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01.08.06 by Doc @ 10:41 pm  Overall: Published by Capcom The original Resident Evil game stands in very select company as one of the only games to essentially define its own genre. Survival horror games owe their existence to this original zombie-blasting classic. As such, there was a good bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth when Resident Evil 4 was announced as a Gamecube exclusive. The Nintendo faithful jumped for joy, as it marks one of the very few exclusives the console has received that doesn't feature a certain red-hatted Italian plumber or his kin. Of course, market pressures are a reality that even the mighty Nintendo can't ignore, so the exclusivity agreement was broken and PS2 owners were promised a chance to step back into the shoes of Leon Kennedy, the unluckiest special agent on the planet. Categorized as: Games and Reviews
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01.04.06 by Widge @ 4:10 am  I've been tempted to join the online community/virtual world Second Life, but my problem is I don't have a freaking First Life, so it would be kind of pointless. But this is just priceless and makes me want to join just on general principles. If you break the rules in Second Life...you get sent to The Corn Field. No...really. Thanks to Boing Boing. Categorized as: Games
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01.04.06 by Doc @ 1:22 am   Overall: Published by Activision When I first heard that id Software was resurrecting the Doom franchise, I was ecstatic. The original Doom game was a defining moment in PC gaming, and brought the first-person shooter genre to full legitimacy. What new ground could they break now, in a world where shooters are pretty much the defining genre of video gaming, and where advances in the genre came on a fairly regular basis? Alas, not much. The problem with Doom 3 was, basically, that it was too much like the original. In a gaming era post-Halflife and post-Halo, you've got to bring some serious coolness to register on the average player's radar screen. Doom 3 played like its grandfather, only darker and with prettier graphics. Of course, there's the well-registered complaining about not actually being able to see any of those bloody graphics thanks to the stupid light situation (tac-lights, fellas...come on). Despite these problems and complaints, the game sold rather robustly, and an expansion pack was in the making before the cash registers had even cooled down. That brings us to Resurrection of Evil, wherein we return to the Mars base some time after the events of the original game to run around in the dark again and blow up demons. The whole "gateway to Hell" thing is made much more explicit up front, and Our Hero starts the game off by snatching up a demonic artifact. Categorized as: Games and Reviews
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12.13.05 by Widge @ 2:31 am  Okay, so the large furry guy is just about to arrive in cinemas. I pray that he will kick my ass through the back of the theatre. Let us hope I am correct in this, mostly because I have a running bet with Tobias about my reaction to the film. But enough about that. Let's talk about what's really important: stuff you can buy to supplement your giant ape experience. First up, know your history. I'm talking about the two-disc collectible tin-packaged edition. Along with the completely restored film, you've got commentary by Ray Harryhausen and Ken Ralston with Merian C. Cooper and Fay Wray providing comments via excerpts of interviews. It comes with postacrds, a reproduction of the souvenir program from 1933, a docu on Cooper, a gigantic seven-part making-of docu, and test footage with commentary by Harryhausen. Warner Brothers is definitely not screwing around with this one. For more info, check out the official site here.  If you want to then delve into the remake, then streeting today is something from Universal that will help you out: Peter Jackson's production diaries in a two-disc set. This impressive set, which basically gives you DVD bonus features for a film you're about to go into the cinema to see--sweet, boasts the production diary bits that Jackson posted to the official Kong website. From end to end, you get the whole tour of the behind the scenes process, plus a fifty-two page production memoir and some art prints. Are you hardcore? Then grab it.   Want to hear the movie once you leave the cinema? Fine, the soundtrack's available with a score by James Newton Howard. That also streets today. Twenty-one tracks and that hits from Decca Records. Still not satisfied and want to play the movie? Fine. The game has hit and is quite the experience. It uses some of the same CG that WETA put in the film, so you know that's got to be quality. You can play ass-kicking playwright turned action hero or you can play ass-kicking giant ape. Your choice. Either way you're immersed in game-play that's setup to be as close to the film as you can get. Audio, graphics and the interface (or seeming lack thereof) are all choice. Is it the end-all be-all of games? Nah. Is it worthwhile to nab to go galavanting about and breaking shit as Kong? Sure, go for it. Pictured is the Xbox 360 version, though it's available for the regular Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, PSP and PC. Buy the original on DVD from Amazon. Buy the game for the Gamecube from Amazon. Categorized as: DVD and Games and Headsup and Music
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11.15.05 by Widge @ 5:32 pm   USAopoly is one of those companies that, even if you don't know them by name, you know their wares. You've been in a store and run across something like a Monopoly set that was branded with the Muppets or Sesame Street or something...that's USAopoly. They've got some new stuff that's ready to pop for this holiday season. Here's what you need to know: First up, Disney Chess. I'm certain that almost any conflict you play out on this board will be more interesting than anything Disney's got on their storyboards these days, so why not? On the side of the heroes, Belle and the Beast are the Queen and King. Your bishops are Genies, the knights are Hercules, the rooks are simba, and the pawns are dalmatians. For the villains, Captain Hook and Cruella DeVil are your monarchs, plus Jafar as the bishops, Hades as the knights, and Scar is the rooks. The evil pawns are hyenas. It all comes in a nice collectible tin. Categorized as: Games
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11.05.05 by ScottC @ 9:53 pm  Overall: Developed by Digital Eel Most good computer games require a huge investment of time. Spending hours and hours of exploring territory, building armies, vanquishing enemies, solving puzzles, and performing many other tasks to achieve victory. Sometimes you want something simple, a game that's quick, fun, and takes very little effort. A game that fulfills those requirements is Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. When you start the game, you are presented with fifteen stars to visit within ten years. At these stars you can collect useful upgrades to your ship, valuable artifacts and life forms, and allies in your travels. You can also encounter hostile aliens, a supernova, or a black hole that will end your trip short. How many good encounters you collect as well how you handle the bad encounters determines your score. All these factors along with the star map are randomized with every game, so boredom is minimized, but so is the ability to use strategy. Categorized as: Games and Reviews
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10.14.05 by Doc @ 4:14 am Okay, so I missed a couple of weeks doing game-release headsups. Things happen (I'm looking at you, X-Men). With the holidays fast approaching and the impending debut of Microsoft's next-gen console, the gaming goodness is getting hurled at us with incredible frequency. Here's a quick hitlist of this week's goodness. It's a big week for extending franchises (true of most weeks any more, alas), so we'll start there. It's fall, and that means that baseball's tyranny in the world of sports is nearly over. Hockey and football titles have been out for a little while already, leaving this week for NCAA basketball to make its debut. EA's March Madness 2006 drops on Xbox and PS2. If you're a big fan of collegiate roundball, this one's all for you. Gameplay tweaks promise to make your CPU-controlled defense a little more effective, which ought to level the difficulty curve from last year's game and open the game up to more casual players. The dynasty mode lets you work players through training camps; juggle the tricky objectives of recruiting, discipline, and game prep; and set your non-conference schedule to pit your squad against the most prestigious opponents.  The other big sports franchise hitting this week is SSX On Tour. This extremely over-the-top snowboarding game has enjoyed three very successful installments so far, and this one looks to be no exception. The addition of skiers instead of the purely snowboard-focused prior installments opens up some new options for veterans of the series, and the new art style, ripped straight from the bored study-hall doodles of that one skater everybody knew in high school, gives the game a very raw feel...much more underground than the slick, polished, commercial-sponsored races of the previous two installments. This meshes well with the game's new focus on building your own boarder from the ground up. Rather than choose one of the cast of colorful SSX characters, career mode now lets you create a custom competitor, working your way through the novice circuit and bunny slopes to become a "Black Diamond Rockstar." The familiar cast of characters still show up as competitors throughout the career mode, though, so odds are good you'll bump into your favorite on the slopes at some point. The trick system has been simplified a bit, and the game's focus has shifted to more complicated objective-based runs (perform so many feet of rail grinding, spend a certain amount of time in the air, etc.) rather than the straightforward "do as many tricks as is humanly possible before you get to the bottom" runs of the previous games. Those runs still exist, mind you, but there's a little more variety in what you're being asked to do this time around. Moving away from the wide world of sports, we move to shooting things, and this week's shooter entries couldn't be more different. For the PS2 only, SOCOM 3 gives fans of tactical squad-based military action something to cheer about. This series continues to be the only real contender against the various Tom Clancy-derived military shooter entries, and the competition is a wonderful thing for fans of the genre. With thirty weapons, twenty weapon attachments, vehicles (complete with mounted machine guns and grenade launchers), and the addition of swimming, this new installment promises to really up the ante. For those with a PSP, the game will communicate with PSP's SOCOM: Bravo Team title, unlocking additional mission features and other goodies. Multiplayer has always been a strong point in the series, and this one is no different, with an elaborate ladder system to track progress and match you against competitors of similar skill. Alas, according to a report from Kotaku, the game is requiring that you input credit card information in order to participate in clan play, so be prepared to cough up your personal intel in order to go play SEAL and shoot folks in competitive team play.  On the far other end of the shooter spectrum, we get Serious Sam 2 on the Xbox and PC, sequel to the hugely popular releases of 2001 and 2002. It looks to maintain the arcade-style feel of the older offerings, complete with quirky sense of humor and cartoonish graphics. Gameplay looks to be the same over-the-top trigger-happy goodness of the original, with some nice graphical updates and a wider variety of weapons to wield. If you enjoyed the first installment (and we did), you're probably going to like this one, though early reviews indicate that there are some framerate issues and some repetitive level design that detract from the sequel and make it less satisfying than the original. This week's RPGs are sort of a mixed bag. The eagerly anticipated Digital Devil Saga 2 continues the Shin Megami Tensei franchise with more freaky hellish sci-fi netherworld action, while Sony updates the SNES classic Romancing SaGa to full 3D on the PS2 for those looking for a nostalgic kick. Either game promises dozens and dozens of hours of play, though only the die-hard are likely to find much to love about the revamped SaGA game, with its very open-ended quest system and minimal plot structure. It's a game where one goes level-grinding for the sheer sake of powering up characters, and not because there's some impending doom on the universe that requires you to become a demigod and save the planet (again). On the other hand, the new SMT game promises to continue the series' fantastic storytelling and truly unique style. The previous games are dark, dark affairs, where the story is more likely to begin at the end of the world than to launch some heroic attempt to avert it. I'd like to take a moment, in closing, to express my irritation with Capcom over their new title Devil Kings, originally published in Japan as Sengoku Basara. The original version includes sixteen playable characters in a gonzo over-the-top version of feudal Japan, taking historical accuracy out behind the shed and beating it senseless. Full anime cutscenes. Gunslinging samurai that will bust out a chain gun and mow down hordes of advancing horsemen. Just batshit insane fun, made all the moreso by the vague tie-ins to historical feudal Japan. Fearing that all of us stupid gaijin wouldn't get the joke, the game was repackaged, playable characters cut to twelve, anime cutscenes totally removed, and all reference to feudal Japan replaced with generic fantasy bullshit. Now it's just a vaguely interesting version of Dynasty Warriors. You take out all the shit that makes it over-the-top and entertaining, plus restrict our play options? WTF? Hit us with the straight shot, Capcom. We can take it. Hell, I even enjoy playing some of the import RPGs with the Japanese voice acting, and can't understand a fucking word of it. Bring that noise. Don't punk out and give us dumbed-down bullshit because you don't think we'll "get" your edgy alt-history stuff. Buy March Madness 06 from Amazon: (PS2, Xbox) Buy Serious Sam 2 from Amazon: (PC, Xbox) Categorized as: Games and Headsup
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09.24.05 by Doc @ 7:55 am After a summer of drought and woe on the gaming release front, leaving everyone ample time to think forward longingly to the next-gen consoles unveiled at this year's E3, the waiting for some decent current-gen titles is over. There's enough goodness this week to handily drain away any spare cash you might have had tucked away for the Xbox 360 or, you know, groceries.  Where to start with this embarrassment of riches? How about superheroes, who hit the console scene in a huge way this week with three separate titles out of the House of M. After the recent release of the insanely entertaining Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, you'd think they'd have a hard time following up. Not so. This week we get Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, and last but not least, X-Men Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse. Developers Treyarch nailed the feel you'd want out of a Spidey game with their two movie tie-ins, particularly Spider-Man II, and they look to have improved on the formula in creating a video game based on Marvel's Ultimate restart. Wide-open environments, an accolade system that rewards you for pushing Spidey's acrobatic combat capabilities to their fullest variety, and the opportunity to do a little evil in the Venom suit all add up to a game that looks like it'll be an absolute blast. Categorized as: Games
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09.19.05 by JM Tuffley @ 3:19 am  Developer: Firaxis Games Haven't had a good duel lately? Wanna go sailing the high seas for adventure and profit? Wanna jack a Spanish Main Sail ship and become a terror of the high seas? Well, get your fill of virtua-pirate fun as Sid Meier's Pirates finally drops on the X-Box. Or sort of. Okay, not really. See, you don't really get to be a completely badass pirate -- or even the cool Johnny Depp version for that matter. Actually, you end up being a lot like Orlando Bloom -- you're out to avenge your fam from the likes a Spanish nobleman. Now you CAN choose the dark side and thumb you your nose at all authority, but then you can't get your ship repaired, as you have no safe ports or hideouts. Actually behaving like a pirate ends the game in roughly fifteen minutes. So -- ultimately -- you have to be the pirate with a big softy heart. You can't make people walk the plank (not even an option in the game), and other than the fact that you occationally rob the Spanish ships, you're an okay, swell kind of guy. At times, you also play messenger boy between colonial Governors of the various islands to stay in their favor (or their daughter's, in some cases). Yet somehow being an overdressed Fed Ex guy with a sword is somehow just not as cool as ROBBING the overdressed Fed Ex guy with a sword, which is what you REALLY want to do in this game. Because we assume in a game called Pirates!, you might actually want to be one. But, to be fair, this game aims for the lighter, more high seas high-jinks end of the Pirate equation than the maiming, killing version (and Take Two could use a game for general audiences right now, since they also publish the Grand Theft Auto series). So, you'll simply have to settle for being an overdressed nancy boy with a swor- *AHEM* dashing rogue. If you only play the Single Player mode, that is. The Mulitplayer mode is where you really get to make people eat those nancy boy jokes. You can take on four players in ship-to-ship battle throwdowns. This is clearly made to be a safer, more lighthearted alternative to the brutal, ultraviolent world of the Grand Theft Auto games -- complete with mission-based minigames, RPG elements, rhythm-based dance/sword dueling modes, and quirky characterizations made to play up the more romantic elements of the pirate life. However, trying to shoehorn a classic game into that safer alternative removes the freeform nature you really should have in a game like this. Choosing to go full-on evil pirate in single player mode should make the game tougher, yes, but not impossible to the point of not having any safe harbors (including your home port). The Multiplayer mode goes far to redeem the single player's shortcomings--but not by much, with its lack of Xbox Live capability for the Mulitplayer (the game IS XBLive "aware," meaning you can download additional ports and missions or an add-on to design your own flag). In the end, it IS a well meaning and quirky safer alternative to GTA. If you're a parent, you'll be a bit concerned about all the pirates overdoing it on the rum and of course the whole theft thing, but that's about it. If you are a fan of the skull and crossbones set, you probably already have this title, and if you're not completely out to loot and plunder, then you'll enjoy the drinking songs, the ship battles and swordfighting. If you want full frontal GTA-style Pirate action, you might find the game a little boring. But it may be worth a rental to you for the change of pace. Categorized as: Games and Reviews
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09.11.05 by Doc @ 9:49 pm After a few slow weeks, the game release schedule actually has a little meat on its bones this time around. While most of this week's big releases are franchise titles, there are a couple of original gems in there to keep the jaded contingent interested. On top of the franchise heap is NHL 06, the latest in the long-running hockey franchise from EA. With a new deke system and the addition of the "skill stick" mechanic to give players greater control over the stick and puck in-game, the game seems set to reward the hardcore player by allowing a much greater variety of maneuvers. Also new is a shot targeting system that looks borrowed from last year's Gretzky NHL. The defensive AI has reportedly been vastly improved as well, with defensemen now doing a much better job cutting down shot angles and breaking up passes instead of just flattening every player you bring into the zone. With a little tweaking on the rules option screen, you can probably even get a reasonable facsimile of the NHL's newly announced rules enforcement policy for this season. As with any EA sports game, this one drops pretty much on any game-playing platform you can imagine, so at least there's something for the PC crowd this week. Categorized as: Games
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