August 2009 Archives

When it comes to MMORPGs, I'm that guy. You know the one; you're all having a good time discussing your latest raids and loot pickups from the land of Azeroth and I'm sitting there cursing another World of Warcraft conversation for ruining my Friday night. Yeah, I'm the guy that just loathes every MMO under the sun. Or well, the dimly-lit computer room in the wee hours of the night, anyway.

But I loved City of Heroes. I played it through the beta test and quite a bit after it went live, until my wrist started to hurt. I played it kind of a lot.

With another superhero MMO on the way from Cryptic Studios, I was quite excited, as you can guess. I wondered, is it going to be more City of Heroes, is it a totally different game? With the closed beta over and the release just a few days out, I have some answers for you.

I think this might've been the game Cryptic was trying to make all along. There's a clear lineage from City of Heroes, but Champions Online is bigger and better in just about every way. From character reaction to environments, just about everything has more options, more color, and more life.

Check out the full article.

Game Informer recently reported a super devastating survey in which they found that more than 54% of all Xboxes had red-ringed. Now, I'm not even what would qualify as an amateur statistician, but I'm going to make a reaching grab here and say the survey wasn't exactly scientific. Before the various fanboys jump on me for being an Xbot or whatever, I'd like to say that yes, my Xbox 360 died. Right before Bioshock came out. It was miserable. And obviously, the 360 has an absurdly high failure rate. I'm not arguing that.

Check out the full article.

Today is the one year anniversary of me starting this blog! One year I ago, I posted “Let’s Posting Love,” and since they I’ve posted 139 more entries about anime and video games. Two weeks previous, I moved into my new house, and my wedding anniversary is just a month later. It’s like I timed all this! Here’s to another year and even more posts!

Reading Real Volume 5 feels a bit like just waking up. Almost everyone in the book is seeing something in a new light and making new friends, despite their ongoing struggles. They also do things that would be hard for anyone, but in Japanese culture border on the extraordinary.

Tomomi, the thuggish guy that somehow ended up in a giant monster suit last time around, has obtained his driver’s license. To Americans this may not seem like a big deal, but in Japan the process of getting your license can cost upwards of $2,000 to $3,000. License in hand, Tomomi makes his first trip the hardest one he could possibly make. Instead of running away from his shame and avoiding it, the former punk feeds his good fortune and determination into a trip to see Natsumi, the girl he hurt in an accident at the beginning of the story. Tomomi is determined to heal the wounds he feels responsible for. To that end he continues visiting her and having hard conversations, even if she doesn't want to see him again.

Check out the full review.

All right everyone, I'm back on earth, safe, and with a backpack full of sweet alien guns. Like Operation Anchorage, Mothership Zeta is abundant with combat and entirely unique art, enemies, and weapons.

Mothership Zeta, (currently) the final expansion pack for Fallout 3, is available for download. Mothership Zeta takes one of the little Easter eggs of Fallout 3, a crashed alien spaceship, and makes a whole mini-story of it. Upon discovering the ship, you find yourself pulled up in a beam of bright light, waking up with nothing but your Pip-Boy and underoos. Fight your way through the Mothership to save the world (again!) and make it back down to Earth.

Check out the full review.

At this point, I think most of us can get a pretty good idea, reading a review, whether we're going to trust the writer. Sometimes, though, that writer just isn't qualified to be writing the piece. I remember reading a Neverwinter Nights review sometime ago that gave the game something like a 5 of 10. It became clear while reading the piece that the writer's problem was with the core mechanic of the game — the whole D&D 3.5 simulation thing. The review wasn't of the game itself but rather the fact that it "let you see the dice," something fans of the title expected. The same would go for me reviewing a football title. I don't know a single thing about the sport or how the games work. An interesting piece? Maybe, if I curse enough, but not an accurate review.

Check out the full article.

For some reason, whenever anyone mentions things like Wii and Natal, the first images that jump out are people jumping around like goons in their living room. Why is this? Oh, that's right: every demo ever. However, I think the real implementation has potential for far more subtlety.

While trying to throw together a list of ideas about the potential that Microsoft's Natal, one that came up was the idea of using the camera to augment — not replace — the modern FPS. No one's going to crawl around on the floor pretending to fire an invisible gun (five-year-olds don't count), and until we get 360 Degree Television or those sweet virtual reality helmets from the virtual reality machines in the '90s, using your head to look around in a virtual environment isn't going to work very well, either.

Check out the full article.

My back hurts. And my shoulder. And Sakura defeated me! Again! It's been a while, but my Conan O'Brien Mii is back in action, but now with full motion tracking and an awesome sword! Wii Sports Resort is finally here, and it's a lot of fun. I'll admit, when I saw the first videos of Wii Sports Resort during Nintendo's E3 2008 briefing, I was skeptical. When Cammy came out to show us "the cutest game ever," I was quickly losing interest. That went away quickly once I had the Motion Plus connected and my virtual sword in hand.

(The Short Version: GET IT! I gave it an 8.5. Still think I hate the Wii?)

Check out the full review.