Penumbra: Overture.....Totally Fucked Up.

Observe, if you will, the difference between MY opening scene in Penumbra: Overture vs. the walkthrough on Youtube.



Youtube: skip to the 5:20 mark for this:

Looks normal enough, right?

My playthrough:

wait....what? THAT'S NOT RIGHT. FUCK YOU, PENUMBRA.

Yea....not much else for me to say. Sucks.

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Gamestop is Retarded.

There's not much I can add to this story if you've read about it somewhere else already, but I just feel compelled to comment on how stupid this is. So, let me get this straight. I'll be able to walk into a Gamestop store, pick out the DLC I want to buy, go to the register and pay for it, and then.......go home and still have get on Live and download it? Why the fuck did I just waste my time and gas money driving all the way to Gamestop? Stupid and pointless. They also said something about a large market for full game downloads being a ways off. You mean, like, Games on Demand? Right, Gamestop, good job.

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Shadow of the Colossus is going to be made into a movie.

I was going to just make a post that said Sony can go fuck themselves, but I've now thought better of it. Instead, I'm going to tell them exactly why their ape brains are apparently venting too many nutrients, because this is fucking retarded.

According to Variety, Sony is readying a film version of Shadow of the Colossus, to be written by Justin Marks. Who is Justin Marks, you ask? Let me tell you. He wrote the fantastically deep and thoughtful Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Sony, let me ask you a question. What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you fucking serious? What, from the long list of, I'm sure, excellent films this dude has written, has given you the impression he could pen a story for Shadow of the Colossus? Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself. What makes you think Shadow of the Colossus could, in any conceivable way, be turned into a film that resembles something other than a freshly-laid loaf?

You see, there is a very important thing that a lot of industry leaders seem to just not realize, or not give a shit about:

Games, as a medium, is way different than film. Something that works well in a game won't necessarily work at all in a movie. I have the same problem with Bioshock being fucked over, but this right here goes above and beyond the call of duty (and no, that shouldn't be made into a movie, either). There is absolutely nothing in Shadow of the Colossus that would lead anyone to believe a film should be made about it. First off, what would it be about? The game had a story, but it was pretty much all subtext and inference; you got out as much as you put in. The genius and beauty about it was the journey, not the dialogue or cutscenes. If I were a betting man, I'd lay a sizeable chunk down on there being a fucking sappy, drawn-out love story between a couple of asshats I hate looking at. I'll say this much, though - if I had any sort of confidence in a movie studio to at least try their best to keep every single thing about the game that made it special intact, then I would only be, on a mad-as-piss scale of 10, at about a 10. But my confidence levels being what they are, I'm now at about a 35, give or take.

Face it, Sony, you're not going to keep its spirit intact, you're not going to have minimal dialogue, you're not going to have it be ten hours long, you're not even going to keep the story the same, and you're sure as fuck not going to get me to go see this god damned debacle.

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Pure - Much Racing to be Had!!

When I think of racing, I think of tip-of-your-seat action. Realistic physics and the such. Pure is one of the types that personifies the genre. It does for dirt bikes what no other game has done since the last dirt bike game. If you slide into mud, the track looks and feels different next time you whimsically whiz by the same spot on terrain. That's something of notice, because a lot of racing games don't do the same thing that Pure does with dirt ground. It changes the way you strategy is lined up, especially if you're second from first place or downward from that. It really diffuses itself from the rest of the oft-malignant dirty racing genre with this feature. I make a lot of it, but it really is that transformationative.


Besides from the aforementionable, the actual racing is superlative as well. Here's the hook, line and sink her: when you do jumps, you get to do tricks in the air. If you hold a certain button, you do a certain trick. If you hold another certain button, you do the likeness of that one as well. The more buttons you hold down, the trickier the trick gets, and believe me it gets very tricky because I tried to do many tricks in a row while holding down lots of buttons for the trick and I ended up with an injury somewhere in the muscle area. But it was worth almost getting the trick to work. Another racing add-on that was added on is the boost mechanic. If you don't do any tricks for what seems like an eternal day, your boost meter eventually fills up to its maximum limit. Then, you get the transmutable option of boosting past the other contestants. You still have to steer, though, so don't let go of the left button stick like I did until last night. It's a nice bonus feature that's integrity is a part of the controls and feel of play.





I almost forgot, another thing to be able to do is make your own racing vehicle and customize it how you want to do it. You can either start with a vehicle that's already made or do it yourself. If you do it yourself, you will find the attitude that you can adjust every part of the vehicle to your ultimate satisfaction. Bumpers, tires, steering bars and whatever else makes up a vehicle is on display for your leisure perusal. When you unlock new gears for it, you can then put it on it whenever you want. More boost, better for handle, or anything else that unlocks when you beat a race either in time or in more tricks, as there are different modes that have you winning fashionably different.


In all said and done, Pure is a fun ride that tightens the grips on the handlebar and blows yourself, backwards until it's done with you. The differentiating environments unlock after some play through, and they will leave you coming back for more. Recommended for those who want a more challenging stand off with yourself, and also for whoever is deciding to buy the game, which you should. Read more...

Ninja Gaiden 2 : Ninja Harder

Between the blood-curling cries of exuberance from a black spider ninja, stands Ryu Hyabusa and his deadly yet lethal blade, the Dark Dragon blade. In the sequel to 2004's Ninja Gaiden, you are once again tasked with the opposition of many foes, and it's up to you to stand straight and stop a great evil from destroying the world. But story, as tertiary as it often could be in the all-action genre, stays the same here as well, with no vicissitude on the part of the developers. So how is the gameplay? It adds different weapons the first game didn't have, and more moves with the change pace-wise. Slicing your way from enemy to enemy was never as blustery and impetuous as it is here, but it's in the long run that it counts, and this game will definitely still be among the greats in some of the years to come. It's a long game too, so you'll want to buckle down in your favorite couch for hours at a time until you get to the end.


Speaking of the end, there are many boss fights in a row without a save or Muramasa statue, so you'd better be on the tip of your toes to get passed them. As indisposed as I think that kind of design is, in Ninja Gaiden 2 your remonstrance will get the best of you, and eventually you'll finish the game, high-fiving anyone in the room with you and you'll feel a sense of consummation that few other games offer in pure twitch gameplay despite the many offerings other developers try to proposition you with. Something should be said for the viscerality on display, because other games such as Heavenly Sword, try as it might have done, just doesn't equal or surpass the level of intuition in regard to the combat abilities. It's a colloquy to Team Ninja and the (former) head, Tomonobu Itagaki.


The levels on a whole are better, I think, than the first Ninja Gaiden. There are forests with ninjas going furtively from tree to tree, and even though you don't know that until they're on top of you, I still think forests and ninjas coalesce greatly. There are also waterfalls and raindrops of blood that dot the sky if you were to look up, and it's breathtaking to behold. If only I had a cup big enough, I could catch it all and take a sensuous bath in it!! Besides that, you also get to go to New York. I don't think that's really what New York looks like, though. Despite those perceptions against it, all the locations are great, and you'll be waiting persistently for the next one to arrive.


Ninja Gaiden is a game of many pitfalls of circumstance. While not your own, it still makes you ask of it, why is it so hard? I died many the time to a fusillade of blows before I was able to react, and before you say it, I'm good at games. Especially the action genre, so it's not because of skill lacking. I think the game is cheap at times, but when you finally get to the denouement, you'll be the better person of it. Ninja Gaiden is a must-play action game for anyone with proclivity towards as such, and obviously, its rewards will satiate even the most jaundiced of gamers.

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If you honestly liked any of that excellent review I just wrote, then this site will offer a trove of treasures you'll likely never come across again. Fair warning, though, as pretty much all of it is just like the above...... Read more...