| December 31,
2007... Sad-vertising |
I just wanted to get in one last update before
the year ends. Don't worry, I'll make this short and
sweet! First, there's a new
video on
my YouTube page. If you were a fan of the Sega
Saturn, I strongly recommend that you give it a look.
Second, this embarrassing promotional
video posted by
another YouTube user makes you wonder how anyone
could have been a fan of the Saturn, including myself.
Really, Sega... did you honestly think
that bald women, disembodied heads, and
theatre-hopping Klansmen were going to sell systems, or was
this our punishment for not buying the 32X?
Finally, I'm getting a lot more mileage
out of my copy of Fire Pro Wrestling Returns now that I've got
a MAX Drive. The default characters were no fun at all,
but now that I have access to Phil Parent's excellent edit
packs, I can finally fill the ring with all my favorite
wrestlers from the 1980's and 1990's. I've even learned
to create my own characters, starting with a
reasonable facsimile of that fierce fightin' fanboy Segata
Sanshiro. Oh
Segata, I love that ju-doo that you do so well!
Well, that's it. See you next
year!
| December 28,
2007... Crash and Burn (or, the decline of
Burnout) |
If there's one company that knows exactly what
its fans want, then gives them something completely different
out of spite, it's Electronic Arts. EA's latest thumb in
the eye of gamers is Burnout Paradise, which brings something
entirely new to the popular series... boredom. The arcade-style
racing you loved from previous games has been integrated into
a real-world environment, which means less of the driving
excitement you've come to expect from Burnout and more of the
ordinary driving you've come to expect from your daily trips
to work. You
can't just start a race, oh no... you've got to find the
starting line on a hopelessly tangled web of streets,
highways, and back alleys, then drive there with one eye on a
map and the other on the eerily deserted roads. The only thing missing
from the mind-numbing experience are the kids in the back seat
shouting "Are we there yet? I need to go to the
bathroooom!
Daddy, do we have to play Burnout
Paradise?!"
Preening Criterion developer Alex Ward is quick
to defend the aimless new direction of the Burnout series,
patting himself on the back for the new design while insulting
the collective intelligence of his critics. "There's no need for
replays!" he proclaims, so blinded by his arrogance and
self-delusion that he can't see what a pain in the ass it
would be to drive three miles to return to the last remaining
goal on the map.
"Who needs a crash mode?" he asks, blissfully unaware
that many Burnout fans still want it and expect it from the
series. "We're
the experts... we know what we're doing here!" he boasts,
conveniently forgetting about all the other dumb play
mechanics Criterion introduced to the series that were swept
under the rug shortly afterward. Do you know what
you're doing here, Alex?
Do you really?
Let's take a look at your recent, post-EA sell-out
track record...
POINT
MULTIPLIER
Introduced: Burnout 3: Takedown
(2004)
Concept: Add a target to the playfield that sends
the player's points through the roof in the crash
mode
Problem: Multipliers were worth so much they
became more important than actually crashing the
car
Removed: Burnout Legends
(2005)
TRAFFIC
CHECKING
Introduced: Burnout Revenge
(2005)
Concept: Lets players use incoming traffic as
deadly projectiles
Problem: Removed challenged from most races;
resulted in the most pointless Burnout event
EVER
Removed: Burnout Paradise
(2008)
START METER
Introduced: Burnout Revenge
(2005)
Concept: Challenges players to time their starts
perfectly for a speed boost in the crash
mode
Problem: Blew up cars well before they actually
reached the crash site, annoying
gamers
Removed: Burnout Revenge
(2006)
RADIO DISC
JOCKEY
Introduced: Burnout 3: Takedown
(2004)
Concept: Justifies the introduction of music from
Fall Out Boy and other lackluster
artists
Problem: Smarmy morons made the player want
to run over the DJs rather than concentrate on
racing
Removed: Not yet. Keep hoping,
folks...
CRASH MODE
Introduced: Burnout 2: Point of Impact
(2002)
Concept: Send a car careening into rush hour
traffic, filling the street with
wreckage
Problem: Post-EA acquisition Criterion wanted to
be thorough in taking the enjoyment out of
Burnout
Removed: Burnout Dominator
(2007)
Hmm, looks like a whole lot of mistakes to
me! And the
marketing-mandated, wholly uninspired sandbox design of
Burnout Paradise will be your biggest one yet. You've taken the
purity of Burnout and polluted it with adventure elements that
nobody wanted, just like Activision did with Tony Hawk's Pro
Skater 4 back in 2002.
You have the gall to claim that this adds value to the
game, but let me ask you this... if I take this juicy steak,
then stuff it into a food processor along with an equal amount
of cereals and fillers, have I given you more for your
money? No, I've
made dog food.
And while there may be more of it, it's sure not as
tasty as the steak.
| December 15,
2007... Two Sticks, No Joy (controller
reviews) |
I've put another semester of college behind me,
giving me ample time to work on the site until the next one
begins. Viva la winter break!
So what's happened during my two week
absence? Well, I've been looking for a suitable
replacement for my Xbox 360 wireless controller. It's
just not up to snuff for Pac-Man Championship Edition or many
of the other games on the Xbox Live Arcade service.
Unfortunately, extensive research (and a hundred dollars
wasted on third party peripherals) has proved to me that there
aren't any viable alternatives to it.
It's no great surprise that the MadCatz Arcade
Stick is terrible. The first hint is that it was
developed by MadCatz, which has no business making
controllers, or doing much of anything except keeping Dr. Claw
company while he plots to kill Inspector Gadget. The
second are all the negative reviews this stick has gotten from
the mainstream press. It deserves every unkind word it's
gotten... although its design suggests great versatility, none
of the dials, sticks, switches, and other assorted geegaws on
the controller are of much use to the player.
The spinner that surrounds the second analog
stick is especially heartbreaking. A controller with a
built-in dial is the dream of every red-blooded classic gamer,
but MadCatz was intent on killing that dream with cheap
plastic parts. Without ball bearings to support it, the
spinner just grinds against the base of the unit, making it
feel sluggish and deliberate in most games. Instead of
spinning your ship into position with a flick of the wrist in
Asteroids, you'll crank the spinner until the ship slowly
creaks its way toward the right direction... and by then,
you'll probably be struck by a stray chunk of
rock.
Even the games packed with the controller
don't work particularly well with it. While you're
playing Time Pilot, you'll find your ship constantly
stuck in position and unable to turn, forcing you to twist
the spinner in the opposite direction to get it
unstuck. Naturally, the spinner's no good for a game
like Frogger, which requires you to move in four
directions. The only pack-in that seems to work
with the dial is Astropop Deluxe, and this clone of Data
East's Magical Drop works just as well with a
joystick.
You could use the joystick on the top of
the controller, but why bother? That elongated shaft is
there just for show... deep down inside, it's just an
oversized analog thumbstick, with all that this
implies. Its wide range of motion is ill-suited to
2D games, which require lightning-fast movements in a limited
number of directions. The face buttons ARE digital, but
they're also nearly flush with the base of the unit, making
them as useless as everything else on this misbegotten
controller.
Hori's EX2 joystick is a little less
disappointing. Hell, for sixty dollars, it ought to
be! However, it's still not the right choice for most
old-school games. Although it's truly digital, the stick
on the EX2 is much too loose and has very little "throw,"
resulting in many frustrating sessions of Pac-Man Championship
Edition. The six button layout suggests that it would be
perfect for Street Fighter II, but the odd placement of those
buttons coupled with their light, unsteady feel makes you
wonder if there's ANY game that's right for this
joystick.
One week and a hundred wasted dollars later, I
feel like I'm back on square one with my Xbox 360. It
looks like I'll have to return to my original plan of making
an adapter for the system... at this point, I think it's
the only thing that will truly satisfy me. Fortunately,
someone's already way ahead of me, not only building their own
adapter but providing the schematics on his web site. I just have to find a
handful of these optocouplers and I'll be in
business!
| November 29,
2007... The Greatest Game in the
Galaxy |
Before I begin, I should probably mention that
I've added four reviews to the Nintendo DS
page. Yes, new reviews of new games for a new
system! Even I'm a little surprised! Now that I've
got that announcement out of the way, here's what I've been up
to in the past eleven days...
Last week, I traded my copy of BioShock and a
handful of other games for Super Mario Galaxy and Fire Pro
Wrestling R.
Seven days later, I do not regret that
choice.
I had my doubts about Super Mario Galaxy, even
after I first started the game... but after collecting a few
power stars, it all started to come into focus. When people criticize
Nintendo, complaints about the monotony of Mario games is the
first thing to escape from their lips, and the gimmickry of
the Wiimote follows close behind. However, those
criticisms fall apart the moment they reach Super
Mario Galaxy.
This particular Mario title is like none that have come
before it, toying with both perspective and gravity to
create an experience with more dimension than the usual 3D
game. Running off
the edge of a platform doesn't necessarily spell doom for the
pudgy plumber... more often than not, the suspended land
mass will just flip over, revealing hidden goodies
like coins and star bits.
So what the heck are star bits? Well, that's another
aspect of the gameplay that distances it from past Mario
titles. Star bits
act as both ammunition and currency... once these colorful
gems have been collected, they can be used to stun certain
enemies, or feed friendly flames which unlock new areas. The star bits are
fired by pointing the Wiimote at the screen and squeezing a
trigger, making Super Mario Galaxy the first Nintendo game to
combine platforming and light gun action since 1986's
Gumshoe.
Fortunately, it's a lot more enjoyable here. Mario can also knock
his enemies for a loop with a properly timed spin, or just
stomp them into mushroom flapjacks. Sometimes you'll have
to combine the two attacks, like when you're dealing with
steel-plated Goombas who can't be harmed with star
bits.
You'd think that platforming with one controller
while aiming with the other would be awkward, but it comes
together pretty well after a few minutes of practice. However, the
mind-bending perspective is a bit more bewildering. Many of the worlds in
Super Mario Galaxy are spherical, and watching them roll under
your feet as you run can be disorienting at first. As a general rule, the
game forces you to think in unorthodox ways. Merely shooting star
bits at what you think might be a weak point won't get the job
done... you'll often have to trick the bad guys into hurting
themselves to defeat them. For instance, there's
a fun boss battle that sets you on the head of
a massive robot. Its power source is guarded by a
circular fence, and the only way to crack a hole in this
protective barrier is to lure exploding Bullet Bills to
it. Brilliant ideas like this one aren't just
reserved for the boss fights... they're all over the place,
keeping you eagerly anticipating each new
challenge.
I've spent so much time gushing about Super Mario
Galaxy that I almost forgot about Fire Pro Wrestling
Returns! Well, aside from a frustratingly obtuse
edit mode, this is as good as it gets for fans of the
venerable series. I was worried that the game would be a
carbon copy of Fire Pro D, right down to the
unforgiving grapple timing, but it's been tweaked to
give less seasoned players a shot at getting in a few throws
and holds. There are also more modes, more moves,
and more technique than in any past Fire Pro release, making
it the sale of the century for just twenty bucks (or less, if
you're a smart shopper!). I just wish there was
still a mock-WCW league available... along with a WCW to
mock! I tell you, wrestling just hasn't been the
same since that fateful conversation between Rick Steiner and
Chucky the killer doll...
| November 18,
2007... Fire Pro
Fury |
First order of business... there's a new
review on the YouTube page. This time, it's Titan
Warriors, an intense
vertically scrolling shooter that Capcom left in limbo for
twenty years. I'd suggest you give it a look, and if
you're interested in playing the game yourself, you can
download a copy from the Lost
Levels web site. With
that out of the way, it's time for my latest cranky
rant!
A long time ago, in an age where the 16-bit
game console was king and people not only watched The
Simpsons, but enjoyed it, a rap group called 2
Live Crew was famous for pushing the envelope of good taste
and infuriating parents' groups with songs like Fuck
Martinez. Fifteen years
later, the haze of youth no longer hinders our vision,
and it's easy to see 2 Live Crew for the talentless
numbskulls they were. However, there was still some
small grain of wisdom in their profane ramblings, which
immediately becomes clear when you read this
review by GameSpot's Alex
Navarro.
Yes, fuck Navarro. Fuck him hard with a
railroad spike, for he fails to recognize what should be clear
to any gamer old enough to remember the 16-bit era.
That is, "2D graphics" and "Super NES graphics" are not
interchangable terms. The distinction is lost on today's
game reviewers, who are eager to throw more dirt
on a style of artistic presentation that (despite their
best efforts) refuses to stay dead.
Despite their constant denial,
there is a difference between the 2D graphics of
the early 1990's and the sprite-based graphics of today.
Today's game systems are more powerful than anyone could have
imagined fifteen years ago, capable of displaying enormous
characters in razor-sharp resolutions, set against
backgrounds so rich with color and detail they
could be put on display in the Louvre. It's foolish to
assume that these features would only benefit games with
polygonal graphics, as titles like Guilty Gear X and Odin
Sphere clearly demonstrate.
If the Super NES could barely handle Street
Fighter Alpha 2, what chance would it possibly have to run
either of these games? The system's hardware is just too
limited. With a clock speed of 3.58MHz, an 8-bit
onscreen color palatte, and sprites that max out at 64x64
pixels, a Super NES version of Guilty Gear X would be severely
compromised... and a port of Odin Sphere would be asking
far too much of the console. There's no question that
the Super NES was capable of pushing some very attractive
graphics, but some things are just beyond its
capabilities.
Things like Fire Pro Wrestling
Returns. From its humble beginnings on the Turbografx-16
and Sega Genesis, the series has never pushed the boundaries
of its host systems visually. However, there have been
undeniable improvements made with each migration to a more
powerful game console. The wrestlers have tripled in
size, the once stiff animation has become progressively
smoother, and the playfields have gone from abstract diamonds
in primary colors to faithful reproductions of
real-life wrestling rings. These pictures illustrate
just how much Fire Pro has evolved in the past ten
years...
If you honestly can't see the difference
between these two games, you're either blind or stupid.
Either way, you've got no business making spurious claims that
Fire Pro Returns, or indeed, any game with 2D
graphics, looks like it belongs on the Super NES. In
fact, if your sense of perspective is so limited that you
would compare a game like Capcom vs. SNK 2 to the output
of a console from the early 1990's (Tommy...), maybe you
shouldn't be reviewing games at all.
| November 12,
2007... Cartoon
Cavalcade |
Well, it was fun while it lasted, but it
certainly didn't last long enough. After months of
dedicated gameplay, my Atari
5200 has perished,
evidently the victim of a power surge. Did I mention
that this was after installing a composite video mod and
building a countless number of joystick adapters for the
system? That's important, because if you don't know
that, you won't understand how furious I was when my
5200 showed its first (then second, then third...) blue screen
of death.
Until I've got the cash for a replacement,
I'll have to get by with all my other game systems.
You know, the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360, the Playstation 2,
the Nintendo DS, both the fat and slim PSPs... poor me,
huh?
Speaking of that, I was actually thinking
about selling off my silver PSP. It hasn't been getting
much of a workout, since I haven't been able to pull off the
Pandora's Battery mod and since it doesn't appreciably speed
up the painfully long load times in games like Me and My
Katamari, even with the added memory buffer. The TV out
and more responsive D-pad just aren't enough to dispel my
buyer's remorse... I sank two hundred dollars into this thing,
and all it's done since I bought it is take up space in my
closet along with that other ill-advised splurge purchase, the
Nomad. I'm thiiiis close to washing my hands of them
both and sticking with my fat PSP for all my Genesis gaming
needs!
And now for something completely different...
some brief reviews of the latest television cartoons.
Ordinarily, I'd put these on the Frame by Frame page, but I've
only watched an episode or two of these shows... less, in the
case of the latest Scooby-Doo revival. In fact, let's
get that one out of the way so I can get to the good
stuff...
SHAGGY AND SCOOBY-DOO GET A
CLUE: The only people without a clue here are
the producers. They should know after 1983's 13 Ghosts
of Scooby-Doo that separating Shaggy and Scoob from the rest
of the cast is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Yet
that's exactly what they've done with this idiotic comedy
series, which divorces the boy and his dog from the
mysteries, the rubber-faced monsters, and everything else
that made the original series so much fun for
late-blooming baby boomers and the older members of
Generation X. Instead, they just hang out in a mansion,
antagonizing some bionic boob who's undoubtedly the
offspring of Don Knotts and a James Bond villain. Even
the artwork bears no resemblence to the Hanna-Barbera
classic, looking like it was pulled from
the crummy second season of Johnny
Bravo. This departure from the original
formula was the most miserable idea to come from the
franchise since Scrappy-Doo. I'm confident that
in ten years, Get A Clue will be regarded as the New Coke
of Scooby-Doo shows... if it's remembered at all!
CARE BEARS: Laugh all
you want, but I have a soft spot for these brightly colored
runts! Like Get A Clue, the new Care Bears show goes to
great lengths to distance itself from the past two
series. The cast has been abbreviated, with the few
remaining characters swapping genders or changing
personalities. Also, there's a new green bear that
serves as the comic relief, tripping over everything in his
path, and a short-tempered steampunk villain who
seems remarkably out of place. Cyborgs in
Care-A-Lot? I have a funny feeling that this is going to
be a hard one to swallow for the show's target audience.
This next-gen update lacks the carefully hidden subversive
humor of Nelvana's Care Bears, but at the same time, it's
not as slow and sappy as molasses, like the original DiC
series. The bottom line is that it's fun for kids, while
being relatively easy for adults to tolerate.
SKUNK FU: An elderly
panda teaching furry, Flash-drawn animals martial arts?
Sure it's been done before, but it's been done BETTER in Skunk
Fu. Here's a show that somehow straddles the fence
between ancient Eastern culture and Western cartoon slapstick,
and makes it all work together. Although none of the
characters are especially endearing, the battles are
fast-paced, clever, and dynamic; just like every Jackie Chan
film made between Cannonball Run and The Tuxedo.
Moreover, the animation is fantastic for a Flash-based
series... it's not stiff and artificial like Ying-Yang
Yo!, yet never goes overboard with spastic gestures like Mucha
Lucha! Skunk Fu was developed by a small animation
studio along with a handful of Canadian producers, so it may
get ignored next to all the heavily hyped
thirty-minute toy commercials on Saturday morning
television. However, even if Skunk Fu doesn't
make waves on Kids' WB, I'm sure that the Cartoon Saloon's
next series will be a smashing success.
EON KID: Marty?
You're naming the hero of this computer rendered cartoon
MARTY? Look, that didn't work for the Japanese game
system and it's not gonna work here. The only person,
place, or thing on Earth that should ever be named
Marty is a cranky Jewish retiree on his way to Florida.
All right... with that out of the way, let's talk about this
action series. The dull, lifeless animation
makes Eon Kid seem like it's been sitting around in a
Korean film vault for a few years before it made its American
debut, and the robots who menace Marty (snicker)
were lifted straight out of early black and
white episodes of Astro Boy. So no, it's not what
you'd call cutting-edge, but the show does have a few fresh
ideas. The title character is equipped with a hydraulic
arm that can be used as a battering ram on its lowest setting,
and transforms the wearer into a Mega Man-esque android when
danger raises its armor-plated head. The Eon Kid
design is pretty awesome, enveloping Marty from head to
toe in gleaming metal, but everything else about the show
stinks like spoiled kimchee (and that crap stinks even
when it's fresh!).
CHOWDER: Last on the
list is Chowder, the latest work from the mind of C.H.
Greenblatt. He's the guy who wrote all the best episodes
of Spongebob Squarepants and The Grim Adventures of Billy and
Mandy, so you can imagine how fantastic a cartoon created
entirely by the man would be. It's not the kind of show
that jumps out of the television and shakes you by the shirt
collar like The Fairly Oddparents or Foster's Home For
Imaginary Friends, but Chowder has its own dialed-down charm,
along with an appealingly alien world
and an art style that hearkens back to the good old
days of Schoolhouse Rock. Chowder also marks Dana
"Master Shake" Snyder's first regular appearance in a G-rated
cartoon, and he's a perfect fit as the slightly
smarmy, marginally pathetic fruit stand manager
Gazpacho. If you like your cartoons loud and screamy,
this one isn't for you, but if you're sick of the frantic
antics of Foster's and need something to settle your nerves,
Chowder is just the ticket.
Also, I don't know what the big deal was with
the Grim Adventures of the Kids Next Door crossover.
After a week of non-stop hype, all Cartoon Network had to
offer was a thirty-minute cartoon that was heavy on the KND
and somehow made Mandy even more insufferable than
usual. The only thing about the show that was actually
entertaining were the end credits, with still pictures of
crossovers that would have been
much more enjoyable than this
one. Hey, I'd watch Samurai Mac!
| November 4,
2007... Indifference... the New Scent by
Calvin Kline |
I'm taking a break from the site,
because I don't have a damn thing to say. Frankly, I'm
having a great deal of difficulty caring
about anything right
now.
| October 28,
2007... Last Exit (also, Omega Five and Xbox
Live
freebies) |
My kingdom for some
motivation to update this site!
All I can really
think of to talk about right now are a few of the games
that were either just released or will be showing up
on Xbox Live Arcade soon. Every Extend Extra
Extreme was a lot more exciting than I thought it would
be... I played previous versions of the game and wasn't
impressed, but E4 left me detonating glowing shapes and
bobbing my head to the beat all night long. For the
first time, I feel like Tetsuya Mizoguchi has created
that perfect mix of music and gameplay that he's been
working hard to create over the past seven years.
Then there's
Exit. Opinions on this game were evenly divided when it
was first released for the PSP, and after playing its
Xbox Live Arcade counterpart I can easily understand
both points of view. On one hand, you've got a
great looking action game with a funky jazz/techno beat and a
clear artistic direction. I can't stress enough how
important this is in the 21st century. Today's
systems are powerful enough to display practically
anything you can imagine, meaning that good graphics just
aren't good enough... your artwork must make a
strong statement to be truly effective. Exit
does just that, with a style that evokes memories of
hard-boiled detective novels and pop art from the
1950's.
But that's only one
side of the coin, unfortunately. The other's all green
and crusty, like a penny left in the ashtray of your car for a
few years. Exit's control is so stiff and mechanical
it'll make you run to the first Prince of Persia for
relief. You must take every move you make step by
laborious step, and puzzles can only be solved EXACTLY as the
developers had intended, without any room for deviation or
error. It's really a shame, too, because there's so much
to like about this game, yet the robotic control leaves all of
its qualities dangling just out of your reach like a carrot
hanging on a strand of barbed wire.
From the already
released to the soon to be, we have Omega Five, a Natsume
shooter very much in the vein of Forgotten Worlds.
Longtime readers will recognize Forgotten Worlds as
the game that convinced me to purchase a Genesis way back in
1991, so this unofficial sequel gets my seal of approval right
out of the starting gate. The film clip on XBLA suggests
that Omega Five looks as impressive now as Forgotten Worlds
did over fifteen years ago, with high-definition,
wide-screen visuals that make every explosion more
earth-shattering and every screen-filling boss more
mind-blowing. I'm not digging the characters- didn't we
already see that brawny monk in a million other Japanese
games?- but if the gameplay makes the same impression those
graphics had, I could learn to live with them.
Oh yes,
there's one other thing. Right now, Microsoft and Warner
Bros. are giving away a free copy of What's Opera, Doc? to
promote the release of a hundred Looney Toons episodes on the
Xbox Live Marketplace. Any cartoon connoisseir will tell
you that the Looney Toons shorts vary wildly in quality, from
the highs of 1950's Robert McKimson to the lows of 1960's
Friz Freleng, but What's Opera, Doc? is top-tier all the
way; a musical spoof that ranks up there as one of Chuck
Jones' best works. When you watch the
cartoon again and laugh at all the jokes that sailed over
your head when you were a kid, you'll be glad you took the
time to download it.
| October 14,
2007... Bioshock vs. Halo
3 |
It's been a week
and a half since I've updated the site, but not much has
changed. I'm still obsessed with the Atari 5200,
spending nearly all my free time with the system while
leaving the other ones covered in dust. The Wii is
on its third coat despite the best efforts of Sin and
Punishment, Treasure's long-delayed Nintendo 64 shooter.
The game is fun, sure, but it would be a lot MORE entertaining
if it took advantage of the system's motion sensitive
controllers. The three wimpy control options
offered in S&P just aren't enough to get the job
done.
The Xbox 360 gets a
little more of my attention, thanks to Bioshock and Halo
3. At first, Bioshock was my favorite of the two titles,
but after graduating from the demo to the full game, I'm not
so sure. Bioshock takes an approach to the
genre that's very much like the Xbox 360 launch title
Condemned... in other words, the artistic direction and horror
theme take precedence over the gameplay. That works
pretty well the first time through, but the stifling
linearity and single-minded focus on the
storyline leaves you with a hollow shell of a game the
next time you play it. Plus, the creepy atmosphere is
really starting to get under my skin. Even rescuing
the Little Sisters gives me the heebie-jeebies!
Halo 3's sleek
futuristic look is more my speed, and the gameplay is a lot
more rewarding. The stages in Bioshock always feel so
cramped and claustrophobic, but that's never a problem in Halo
3. The wide open spaces are not only more
inviting, but they expand your strategic options and add
excitement to each battle. I also like having an
arsenal of laser cannons, machine guns, and needle
launchers available to me from the very beginning.
Bioshock adopts that plodding Metroid style
of weapon acquisition where you've got to find firearms
to gain access to new areas. That worked pretty well
back when Metroid was first released, but twenty years later,
hunting down glorified keys for thinly disguised doors just
starts to feel like a cocktease.
Well, that's all
I've got to say. It feels good to update again... maybe
I should do it more often!
| October 4,
2007... Bram Stoker's Wiimote
Jacket |
Never one to underestimate the
stupidity or litigiousness of the American public, Nintendo
had opted to pack all standard controllers for the Nintendo
Wii with a plastic jacket. That jacket includes a
cushioned bumper on the front which protects your television
in the event of a wrist strap malfunction brought on by Wii
Sports, the game you had already played to death last
spring.
There's just one problem,
though. This isn't one of those stylish smoking jackets
worn by the fathers on 1950's television sitcoms. This
is an entirely different kind of jacket... the ugly kind that
makes your formerly fashion conscious controller look like
this:
Maybe you guys should have held
onto this design until after Konami released a new Castlevania
game for the Wii. In fact, since series creator Koji
Igarashi seems reluctant to make one, you definitely
should have waited for it.
Insultingly unnecessary
peripherals aside, I've got three new Atari 5200 game reviews
on the site, with more on the way. I don't know what it
is about this system that keeps me coming back for more... I
suppose it's just a combination of nostalgic craving and a
need for games that take five minutes to finish, rather than
fifteen minutes to start. That would explain why I've
played Wizard of Wor five times in the past couple of weeks,
but haven't touched Bioshock at all since I first bought
it. |
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