pay a small fee to watch it on my 360. All the workarounds available right now either take way too much work or have very low quality video. $8 to $10 a month would be great for some high-quality streaming.
JJ Wilkinson Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 4:00PM Kratos is back, because there are gods to be killed, as well as anything that's stupid enough to be seen by Kratos. Kratos by the way, is as much as a sociopath as he's always been, if not more. Killing people has never been so beautiful though. The game starts where God of War 2 left off, with Kratos marching toward Mount Olympus. This opening scene gets the game started with a bang, unfortunately the rest of the game can't match up to it. This opening scene is awesome to say the least, with giant battles, awesome camera work, and lots of action. Afterwards you can't help but be hooked for the rest of the game, waiting for another moment like that. But it just doesn't happen, it never gets as good as the first scene. It goes from being an amazing game, to good game afterwards. This doesn't mean the game is bad, it just seems that the pacing is off. The base game play tried and true, if you've played the other God of War's, you'll see that it's virtually unchanged; go somewhere, find out you need something, go back to where you started, go back with thing, repeat. The boss battles are supposed be the high points of the game, but even they didn't match up to the first scene, and they seem disappointing, like lighting some fireworks, waiting patiently just to get a small *pop*. Even the final boss fizzles compared to the first battle. When your not fighting, but you usually are, your doing puzzles, some of which are very clever. One puzzle reminded me of the works of M.C. Esher, which only made it more fun to figure out. The weapons in this game are ok, but they're are similar to your default blades. The ending was kind of boring and predictable, but I wasn't really expecting much. There was one thing the bothered be about the game; it felt like I was supposed to have some sort of emotional connection to Kratos, which I found hard because he slaughtered everyone who looked at him funny. Overall all though this an excellent game, and it defines the hack and slash genre.
;)
Kratos is bringing the pain
Final Rating: A
Matt Morrison Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 12:47AM Developer Quantic Dream has a history of unique, but ultimately flawed, games. Omikron: The Nomad Soul was just too weird for most people, though it featured an excellent sci-fi storyline. 2005's Indigo Prophecy (also known as Fahrenheit) innovated greatly in the realm of cinematic experiences in games, but the plot took a turn for the batshit crazy at the end, and turned off many people. With Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream hoped to create their ideal game, an interactive movie that was promoted as the first video game that will make you cry. The good news: they have almost achieved that goal. The bad news: the little annoyances of the game make it fall just short of perfect.
Several of the choices you are required to make in Heavy Rain really hit me hard. Never is a character given a generic good or evil choice, only shades of grey that could very well turn out bad. The story has the potential to be an amazingly involved pieace of storytelling, which makes it all the worse that the characters are almost ruined by atrocious voice-acting. I understand that the game was developed in France, and the character's voice-actors are the same people who were motion-captured for them, but the French actors trying their best to sound American just doesn't work, and kills some really emotional scenes. Overall, I would recommend Heavy Rain, as it will be an important game in the history of the medium, even if it's not remembered as a great game.
JJ Wilkinson
A Second Look at Heavy Rain.
Let me just say that the story in this game is amazing, just simply amazing, and that's not even mentioning the amazing graphics. The game presents situations where you must have a cool head and quick reflex's. Some moments are nerve racking, making my blood pump so hard that it gave me a headache. It's hard to put into words how amazing this game was. This game excels in pacing, and is all about catching you off guard. Overall, this is for anyone who enjoys a good mystery thriller story, scratch that, for anyone who enjoys a good story.
Final Rating: A+
heavy rain, ps3 in PS3, Reviews JJ Wilkinson Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 12:00PM Yeah, I might possibly have too much time on my hands.
JJ Wilkinson Monday, March 1, 2010 at 1:45PM ;)
Big Sister is watching youLet me start by saying that the original BioShock is one of my favorite games of all time. That being said, BioShock 2 ends up being a slight disappointment. The first one didn't exactly have the strongest story ever, but in retrospect it looks like Shakespeare. There is little to no story in BioShock 2, and the story has no real twists like the first one, and no shocking revelations. More importantly, nothing is really added to the story of Rapture. Most of the environments look the same, and only three new enemies are added. Most of the game relies on the fact that you are a Big Daddy. Not that this makes a huge difference in gameplay, the only real changes being the new weapons and the ability to dual-wield weapons and plasmids. You expect that you would be able to take more damage as a Big Daddy, this is not the case though, as it seems that your armor is made from papermache and cardboard. At least both the plasmid upgrades and weapon upgrades have more variety this time around.
One of my favorite weapons this time around is the rocket spear, which spears the enemy and rockets them around the room, lighting anything it touches on fire. This game doesn't have the same pacing as the other game, it's almost consistent fighting, which gets kind of old really fast. The hyped Big Sisters are kind of a let down, I could usually beat them without any trouble. The Big Sister fights always happen after you clear an area of Little Sisters, so they are very predictable. Getting the Little Sisters has now become tedious. You first have to kill their Big Daddy, then you have to escort them to a dead body and protect them while the extract the Adam. While this is happening waves of enemies ;)
Don't mess with Daddycome at you. You have to do this twice for each Little Sister to get the maximum amount of Adam. This gets old really fast. This game is also very short, considering I beat it in two days. Unlike the first one, this game includes online multiplayer, and it's actually pretty good. The best part is finding a Big Daddy suit and becoming a Big Daddy, and then killing everyone in your path. Overall, this game felt more like fan fiction than a true sequel. The combat was better but the story was lacking.
Final Rating: C
Matt Morrison Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 5:28PM The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom has inevitably drawn comparisons to Braid, the indie darling otherwise known as Pretentious Metaphor-Fest. This isn't necessarily an unfair point, as both games feature mind-destroying out of the ordinary puzzles. P.B. Winterbottom is the story of the titular character, a dapper gentleman in a bowler and monocle. He is a pie thief by trade who, while chasing a giant monster pie, falls into a temporal rift that gives him the power to create clones of himself which he
must interact with to steal all the pies in a level. You must use these clones to synchronize a complicated series of jumps and switches, all with a set amount of clones you can have during a level. While a couple will have you scratching your head, none of the puzzles are as frustrating and complicated as Braid's ridiculous levels. After finishing the main story levels, a series of challenge levels open up, asking you to finish levels under time and clone number restraints, really adding to the replay value.
Where Winterbottom truly shines, though, is its atmosphere. The whole game is done in the style of a 1940's era silent cartoon, coupled with an amazing Danny Elfman-like score, and the end result is a very Tim Burton-esque vibe. The visuals and soundtrack are both amazing, and even more impressive once you consider how small of a team developed the game. Priced perfectly at 800 points, P.B. Winterbottom is well worth your time and your money.
Final Grade: A-
JJ Wilkinson Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 1:00PM This is what happens when I talk to Jeff. This is probably something I'm going to continue.
Matt Morrison Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 12:02PM The Ratchet & Clank series has long been a model of excellent action-platforming. With the exception of the lackluster Ratchet: Deadlocked, all the Ratchet games have featured a perfect mix of exploration and intense action sequences, capped off with great characters and hilarious dialogue. The follow-up to 2007's Tools of Destruction (and the downloadable episode Quest for Booty), a Crack in Time opens with Ratchet still searching for his robotic friend Clank, who has been missing since the end of TOD. Players switch control between the duo during the course of the adventure, all leading up to a great conclusion of to the current plotline, while leaving just enough room for continuing adventures.
;)
Ratchet's segments stick close to the formula established by previous installments, as a mix between light platforming, high-octane firefights, and space exploration. The weapon choices in the game are just as excellent and satisfying to use as always. Choices range from simple dual laser pistols to the Groovitron, a disco ball grenade that compels enemies to dance. Leveling up of your arsenal is done simply by using different weapons, encouraging varied strategies for battle. Unlike past installments, none of the weapons you receive seem boring or unhelpful to use. As far as space exploration goes, all ship segments are controlled on a flat 2D plane, making controlling the vessel far less complicated than in the past. My only qualm with these parts is that a lot of the side missions in space feel repetitive, but they're worth doing for the extra cash.
Clank's gameplay consists of some great puzzle segments that ended up being my favorite part of the game. These puzzles all consist of learning how to manipulate time to press various switches to open doors to the next area. There are recording pads in each room that give you 60 seconds to record your actions. To progress, you must work with these recordings of yourself to move around obstacles and get to the next area. These segments never get too hard, and there is always an option to skip the current puzzle if need be. You will not recieve the cash bonus from finishing the puzzle if you skip it, but it's a nice option put in to avoid game-ending frustration.
The game lasts around 10 hours, and lets you go back to finish any extras you missed during your playthrough. Extra difficulties and a special challenge mode after you beat the game add tons of replay value. A Crack in Time succeeds on nearly every level, making it the best Ratchet & Clank game, and a must-have for any PS3 owner.
Final Grade: A+
Jeff Nelson Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 4:17PM Detana!! Twinbee (DT) is a vertical shoot ‘em up from Konami, and a very good one at that. It’s also of utmost importance that you shout the “Detana!!” part. Don’t forget that. DT is classified as a “cute ‘em up,” as it features bright, pastel colors and wacky enemies. My two favorites were the cyclop turnips and the bumble bees in kayaks. The bosses are also great, as they take up almost the entire screen, but they never overstay their welcome. The shooting mechanics are a bit different than y
our standard shooter; in addition to your normal shot, you can also deploy bombs that destroy ground based enemies. By holding down the fire button, you can charge up your shot, and wipe out whole groups of enemies at the same time. DT has a unique power up system as well, as it uses bells that can be shot to change their color, and each color gives you a different power up, such as a shield or “ghost ships” that trail behind you. There are seven stages in total, and the difficulty ramps up at just the right pace, with some true challenges awaiting you in the later stages. The only complaint that I can find against this game is that some of the earlier stages tend to drag on a bit, and can sometimes get a bit boring to play through. That being said, DT is an excellent shooter that strikes the right balance between cutesy graphics and challenging and addictive game play.
Final grade: B+
JJ Wilkinson Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:33PM I think this is self explanatory. This is the beginning of a series I'm starting, Big Mo sitting on stuff. I'm quite pleased with it myself.
big, fat, mo, raptor, ridding, sitting, velociraptor in Big Mo On...... Matt Morrison Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 8:43AM I just finished Mass Effect 2 yesterday, and since JJ already reviewed the game, I figured I'd throw together some bullet points on my experience with the game. Be warned: SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS.
JJ Wilkinson Friday, February 12, 2010 at 12:52AM I've started a new blog, it will have most of the same stuff I have here, with the addition of random rants and updates on whats going on. Check it out. Wired Abyss
JJ Wilkinson Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 12:00PM The original Mass Effect was a Sci-Fi RPG/Shooter, with most of the focus on the RPG part. The RPG part made the combat more then a little gooey, and in order to make the game more accessible, they scraped most of the RPG-ness for Mass Effect 2. This makes the combat in ME2 much better, but the side effect is that lots of things are lost as well, good and bad. Gone are elevators, Mako, and other annoying tidbits. Most of the micromanagaing is gone as well, which is a big plus. The game starts with a short cinematic and then you're allowed to move around briefly before starting another cinematic.
After all this is done you are taken to the character creation screen. Basically the same as any other character creation featured in other games, the big difference being that if you played the first Mass Effect, you can import your character. This includes all other the choices you've made in the previous game, some of which have significant differences on what will happen. Those that didn't play the first one though are given an opportunity to decide what happened in the first game, although you can't decide what happened for everything, only somethings. Back to combat. The combat was overhauled to make a more balanced experience, namely the biotics are now useful. Another big change to the combat is ammo, which was non-existant in the first game. This was an unnessary addition to the game and was probably only put in for the heavy weapons, which you won't use much anyhow. Their's one big problem I had with the combat though, and that is the cover system. The cover system doesn't seem like its been touched since the last game, which is not an improvement. They have made the game more of a shooter without working on the cover system. The cover system will sometimes not work and refuses to let you get in cover. Other times it makes you stand up randomly. I died several times because Shepard didn't like the idea of avoiding bullets. Toward the end of the game the cover system felt like it worked better, it's like they didn't care about working on the cover in the first areas. I should probably get back to the story, the main attraction. The story is still fixed around the good/bad choices that are ever present in the game, and you can see what effects they have on the world. Much of what kept me playing the first game is lost in this one though. In the first one their were many unknowns and many mysteries as to what was going on. In this one t
here are really no mysteries, and the only one is explained half way through. Most of the game is focused around finding your crew, which is much larger then the first game. After you recruit them though, you must gain their loyalty by completing another mission. These are pretty much the extent of good story telling. The main story consists of you being told you have to get something to go somewhere, get the thing, you go to the place, over. This is the extent of side-missions, the only other side missions are found by scanning planets. Remember how you could explore uninhabited planets in the Mako? Well that's gone. Now you just scan planets looking for anything out of the ordinary, or minerals, which are used to get upgrades. If this sounds boring then you're in luck, you're still sane. This is the most tedious act, and the worst part is in order to get a good ending you have to get the necessary upgrades. The switch off is you can go to many planets that you only wished you could go to in the first game. The ending is like a choose your own adventure story, with you assigning who does what. This makes for interesting situations and was the high point of the game. Until I reached the last boss, which was about the corniest thing I've ever seen. Overall, the game was good, but it didn't live up to my expectations. Even though the second in a trilogy is usually the weakest story wise, I still thought it would be stronger then that. The combat was better but still made me bored after awhile, it was nothing more then a bridge between cinematics. Oh yeah, remember the "sex scene" from the first one? Well if that's a PG-13 rated scene, then the one featured in this game is PG. Overall though, a good game with a great story, although weak at times.
Final Rating: A-
JJ Wilkinson Friday, December 25, 2009 at 8:47AM Thank you for sticking with us this year!
JJ Wilkinson Saturday, December 19, 2009 at 10:51PM We now have a chat page, so feel free to talk to us and each other. You can find the chat page link near the top.
Jeff Nelson Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 9:27PM In case its name didn’t tip you off, Star Parodier is a parody of Hudson Soft’s Star Soldier series. Star Parodier is by far one of the most fun shooters for the PC Engine. There are three ships to choose from: a normal space ship, Bomberman, and a PC Engine. Yes, BOMBERMAN! Each ship has its own special power ups. The space ship has the typical spread/laser/wave power ups, Bomberman shoots bombs (surprisingly enough), and the PC Engine shoots Hu Cards and CDs. I can not stress enough how awesome the PC Engine ship is. It even adds the CD-ROM attachment to the back of 
your ship when you pick up the CD power up! The level and enemy design match this creativity, and the graphics are incredibly colorful and detailed. The levels are quite lengthy, and usually have several parts to them, such as the beach level that eventually takes you into the ocean. The enemies in this game are absolutely crazy, including otters that launch rockets from their stomachs, penguins with umbrellas, and aquatic ninjas. Not to be outdone, the bosses in this game are equally zany (my favorite is the sunfish with maracas.) The gameplay in Star Parodier isn’t really anything that you haven’t seen before, but is done extremely well nonetheless. The difficulty is just about perfect, easing you in with the first couple of stages, and then really pouring it on. Star Parodier is one of the most fun shooters available on the PC Engine, and one no shooter fan should be without.
Final Grade: A
