Burned by Friendly Fire: Game Critics Rant...well, part of it

I just read about this panel today, and while a lot of it was interesting, I found myself insulted by one speaker, and befuddled by another. Unfortunately, I can't find a transcript of it, so I won't even bother linking to anywhere that talks about it. It's out there, you can find it easily enough.

Let's first start with the speaker who insulted me. Heather Chaplin is her name, and I don't care to ever hear it again. I don't know anything about her, and I've never read anything she's written before. But from all the lengthy quotes I did read from her, I just don't care to ever read something by her ever again. Sorry. Her whole schtick was about how the industry is full of adolescent man-children who only use games as a way of acting out power fantasies. Apparently, men who make games aren't men, because they make games with violence and sex. While I'll agree that I'd like to see some of our focus trained on other, different kinds of games, the fact still remains that other, different kinds of games exist. They're there, whether or not Heather Chaplin wants to, or is able to, see them. What about Shadow of the Colossus and ICO? What about Braid? Bioshock? Heavy Rain? I guess they don't count.

And she says we don't have our Citizen Kane. Um, ok. There's several problems with that statement. First - and I've said this before - games aren't movies. There are fundamental differences between the mediums that, while some valid comparisons can be made, make shit like spouting off about games not having a Citizen Kane sound just plain idiotic. For every Citizen Kane that a studio produces, how many 12 Rounds do we have to put up with? It's a shitty comparison, plain and simple. I could argue that games journalism doesn't have their Walter Cronkite, but I would see that as discrediting the loads of people who go to work every day to report about the games industry. I actually do think that games journalists need to figure out some way to stop relying on publishers and PR departments to get all their information, because, I would imagine, and it's been talked about before, they have to meet certain criteria to gain access to a game. That's bullshit. You see what Heather has done to me? I'm going all over the place now.

The focus of my anger is with her babble about developers "not being men." Who is she comparing them to, first of all? Secondly, who is she to make that comparison? She talks about neoteny, which, according to Wikipedia, is "the retention, by adults in a species, of traits previously seen only in juveniles (a kind of pedomorphosis), and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology." Now, I don't need to be an expert in neoteny to understand what she's getting at. Man-children. She's not just attacking the games that developers make, but them as people. And by extension, she's attacking the people who buy and play said games. I don't think I should be made to apologize for playing and enjoying Gears of War. And I also don't think my enjoyment has anything to do with her so-called "power fantasies." I play the game because it's fun. Period. That's what games are all about, or did she forget that in all her serious, world-changing journalism classes? I also happen to read a lot on subjects such as religion, politics and philosophy. But we'll just ignore all that because I like to play shooters. Whatever. And by the way, nice job calling out immature men on their infantile ego-stroking power fantasies, and then ending your rant by saying "What do you want to be, a Chihuahua or a wolf?" Durrrhhh.

David Jaffe has a fantastic response on his blog.

Another speaker on the panel was Adam Sessler, and I have to preface this with the fact that I think he's great. Sessler's Soapbox is the greatest thing on television. That being said, his talk was about Metacritic and why people rely on it so much. Again, I don't have a transcript, but I'm pretty sure I understand what he was talking about. Basically, either Metacritic should stop using scores to aggregate rankings, or people should stop using Metacritic as a barometer. Either way, the problem honestly comes down to people like him, and every other magazine and t.v. show that ranks games. If there were no scores on reviews, there would be no Metacritic. It's that simple. There's not really much else to say about that, because it really is that easy to figure out. If you would stop putting scores on games, Metacritic would just go away. So let's get that train moving, if you would.

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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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Rockstar has a few things to learn about "their" genre.

Because Saints Row 2 is, in every important way, vastly superior to GTA 4. Let me first admit that I was on the anti-Saints Row bandwagon. I never played the original, and from a few early screenshots, I thought the sequel looked like shit. This just goes to show you that a well-informed opinion can't come from stuff like that. So, at the behest of a friend, I picked up Saints Row 2, and I can now say that I enjoyed it so much more than Niko Belic's disjointed and confused adventure.

Since there are so many things this game does better, I've decided to just make a list of everything, in no particular order, and I'll elaborate on a few points later.

• Features a garage where you can store any car you want, and here's the sticker: you can dump the cars from your garage anywhere in the world, and they'll always be available for you to take out again from any owned garage in the game.
• Missions have a lot more variety. Sure, a lot of them just involve going somewhere and shooting someone, but most of the time, the story and situations the game puts you in make them far more interesting.
• Once you complete certain activities, infinite ammo is unlocked for specific sets of guns. This makes everything a lot more fun, and the game doesn't take itself seriously enough to warrant any gripes about it ruining the realism or any such nonsense.
• The entire game - missions, activities, diversions, everything - can be played co-op. Obvious plus. Roughly half of my overall playtime was with a friend.
• Vehicles are fully customizable. You can upgrade them with nitrous, improved tires and overall durability, etc. It makes the garage feature that much more awesome when you know you have a pimped-out, bad ass ride waiting for you wherever you want it.
• Almost everything you accomplish in the game has a tangible gameplay reward attached to it. Finishing certain activities, for example, will give you the ability to have more homies ride with you while on missions, or increase your health or stamina. Basically, you're working towards a goal even when you're lighting people on fire with a friend.
• Fully customizable avatar. Once again, the game lets you decide how you want your game to look. Your character can be male or female, and the range of options available for changing their appearance is pretty great. If you want to have a 19-year-old skinny chick that sounds like a 50-year-old guy working in a mine, go right ahead.
• The story is flat-out better and more entertaining. I'll go into more detail below.
• You can actually, for the most part, accomplish missions and objectives the way you want to. One big problem I had with GTA 4 was the fact that Rockstar had a specific vision for how a lot of the missions played out, and if you deviated from the way they wanted them to, it was game over. In Saints Row 2, if you want to jack someone's car to chase the guys on motorcycles that you're after, you're free to do so. You don't have to take the vehicle they provide you with.
  
• Humor. it ties in with the story, which again, I'll go into further down. But it's a lot funnier than you'd think.
• Cribs. For whatever reason, GTA 4 didn't want to let you feel like you owned the city. Saints Row 2 does. There are about a dozen houses for you to buy, and you can - yet again - upgrade them and pimp them out.
• You can replay any story-related mission in the game as many times as you want. Durh, that's awesome. The same goes for all the activities as well.
• One of the perks of co-op is that if you die, your friend has 15 seconds (on hardcore difficulty) to revive you. Extremely welcome, especially when you have a five-star wanted level.
• You can carry way more weapons on your person at all times, including an SMG, rocket launcher, shotgun, dual pistols, samurai sword and satchel charges.

All of those examples are off the top of my head, so there's probably other stuff that I forgot to mention. Of course, the game isn't perfect, and Rockstar probably has more money and staff to polish their games a bit more than Volition does. Graphically, GTA 4 is superior, but it really doesn't matter. Saints Row 2 looks just fine. On the other hand, the game can be a little buggy at times, and clipping is a common occurence. But again, it doesn't hamper the fun in any meaningful way.

That's the thing about this game - I had way more fun with it than I ever thought I would. Even before I played Saints Row 2, I was disappointed with GTA 4 in a lot of big ways. After playing it, my disappointments with GTA 4 stand out even more, in stark contrast to what Volition has accomplished. I think sometimes Rockstar is more concerned with being "mature" and controversial than they are with making a cohesive story. With GTA 4, they set out to tell a tale of sin and redemption, but ended up with a pile of shit. Niko's motivations were explained as being forced into violence by outside forces, when all he wants is to lead a better life. Fair enough. But his actions showed a totally different person. He doesn't want to kill people anymore, yet if you were to flash a twenty in his direction, he'd probably shoot everyone in the room and snatch it from your cold, lifeless hand. The whole thing doesn't make a damn bit of sense in that regard, and I just got turned off about half-way through the game. Not to mention the fact that you commit countless random acts of violence and murder while you're driving around aimlessly, but that's more of an inherent problem with trying to tell any kind of realistic story when the player is allowed to do whatever they want.

Saints Row 2 isn't trying to tell a realistic story at all. It's instantly recognized as ridiculous and over-the-top, and that's exactly what I liked about it. In a game where I can use rocket launchers to blow up helicopters while someone is driving me around, I expect to see the same shit happen in the cutscenes, and it delivers just that. A lot of crazy shit happens in the story, in fact, and I found myself laughing out loud at the insane stunts the main character pulls off. Speaking of cutscenes, they were suprisingly well-directed. A lot of them had a great kind of movie quality to them, and it was nice to see Volition take the time to make such a non-serious story at least look awesome. Overall, the story is really just the standard get out of jail, start up your gang again kind of thing, but it works because there are no pretenses of being gritty or serious. Make no mistake, there are a lot of fucked up things that happen, and I would say it's on the same level of hardcore that GTA 4 was on, but the big difference is the non-contradictory way it all played out.

Look, if you were left wanting after you finished GTA 4, then this is a no-brainer. Get this game, you'll love it. If you can get someone else to play it with you - holy shit - the satisfaction is increased by a factor of about a billion. Rockstar should look at this game and weep in their feathery-soft pillows.


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The New Direction of Tomb Raider

I say "new direction" loosely, because the two points I'm about to bring up aren't necessarily how the franchise is going to move forward. Rather, it's how I view the current and previous DLC offerings Eidos has released for Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Beneath the Ashes was the first bit of DLC, and it was basically a level from the game, in both scope and gameplay. If you've played any of the recent Tomb Raider games, then you'll know what to expect. It didn't really bring anything new to the table, but I enjoyed it a lot, and even played through it a few times. Now this is where Lara's Shadow comes in.

Lara's Shadow is the latest release, and wow - it totally changes the dynamics of Tomb Raider. For once, I actually enjoyed the combat. So far, combat has been the one glaring weak point in the revamped series, since all it requires is circle strafing and holding down the right trigger. Not so in Lara's Shadow. Since you're playing as Lara's doppelganger, her abilities are quite a significant upgrade in every sense. She has special moves that stagger even the biggest enemies Underworld pitted against you, and firing weapons receives a much needed boost. These abilities are: a super punch capable of breaking enemies into pieces, a jump kick that serves to knock down any enemies in its range, and a slow-motion weapon firing mode that lets you pump about three times more bullets into your target than normal. All these are very, very welcome, and fun to play around with. Add to all of this the super-human platforming, and it almost feels like a totally different game.

Now, on to my two points:

1) I think DLC like these are totally the way to go from now on. Keep releasing DLC with similar-sized content, and give the next full Lara game at least three years of development. In the meantime, if Eidos were to release these episodes about four times a year (roughly every three months), people like me could get my Tomb Raider fix, while still knowing a brand-new adventure was in the works.

2) Experiment more with new gameplay. Lara's Shadow is an excellent first step, and by breathing new life into an already solid formula, Eidos has piqued my interest even moreso than it already was (it was really, really high).

These are the two things I hope Eidos focuses on, instead of releasing a better-looking game that largely does the same thing the last two did. Sure, there were improvements made in Underworld, and yes, I thought the game was awesome. But now, after getting a glimpse of what could happen, I simply can't see them doing the same old shit again and again. If they do, I'll probably still enjoy the game, but the obviousness of a missed opportunity won't be far back in my mind. Another thing I should mention is the pricing. At least for the first two DLC installments, the price tag is $10.00. I think cutting that in half would be about right, but at the same time, I didn't have any reservations getting either one. Lara's Shadow, in particular, gave me my money's worth. If they want to keep the current price, Eidos should look at extending the levels by about a third. Still, what's there is good enough, and I'm not really complaining. Here's to hoping Eidos is reading this and appreciates my analysis enough to hire me as a consultant.


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The Replayability of Resident Evil 5

I think the review we have up for the game sums it up pretty nicely, but I would like to briefly expand on the controls. If RE4 retooled the formula, RE5 perfected it. The game gives you the ability to strafe while walking around, and honestly, that's all it needed. I don't ever feel the need to move and shoot - the game is built on the fact that you can't - and if I could, it would make it far too easy. As it stands, though, the combat is intensely gratifying, and there's no mistaking it for any other game. The controls, as they are now, are a defining aspect of the series, take it or leave it. If you leave it, it sucks to be you.

So let's move on to what I really want to talk about: the replayability of RE5, and why, after about 50 hours in, I'm still planning on playing all weekend long.

If you finish the game on Veteran difficulty, you'll unlock Professional mode. Let me tell you, it's aptly fucking named. Pretty much everything is a one-hit death for you, and at one point early on, I was freaking out because I was being killed by a chicken. If that's not a measure of difficulty, I don't know what is. Also, enemies take a LOT more damage, and good luck finding any ammo. You'll find a few rounds for the handgun, but that's about it. It seems like Professional is built to be ran through with infinite ammo, or a lot of punching and slitting of throats. It's a great ramp-up, but it probably won't be the difficulty I play most often. Veteran is just right, so if you play a ton of shooters, that'll be the way to go on your first play-through.

I say first, because I've completed it on Amateur, Normal, Veteran and Professional, and I'm still playing through various difficulties for specific reasons. The higher the difficulty, generally the more money you'll collect, and you'll also get more exchange points at the end of each chapter. The exchange points are used to buy extras once you've finished the game, and they range from novel items like figurines to essentials like infinite ammo for every gun in the game. Of course, you have to buy infinite ammo for each gun separately, and the cost ranges from 10,000 to 15,000 per gun. I have almost every gun, and I'm still working on buying the infinite ammo for all of them. Currently, I have it unlocked for the M92F, H&K P8, AK-74, Ithaca M37, M3, H&K PSG-1 and S&W M29. I have basically every situation covered, from up-close and personal douches with stun rods, to attackers shooting flaming explosives from 30 yards away.

And that's the joy I get from this game: I can continuously replay the same shit over and over again, but each time find a new reason to do so. Like I said, I still need to buy infinite ammo for a ton of weapons, and I'm going to try and get all the figurines. Right now, I'm working on trimming my play time on Amateur to under five hours so I can unlock the infinite Rocket Launcher and beat even more ass. That, by the way, is something I really appreciate about the game. Ok, so you have to beat the game in under five hours to get the launcher. Fair enough. But the great thing about it is that once you beat the game, you can go to the chapter select and see how long each chapter took you to finish. You can then decide which ones you could trim some time from, and just play the ones you want to. You'll see the overall play time on whichever difficulty you go through becoming less and less, and eventually you'll hit the magic five hour mark. Bravo, Capcom, that's some high-level genius shit right there. I'm at about 6 hours on Amateur and 6-and-a-half on Professional, so I still have some work to do.

Making it seem less like work is the massive arsenal I've stockpiled, and it's pretty amazing how different every gun feels. Even the three kinds of magnums have their own strong and weak points. There's the classic Dirty Harry .357, which does massive damage but has a lot of kickback and a slow rate of fire, and the more modern Desert Eagle, which does slightly less damage but fires about three shots a second and is really shiny. Apply the same comparisons to all 18 guns, and you've got yourself a lot of choices, and a lot of different ways to play the game.

Another high-level genius move by Capcom was to allow all your inventory to be available across every difficulty, both single player and co-op. This has let me acquire mass amounts of ammo, grenades and herbs to the point where I now laugh in the face of death as I piss in its mouth. Most bosses go down in under 15 seconds, and that's only because I lack the infinite Rocket Launcher. Once I get that, go ahead and reduce the boss fights to one-hitter quitters. Simply put, there isn't any better possible way to approach the design of this type of game. No matter what I'm doing, everything I pick up and achieve counts. Whether it's finding gold for buying more weapons and upgrades, or tallying up exchange points for unlockables, it all stays constant with my profile. What more could you ask for in an action game?

And let's face it, RE5 is an action game. It's not scary in the classic sense by any stretch of the immagination. So in that respect, you could argue that RE4 is superior. On the other hand, by giving you so many different weapons that can all unlock infinite ammo, in my book that equals Oblivion-like hours of decapitations and bloody mayhem. RE4 gave you the Chicago Typewriter and infinite Rocket Launcher, along with one of the greatest costumes in any game ever. But once you got those, there wasn't much else left to work towards. Which, mind you, I had no qualms about. I played through that game 4 times spanning 2 systems, so that's obviously not a complaint I have against it. But once you realize the sheer amount of options RE5 gives you in terms of firepower, if your jaw doesn't drop, it must be wired shut. Name me one other game that lets you play as a girl in an Amazonian bikini shooting zombies with a longbow. No, the one in your head doesn't count.

Last, but definitely not least, is Mercenaries mode. This mode completely changes the gameplay (it actually reminds me somewhat of The Club) into a fast-paced race against the clock to score as many points as possible by killing everything that moves as quickly as you can. Killing different kinds of enemies, along with the way you kill them, adds points to your score total. There are time extenders located throughout the maps, and you break them open to get, durh, extended time. You can play by yourself or co-op, and it's just insane how intense this thing can get. It really is like a separate game; the tactics that worked for much of the campaign simply don't hold up to the number and ferocity of the enemies in Mercenaries. The best way to go about it is to stick and move, killing a few guys at a time before relocating to a totally different spot. I think there are a total of 8 maps, and you have to rank at least an "A" on the previous map to unlock the next one. Once you do that, the main goal is to get an "S" rank, which, in co-op, is 150,000 points. To put that into perspective, the first time my friend and I tried the mode out, we scored about 45,000. We've yet to get over 60,000 (tip: dead chicken = 2,000 points). It's a total blast to play, though, and the drastically different gameplay is what makes me love it so much.

With everything now laid out, I really won't accept you not loving this game. If you don't, you've either been deceived somehow, or you're a charlatan with ulterior motives kept secret from the ever-prying eyes of your enemies. I am one of those enemies, and I don't like you. However, if you like shooters, and RE4 in particular, then this is a no-brainer. It's everything that made RE4 great, improved upon. That's high praise right there. Read more...

Friggin mad for MADWORLD!

Clover studios had always been one of my favorite game developers. Whether I was spanking the behinds of the female opponents of God Hand or getting my ass spanked by one of the insane bosses of Viewtiful Joe, I knew that I could bank on a unique gaming experience. Well, Clover is gone if only by name and reborn as Platinum Games with an all new adult themed experience for the waggly Wii. Madworld brings something to Nintendo's console that has been sorely lacking for quite a while.........a hardcore game for hardcore gamers. I truly hope this does well and other developers take notice. This is how you do insane action games for this system.

Jack......just Jack is a contestant for a gameshow called Deathwatch. The idea is to eviscerate all comers and stay alive for big cash rewards. I haven't finished the game yet, but it seems that Jack has his own personal reasons for wanting to be involved in such a suicidal set up.

I often wondered what a video game based on Frank Miller's Sin City would look like. Clearly Platinum was inspired by Frank's violent underworld and that's not a bad thing. There is an old children's joke that goes "what's black and white and red all over?" The answer is no longer a skunk with a bloody nose..... it's the main character Jack of Madworld spilling gallons upon gallons of his foes blood across the TV screen in the most sadistic ways possible. I can honestly say that it is a video game first to see a character get a spike put up their ass and have it come out their mouth in a beautiful fountain of crimson death! It doesn't hurt that the insane visuals are complimented by solid game mechanics.

The waggle never feels forced and it's always fun. Jack has a prosthetic right arm with built in chainsaw that you use the remote to slash vertically or horizontally with. You can also beat your opponents with a punch button. There are a few context sensitive finishers used and they are a joy to perform and watch. If you think that this just sounds like a mindless beat em up experience....you'd be right. However, just killing the other contestants isn't enough to progress to the next level. The game forces you to be creative and use the environment to dispatch your enemies. Each level is only finished after dealing with the boss of the area. But, you must first earn enough points to be able to challenge the boss. Killing a guy with your chainsaw is fun, but only routine. Putting a tire around a guy, shoving a street sign through his head, and impaling him on a spiked wall will triple your score and help unlock the final encounter. There are also mini games to help you score like man-darts, or hurling as many people you can into a jet engine. (the mere thought of that last one makes me smile!)

I've heard some complain about the game's short length. You'll get about five hours of content on your first playthrough. This isn't a game that you want to spend hours at a time with anyways. It works the best in short doses that leaves you wanting more. Over the top violence......over the top bosses......and over the top fun makes Madworld one to own for the Wii.

Sin City's Marv would feel right at home in Madworld

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Final thoughts on RE5

Everybody has a gaming tradition or two. One of mine is with every new Resident Evil release, I take a few days off work, stock up on food and sodas, and cruise through yet another entry in my favorite franchise. That's exactly what I did this weekend, with the release of RE:5. After hearing months of criticism about racism and cumbersome controls, needless to say I was a little skeptical. Now all I have to say is: thank you Capcom, for reminding me why I love games again...

Story:
RE:5's story returns to the series roots, dealing with the Umbrella Corporation. No rescuing the President's daughter in this one. As a fan of the overall story arc of all of the Resident Evil games, I was relieved to see Capcom push the story forward, rather than have another detour. The cut scenes are for the most part well done. You can tell the Dev team took some cues from the likes of Metal Gear Solid 4. The over the top scenes do a great job of sucking you in. No Spoilers here, let me just say the game brings back some old characters, answers some questions, but also is friendly to newcomers as well.

Gameplay:
I am going to be upfront with this: I loved the way RE:4 controlled. RE:5 is VERY similar. The gunplay is handled with the left shoulder button to bring up your gun, right stick to aim, right trigger to fire. And by the way, you can't move when aiming. I can see why this might bother some, but I think it does a great job of adding white knuckle suspense. There is nothing like being surrounded by zombies(?) and choosing your shot and fighting your way through. There are some puzzles along the way to mix it up, but this is no Tomb Raider, action takes center stage here. Bosses are nothing mind blowing, but for the most part, they are fun.

Graphics:
RE:5 uses Capcom's new proprietary engine (MT Framework) and it really shines. Open environments, some of the best character models I've seen, and great effects (Especially the lighting). Sure there is a bland texture here and there, but overall RE:5 will impress, and it runs butter smooth. By the way, I played on PS3.

Final thought: Resident Evil fans, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. It is not as spooky as some of the originals, but it is intense. Action fans new to the series, try the demo. If you can learn to work with the controls, you will find a great experience to be had here. Read more...

Why You Should Play Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Or, at least I can tell you why I played it. Much of the critical reviews I've read so far have said it falls flat and just isn't funny. I'm not really sure what game they were playing, or exactly how far their heads went up their asses to not enjoy it.

First of all, you have Will Arnett voicing Matt Hazard, and he plays it like a self-aware Solid Snake. And the reason it works is because the story is totally ludicrous, but the laughs are pretty consistent throughout. You see, Matt Hazard is a game character, but once he finishes a game, he goes about his life like anyone else. It's like he's an actor, and his games are movies. When he's done with his part, he goes home. Only he made some bad career choices along the line...let's just say kart racing was involved. This sets the backdrop for an evil publisher who wants to kill him off and replace him with a new action hero (who happens to be a really good Arnold impersonator). But like any good action hero, Hazard doesn't take this lying down. He gets a lot of help from "QA", a mysterious real-life person hacking into the game, who can load in new cover points and provide an exit to each level. The whole scenario is presented well, and while the story couldn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny, it's not really supposed to. It's just a funny riff on the many things we've come to expect from our action games, and it left me with a smile on my face.

As I mentioned, Matt Hazard is self-aware, and he's even aware of the player. At one point, I kept pulling the trigger even though I was out of ammo. Matt noticed, and said "Keep pulling the trigger, maybe it will magically reload." Also, the enemies are supposed to be dumb as hell, constantly screaming out "I have to reload!!!!" at the top of their lungs. It's part of the charm, and actually makes me appreciate well-designed games and A.I. even more.

Matt Hazard's very first adventure. I wish i could play it.

The game itself is very standard, in that you run from room to room, taking out bad guys as you go along. There's a cover mechanic in which you can aim while taking cover (think Rainbow Six: Vegas), and it plays a little like Hitman - only you're supposed to shoot everything that moves. Everything felt fine, but I will say this: the enemies are nothing more than stationary targets for headshots. So the challenge actually comes when there are a bunch of people in a room shooting at you from all angles, and you have to act fast or you're done for (at least on hard difficulty). But honestly, if I didn't enjoy the story so much, I would have been disappointed. Like I said, the game plays fine, but it's nothing I haven't seen countless times before. So there it is - either you think it's funny or you don't, and your enjoyment of the game will most likely hinge on that fact alone. There's a lot to laugh at, such as a boss fight with an androgynous JRPG character, 2D Wolfenstein-like German enemies that, when shot, turn sideways instead of taking cover since they're flat, water gun-toting supersoldiers, and a mage that sounds like William Shatner. I'll leave you with a completely bad ass trailer, the likes of which every game trailer should be made in the image of from now on.




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Watchmen: The End is Nigh- AKA watching Watchmen brutally kick ass!

He's out there praying to his dark overlord of the 9th circle of Hell..... "Klandathu.....please punish those responsible for shitting all over my finest hour as a comic book writer.......it's bad enough that the guy making the Watchmen movie was responsible for 300 men running around in sweaty leather man- diapers, but they are also bastardizing the children of my universe with a putrid video game tie in as well. Oh dark one.....please rip their balls off and shove them so far up their asses that next time they shit....they shit on their balls." If I could imagine what Alan Moore is thinking as his arguably unfilmable Watchmen is finally hitting the silver screen and being marketed like gangbusters........it would be something like that. I know I wasn't looking forward to any type of game in the Watchmen universe. Most of the time, the video game adaptations of popular films are not even worthy to line the bottom of your cat's crap-box. But, the Watchmen: The End is Nigh has proven my fears wrong and is a worthy twenty dollar beat-em-up for your downloading pleasure!

I'll get you Zack Snyder!!!!

You choose to play as either Rorshach or the second Nite Owl as they clean up the streets years before the events of the graphic novel. Animated comic panels and a story written by Len Wein (of Swamp Thing and Watchmen fame) fill you in on the plot details before thrusting you headlong into the fight, and that's really what this game is all about. It reminds me of Rockstar's "The Warriors" from a few years back. It's all about pulling off stylish brutal combos and watching the blood and teeth fly from your opponents. All you do in this game is go from room to room and kick the buh-Jesus out of all kinds of generic bad guys and I can hear the critics now complaining about repetition. But riddle me this FPS fans......what the hell do you do in a shooter? Well......how about YOU SHOOT....over and over and over again till game's end. So it should be no surprise that in a brawler......you brawl....over and over again. Plus, said brawling in this one is so much fun that I can't wait to play through the game again as the second character with different nut-busting fighting techniques. So bottom line, it looks good, plays good, and is fairly cheap in my opinion for what you get. At least check out the demo.....you may be surprised. If not then feel free to join Alan Moore and his Zack Snyder hating cult of doom.

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Peggle....should be called CRACK-ROCK-LE !!

Oh dear God is this game fucking addicting!!!! A simple concept to work with. You have 10 balls and must hit 25 orange pegs to clear a level. You can aim the shot before it is fired off, but after that, the ball just randomly pops off each peg until it drops through the screen. If you get lucky, there is a ball basket swinging back and forth at the bottom of the screen and hitting it means a free ball. The game is deceptive because there is actually quite a bit of strategy involved. Each level has a host avatar each with their own unique powers that are activated after hitting a green peg. A unicorn shows you the trajectory of your shot, while an Egyptian cat widens the free ball bucket at the bottom to give you an extra couple of bounces before leaving the screen. The best part is that when you hit that last annoying peg you get an explosion of Beethoven's Ode to Joy as a reward............bliss! Don't ever play this game....if you do.....you will become obsessed and it will ruin your life, but in the most amazing possible way!!! Which reminds me, I must play now......the crack-peggle-pipe calls and I am too weak willed to resist.

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