Battle of Puppets / iPhone/iPod / Reviews

I just posted a review of Battle of Puppets from Small Wonders. It's a strategy game for the iPhone, and I really enjoyed it. The game was fun, but what I liked most was the gorgeous visuals and great music. Battle of Puppets was $0.99 when it was given to me but is currently $1.99.

Farm Frenzy 2 / iPhone/iPod / Reviews

New review up at Game-Boyz. Farm Frenzy 2 is a farming game similar in style to Cake Mania or Jane's Hotel. My review copy was provided by Alawar Entertainment.

Tank Battle: Iron Warfare / iPhone/iPod / Video Game Reviews

My Tank Battle: Iron Warfare review is up at Game-Boyz.com. The game was given to me by Judnich Productions.

Wii to fret over 'Rock of the Dead'

This must be the most amazing game announcement ever. Rock of the Dead looks like a zombie light-gun shooter except that each zombie has Guitar Hero type tabs on them. Play the notes with your guitar to kill the zombie.

Not so amazing?

The main character is voiced by Neil Patrick Harris.

Yes.

Also some girl is in it.

Jane's Hotel / Apple / Reviews

I just posted a review of Jane's Hotel on Game-Boyz. I received the review copy free from G5 Entertainment. Jane's Hotel is a game similar to Cake Mania. I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit.

The Treasures of Mystery Island / Apple / Reviews

I just reviewed another game at Game-Boyz, The Treasures of Mystery Island! It's a find-the-hidden-object game for the iPhone that was provided to me for free by Alaware Entertainment.

Sonic 4

There's an Intro section on the official Sonic 4 website now with the background story of Sonic 4. There's no direct link, but click "Intro" under "Game Info" on the upper left of the site to see it. The site recaps the story for Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles.

Basically, the story is that in Sonic 1 Dr. Eggman turns animals into robots on South Island in an attempt to collect the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic defeats Dr. Eggman in Final Zone. Then, in Sonic 2, Dr. Eggman tries to create the Death Egg. Sonic and Tails fight him on West Side Island and the Death Egg, defeating him. Immediately after, in Sonic 3, the Death Egg falls on Angel Island, which was floating in the air, causing it to crash into the sea. Angel Island held the Master Emerald. Knuckles steals the Chaos Emeralds because Dr. Eggman convinced him that Sonic was after the Master Emerald. Dr. Eggman repairs the Death Egg, but Sonic and Tails blow it up again. It crumbles back down on Angel Island. Finally, in Sonic & Knuckles, Dr. Eggman has EggRobo attack Knuckles because he no longer needs him. Dr. Eggman then steals the Master Emerald and launches the Death Egg again. Knuckles pursues EggRobo, and Sonic pursues Dr. Eggman. Sonic saves the Master Emerald and returns it to Knuckles and Angel Island, allowing the island to float again. Now Dr. Eggman prepares to fight Sonic once more.

For anyone who cares about the Sonic story (which most likely isn't anyone reading this), this is interesting for a few reasons. It seems that the Sonic 4 story is disregarding every game besides Sonic 1,2,3, and S&K. Also, there's no mention of the Super Emeralds. There used to be confusion about why Knuckles thought Sonic took the Chaos Emeralds when they hadn't been on Angel Island, but they took that part out as well. It's the simplest explanation and is what I expected, but it's interesting to see it.

Editorial: Thoughts on the Ensidia ban

Dawn Moore provides well written and informative editorial on the recent Ensidia ban. I haven't done the research she has, and of course, no one but Ensidia really knows what happened and what their motivations were. Assuming Dawn was correct in her facts, I agree with most of her deductions. Given that information, it seems to me that the Ensidia members did deserve the 72-hour ban. That said, I can't blame them for using the exploit.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 Q&A - Xbox 360 Previews at GameSpot

SEGA of America announced that GameSpot would be revealing Project Needlemouse at midnight tonight (12:00 AM 2/4), and they certainly did! It's actual title is Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, and it going to be downloadable on all three consoles. The versions will be near identical, but the Wii's will be 480p while the other two will be 1080p. Also, certain parts will take advantage of the Wii motion controls and the PS3's Sixaxis. I don't really want any motion control, but I think I'll go with PS3 just to have the nice d-pad. I'm really excited about this! Sonic 4 will be out this summer.

SEGA America Blog | Happy Hedgehog Day!

Happy Hedgehog Day! I hope everyone's excited about Hedgehog Week! All week, SEGA will be releasing information about the new Sonic game, Project Needlemouse, including it's official name on Thursday. Also, today marks the 16th anniversary of the US release of Sonic 3!

If a Genesis and a Wii had a baby, it would be Sega Zone

Sorry, just kidding! It's the Sega Zone. It contains 50 games, 20 of which are classic Genesis titles, as well as a slot for Genesis carts. It physically looks like a Wii knock-off only with a bit more "bling." I've seen things like this previously, but it still looks cool. It's about 60 USD and is coming to the UK.

The Backloggery - TheUser's Backloggery

The Backloggery is an interesting site for gamers who are obsessive like I am. You use it to track your backlog! In other words, it catalogs your game collection and tracks which games you still need to finish. It also groups compilations together (grouping SMB 1, 2, 3, and Lost Levels as four different games all under Super Mario All-Stars, for example), which is quite handy, and records the original platform of each game. I just finished entering all 643 of my games into the system!

The Mystery of the Crystal Portal / Apple / Reviews

My review of The Mystery of the Crystal Portal is up at Game-Boyz. It was provided to me by G5 Entertainment.

Although some people had defeated Rotface in PUGs or with other guilds, Carpe Flux Capacitor as a whole has been unable to defeat 10-man Rotface until this past Tuesday (as I mentioned previously). I had the privilidge of raiding that time, which was my first time in the Plagueworks and second time in Icecrown Citadel, not considering fail PUGs that started on Deathbringer Saurfang, fail guild runs filled with alts and PUGs, and trash runs.

It was really interesting. Festergut was a fun but not very hard fight. I was marked, and the ranged were told to clump on me where I was standing when Festergut used Gas Spore. That just made it extra easy because I didn't have to move, although I also felt special that people came to me (even if I didn't do anything).

Rotface was just awesome. Struggling with the guild and trying different tactics is still new to me. It just felt amazing. We had three healers, and on our first couple attempts, we didn't coordinate. After a few wipes, we decided to be a little more organized. We had one designated tank/melee healer, one raid healer, and one healer focusing on the off-tank kiting the Big Ooze and the players running to him. I was the off-tank healer (and Mutated Infection remover). This made things go much more smoothly.

As Tydros, the off-tank, ran around the perimeter, I made smaller circles on the inside so I could stay near him. I could probably have done my job with a lot less moving, but it made it easier to be near him and watching. There were still a couple problems. First, healing someone running to Tydros wasn't a big deal, but healing myself while running to him was a bigger deal. I can't actually say that this caused problems for the group, but it really disoriented me. Another problem was multiple slimes being up at the same time. Sometimes someone with Mutated Infection wouldn't get to the off-tank in time, leaving a Small Ooze somewhere else. Similarly, this means that sometimes a Big Ooze was exploding while other Small Oozes already existed.

The last problem was that people sometimes were unable to find the off-tank. He was marked at the start of each attempt, but after he got Mutated Infection, he would become marked with a different mark. After the infection was removed, he would no longer be marked, and neither of us (the two people worrying about Mutated Infection) had the ability to remark. I pointed this out, and he was given Assist so he could remark himself if needed. Eventually, on what was to be our last attempt, we got him really low before wiping, so decided to give it one more go. That last attempt (duh) was when we finally downed Rotface.

I also wanted to mention something about ICC-25. I've only done a 25-man once, and it was an Icecrown Citadel PUG on a Monday night before raid resets. I had between 800 and 1500 ms latency (most likely due to there being two people sharing Wi-Fi both in 25-mans and both running Vent). The lag kind of sucked. I wouldn't want to try another 25-man in which people depend on me unless it was a guild run and I could do trash as a trial or a bad PUG that I didn't care about. Anyways, as a disc priest, I felt that my role was much more defined in 25-man. In 10-mans, even when I'm "tank healing," I'm still doing extra healing. In the 25-man, I focused just on the tanks. It also seemed like had I not been lagging my Penance could actually heal the tank rather than become overhealing. Regardless, these thoughts on doing 25-mans are just from the one 25-man raid I did before going with on the run that killed Rotface. This is important to note because while that was the first time I felt like my role was really defined, it was before I had that awesome ICC-10 experience. In fact, we had much more coordination as a guild on the 10-man run than the PUG on the 25-man. Still, I'd be interested in trying 25-man content in the future.

iSamJackson / Apple / Reviews

I just posted my review of iSamJackson at Game-Boyz. It's actually a really funny soundboard featuring Samuel Jackson. I got it from Heatwave Interactive, and they even sent me an iPhone 3G case that says "BAD MOTHER ****** iSamJackson" on it - except that word was written in of course.

Magnetic Sports Soccer / Apple / Reviews

My review of Magnetic Sports Soccer was posted today on Game-Boyz. It's sort of like foosball except for two differences. First, only the goalies can move. Second, the ball acts like it's magnetically pulled to the players. Anyways, it was pretty fun! I received the game for free from publisher Bulkypix.

Guild First Rotface, originally uploaded by theuser.

gem and I were there for Carpe Flux Capacitor's guild first killing of Rotface! I posted this on the Playground Justice Blog as well, but I'm very excited! There's a post on the CFC site as well!

Cute guy at the Dalaran North Bank - w4m

I'll reproduce the post below this. Any idea who wrote this? The "you" sure sounds like me!

---

Hi! I saw you at the Dalaran North bank last night. I forgot my ATM card, so I had to run in really quick. You were at a different teller, and I thought about saying hi, but by the time I was done and out of line, you were already gone.

You: Tall guy with a blue mohawk. I think I remember seeing you with the Hammer of Purified Flame, but I couldn't make it out clearly.

Me: Pretty average height girl wearing my red hair in a ponytail. I had my 2pT10 on and gold hoop earrings.

I know that chances are you'll never see this, but you looked like the kind of guy who'd shield me from anything.

While I'm not even two hours into Desperate Struggle yet, I have to say I'm already pleased with it and excited to continue. It takes place three years after the first in a Santa Destroy that's now a larger city, filled with large corporations. There seems to be more cut-scenes, but that might just be early in the game. The graphics are still great, and the little bits of breaking the fourth wall are amusing while not annoying. The first fight was fun but simple. It was a tutorial after all.

But let me tell you about the two things that made me fall extra in love with the game. First, Travis' cat is back, but now she's fat! You can play with her to make her lose weight, but exercising makes her unhappy. Then you give her treats to make her happy! She's fat and cute! Second, Desperate Struggle has awesome minigames! There's a video game Travis owns in his house. It's called Bizarre Jelly 5, and it's a vertical shoot 'em up in which you control a magical girl who can shoot with her hand. On the harder difficulty, it's like a (mild) bullet hell. Bizarre Jelly is based on the anime that Travis Touchdown loves. After I played it, it unlocked a video that allowed me to watch an anime clip of Bizarre Jelly, complete with the second and third panty shots in Desperate Struggle (the game's not for kids). The side jobs all play as simple games that feel like they would have been right at home on the NES. They're fantastic!

All in all, the main gameplay is still awesome, and the minigames are great. I love how aware Desperate Struggle is that it's a game. It's like an homage to the medium as a whole.

Capcom has once again created an awesomely fun Vs. title. It's true that I don't know any of the Tatsunoko characters, but that doesn't stop them from being interesting characters. I prefer the graphics over SF4 with it's simpler backgrounds and 3D models with a bit of cel-shading. Street Fighter IV, which does have an interesting graphical style, consists of characters bulging all over the place with muscles and gross eyes. TvC is a 2v2 fighting game with 3D models on a 2D field.

It can be played with Wiimote and nunchuck (although I wouldn't want to use an analog stick for a fighter), Classic Controller, or Wiimote held sideways, which is how I always play. It's nice to see a simple control system. For the most part, you use two buttons for fighting with a third to call your partner. Just like with Marvel vs. Capcom, the characters are a lot of fun to use, and I'm looking forward to unlocking Frank West (from Dead Rising) and Zero (from Mega Man X).

Ultimate All-Stars gained an online mode after being localized from Cross Generation of Heroes. The game also has really great music and sound effects. I'm glad they didn't put in some hip-hop music in an attempt to localize. The music sounds very... early DDR. I like it.

If I get around to it, I'll write a full review later! But for now, I really recommend Tatsunoko vs. Capcom if you like fighting games.

There are some obvious generalizations to be made from my last post. First, any role in which I'm going to be using Flash Heal benefits from me having two pieces of healing-T10. This is pretty obvious. The 2-piece bonus from healing-T10 is to have Flash Heal have a chance to place a HOT. If my role is tank healing with Greater Heal, the 2-piece healing-T10 set bonus is worthless, so it would be better for me to go for additional throughput by taking the DPS-T10. For raid healing, I want Prayer of Mending to be stronger, so I should keep 2 pieces of T9 for the 2-piece set bonus. The T10 facts came as no surprise to me, but I hadn't thought of keeping the T9 pieces. Maybe I'll keep two pieces of T9 on me in case there's a fight in which I think having the Prayer of Mending bonus would be beneficial.

I've been trying to decide how to spend my frost emblems. Here's what I'm buying:

Crimson Acolyte Hood (healing)
Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads (healing)
Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky
Ermine Coronation Robes
Gloves of False Gestures
Circle of Ossus
Crimson Acolyte Leggings (healing
Spark of Light -> Purified Lunar Dust

For my own reference, here's what Rawr came up with when optimizing under different conditions.

tank - penance/pw:s/prom/fh, overall, with Ashen Verdict craftables, max thoroughness
Crimson Acolyte Hood (healing)
Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads (healing)
Ermine Coronation Robes
Gloves of Ambivalence
Lightweave Leggings
Sandals of Consecration
16305.77 -> 17873.88

---

tank - penance/pw:s/prom/gh, overall, with Ashen Verdict craftables, max thoroughness
Crimson Acolyte Cowl (dps)
Crimson Acolyte Mantle (dps)
Meteor Chaser's Raiment
Gloves of False Gestures
Leggings of Woven Death
Sandals of Consecration
Score: 16277 -> 17904.91

---

raid - pw:s/penance/fh, overall, with Ashen Verdict craftables, max thoroughness
Crimson Acolyte Hood (healing)
Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads (healing)
keep current T9 chest
keep current T9 gloves
Lightweave Leggings
Sandals of Consecration
Score: 24465.8 -> 26152.38

------

tank - penance/pw:s/prom/fh, overall, without Ashen Verdict craftables, max thoroughness
Crimson Acolyte Hood (healing)
Crimson Acolyte Mantle (dps)
Ermine Coronation Robes
Gloves of False Gestures
Crimson Acolyte Leggings (healing)
keep current shoes

---

tank - penance/pw:s/prom/gh, overall, without Ashen Verdict craftables, max thoroughness
Crimson Acolyte Cowl (dps)
Crimson Acolyte Mantle (dps)
Meteor Chaser's Raiment
Gloves of False Gestures
Crimson Acolyte Leggings (healing)
keep current shoes

---

raid - pw:s/penance/fh, overall, without Ashen Verdict craftables, max thoroughness
Crimson Acolyte Hood (healing)
Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads (healing)
Ermine Coronation Robes
keep current T9 gloves
keep current T9 pants
Keep current shoes
Score: 24465.8 -> 25467.19

My Best of 2009 was posted over at Game-Boyz. It was actually posted almost a week ago, but I missed it. There's no normal link to the article. I had to click a small "Recent posts" link in the bottom right and then look through a table of posts to find it.

My list includes Space Invaders Infinity Gene, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, Atsumari, Rat on the Run, World of Warcraft: Mobile Armory, and GameCenter.

Atsumari was the only game that I received for free as a review copy, but I assure you, it deserved to be on the list.

Atsumari App Store Description, originally uploaded by theuser.

A quote from my review was put in the App Store description of Atsumari! I know it's dumb to be excited about this kind of thing but... =D too bad!

Graal, originally uploaded by theuser.

Graal Classic is a version of Graal Online developed for the iPhone! It was released last month, and I just tried it today! It feels pretty good! Menus and such seem to lag a bit. Hopefully they're better on an iPhone 3G. The game ran smoothly over WiFi and claims to work over Edge and 3G. I'll check that soon! I died pretty quickly after starting. Everyone's pretty PVP crazy in Graal. You can see a picture of my first death!

Babel Rising is a simple game and is quite fun / Apple / Reviews

My review of Babel Rising for the iPhone is up at Game-Boyz.com. It's a pretty fun game! Waves of people come to build and tower, and you have to stop them. It's similar to those games in which you have to defend a keep or a castle. My review copy was provided by Bulkypix.

Hellgate: London servers set to reopen in Europe and U.S.

Hellgate: Resurrection: Hellgate: Tokyo Announced Today - MMORPG News - New MMO News, Free MMOs, Tidbit, Top 10, Topics, Previews - News.mmosite.com

Joystiq reports from gamesindustry.biz" that HanbitSoft, who owned the rights to Hellgate: London in Korea, has acquired worldwide rights to publishing the software and plans on reopening servers in Europe and the United States. The game will now be called Hellgate: Resurrection and will have new features.

This is definitely good news. Reading through the comments on Joystiq, it's obvious that a lot of people do not share my excitement at Hellgate's return. Most likely they're judging the game based on what it was originally. Yes, Hellgate: London was pretty horrible (although still fun!) at launch, and it remained so for quite some time; however, the game was much better at the time of server shutdown. I was actively playing at the time, having recently come back to the game. Hellgate definitely still has some issues.

My three biggest issues were needing to use the mouse to look around while also needing to use the cursor, the sluggish interface, and the bland atmosphere. The first two problems combine to be particularly annoying, but you do get used to the cursor usage. I doubt the atmosphere can be fixed. The entire game is gray. Thanks Gears of War for making gray worlds so popular! I understand their reasoning: a post-apocalyptic world should be covered in dirt and dust. Still, I feel like some more color could be used.

Despite these shortcomings, the game was actually very fun. While marketed as an MMO, it functioned similar to Guild Wars. The towns were like MMOs, but everything outside of town was instanced. Playing similar to Diablo, it was really an online, role-playing, dungeon crawler. It had an intriguing plot that I never got to see through to the end. I was always sad that I didn't get to find out what happened at the end. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint! The graphic novel and three novel series were very entertaining. The novels seemed to end without as much conclusion as I had hoped, but they were still quite enjoyable.

mmosite.com reports that Hellgate: Resurrection includes The Abyss Chronicle, the second patch (the first being the Stonehenge Chronicles), which was developed by Flagship Studios and on the test servers but never released. In addition, HanbitSoft also has new content known as Hellgate: Tokyo, which will take place in Tokyo, Osaka, and Yokohama. I hope those locations are more colorful! The game has also been tweaked a bit with the removal of the level cap (uh, I doubt there's no cap), a new/changed character advancement system, and changes to class balance.

Developer Twitter chat transcript for January 15th, organized by category

WoW.com put up a nice transcript of the WoW developer Twitter chat organized by category. I've included some of the more interested ones to me.

Q. For those of us who collect tabards and armor sets, do you see a way for us to store and not use our very limited inventory?

A. Yes. We'd like to store them the same way you do titles. In general, we don't want to punish the packrats out there who just like to collect stuff. We will have to wait and see what we can do about it though.

This is great news! Tabards should be easy, but I'm curious what they could do for armor sets. When they answered this question, they were probably specifically thinking of tabards and not armor. I'd like to see a 100-slot bag, only purchasable at the level cap, that can hold any armor or weapon piece that was a certain item level below the current tier item level. In other words, you can always put your old stuff in it.

Q. What knowledge have you gained from WotLK/ICC in regards to your future design plans for Cataclysm?

A. That's a broad question for just 140 characters! I'll say one thing we learned in retrospect was that the progressive badge structure has ended up confusing. We have a simpler one in mind that accomplishes the same goals.

It wasn't confusing at all. It worked really well.

Q. Will you be emphasizing more Horde vs. Alliance hatred in the future?

A. It's a major focus for Cataclysm. Neither Garrosh nor Vyrian is a major fan of cross-faction cooperation.

Are we going to get at least some leader to whom we can admire? Garrosh is war crazy, Cairne doesn't do anything, Vol'jin doesn't do anything, Sylvanas is kind of mean (and I don't trust the Forsaken), and I don't even know who the leader of the Blood Elves are. Who should I look up to? Tirion Fordring? I'm not a paladin. Do priests count for anything to the Light? Will he be around in Cataclysm? I doubt the Ashen Verdict will still exist. Will the Argent Crusade, in some form? Will Fordring still be amicable to Horde? I suspect he will, but he's not really my leader. Darion Mograine? I'm not a Death Knight. And I have no idea how the Knights of the Ebon Blade will be integrated into society without the driving force of killing Arthas. Maybe I should look closer to home. My guild leader? Oh yeah, she's inactive, lol.

Q. Will Trolls ever get either their own capitol, or a district in Orgrimmar like the Gnome district in Ironforge?

A. Personally, I think it adds a little to the troll story that they have such an amazing cultural legacy and have fallen so far from that in recent history. That said, we have a little bit of love for trolls in Cataclysm (beyond the ability to be just about every class in the game).

*excited*

Q. Can we expect a Canadian style pet for the Olympics this year?

A. I will put in a request today for an epic moose mount, not sure if it will make it in though.

Room... with a moose!

First-Person Tetris

First-Person Tetris will spin you right round, baby, right round

Just play it.

SEGA America Blog | Project Needlemouse Character Countdown – Finale and Concept Art!

SEGA America Blog has been eliminating possible characters for Project Needlemouse, the new 2D Sonic game, all week. They posted a picture with various characters' names on Monday, and each day they've been rejecting some of the characters. Today SEGA finished by rejecting every character other than Sonic. This is pretty good news for long time Sonic fans. To be honest, there's a lot of characters I don't mind. Tails is alright, although I feel like being able to fly breaks the game a bit. Knuckles is fine, and I enjoyed playing as Amy in Sonic Advance. Still, I hate the introduction of random, additional characters with each game. Here's hoping Project Needlemouse turns the Sonic series around!

Yes, I Wrote for the WoW Magazine – Check out my Articles | World of Matticus

I’m A Sucker For Pretty Things « Azure Shadows

The first issue of World of Warcraft Magazine was released recently. It seems most people are pretty pleased with the content besides the fact that it seems rather dated (as print always is). However, Matt from World of Matticus wrote on his blog that he wrote two articles for it yet went uncredited. A woman named Lesley wrote in a comment on an Azure Shadows post that she too went uncredited for her contribution to the magazine. It seems that the editors at World of Warcraft Magazine feel that crediting authors for their work isn't something they should do. Not that I was going to buy the magazine anyways, but I don't think this will help them any.

My review of the fantastic puzzle game, Atsumari, was posted yesterday on Game-Boyz.com. It's a relatively simple game in which you use a few rules to determine which hexes of a hexagonal grid should be black and which should be right. It was a relaxing game, and I really enjoyed it.

I also found that my review was quoted on the front page of Atsumari's web site at Atsumari.com, which really excited me! I had to save a screenshot!

I think I forgot to mention that my review of Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard for iPhone was posted at Game-Boyz.com. It's normally $0.99, but I received a review copy for free. It was a really fun, although rather repetitive, hack and slash with really gorgeous sprite art.

My review for Warrior Epic Sagas was posted today. Interestingly enough, my gradings weren't posted along with my text. I gave it a 4/10 for gameplay, 3/10 for graphics, and 3/10 for sound. Warrior Epic Sagas is a free game.

My review of Ghosts Attack just got posted tonight. It was a fun game, and the atmosphere was really cool. It really reminds me of the feeling I got from The Journeyman Project (although none of you but William know what that is). Ghosts Attack is $4.99, but I received a review copy.

I recently reviewed Judgment Day War, an iPhone game by G5 Entertainment and Gaijin Entertainment. I submitted it on the 12th of this month, and it was posted today. The game normally costs $0.99, but I received a review copy for free.

I reviewed Waze yesterday, 12/4, and it was posted today. Waze is a GPS application for the iPhone that uses data from its users to improve. It also keeps track of your improvements in the form of a point score. Waze is a free application. More information about my Game-Boyz reviews can be found here.

I submitted a review of iMEvil - OverLord 2 Edition Vide Game SoundBoard on November 17, and it just got posted today. At the time I wrote it, the application was $0.99 on the App Store, but I received my review copy for free. More information is here.

EA + Wii pushing play, originally uploaded by theuser.

I saw this on Tuesday on campus. A little strange that EA is pushing the Wii by letting people play in a tent at school.

I wrote a review of FIFA 10 for the iPhone recently. I submitted it and it was posted on November 10 over at Game-Boyz. I received the game for free in exchange for writing it, which I feel is important to mention. It's $9.99 on the App Store today. More information can be found at my previous post. The post on Game-Boyz seems under construction, but the content is there.

I was asked recently to review iPhone games and hardware for Game-Boyz. It seems that the owner of Game-Boyz must have liked my GameFAQs reviews, because he contacted me at the e-mail address I use there. In exchange for writing reviews, I get to keep the software for free. For hardware, I've been informed that I can keep cheap hardware for free but not expensive items. I'm very excited about writing for Game-Boyz!

I think it's important to note that I'm receiving the games for free. I'll link to this post explaining the situation in future posts regarding the reviews.

Uncharted 2 - Pre-owned, originally uploaded by theuser.

Uh, this came out today. How is it available used already?

Tim Schafer was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight. I watched for two reasons. Sure, I was interested in Schafer, but I wasn't expecting anything I hadn't heard previously. However, I was also curious about how Jimmy Fallon was going to handle having someone from the gaming industry on his show. Fallon has claimed that he wants to treat big video game releases similar to big movie releases. He had four guests on his show - Drew Barrymore (plugging her movie, Whip It), two people from The Universal Records Database (for storing world records), and Tim Schafer.

For those who don't know him, Tim Schafer is the designer of the upcoming Brutal Legend. I'm looking forward to it a lot. It seems like Tenacious D: The Game in a lot of ways. Schafer worked Monkey Island 1 and 2, Maniac Mansion, and Psychonauts among other games, and Brutal Legend is developed by Double Fine, developer of Psychonauts.

Fallon wanted to know how Schafer got the idea for Brutal Legend. Schafer explained that when he was younger and listening to music, he'd look at the album covers. Unlike today where people listen to mp3s and go about their day without looking at the music at all, people used to actually pay attention to the art on the record jacket. Metal albums often had intricate details such as runes on the first album Tim Schafer owned, "Diary of a Madman" by Ozzy Osbourne. He wanted to explore the world of metal that he saw when he stared at the albums.

In Brutal Legend, a roadie is sent back in time to a past during which mankind was enslaved by demons. This is the world of metal the Schafer imagined. He went on to talk about how the main character uses a battle axe as well as a guitar. There was no mention of the term "axe" being used to mean "guitar," but I suspect that played a role as well. The guitar is amplified by the magic, and the main character uses it to summon lightning, pyrotechnics, etc. When asked how he got Jack Black for the role of the main character, Schafer replied that at first he just wanted to make a game that Jack Black would like. To Schafer, Jack Black was the type of person at whom he was aiming the game. There was also mention of Jack Black and Tenacious D loving the serious aspects of music while still appreciating the over-the-topness of it, which is exactly like Brutal Legend. When they were casting the main character, Schafer wanted someone who would sound sort of like Jack Black. Then he found out that Black was a fan of his previous game, Psychonauts, they invited him to play the role. He also said that Ozzy Osbourne is in the game as well.

The interview with Tim Schafer was pretty interesting, and I'm glad I watched tonight. I'm also glad that Jimmy Fallon does seem to be treating games similarly to movies. Yes, movies get more of the spotlight than games, but this is still a nice start. I'm definitely not going to watch Fallon's show regularly because I'm just not interested in the movie industry, but I'll check out his show in the future if there's a guest who's from the video game industry.

I've always really enjoyed Harvest Moon. Learning to manage my time to care for my farm can be stressful, but once I have a routine down, it's actually relaxing. Feed the chickens, grab the egg, feed the cows, milk the cows, brush the cows, brush the horse, harvest, water. Then I get a little bit of precious free time to go up the mountain or talk to a girl. The dating simulator aspect of the game is also fun although simple, reminding me of the system from Azure Dreams. Sadly, I've never finished a Harvest Moon game.

The first I played was Harvest Moon for the SNES. When I picture Harvest Moon in my head, this is the version I see. I played it quite a bit for a while, and I remember talking to William about it while he played it as well. I tried the PlayStation version, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature as well which was 3D and ugly. Some people liked it more, but I just couldn't get into it. I did have a friend, most likely Shaun, who used to play it at my house, but I passed on it.

William let me borrow Harvest Moon 64 for the N64, and that was much more enjoyable than Back to Nature. It was also 3D but just seemed more pleasant. Harvest Moon 64 featured a greenhouse, allowing me to grow plants even in the winter. Even though Harvest Moon is a single player, I really enjoyed talking to William about this game while I played it.

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town came out in fall of 2003, my senior year of high school. William and I each bought a copy. This was the first time I played Harvest Moon on a portable, and it was great to have it with me wherever I went. I talked to William every night about how far we were and what was happening. In this version, sprites lived around the farm. After I befriended them, they did various work around my farm for me. This version seemed really amazing, and it was by far my favorite. Unfortunately, I lost the game and never did find it.

In my second year of college, I purchased Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. This was just too stressful for me. I kept having to check FAQs to make sure I didn't miss things, and I didn't want to play like that. However, I didn't want to progress in the game only to find that I was unable to get something because the opportunity passed. I ended up giving up pretty early. Maybe the previous versions also had things I could miss, but I just didn't know. A Wonderful Life was also the first time I played Harvest Moon without discussing it with William frequently. Luckily, gem played it too so I talked to her about it!

I think it's time to play Harvest Moon again. On the DS there's Harvest Moon DS and Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, and in November Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands will be released in the US. There's also Rune Factory and Rune Factory for the DS which feature dungeons and action-RPG elements. Rune Factory Frontier is also on the Wii. Rune Factory seems to be pushing the 3D a little bit too far, leaving the game looking ugly. I'll start with Harvest Moon DS and see how I like it. Perhaps I'll finish it this time!

Okay, by gamer, I just mean me. Joystiq and GameSpot just confirmed the rumors about Super Street Fighter IV. Disappointingly, it's a retail game, not DLC. It's adding eight characters, but only three have been revealed - T. Hawk, Dee Jay, and newcomer Juri. Characters have been rebalanced, and new ultras have been introduced. The online features are also going to be "enhanced," whatever that means.

I'd be excited if this was reasonably priced DLC, but making us pay for a new game while at the same time making our older version worthless doesn't please me. I'm sure this will also weaken online play in the original Street Fighter IV, thus lowering the value of the game for those of us who don't want the new version.

Sources:
GameSpot, Joystiq

Yesterday was my Dreamcast party, and I had a blast. I started the day by playing Sonic Adventure by myself. I love how beautiful the game looks even today. When I first saw it, I was amazed. It was Sega's blue skies at their best! I played up to the point where Sonic finds Tails. I just love that first love, complete with loops and a whale that chases Sonic.

Soon after the guests began to arrive. There were eleven people at the party counting myself - Gemma, William, Edward, Pat, Tony, James, Antonio, Linh-Nam, Collin, Duncan, and myself. We had chili dogs in honor of Sonic and cupcakes with Dreamcast swirls on them. We also had a variety of soda, juice, chips, and dip.

We started the multiplayer with Power Stone 2. It's definitely my favorite 3D fighter, and one my favorite fighters in fact. Then we played some Samba de Amigo, which Pat brought. That game's fantastic! I played the Wii sequel, but the maracas work so much better on the Dreamcast. There's mat that you put down with a sensor bar that attaches via velcro. It plugs into the Dreamcast, and the two maracas attach to the bar. It senses the height of the two maracas, and the maracas have one button each. It was fun, and now I'm borrowing it from Pat. Thanks!

We also played Chu Chu Rocket, one of my all-time favorite games. It was great to bring that game back out of my closet. Some guests played Crazy Taxi 2 while I took care of food. Then we played San Francisco Rush 2049. That game's crazy. It was hysterical, but I think it'd be pretty boring in single player. What got crazy was the wings that the cars have. When you're airborne after driving off a ramp, pressing a particular button causes wings to extend. I'm sure they do something useful, but for me, they just seemed to cause me to spiral out of control before exploding. Every time you run into anything, your car explodes. Crazy, but fun.

Ooga Booga, a game designed to be a party game, was strange and not that fun. After only a few minutes we moved to the next game. Bust-A-Move 4 was fun, but I'm sure no one was surprised. I think we're all familiar with Bust-A-Move. The guests played Looney Tunes Space Race and Armada while I did other things, neither of which seemed very interesting. They also played King of Fighters for a bit.

Then it was time for KISS Psycho Circus! This game was ridiculous! You play as a member of a KISS tribute band. Apparently the members of the tribute back one day have super powers for some reason. It seemed like a bad Hexen or Heretic clone. The coolest thing about this game was the enemy known as the Arachnoclown, part spider, part clown. Picture a centaur. Now replace the horse part with spider. Now picture the human part very overweight, wearing a stupid shirt and clown make-up. Ta da! Arachnoclown!

Then we played 4x4 Evolution, which to our surprise featured a variety of real cars. I played against William in a pitch black match with rain, although for some reason we couldn't really see any rain. It was a bit buggy, and for a while William was dragged slowly around the track after driving too far out and getting stuck. After something similar happened to me and he was teleported back on the track, he was able to win.

We tried some Alien Front Online, which allowed us to blow up the Capitol. That game wasn't that great, but I remember enjoying it when it came out. Then in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 we tried beating on each other for a while. The character models were pretty strange, and I never really figured out any strategy. It seemed like whichever character had the greater reach would win.

Finally we played Sonic Shuffle. I bought it three years ago and never had the chance to play it until now. It definitely feels very similar to Mario Party, but was still different and fun. By this time the only people left at the party were Collin, Duncan, and William. We played for a while before William had to leave, and then we switched his character to computer controlled. The map was a train level, and different cars of the train would disconnect or reconnect. At one point, the car with Knuckles, the computer player, disconnected and stupid Knuckles was trapped for a while. There's a helicopter space that can be landed on which causes a helicopter to pick you up and take you somewhere else. Unfortunately for Knuckles, it dropped him back on the same car the first time he tried to use it. Eventually I won, but I was pretty surprised that actually. I hope we get a chance to play it again. Unlike Mario Party's dice system, Sonic Shuffle uses cards. Each player is dealt a hand of cards, and you pick a card and move the number of spaces corresponding to which card you pick. You can see your own cards and now your opponents, and you can pick anyone's card. This means you might want to try to remember what cards they have, although they can shuffle their hands so you don't know which card is where. I'm going to try and unlock some new characters, but I don't know how much fun single player will be.

The party was a lot of fun, and it was great to honor the Dreamcast. Hopefully everyone who came had a good time. Thanks for coming!

Happy 10th birthday Dreamcast! I look forward to celebrating with you today!

I'm also looking forward to hitting 1000 hours played on Devee in World of Warcraft and playing bob's game!

Capcom-Unity recently embedded a clip of the Phoenix Wright musical from YouTube, including English subtitles. I still can't get over how strange it is that Phoenix Wright became a musical. I hope that the DVD gets released here or that there's some other way for Americans to watch the Japanese release. It's also amusing that Capcom-Unity found this via Kotaku.

Source: Ashcraft, Brian. "Japanese Phoenix Wright Musical In English!" Kotaku. 8/31/09.

Via: "We Do Not Object to These English Subtitled Ace Attorney Musical Videos." Capcom-Unity Blog. 8/31/09.

GamesRadar decides to talk about "one of the most criminally overlooked gaming platforms," the TI-83 in an article by Carolyn Gudmundson, The best TI-83 RPGs ever." After a brief introduction, Gudmundson lists what she considers the best five RPGs on the calculator. Some are individual games while others are actually series, and one, Drug Wars, seems more like a strategy game than an RPG to me. She includes descriptions and download links to all games as well as video embeds for four of the five. I've played one of the games on the list, Dying Eyes. I can't say much about it because it was a long time ago, but I remember enjoying it! I definitely agree that the TI-83 is overlooked as a gaming platform. After reading the story, I'm a little excited at the idea of finding my TI and trying some games on it, but honestly, even in high school I carried a Game Boy, so I'm not sure it would be anything more than novelty. However, I do find playing games on usual platforms fantasizing. Take a look!

Sources:

Gudmundson, Carolyn. "The best TI-83 RPGs ever." GamesRadar. 8/13/09.

Sheffield, Brandon. "Best TI-83 RPGs." InsertCredit. 8/13/09.

Here's another bit of news from Joystiq courtesy of EuroGamer: LittleBigPlanet for PSP will not feature multiplayer, will have only two planes rather than three, and will fix the floaty jumping from the original. Joystiq writer James Ransom-Wiley seems to have a big problem with the removal of the multiplayer, and I'm sure he's not the only one, but honestly, I'm not sure it's that big of a deal. On the PS3 version I've had fun playing with a single other person both while attempting to get closer to 100% completion in the main game or having fun in new levels. However, attempting to play with the full four people is always a headache. I don't want to play online with strangers, and I also don't want to call up a friend and arrange to meet online to play LBP. Even if it was easy to do so, I prefer to play in person. However, without splitscreen people end up killing each other by moving too far off screen. In addition, trying to access the four player areas always leaves me feeling frustrated at the group's inability to coordinate. Maybe I need to be playing with people who play more platformers, but my friends who are really into gaming are also not so interested in LittleBigPlanet.

Back to the PSP version, I do think multiplayer is an important feature, and I'm sad it's not going to be in the game, but I just want to point out that LittleBigPlanet can be a lot of fun without it. The three planes of depth (characters can be in the background, foreground, or middle) in the original was just annoying and added very little "depth" to the gameplay while adding needless depth in the more literal sense. In fact, it was a big complaint of mine, so I can't see how reducing it to two could matters worse. I was actually a lot happier before I clicked through to Joystiq's source at EuroGamer; Ransom-Wiley wrote that there would only be one plane, but the source clearly says two. Too bad! A single plane would have been terrific! The jumping also felt imprecise,and for a game that touted its physics engine, it sure seemed like gravity was hardly effecting Sack Boy. Come to think of it, maybe this was to emphasize that Sack Boy was a stuffed person, presumably stuffed with some sort of very light fluff. Still, I'd like Sack Boy to feel heavier; hopefully LittleBigPlanet PSP's revised jumping will fix this. On the other hand, jumping might feel bad for some other reason.

All things considered, this announcement only makes me more excited for LittleBigPlanet PSP. Not having multiplayer is a loss, yes, but I never thought I'd be playing it multiplayer regardless, and the jump mechanic should hopefully improve things. I do have to say that I'm very saddened that there are still two planes rather than three. I first wrote this article under the impression that there was only one, but before publishing I realized that Ransom-Wiley read his source incorrectly. Bummer! One plane with fixed jumping had me so excited! Still, I think LittleBigPlanet PSP will be fun.

Bramwell, Tom. No multiplayer in LittleBigPlanet PSP. EuroGamer. 8/19/09.

Ransom-Wiley, James. LittleBigPlanet PSP loses multiplayer, and maybe its soul. Joystiq. 8/19/09.

Joystiq reports from the PlayStation.Blog that in an upcoming version of Home, users will be able to launch any game from Home. I really don't understand why this is needed at all. On some Street Fighter IV night I decided I would try out Home and getting into a game but had no luck. If I want to play SF4, shouldn't I just go find a match in SF4? Because not everyone else in Home is looking for a SF4 match, it seems like walking around in a virtual environment looking for a game of SF4 isn't the best idea.

Sony really missed the mark with Home. Home itself is just a large, 3D interface for game lobbies, watching videos, and chatting. Game launching in Home is redundant when games can be launched, not surprisingly, from the XMB itself. Similarly, Sony could integrate some sort of section of the XMB under Video specifically for streaming videos from Sony and achieve the same effect without the clutter of an ugly 3D interface reminiscent of the 80s idea of future "cyber space."

Of course, Home does have an additional feature - chatting and socializing. Again, isn't there a simpler way to achieve this than through a horrible clone of Second Life? Besides the fact that there's a browser built in to the system, how about adding an IRC client that defaults to a Sony server or simply adding a forum specifically designed for use on the PS3? While a forum could be viewed from the web browser, it could be nice for Sony to integrate one that wouldn't need the clutter of a browser window around it.

To be clear, Sony has anounced other features of the Home update, such as taking photos, but I just don't feel the need to address them. None of them are interesting to me. Additionally, it's not that the features are bad, it's that the whole system is needless.

Sources:

Locust_Star. PlayStation Home v1.3 Coming This September. PlayStation.Blog. 8/19/09.

Yoon, Andrew. Take pictures and launch any game you want in Home 1.3, coming this fall. Joystiq. 8/19/09.

Air slash, food, originally uploaded by theuser.

Giant PSP advertising Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero

$29.99 < $20, originally uploaded by theuser.

Oh, GameStop.

When Pigs Fly is an awesome new auntie pixelante by dessgeega posted on newgrounds. I suppose you could call the game a platformer. The player controls a pig with wings, navigating the pig through tight corridors and past deadly spikes. Pressing the space bar flaps the wings and causes the pig to fly up a bit. The pig will fall due to gravity, so to keep the pig flying, the space bar must be pressed repeatedly. Because of this, the pig's vertical position will fluctuate, causing much of the difficulty in the game. The pig will die if it comes into contact with spikes or if the wings touch anything at all. The pig does have a large hitbox, although the the hitbox is actually slightly smaller the sprite itself, allowing the edges of the wings to just barely pass over obstacles sometimes. To complete the game, the player must have precise control over the pig.

I took 26 minutes to complete the game, but I did chat online a bit while playing, not realizing that the game tracked completion time. I died 219 times. The game is challenging, but the deaths were fair. The game is broken into multiple rooms, and I could see an entire room at a time. The biggest design flaw in my opinion in platformers is the inability for the player to see dangers ahead of time, and When Pigs Fly definitely does not suffer that at all. In addition, after dying the pig is respawned at the beginning of the current room. You never have to repeat a room.

The sprite art is nice and simple with mellow, muted colors. The music is nice, and the sound effects are cute although repeat often. I can understand the sound becoming annoying to some people, and they can be turned off, but I enjoyed them. The sounds were created by Daphny, and a soundtest is available.

mint at SelectButton recently posted about a free PC game called Bastet, short for Bastard Tetris. Rather than giving the player a random piece like normal, Bastet calculates the worst possible piece and gives that to the player. It's an interesting game. I've played a handful of matches, somewhere between 10 and 20, and have only cleared seven lines in my best game. Give the game a try!

Back in January I made a post titled "Space Deadbeef Not Worthy of GameFAQs" about GameFAQs not allowing me to submit game data about Space Deadbeef. GameFAQs claimed that they "normally [list] only commercially released games, with a few exceptions for very popular non-commercial titles" and that Space Deadbeef didn't meet those requirements. Today I noticed that Space Deadbeef is now listed on their site. I'm not sure what changed that made GameFAQs change their position on Space Deadbeef. Maybe the game actually became very popular! That would definitely please me. Regardless, I'm happy that GameFAQs has added it, and I'll submit my review of the game soon!

Here's an disturbingly interesting story from NeoGAF about a guy who tried to play Uno online on Xbox 360. Uno uses a the Xbox camera, supposedly to show your face while you play. It was late at night when this guy, SpacLock, went on Uno and found mostly genitals on the cameras. I've heard about this before, but it's a pretty anecdote!

Darkrai will be available from Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection between August 3rd and September 13th! According to Bulbanews, "players must have unlocked the National Pokédex in their Platinum game. They must have also approached Cresselia on Fullmoon Island and obtain the Lunar Wing when she leaves."

Looks like we won't even have to go to a Gamestop or Toys R Us this time!

Ninja Gaiden II is basically Devil May Cry without that special flare or spark that made Devil May Cry such an awesome series. NG2 is fun, it's just feels a bit generic and recycled. It feels tremendously like DMC. Like all 3D hack and slash games, you run around slashing at enemies. When you kill enemies, glowing orbs called Essence appear. Picking them up plays a small audio clip that sounds almost identical to picking up orbs in DMC. Finding various objects, such as a key card that is used to unlock a door no more than ten seconds away from the card itself, causes a screen to pop up just like in DMC showing the object and giving a brief description. The sound effect even sounds like DMC! There are things that look like altars that act as save points, and statues that act as shops, selling regen items, powerups for weapons, and Life of the Gods pieces. You can also Life of the God pieces in the levels. Collecting nine of them will permanently increase your health - just like blue orbs in Devil May Cry! You're also forced to use items immediately after finding them. Yes, this is done quite often in games, but that's really not an excuse; this game makes you use it within ten seconds of finding them! I'm not just talking about the key card I mentioned earlier either. The game is fun, and I'm sure fans of Devil May Cry would enjoy it (besides possibly being angry if they're not just fans but are fanboys). However, if someone is interested in playing Ninja Gaiden II and hasn't played the Devil May Cry, I would recommend playing DMC instead.

Call of Duty: World at War was a pleasant surprise from Treyarch. While Treyarch's Call of Duty 3 was a disappointment, World at War, built on Call of Duty 4's engine, followed Call of Duty 4's formula as well. It feels extremely similar to Call of Duty 4, which is great, but adds little. While not ground-breaking, World at War is basically Call of Duty 4 set in World War II.

The American campaign follows the war in the Pacific against the Japanese. This was a very nice change from previous Call of Duty titles. Japanese soldiers have a very different AI from German soldiers. They will hide in trees, hide in pits, wear camouflage, complete with shrubbery, and even run at you in an attempt to stab you (similar to dogs in Call of Duty 4). These levels were very challenging for me, and I liked them less than the levels pitting me against the Germans. Even so, it was nice to see this small change. I look forward to more changes like this in the future as long as the core game stays the same. The Russian campaign plays similarly to previous Call of Duty games in the World War II setting. You follows Russia's push into Germany and their ending of the war.

During these two campaigns, you also get the chance to play as a gunner in a plane and as a tank. Both of these missions are very fun. World at War also introduces flamethrowers and molotovs. Both the flamethrower and molotov make small camps of enemies a breeze. The flamethrower also allows you to burn down tall grass in which the Japanese often hide. You can also use it to set fire to the trees in which Japanese snipers hide. The game looks great, and the war feels very dirty and gritty. The voice acting is good, and the small scenes before each level are very cool. These give the date, some background information about what's happening, the location, and real footage of World War II. Being reminded that this war really happened and real soldiers experienced it is one of my favorite parts of playing a World War II shooter.

Some of the aspects about the ending remind me of how Call of Duty 4 felt. I'm not spoiling anything; it isn't plot. It's just the feeling I got from experiencing the endings. Also, periodically through the game the AI glitches and leaves enemies running into a wall or doing something similar. It doesn't happen too often, but it's noticeable. In addition, Treyarch seems to have noticed that players enjoyed the Call of Duty 4 scenes in which control was limited. In these scenes, movement was restricted due to the character being restrained, but the player could still look around. World at War features this mechanic over and over. There isn't really anything wrong with this, but it felt like the game wanted the player to be impressed with it. This was a cool mechanic in Call of Duty 4, but it isn't new anymore. I don't have a problem with it. In fact, I believe it should be used whenever it makes sense to restrict movement and not the ability to look around. However, it isn't new, and it felt overused in World at War.

After completing the game, Nazi Zombies, which is similar to Gears of War 2's Horde mode, is unlocked. In this mode, the player is stuck in a room with barricaded doors and windows. Zombies approach and attempt to break through the barricades. Players earn points for repairing barricades and shooting zombies, getting more points for headshots than body shots. These points can be used to buy upgrades or access new areas of the base. If the player touches a zombie, it's game over! The gameplay itself in this mode is really cool; however, it spooked me out a bit playing it. If only they weren't zombies!

World at War also features cooperative play, which is very nice to have. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to try it. It allows four people over Xbox Live or two people locally. I'm a big fan of local coop play and am glad it was included.

World at War didn't introduce anything amazing to the genre, but it is a very fun shooter. It really does feel like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with the setting changed to World War II. It also features coop, new weapons, Nazi Zombies, and of course the Pacific battles. Treyarch really redeemed themselves after Call of Duty 3. If you're looking for a game as amazing as Call of Duty 4 or are expecting World at War to really push the first person shooter genre, you're going to be disappointed. However, if you're looking for a good World War II shooter that actually shows the fighting in the Pacific for once, you'll probably enjoy World at War.

Trine is a hack-n-slash, puzzle platformer set in a fantasy world. While the graphics are 3D, the gameplay itself is sidescrolling and 2D. The setting is absolutely gorgeous with dungeons, lush plant life, water, and more. In Trine you must sometimes overcome puzzles, usually in the form of figuring out how to reach a particular place. The undead will try to stop you and are fought in a typical hack-n-slash method - run up and hit them with a sword!

Three characters are presented to the player, the Thief, the Wizard, and the Knight. Each has different abilities that allow the player to solve puzzles in different ways. What's interesting about Trine is that the player can switch between any of the three characters at any time (provided the character still has health). Each character has his or her own life and energy bars. The Thief can shoot arrows and use a grappling hook to reach high places or to swing. The Wizard can create crates and planks (usually used to help reach something, press a button, or as a counterbalance) and can levitate and move objects. The Knight can perform melee attacks with his sword and hold up a shield to protect himself. Many puzzles can be solved in different ways with different characters. This was of particular enjoyment to me because while trying to solve a puzzle I sometimes die, leaving me the two other characters to solve it and forcing me to rethink my solution.

The music and sound effects are appropriate and nice, and the voice acting is great. The characters don't speak much, but it's nice when they do, and the narrator does a superb job at telling the story like a fairy tale. The writing is nice, and the story more than sufficiently supplies motivation for the game.

Adding more depth to the game, Trine also features experience which can be collected. Each level has a set amount of experience, and when collected, experience is applied to all characters equally. When the characters level up, the player is able to pick skills to improve. In addition, equipment can be found in the levels. The player chooses which character to give the give the equipment, providing the chosen character with a bonus.

Trine features simple, enjoyable combat, fun puzzles, a beautiful setting, and an interesting mechanic (character swapping). These are all aspects of a great game, so it's no surprise that I'm impressed with Trine.

Store Sells PSPs with Custom Firmware and PSP Games, originally uploaded by theuser.

Funny that they sell overpriced import PSP games alongside new PSPs with custom firmware installed.

Eight Hour Warsong Gulch Match, originally uploaded by theuser.

I joined a match of Warsong Gulch around 11:10 PM last night. Somewhere around 11:30 or 11:40, Koldstyle of Ner'zhul, the flag carrier, left the battle. I don't know if he meant to or if he got disconnected. Rather than dropping, the flag simply disappeared. The game thought we had it, but no one actually had it. We couldn't cap, but neither could the Alliance. I stayed in that match for eight hours. I talked with a lot of great people too!

WarioWare: Snapped! is the latest entry in the WarioWare series, and was a launch title for DSiWare. I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun the game was! The DSi is placed on a table and opened so that the camera points at the player's face. The games are all controller solely by moving your head and hands within the camera's view. The microgames, which are what the minigames are called in the WarioWare series, were all fun, and I did a lot of laughing while playing with my friends. One game has a wet dog controller by the player. The player must shake wildly to get the dog to dry off!

I did have some issues at first getting the camera to recognize me. At my desk, the game said it couldn't distinguish between me and the background. I tried again later while at a restaurant and had the same result, although my friend was able to play. When I got home I tried again at my roommate's desk and the camera saw me perfectly. You definitely have to be in good lighting conditions for the camera to operate correctly. You also need to make sure other people do not enter the camera's vision.

Unlike the abundance of characters in the other WarioWare games, Snapped! only has four characters. Even with multiple tries needed for some levels, I still completed the game in under a half hour. I don't think I see a lot of replay value besides using it as a tech demo for camera games for my friends, but WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$! for the GameCube was the only one I did replay because of the excellent multiplayer.

Each character has different microgames to play. Three of them are for one player, and one is for two players despite not actually specifying that. In addition to the cartoony graphics on screen, a gray blob represents what the camera sees so that the player can align himself or herself. The microgames involve moving your head and hands to particular locations, swatting things, grabbings thing, and other various activities. The game is able to detect when you open and close your mouth, which is used in one of the microgames. I was also surprised to find out that the game can tell when you turn head to the side. At the end of each character's set of microgames, video or playfully edited snapshots of the player are shown. These range from small movies with simple stories starring the player to fun little photos that seem like the type that would come from photo booths.

In addition to the microgames corresponding to the four characters, the credits is also a game. The names scroll down the screen, and the player moves his or her head to cause a rollercoaster to collide with the letters. The more letters you get, the more points you get. At the end your photo is taken and your score is saved and displayed on the title screen.

At only 500 Nintendo Points ($5), I found it a worthwhile experience. I'd be very happy if Nintendo published more small, cheap, downloadable WarioWare games!

Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl did not feel like a very good game. It's dark and ugly, and it felt like a bad mod. The interface was designed badly and was not as responsive as it should be. It had the same feel as the Hellgate: London interface, only Stalker's interface belongs to an uninteresting game. The game is a first person shooter and role playing game. An accident in Chernobyl yields radiation that causes strange effects to the surroundings. You play as some sort of hunter or explorer. The area around the accident, known as the Zone, is off limits; however, people known as hunters go in anyways looking for strange artifacts. You have amnesia and have one mission in your PDA at the start of the game to kill a particular person. The game is very boring visually, and the a lot of the graphics are just bad on top of the boring colors. Using the interface is annoying. From what I saw early in the game, dialogue was pretty boring too. I did not find this game worth my time to explore further.

Warfare Incorporated would be a fantastic game even if it was not a cell phone game and is my favorite iPhone game. In this RTS, you play as a young miner for the ACME corporation named Andy. You discover a secret on a new planet, but the rival corporation OMNI as well as the Free Radicals find out about it also! There's only one campaign, played as Andy, which is different than a lot of PC RTS games. OMNI and the Free Radicals have the same units and buildings, which is a little disappointing. The game plays well with many different types of levels, including levels in which the goal is to wipe out the enemy, mine, stealthily infiltrate, and destroy waves of incoming enemies. The graphics and sound are nice, and the storyline is interesting and provides great motivation. I've loved this game for years on Palm OS devices, and it continues to be excellent on the iPhone with touch controls. You can download new mission packs from within the game, adding a lot of replayability to the little RTS. There seems to be two different styles of on screen dialogue, and I don't know why. I feel like the game should only use one style if there isn't a precise reason why some messages use a particular style. There are occasional grammar errors and unpolished dialogue, but the problems are minor.

The gamplay is similar to many other RTS games. In order to create new units or buildings, you need to have enough Galaxite mined. You also must have enough power generators to power your buildings. The more buildings you create, the more generators you'll need. Warfare Incorporated has three identical factions with ten building types, seven vehicle types, and four soldier types. Unit selection is done my creating a rectangle on screen using two fingers. There isn't a way to switch between different groups quickly, which is a feature present in most PC RTS games. Each time you want to select troops, you have to reselect them manually. This does get in the way of playing. There are three difficulty settings, all available to be chosen from the first time Warfare Incorporated is launched. Depending on how well you do in a level, you could get promoted one or more ranks. This allows you to see how well you did overall after finishing the game. The game also comes with challenge maps for an extra test of skill after finishing the main game. These are also available from the beginning if you want to play them without playing through the main campaign.

After discovering the secret on the planet Icarus, players can take advantage of it to change the strategy of battle. Of course, enemy factions can also take advantage it. I'll refrain from saying exactly what it is because it would spoil the game, but it is an interesting feature. The game has many save slots, so you don't have to worry about saving at a point that is impossible from which to recover. The game will also continue right where you left off if you press the Home button to exit the game. It's a great game that I've enjoyed playing through multiple times. Warfare Incorporated really is a fantastic game and by far the best game on the iPhone!

I had been looking forward to playing Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction when I obtained a PS3, and recently I finally had the opportunity to try it. It feels like a classic 3D platformer (can we call something from the 5th generation 'classic' yet?) but with polish that the genre doesn't normally receive today. It has a lot of running around, jumping, and shooting. It also has little need for precise aiming or hiding it under cover, keeping the classic, action feel. As you kill enemies and blow up boxes, gears will appear on the ground that you can collect to power up. I've only played the first level and a little of the second, but the first level was just gorgeous. The graphics are great with a fantastic futuristic city. There were lots of colors with tall buildings and flying vehicles stuck in traffic high in the air. The character designs are cute and cartoony. Ratchet looks like a bipedal cat, Clank is a little, silver robot, and the enemies I've fought so far have been little slime/worm things inside mech suits. I'm looking forward to playing more of this!

The gameplay of Unreal Tournament feels just like it always does! It has all the weapons I love and the fast pace I came to know in the first Unreal Tournament. However, it now has an odd plot. The plot should be simply that Liandri Corporation is having a tournament. In UT3, some aliens attack a planet on which the main character lives, and he gets hurt. After he heals up, he wants revenge. There's a bit more to it than that already, and I've only played one level of the campaign. There was a substantial amount of cut scenes already, but they looked good besides the faces, which looked very undetailed.

After he wakes up, he finds himself in what looks to be a monastery of some sort, and it appears that it belongs to people he and his friends are working for as mercenaries. The main character's sister wants to make sure he's ready for battle, so she decides to have a one-on-one match with him with rocket launchers (although when the match actually starts, you do not start with the rocket launcher, and other weapons are available). He question the safety of this, and she points out that respawners are used on the battlefield. Although the main character seems familiar with respawners, he's surprised they're used in the field. She says they're portable units.

Of course I'm familiar with the concept of respawning, but I'd really prefer it if the characters were not.

Oh! I forgot to mention that the main character is Marcus Fenix from Gears of War. His armor's a little different, but it's basically him with a different voice actor. The aliens look like Locust also. I'm glad they're proud of their new Gears franchise, but it should be kept out of Unreal Tournament. Everyone has the bulky, thick look of characters in Gears of War. Their armor has that same look as well.

Most dissapointingly, the buildings have the ugly bulk too. I played CTF on Facing Worlds, and the buildings just seem needlessly thick. I realize that previous incarnations of UT had altered the map to have much "thicker" looking towers, but those were also different, thicker towers. This map is a recreation of the original. It looks like the original except extra bulky. I also feel like they overuse textures on the buildings, especially the walls. Not every wall needs a little monitor or some flashing lights. People loved this map for a reason! Epic really didn't need to change it. The towers also seem to have an Asian theme now, with some sort of futuristic paper lanterns hanging on them.

I've done a lot of complaining about things, but that's because the core game feels just like every previous Unreal Tournament game - pretty awesome. I think I just prefer the clean, classic Unreal Tournament over any of the sequels. In fact, what I didn't like about 2k4 was that it felt clunkier and bulkier. Here's hoping for an Unreal Tournament 3 Lite Edition.

Dinosaur Island, Dinosaur Island 2, and Dinosaur Island 3 are very fun LittleBigPlanet levels designed by feistyfrog with every boy's childhood dream in mind, the dream of playing with dinosaurs! The jungle look is very nice. There are large dinosaurs you run across, huge dinosaurs that chase you, and smaller dinosaurs that act like normal enemies. There are pterodactyls that you use to get across chasms, and there are an assortment of dinosaurs that you ride as vehicles. In Dinosaur Island 2 and 3, you can use the paintball gun to fight big dinosaurs. Also, Dinosaur Island 3 features eight blue mushrooms that you "eat" by pressing R1. For each blue mushroom that you eat, you get a bonus at the end. I highly recommend these levels!

Monster Madness: Grave Danger almost instantly reminded me of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. This is a very good thing. However, it falls pretty short of it (at least in the first fifteen minutes). The sound effects are really nice so far, giving the game a definite B-movie horror flick feel. The voice acting is just horrible though, and the graphics look like a PS2 game. While not great, it didn't really hurt the game too much, but there were times that things looked disappointing. I've only played one stage so far, but so far it's been more of a button mashing monster-fest than Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Zombies just kept running at me, and I could just stand in one room swinging my weapon at them. There wasn't a lot of strategy to it. Maybe subsequent levels will get better. Unless the game gets significantly better, I could see playing now and then when bored, but I doubt I'll play it too much. It does have co-op though, so I'd like to take a look at that. For thirteen dollars I feel like it wasn't too bad, but I'm definitely glad I didn't spend anymore.

Everyday Shooter is an impressive indie PSN game that really reminds me of stereotypical indie music. It's a multidirectional shooter using dual analog sticks. It has a very simplistic design, and each level has it's own song and different rules called "chaining." Each type of enemy seems to make a different sound when killed, and this sound blends with the guitar music. However, the music that's generated by killing enemies doesn't blend with the background quite as well as it does in Rez. By playing the game you earn points you can use to unlock various features. One of the interesting features I noticed was the ability to play in "shuffle" mode, giving the stages a random order. I've heard the game compared to Geometry Wars. It seems more artsy to me and less "awesome" in an adrenaline sort of way. I'm enjoying it.

Jack McSetback & the Spiky Stone of Doom is the first LittleBigPlanet level I've played that was wonderful without being a fanservice, tribute, or parody. It's a classic adventure in which you play the role of Jack McSetback, a treasure hunter. You travel to a temple to retrieve the Sun Idol, but when you do (which is early on), it sets off a trap! You drop the idol and must make it out of the temple alive!

The level is mostly platforming with no real bosses or puzzles. However, the aesthetics are great, and the platforming feels correct. I think this level is better than most of the story levels that shipped with LittleBigPlanet. The game engine doesn't have the response that feels right for tight controlled platformers like Mario, yet most levels aspire to feel similarly. Luckily the engine feels just right for little(big) adventuring!

I found TrackMania Nations Forever on Steam when searching for free games. Expecting it not to be very good, I didn't play it for months. Today I finally tried it and was very impressed! As soon as I played the first course, I was reminded of the PC game Stunts. If you're not familiar with that game, don't worry. I'll explain the game. There are four difficulties, each with fifteen tracks. Only the first five tracks of each difficulty are unlocked by default. Finishing a set of five unlocks the next set. There's also an additional difficulty with only five tracks; these are locked and have high requirements.

You race alone or against ghosts. There is online races, but even then, you're basically racing ghosts. You can't physically interact with other cars. While you're driving, you can respawn at anytime in case you get stuck as well as restart with the press of a button. Some tracks require you to complete multiple laps, but most are one lap in length. In addition, a lot of courses involve tricks such as driving off ramps and aiming to fly through holes. There's also a level editor in it, which I haven't tried yet.

TMNF looks great. The textures aren't very amazing, but the models are very nice, and the lighting is also great. It's not going to drop anyone's jaw, but it does look very slick. There's even a mode for 3D if you have the red and blue 3D glasses.

The game is very enjoyable. You can play in short intervals, and it's very fun. With many tracks, online leaderboards, and a pricetag of zero dollars, there's no reason to not try this game out! You'll be in for a treat.

And if anyone does try it out, add me to your TrackMania friends list! It uses a separate list than Steam. I'm MrUser!

Griffin McElroy just posted on Joystiq that Takarazuka Revue, a theater troupe in Japan, is performing an Ace Attorney Opera! They're currently rehearsing, and the show will open at the end of February! Normally I would just share items in Google Reader, but I think this deserves a little more attention!

Super Magnetic Neo is a 3D platforming game for the Sega Dreamcast. It's a classic platformer in the same vein of games such as Super Mario 64 and Gex: Enter the Gecko. The game is definitely focused on jumping as well as collecting assorted small, spinning things. What makes this game a little different than other 3D platformers is the magnetic gameplay element. Your character can run, jump, produce a positive magnetic field, and produce a negative magnetic field. Enemies are all (at least so far) polarized, so you can either make enemies fly off or attract them, sucking them into a cube on your head and then turning them into small pellets that you can throw at things. The magnetic mechanic is not only for fighting but also for the platforming element. Throughout the stages are pads that are also polarized. Producing the same polarity field than a pad you're standing on will shoot you into the air perpendicular to the pad. This allows your character to reach great heights and also to propel through the air. Similarly, you can produce the opposite polarity magnetic field than a pad to be attracted to it, useful for attempting to land on pads when you're moving past them. I've enjoyed what I've played of it. Super Magnetic Neo isn't amazing, but the magnetism mechanic does give it a little something extra to warrant some attention.

I updated my Game of the Year post because I couldn't decide between Professor Layton and the Curious Village and No More Heroes. I'm just leaving it a tie between the two!

Here are my top ten games from 2008. I listed twelve games because I'm including Ubeat, which was only location tested in America, and Rhythm Tengoku Gold, which is only available in Japan. If I'm considering those two games, my list should stop at entry ten; If I'm not, then disregard them but consider the last two entries.

1. No More Heroes
1. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
3. Ubeat
4. The World Ends With You
5. Castle Crashers
6. Braid
7. Wrath of the Lich King
8. Rhythm Tengoku Gold
9. LittleBigPlanet
10. Grand Theft Auto IV
11. Left 4 Dead
12. Mario Kart Wii

Finally I was able to try the game at which I've been aiming! Guilty Gear XX ^ Core great graphics and character design, cool music, and challenging fighting. The aesthetic is great. Characters are varied and extremely interesting with quite beautiful sprites. Heavy metal music plays most of the time, and the levels have pretty interesting also. The whole thing has a futuristic, industrial, fantasy vibe to it. There isn't a story mode, only arcade, versus, and survival. I haven't really got a good feel for the tension gauge and special moves; I'm pretty new to fighting games actually, so I'm not sure I'm going to get the hang of it! I'm enjoying it so far though and plan to put more time into it.

Massively reported today at 10:00 AM Pacific that Hellgate: London will not go down at the end of January! Flagship Studios, the developer, was only going to continue to run servers until January 31, 2009; however, HanbitSoft, the current IP owner, has decided to keep the game online using the free-to-play model.

This is great news! I do feel bad for all the people who have been giving away items and palladium. Luckily I was not one of those people! I suppose the free-to-play model implies that HanbitSoft will be offering microtransactions to make money off the game. That's fine with me! The article also mentions the possibility of an expansion. According to Wikipedia, Flagship Studios was working on an expansion called The Second Invasion that would take place in Korea. Of course, HanbitSoft now owns the rights to that too, but there hasn't been any confirmation of them releasing it. In the novels, which take place before HG:L the game, there were rumors of Hellgates opening all over the world. Assuming this expansion takes place after Hellgate: London and that it is indeed about the second invasion, those rumors the characters heard must have been false.

Summary: Cool claymation graphics, but not much else going for it.

Platypus for PSP caught my eye because it was a horizontal scrolling shooter with an interesting look. The graphics are entirely claymation. The game was created by Squashy Software, who is actually one man, which is impressive.

The game has a relatively simple story: Aliens are attacking the planet, and you have to defend your home. I'm fine with playing a scrolling shooter without caring about a complicated story. The music is satisfactory but nothing special. The levels all seem pretty similar as do the enemies. The only real difference in the enemy types are their speeds and how many hits it takes to destroy them. There are a handful of powerups which change your attack for a limited amount of time. Because they're time based, there is no reason to hold your fire. Platypus includes a survival mode that seems interesting. There's also online co-op, but I didn't have any luck finding someone with whom to play.

The game is moderately fun, the graphics are pretty cool, and it's impressive that a single person made the game; However, I would recommend skipping this PSP purchase unless it's very cheap. If you really want to take a look, it's available for free on the PC. Check Squashy Software to download it.

Summary after 15 minutes: Rather ugly, bland, and cliché. I'm interested in getting a little farther to see what it feels like outside of the tutorials, but I don't think I'll play it after tonight.

Extended summary: The combat system is more interesting than I originally thought, but the game seems average overall. It's hard to overcome the clichés and bad voice acting.

Guilty Gear 2 Overture seems to be a cross between a 3D hack and slash like Devil May Cry and a 2D fighter. The introduction was very bland. The game gives a little background, teaching the player that giant, living machines called Gears were used in a great war, but they're no longer used - an overused idea. You play as a bounty hunter who now has been forced to simply hunt rabbits. You seem to hate anything to do with the monarch of the kingdom. Your apprentice for some reason demands that you train, asking you to move, jump, slash, and other things that an apprentice should not ask of a master. You also don't seem to know the apprentice. Is this another overused concept, amnesia, or something else?

The graphics started out pretty bland through the long and boring introduction. The training area is not skipable and simply teaches controls that could be guessed. The left stick moves, the right stick moves the camera, A jumps, X and Y attack, and the right trigger locks-on. Like most 3D hack and slash games, hitting different attacks in different orders causes your character to do different combos. I was amused that the achievement that unlocked for finishing the training mission was titled "Hello World."

The game seems to borrow some flavoring from Japanese RPGs in a minor sense. In addition to being able to use items during battle, the character designs remind of common Japanese RPG or SRPG characters. Also, when the characters talk, a portrait of the character appears along with the text of what he is saying. The voice acting was rather bad so far.

The music is decent enough and fitting, but the graphics were darker than I expected. I was hoping for bright, colorful, beautiful characters but was instead greeted with dull, dark colors, characters who seemed apathetic (common in Japanese RPGs it seems), and a sword that clipped through the ground when the character stood still.

After that first training mission, I was able to start the next mission. The game changes to focus on the monarch that was disliked earlier. While the castle was rather dark, the monarch and his guards were colorful and detailed, giving me what I was hoping for in terms of aesthetics.

I think I made the mistake of trying out Guilty Gear 2 Overture when I should have been looking at some of the previous Guilty Gear titles.

Added after an additional 15 to 20 minutes of play:

The combat is a bit more interesting than I originally thought. You can attack certain structures to gain various other units/soldiers that fight alongside you, with each offering a different advantage. This is very similar to use of different types of units in RTS games. Guilty Gear 2 Overture actually has a quite interesting game mechanic, making it a 3D strategy hack and slash. The clichés, including a character with cat-like ears, mixed with the original strategy mechanic makes this game remind me of the niche strategy and SRPGs made by NIS or Atlus. That said, I think this game is missing the charm that those have. To fully see the intrigue of this game to see if you like it you should definitely play at least a half hour, but I still think the game is just average and will not continue to play it.

Someone brought up why I didn't choose UBeat for Best Music Game of the year. On the one hand, Japan has a great number of games released that we don't get or haven't yet received here in America. For that reason, it seems unfair to consider them in the award choices. On the other hand, I also didn't play the majority of US releases. I considered the games I played, and I did play both UBeat and Rhythm Tengoku Gold. If these games were to be considered, they would both beat Rock Band 2 by a large margin with UBeat coming out as the champion.

For that reason I think I should stick with my choice for Best Music Game, but I'd like to talk about why UBeat would have won if it was released and why I'm sure it'll win in the future if and when it's released here.

UBeat is basically Whac-A-Mole set to music with a 4 x 4 grid of buttons with LCD screens instead of moles. Each screen plays a short video when it's time to hit them, with a particular point in the video being the exact moment at which the LCD button should be pressed. The song list during the location test here in Irvine was small but impressive. I was thrilled to see Scatman John's Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop) in the game and played it quite a few times. The machine is also sexy as hell. I know that Konami wants to suck me in with the flashy machine, but I have to say, if lights and the look of the physical machine count as an attract mode, this game has a much better attract mode than any other game I've played! On a side note, Dance Dance Revolution X, which was also location tested at the same place and time, was also quite flashier than its predecessors. To get back on topic, the UBeat cabinets were small, sleek, and sexy! I'd love to have on in my house some day, and I'm really hoping they're brought to America. You can read my review of it here.

Rhythm Tengoku Gold is a DS game utilizing only the touch screen in various rhythm based games. While most music/rhythm games could be played without the music, Rhythm Tengoku Gold would be impossible without the music. In fact, once I've figured out how a particular game works, which is hard because the game's in Japanese, I can close my eyes and continue to play based only on the audio cues.

To follow what I did last year, it's time for me to declare my video game awards for 2008 using Spike TV's categories. Obviously, I'm didn't play every game that came out or even every major game; this shows my preferences based on what I played, not true ranking of 2008's games.

I'm revising my Game of the Year. I've been really torn, so I'm just leaving it a tie between No More Heroes and Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Game of the Year: No More Heroes

I had a lot of fun playing this. The controls were interesting, and the bosses were fun, humorous, and challenging. Many of the bosses tempted me to try to find strategies online, but I managed to resist. I felt like I really shared the main character's feelings of both excitement and disappointment. Only another year until No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle!

Studio of the Year: Grasshopper Manufacture

They made No More Heroes! Win!

Game of the Year: Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS) by Level-5

This game was just wonderful. I was first drawn in by the beautiful art and was pleased to find such an amazing game. Level-5 did a great job blending a point and click adventure game into a puzzle / riddle game. Both aspects of the game would be far less fun without the other. The music, characters, and story were all great, and I find myself still exclaiming "I think I've got it" when I've solved a problem. It was very enjoyable to play this while two other people I knew played copies as well, and it kept me entertained for a long time. I'm looking forward to Pandora's Box.

Studio of the Year: Level-5

This seems like a weird category to me. I suppose a company that released many really great games could be considered better than a company that released one game that was the best, but I'd say as a rule of thumb, the studio behind the Game of the Year should be studio of the year. For that reason and the reasons I included in my reasoning behind picking Layton as game of the year, I think Level-5 is studio of the year.

Best Shooter: Left 4 Dead (Steam) by Valve

This was a touch choice for me because I really enjoyed Gears of War 2. However, Gears just felt like more of the same only a cheaper experience (although it was a truly bromantic game). I also feel like I haven't given Left 4 Dead proper attention yet. I didn't want to play online with random people until I had time to sit down and play it with friends, but I still haven't. How can I talk about a game designed for multiplayer without having ever played it with another human? Really, I shouldn't. But I will. The game feels amazing with the multitude of zombies and the speed that they come at the player. It feels like Dawn of the Dead and 28 Weeks Later. The graphics look amazing, and I love the B-movie feel. Each campaign has a corresponding movie poster, and the film grain setting makes the game feel like a horror B-movie. Another wonderful job from Valve.

Best RPG: The World Ends With You (DS) by Square-Enix

This game definitely surprised me! I haven't really liked an RPG in a long time, but The World Ends With You was very close to being my game of the year. What really drew me in was the amazing art style. The game looked amazing with its urban inspired graphics and motion comic style (comic book style art with frames that occasionally have small amounts of motion). With rock, hip-hop, and electronica, the soundtrack was great and perfectly fit, at least to an American, the graphics and feel of Shibuya, the setting of the game. The plot was definitely intriguing and motivating, but Square-Enix never disappoints there. The battle system was fascinating and complex, requiring gamers to control two characters separately, one on each screen, and each with a different battle system. The game required players to stop into stores for new clothes and food, reminding me very much of Rivercity Ransom, one of my all time favorite games. Probably the greatest feature of this game was the ability to change the difficulty on the fly, which changes what drops you can get from enemies, and the ability to lower your level, which causes the drop rate to increase. The World Ends With You was truly an amazing game.

Best Individual Sports Game: Wii Fit (Wii) by Nintendo EAD

I'm not sure I'd call Wii Fit an individual sports game, but Spike TV did. Honestly, I definitely think it helps people lose weight if they keep at it. It's fun to play with friends (at first), and it's entertaining when people refuse to play because it calls them fat. However, I have to admit that I can't think of any other games I played that fit in this category. Win by default!

Best Handheld Game: Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS) by Level-5

Big surprise there, eh?

Best Graphics: The World Ends With You (DS) by Square-Enix

I don't think there's a need to praise this game again. It was beautiful though.

Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (360) by LucasArts

I want to start by saying that this game definitely had its share of problems. I don't think it deserves to be anywhere near a game of the year discussion, but there weren't a lot of games that I played based on movies of TV shows. There problems with having to replay long areas after dying and spiking difficulty in some bosses. That said, it was a fun hack and slash and a great addition to the Star Wars universe. The game looked great, and I liked the voice acting. Most importantly, I really liked learning the story of the gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and seeing the formation of the Rebel Alliance.

Best Music Game: Rock Band 2 (360) by Harmonix

What can I say? I wanted to stick with Harmonix because they've been in the genre longer and had experience with full band games. I like the feel of it more than Guitar Hero World Tour, its main competitor, and think the song selection is better. Nothing beats playing Rock Band 2 at parties, and it's also great when a friend or two visit. There are a ton of songs to download, and the ability to rip the songs from the original Rock Band is fantastic.

Best Driving Game: Mario Kart Wii (Wii) by Nintendo EAD

Mario Kart Wii didn't hold me like Mario Kart Double Dash did, but it was still a lot of fun! It was fun to play casually with non-gamers using the wheel and fun to play competitively with Mario Kart fans without the wheel. I just wish the online play didn't have the blasted friend code nonsense. Also, I have to say that despite the game not being a "driving game," Grand Theft Auto IV came very close in this category. Driving in it is fantastic.

Best Action Adventure Game: Grand Theft Auto IV (360) by Rockstar North

Before playing this game, I thought it was horribly stupid. I didn't want to pretend to be some gangster. After putting a few hours into this game, I was truly amazed. There are some annoying controls, and at the beginning of the game, players are taught how to do things that they don't really need to do. However, the driving is a ton of fun, and story is definitely motivating enough to continue playing. The voice acting is superb, and the satire and critique of the United States was very entertaining. I find myself always listening to talk radio when driving just to hear them make fun of our country. I also really like that the game gives players a lot of options as to what to do next while still never leaving the player feeling confused about their next goal.

Best Soundtrack: The World Ends With You (DS) by Square-Enix

I already talked about this before, so there's no reason to talk about it again. However, I'd like to mention that I think games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero don't belong in this category. What makes a soundtrack good is not only great songs but also songs that fit the feel of the game well. There is no game outside of the songs in Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Best Xbox 360 Game: Castle Crashers (XBLA) by The Behemoth

What an amazing four player experience this game is! I've completed it at least four or five times now and look forward to playing it more! It's a fantastic four player online or local hack and slash with the feel of an SNES era arcade game but modern game ideas and RPG elements. Leveling up makes the game interesting, and the ability to resuscitate fallen allies make the game very fun! There's definitely a lot of entertainment when I'm playing with three of my friends and we spend a minute or two bringing each other back to life while we continually die. There's a lot of humor in the game, and a lot of characters, weapons, and animal orbs (helpers) in the game. I'm definitely anxious to see what The Behemoth is working on next.

Best Wii Game: No More Heroes (Wii) by Grasshopper Manufacture

This is by far the best Wii game released to date. This was my first Suda51 game, and I was very happy with it. You play as Travis Touchdown, a young man who gets a beam katana and decides to become an assassin. The storyline is crazy and fun, and I've been using the main riff as my town tune in Animal Crossing. The graphics are stylish and interesting, and the story becomes clearer and crazier at the same time. This is one of the few (only?) action games on the Wii to actually benefit from the motion controls. Yes, games like Trauma Center would suck without motion controls, but it seems to me that while No More Heroes probably could be played with a standard controller, it actually benefited from having the motion controls as opposed to most games in which the motion control feels forced. The game consists of a series of bad mini-games in a fake open world environment followed by a boss battle. The mini-games only take a few minutes; the bulk of the game is boss battles. Beating each boss feels very fulfilling, and I loved every one of them. My favorite part of this game was when you finally get to one of the bosses, another character comes in and kills the boss. Travis Touchdown feels angry and frustrated that he's lost the chance to have fun and fight the boss even though he gets to progress. As a player, I felt the same way. Yeah, I cleared one of the 10 ranks, but I didn't actually get to have fun and feel the accomplishmentminor spoiler (click to show).

Best PS3 Game: LittleBigPlanet (PS3) by Media Molecule

This may have been my biggest dissapointment on PS3, but it was also my favorite! It was buggy, "floaty" feeling, and imprecise, but it was adorable and a lot of fun. I love platformers, and I definitely don't regret purchasing this despite not having a PS3. I haven't played it since the online features were improved, so hopefully finding new levels has been made easier. I played a wonderful Shadow of the Colossus level when the game first came out that made me appreciate the user created levels. I'm looking forward to playing this more with my girlfriend and friends and hope to play through the Metal Gear Solid DLC soon.

Best PC Game: Wrath of the Lich King (PC) by Blizzard

I feel a little torn about this. As someone who is usually a little more artsy, it seems weird to give an award to World of Warcraft. Really though, Blizzard did some fantastic work here. I would like to say right off that I'm including some content that went with Wrath of the Lich King but was available to people who didn't purchase it in my consideration of Wrath. First, the achievement system gives some great incentive to do some interesting things and provides casual end-game. The statistics are also entertaining. The world plague leading up to the release sounded fantastic, and I'm pleased Blizzard included that kind of thing. Sadly, I didn't see it. The Death Knight class is interesting, and the Death Knight starting zone was some of the most amazing gameplay I'd had in World of Warcraft. Also, I'm happy that Wrath introduces raids that have both 10-man and 25-man settings and that Blizzard has made raids easier. This means that I now have a chance to see end-game properly.

Best Original Score: The World Ends With You (DS) by Square-Enix

Skipping this explanation!

Best Multiplayer Game: Castle Crashers (XBLA) by The Behemoth

I talked about this one already too.

Best Independent Game: Braid (XBLA) by Number None, Inc.

I enjoy the simple seeming platforming and time mechanic that slowly changes and gets more complex as the game proceeds. I've never seen this kind of mechanic in a game before. Some levels allow you to reverse time by holding down a button on the controller; some levels make running a certain direction on the screen cause time to flow in the reverse direction. There's a lot of references to other games, and Jonathan Blow, the creator, definitely loves video games. It's really quite beautiful and feels like a twisted Super Mario Bros.

Best Fighting Game: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) by Sora

I really didn't play all the fighting games I wanted to this year, but I did enjoy Brawl. It didn't hold my attention much after the first few weeks, but the multiplayer was crazy when it first came out, and I really enjoyed the single player campaign despite players being forced to replay the same levels. I especially liked the fan service with Sonic in the single player. My only complaints are that the online multiplayer sucked and the characters look so damn small in four player matches when everyone is far apart and the camera is way back.

Best Male Voice: Stephen Fry as The Narrator in LittleBigPlanet (PS3) by Media Molecule

Just go watch the introduction. Really.

Best Female Voice: Paula Tiso as Sylvia Christel in No More Heroes (Wii) by Grasshopper Manufacture

I loved how Tiso made Sylvia seemed angry, violent, sadistic, sexual, and flirtatious all at once. Sylvia was a wonderful character, and Tiso really made her come alive. Without her talented voice work, this game would not have been anywhere near as great as it was.

Big Name in the Game Male, Big Name in the Game Female, Best Team Sports Game: N/A

I don't feel like I can properly make decisions for these categories. I have no opinion on the first two and didn't play any team sports games at all.

Summary: Pretty and worth looking at a little longer but very annoying and cliché.

In an effort to move through my Game Fly queue more quickly and accomplish something while I'm at it, I've decided (at gem's suggestion) to write reviews of games after having played them for fifteen minutes each! First up is Steambot Chronicles for the PS2, published by Atlus and developed by Irem Software Engineering.

The game has some rather bland graphics for the general world, but the characters are done in a nice looking cell shading. The tutorial begins with some pirates finding two young children (teens?) stowed away, one of them being you. The captain offers to teach you to pilot Trotmobiles, and if you can do so correctly, she'll let you stay and join. The tutorial was really boring. They go through steps just to teach you that it uses the two sticks for tank controls. Then it goes through some more steps to teach you that R2 jumps and L2 boosts. I figured out that R1 causes me to punch (or do something that looks like punching). I skipped the boosting tutorial because it seems my L2 is broken. Shortly after I gave up and quit the tutorial. It was very boring.

The game starts with a short quiz about how you'd respond to particular scenarios. I'm guessing this determines your personality. They were interesting and short at only three questions. Next your character wakes up on a beach unable to remember anything, and a young woman finds him. There are some dialog choices and a little bit of running around before you get a Trotmobile again.

Every time you run up to something you can interact with, an icon appears on the screen. After you press the X button, there's some lag before a menu pops up asking what you want to do. Usually there's just "do whatever you wanted to do" and "cancel." Can't the game assume I want to open the door if I walked up and pressed X? Why would I want to open a menu and then click cancel? There's lag before every choice, menu, and dialog. Also, doing anything changes to a very small segment in which control is taken away from the player. Of course, there's lag before these as well. The voice acting is not very good, but it's not so horrible as to make me mute my television. Also, the game has the annoying feature that so many jrpgs do of making loud splashing noises when I run through water, crunching noises when I run through grass, and shuffling noises when I run through dirt. Worst of all, there are cicadas making noises constantly. What the hell is wrong with Japanese people putting these in anime and games?

And that was about fifteen minutes into the game. So, what did I think of it? The story seems pretty generic. I'm a young guy found by a pretty girl (so far called Pretty Girl) who can't remember his past. How pathetically cliché. Despite the fact that the graphics have bits of ugly 3Dness, I like the cell shading a lot. The audio is very annoying, but I kind of like the talking in a bad voice acting kind of way. The characters have a tendency to do some sliding while running (common in older games especially), and I wish the camera would look left when I press left rather than look right. I haven't reached any sort of combat yet at all or level system (if there is one). The game interests me enough to make me want to continue playing it at least until I see combat. If I don't get a chance to tonight, I'll still hold on to the game for a few more days. That said, if I don't get to it by the end of the week, I'm sending it back anyways.

Space Deadbeef is a horizontal shoot 'em up for the iPhone. This is one of the few games that shows that the iPhone can definitely be a gaming platform. From the moment I saw the title screen at the beginning before the menu appeared, I knew I was going to enjoy this game. The graphics are superb, the music is nice, and there wasn't any slowdown when I played it on my classic (non-3G) iPhone.

The levels scroll horizontally while your ship stays on the left side of the screen. You can only move your ship vertically. When you touch the screen, your ship moves in that direction. If you touch the top right corner, your ship will move straight up (because it always stays on the left). When you touch an enemy, one of your missiles will lock-on. You only have a limited number of missiles that can lock-on at a time. You can lock on to multiple enemies, and you can lock on to strong enemies multiple times. When you lift your finger, your missiles fire. You can also touch your own ship to charge up a more powerful shot.

At the end of the game, which will only take most gamers a few minutes to get to on their first play, there's a boss fight. After beating that boss, the game restarts on a higher difficulty. So far, I've made it to difficulty 6. The game keeps track of your current score, high score, your current difficulty, and your number of deaths. I don't know if there's a limit on difficulties, but if there is, I doubt I'll see it.

Space Deadbeef really caters to scrolling shooter fans. The little details are great, such as the "WARNING" text that appears when the boss is incoming, and the way that the text slides on and off screen. The sound effects are nice, when you die, the game zooms in on your ship exploding. It's a very fun experience.

Apple lists Yuji Yasuhara as the developer¹, who is also responsible for Omega Boost, a 3D shooter for the Sony Playstation, and Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei for the Sega Saturn². It apparently wasn't chance that the game seemed made for shoot 'em up fans! Because the game is so short, I can only hope that Space Deadbeef is acting as a demo for a future that's longer and has more levels! However, don't let the game's length deter you from you playing it. It's definitely worth any gamer's time who likes shoot 'em ups; plus, as a free game it's definitely worth it!

I unexpectedly got to sit down with Wii Music over the holidays. I was very excited. It was a new Nintendo-developed game (by EAD Software Group 2, according to Wikipedia, who was responsible for Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Play), which is enough to get me at least interested. Second, I loved Mario Paint, and Wii Music seemed more like Mario Paint than Rock Band.

I sat down with two other people, one of whom had played before, and set out to jam! You get to choose a song and a venue, and then each player can choose a section, such as melody, harmony, percussion, etc. Then you can pick your instrument. I decided on the standing bass. The bass part is always intriguing, and the standing bass just called to me! Four characters in the bottom right keep time by lighting up, one at a time, for each note.

As far as I could tell, if each player plays a note when told, the song will come out sounding as expected. That's not any fun though, so we tried improvising. I wasn't sure if using the nunchuck or buttons did anything when playing my instrument, but I later found that it caused the cat suit (which "plays" meow sounds) to jump around. Each note's pitch is set, so all you really get to control is when you'd like to play a note. It came out sounding horrible.

My young cousin really enjoyed playing it. I definitely did not enjoy it. As a multiplayer game, it fails completely. As a singe player endeavor, it might be a bit better. You can play each part one at a time, adding all six different sections to create a whole composition. Given some slow thought alone, something good might come out of it! I don't know though because I didn't get a chance to sit down alone with it. I do know that I'm very disappointed in the game. If you can't control the pitch of the note, there's no chance of anyone being able to create a particular tune they have in their head. They might create something interesting, but it'll be chance, trial, and error.

I really wanted to enjoy Wii Music because I wanted to know that Nintendo still developed great games. In fact, I know the way I talked about what the experience might be like alone was biased. I still want to like the game, but I really did not. I'd love to see a mode or future game in which you can pick the instrument or sound and the pitch of the notes. The Wii's current audience would love a game similar to the music creator in Mario Paint. When that game comes out, I'll play it. I'll sit this game out.

Regarding "Review: Stylish Persona 4 Is RPG Perfection," Earnest Cavalli, Wired, December 05, 2008.

Wired put up an odd review of Persona 4. I want to talk about it not only because Persona 4 looks interesting to me but also because the review was so bad. The article's a short read so I recommend you read it. The game looks intriguing to me, but I don't want to write about the game itself here while not having played it. There's also no point in reading my critique of the article if you haven't read it yourself.

First, the Persona series is very popular and beloved series to a niche group. However, I really believe it's a game mostly for JRPG fans and for thoe who are interested in games from artistically or academically enough to read about and analyze games. People who consider Halo the epitome of gaming aren't going to like it. People who only buy EA Sports title's aren't going to consider it. People who think Mortal Kombat is most balanced fighter aren't interested. Neither my brother not my cousin will play this (unless I buy it for James).

This leads me to believe that the article is either intending to provide information to the people to whom the game is most likely to appeal or people who would enjoy the game but might not normally learn about it. Earnest Cavalli, the write, seems to be writing towards the latter group. That's fine even if I'm not in that group. However, I feel like he's slightly insulting the game while praising it.

He writes that Personas, the spirits you apparently collect, "are like Pokémon for grownups." Is there something wrong with Pokémon? I understand that the majority of money from that series comes from children (or rather, adults buying for children), but the complex EV/IV system, breeding, move sets, and types is definitely not something intended for children to master. I know adults play the Pokémon series.

He then goes on to insult both the music and the musical tastes of those who like "game music." After explaining that he "find(s) Japanese pop music grating and annoying," he goes on to state that the songs in Persona 4 are "almost uniformly listenable." That's such a big compliment for a game, don't you think? Almost all the music (but not quite all of the music of course) in Persona 4 is listenable! It's not all listenable. To some of it he's unable to listen. He's forced to mute the television or play some other audio even louder apparently. That's only a tiny bit though. Almost all of the music is listenable. He doesn't particularly like it at all; it's listenable. He even mentions that people "who consider gaming music to be a mere background annoyance will find themselves humming along." Great! Now what about the people who like "gaming music." I'm not even sure what that phrase anymore now that modern popular music has found it's way into games. Overlooking that phrase's usage because, honestly, I know what he means, he doesn't mention what someone might think if he or she does in fact like "game music" or Japanese pop.

Next Cavalli discusses the graphics. He says that it doesn't have the graphics that you could find on Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 but that "the clever art style makes up for that." While I do love certain art styles that definitely do not need modern consoles to be displayed well, I understand and appreciate this statement. However, stating that people who don't like reading a lot of text in games will be "pleasantly surprised by the solid voice-over work" seems crazy because the voice acting was not all that fantastic if you ask me. It was mediocre. It wasn't horrible, but I wasn't pleasantly surprised when I heard it. I was surprised, but it was just the regular kind. When I heard my roommate play Persona 4, I thought he was watching an Adult Swim cartoon making fun of anime. The review went on to say that people who have "an aversion to anime-style characters" would still enjoy the graphics. What about those of us who do not have an aversion to anime-style graphics? I believe that would include most of the target audience.

My final criticism is that Cavalli says this is the best Playstation 2 game of 2008. That might be true, but it also isn't saying much. How many games even game out for PS2 this year that are worth mentioning? The only other PS2 game I can think of is Thunderforce VI. I'm sure other games were released, but not counting games that were developed for current consoles and ported down to the PS2, Persona 4 didn't really have a lot of competition.

All in all, I do want to at least try Persona 4. I'm just not sure this writer gave his honest opinion. It seems like either he didn't really like it but wanted his article to appeal to those that might like it or he just isn't very good at reviewing games. I'd rather hear about his honest experience playing the game rather than his predictions for how other people would feel. Mainstream games journalism is so horrible right now.

LittleBigPlanet is a fun Playstation 3 platformer created by Media Molecule with a lot of character and a great vision. It was fun and stars a memorable character, Sackboy. The physics engine is something far above other 2D platforming games. However, the game suffers from bugs and physics that, while advanced, gives players less precise controls than they had over Mario back on the NES.

If you want to know how I feel about this game without taking the time to read my whole review, I can give a quick summary. LittleBigPlanet is a lot of fun and has a lot of nice ideas, but implements many of them very badly. The game was good but not amazing and revolutionary as it may have seemed. Sackboy is a cute, fun character. I could see him becoming a mascot for Sony, but I do not see him seriously competing with Mario or even Sonic. I really enjoyed LittleBigPlanet and will definitely purchase the sequel when it's released; however, the game was far from astounding.

The first thing I noticed about the game is the developers took it seriously and respected it. The game starts with a sort of level you play through with the level itself consisting of photographs of the developers. As you play through this first level the major credits are shown. I like to see games do this at the beginning like films do because it shows that the development team is respected.

The graphics are very cute in this game. Sackboy, as is evident by his name, looks he was hand sewn like a sock monkey. The rest of the characters in the game look like card board cut-outs. The levels resemble a pop-up book, and are designed quite well. Levels are organized into different groups with each one sharing a common theme in all of its levels. Music in LittleBigPlanet is very nice and sets the tones of the levels well. Levels have a maximum of three levels of depth. This allows the game to play as a 2D game while still allowing Sackboy to move more "in" to the television or "out" of the television. If there are multiple depths where you're trying to do something, the game will do its best to guess which depth you're aiming for and move you into it, but this doesn't always work so well.

The game starts as a relatively simple platformer, but later levels involve staying out of fire, carefully timed jumps, riding various vehicles, swinging, and jumping off of moving and spinning ground. Controlling Sackboy is relatively straightforward. The left stick moves him around. The X button causes him to jump and is pressure sensitive with harder pushes yielding higher jumps. The R1 button causes Sackboy to hold on to whatever's in front of him or the ground.

You can dress up your Sackboy with costumes found throughout the game. You can also download additional costumes from the Playstation Network. Using stickers you also find in levels, you can customize your "pod," which is basically he menu for picking modes and levels. Some of these items are found easily in levels while others are hidden in more difficult to reach places. Some of these places require two, three, or even four players. The game is a lot of fun to play multiplayer. You can play either local, online, or any combination to include four people in the fun! The only annoying thing about playing multiplayer is that its single screen instead of split screen. When two players are playing together and separate, the camera chooses on to follow. A number appears on screen near the location the other Sackboy was and begins to count down. If it reaches zero while that player is off screen, he or she dies. The camera also zooms so far back to allow all players to see their characters for as long as possible that everything seems far too small. This reminds of me four player battles in large levels in Super Smash Bros. I'd rather have the game show me a closer up view and simply be split screen. Despite this problem, playing with friends adds a lot of fun to LittleBigPlanet.

The physics engine allows for momentum to stay with your character as he or she jumps off of moving platforms. This is a lot of fun and of course is what makes the game different than most other games of its type. The main problem I had with the physics engine was that everything felt like it stayed in the air too long. My first description I could come up with was "floaty" for this problem. By this, I mean that things seem like they're floating. Sackboy seems to stay in the air too long during his jumps, and objects don't fall or move as fast as I'd like. Most likely this is how the designers wanted it so I couldn't really call it a design flaw. However, Sackboy doesn't jump immediately when you press the jump button either. Combining the lag of jumps with the floaty feeling leaves players with inadequate control of Sackboy. Carefully planned jumps over multiple pits with only narrow walkways in the middle that would be possible for skilled players in other platformer games such as Super Mario Bros. prove very difficult and annoying in LittleBigPlanet. The game can also cause you die unexpectedly. When something falls on you, you get squished and die. I expect this. However, I also expect that if there's a small gap under something and I attempt to walk under it, the game should either allow me to walk under it or not allow Sackboy to fit. Sometimes, LittleBigPlanet will allow me to squeeze Sackboy under something simply by holding right on the control stick (in other words, I'm not trying to force him into a small place) causing Sackboy to walk into the gap and then suddenly die. There have been a couple times when I've died and have had no idea why the game decided that something should kill me. As I mentioned earlier, the game sometimes has problems understanding in which depth I want to be. Overall, I understand that the game can't read my mind. Usually it does a good job of predicting, but sometimes I found myself wishing I could turn off this predictive behavior so I could have complete control over where I wanted Sackboy to move.

LittleBigPlanet has a good variety of levels. That said, the game can probably be finished in about six hours. What's really cool about LittleBigPlanet (and what made me so excited for it) is that you can design your own levels and share them over the Playstation Network. Players have a lot of control over their levels and can design many interesting things. There are some flaws with this too though. While the level designing is intricate and great, finding levels is a lot harder. You can search by preset tags, but I'd really like to see some sort of search box. I had imagined LittleBigPlanet to be to its levels as Youtube is to videos. I would like to be able to type what I'm looking for into a search box and see a list of resulting levels that match my search. What I could actually do was search for "cool" and see levels that other people applied the "cool" tag too. This severely hurts and limits the game. I was very disappointed by this.

I did play some interesting levels though. First I played a level titled "Little Big Colossus." As many of you can probably guess, this was styled after Shadow of the Colossus. It was a little buggy because I played it with a second player although it clearly stated that it was designed for a single player. This isn't anything wrong with the game or the designed of that level for I could tell that the bugs would have been present if I played alone, and a warning was clearly visible. It was a lot of fun scaling a Colossus in LittleBigPlanet and bringing him down. Next I played a recreation of level 1-4 from the original Super Mario Bros. While not perfect, it was a lot of fun too! I played a level based on Ghostbusters complete with the Ecto-1, Slimer, and the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. Again, this was quite fun. Finally, I played a game based on Pacman. My friend and I started at the bottom of a Pacman style maze and had to make it to the top to win. Unlike Pacman which allows to move in any direction just as easily as any other, this level proved to be a challenge because the maze is positioned vertically. I had to jump up shafts to move up the maze. The level even had ghosts run around that were electrified, killing Sackboy when touched. Sadly, Media Molecule has begun moderating the user created levels by deleting any level using a known intellectual property. This means that basically any level I had wanted to play would be deleted. I can understand why'd do this, but it still makes me sad.

All in all, I really liked the game. I'm looking forward to the sequel. Despite my fondness for the game, I was severely disappointed by it. While the game was fun, it could have been more. The level creation and sharing could have been amazing. It could have been something never before seen in a video game. LittleBigPlanet had the potential to allow players to make whatever they wanted in the game engine, similar to rom hacking or creating mods for PC games. This would have far made up for the errors of the game engine. However, lacking the awesome sharing it could have had brings LittleBigPlanet down from a revolutionary, truly amazing game to a great game, and the bugs brings it down farther to simply a good, fun game. If you have a Playstation 3 and enjoy platforming games, then I recommend you purchase this game. However, if you aren't terribly fascinated by platformers or if you were considering purchasing a Playstation 3 to play LittleBigPlanet, think again.

If you're too old to go trick or treating, which you are if you're reading my blog, what should you do tonight? What about if you're not cool enough to go to a club and look like a womanizing asshole by posing with a girl on each side of you (or dressing slutty and going out if you're a girl, which again, you're not if you're reading this)? Halloween gaming, of course!

I like to watch Halloween movies and play Halloween games during this season. I think my favorite to play is Halloween Loco Roco, but I always end up playing MMOs.

If you have a PSP, you can play the Halloween Loco Roco for free. The Halloween level is a free demo of Loco Roco that can be found easily using Google. It only takes about twenty minutes to play, and I find it a lot of fun.

Most MMOs offer something to do. Today I've done some random item collection in World of Warcraft. Guild Wars also has the Mad King Thorn who visits every three hours throughout Halloween. Last year he gave out candy and collectable hats. I'm assuming it'll be the same this year, but I haven't looked. There was also candy last year in Hellgate: London. Given the trouble in which Hellgate's been, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't anything to do this year. Still, it might be worth a check.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is fun little game to play. While it does have zombies, it doesn't really feel Halloweeny though. That's why I've been putting a lot of time into Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Even with save states, that game is really hard. I actually couldn't get through the first level of the NES version even with a rewind feature. I ended up running out of time!

Any Resident Evil game full of zombies could be a good fix although I didn't really care for the Resident Evil series much. Speaking of Capcom zombie fighting games, there's also Dead Rising. I'd probably play that some if Andy didn't still have my copy (lol)! Other survival horror games could be good too such as the Silent Hill series or the Fatal Frame series.

Animal Crossing on the GameCube also has Halloween activity. Too bad Animal Crossing: Wild World doesn't. Hopefully City Folk will have more holidays in it, but it's not out yet anyways. I really can't wait for it!

There's also some minor festivities in GunBound, but they're events are never very interesting to me. This year it seems to be primarily bonuses for people spending in the cash shop (using real money). There's also some Halloween themed towns and dungeons in Maple Story!

Those are my tips for Halloween gaming! If I think of more, I'll add them. Honestly though, no one's going to go play one of these games just because I talk about them. Hopefully it was an interesting read to someone!

SelectButton had a thread about playing games in public, and I thought it was interesting. It was about feeling embarrassed or enjoying it, seeing other people playing, meeting new people, etc.

Original thread

I play both my DS and PSP in classes all the time. It depends on the class, but in a lot of classes I can pay attention and play at the same time pretty easily. Games that you can put down at any moment are the best to play.

While my girlfriend was at a salon recently some kid seemed really excited that my PSP was metallic blue and that I was playing sideways. I was playing Star Soldier.

In general, I feel fine playing on campus but awkward playing anywhere else. Also, I think playing the PSP is less embarrassing than the DS, although I still play the DS more.

One time I stood outside a GameStop using my DS for over a half hour. They were giving away Deoxys. I couldn't find my copy of Pearl so I filled my R4 with about 20 copies so I could get a bunch of them. It took a long time to do that for every copy.

Two years ago at Anime Expo we had a lot of great Tetris DS matches. It was probably the most fun I've ever had gaming. We also did a lot of Pictochatting during AX Idol that year. Last year no one was really playing Tetris. I only managed to find one person with The World Ends With You, but I eventually realized that I was playing the European version, which was why I couldn't find more people. We Pictochatted during AX Idol again, but it wasn't as fun. Maybe it was because the people were actually good. Someone did draw a pretty hilarious picture of this really talented black guy with an odd, short, pointed mohawk singing "Rain" from Cowboy Bebop. I also played Elite Beat Agents with my girlfriend and some guy behind me in line while waiting for David Hayter's (voice of Snake) autograph.

Rain, originally uploaded by theuser.

Today (9/9) I played a new Bemani game by Konami called UBeat. It's being location tested here in Irvine, CA at a Boomers. According to Wikipedia, it was released last month in Japan. Irvine gets the only two UBeat cabinets outside of Asia!

Ubeat, originally uploaded by theuser.

The first thing I noticed about it was, of course, the aesthetics of the unit. Being a music game, it had to have a light of glowing parts and lights, but it really did look pretty cool. It had a crisp, nice quality LCD screen to show your score and other information, and it had 16 LCD buttons arranged in a grid. As songs play, the LCD buttons play little ~1 second animations to the rhythm. You have to press the button at a particular point in the animation. You can choose from a few animations. I chose fireworks; When the firework reached the top of the button, you press it to see the firework explode. It's a lot like DDR meets Whac-A-Mole, and it was a lot of fun!

The song list was pretty interesting. It had a good mix of songs that were already known in America and Japanese songs that I assume were from the Japanese version of the game. I played "Take on Me" by a-ha, "Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)" by Scatman John, and "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People (because what heterosexual guy playing a Bemani game with his girlfriend watching can resist the Village People?). I was surprised and pleased to find Scatman John in the game; He's an artist I really like.

The game displayed the name of the arcade and a player name although it was set to defaults. It looked like there was a way to store accounts or something similar but that the feature was not implemented. Like other Bemani games, each song had a different difficulty rating between one and ten, and the difficulty could be raised. In more complex songs, multiple panels lit up at the same time, requiring players to press multiple buttons with a single hand, often in rapid succession. The machine itself was very narrow and elegant looking. This is a plus because it means arcades can fit them in easier. From the interface, I think it supports up to four cabinets in local play. The small form factor means it's more likely to see arcades actually buy four cabinets.

There were two cabinets here so multiplayer was an option although I didn't try it. It looked like the cabinets were plugged into a router/hub, and when I checked online, I found out that you can play online as well. I'm not sure how that works though. Boomers was also location testing Dance Dance Revolution X, which I haven't had a chance to try yet. I'm definitely going back this week to play UBeat some more and possibly try the new DDR. Here's hoping UBeat catches on here in the states!

Wii Fit Merchandise, originally uploaded by theuser.

People complained about the number of worthless Wii peripherals, but
look at all the worthless Wii Fit crap!

When I was younger, gaming was a very social activity. My friends would come over and spend all weekend (and all summer) sitting with my playing video games. Sometimes we would take turns, and sometimes we'd play against one another. Some of my fondest gaming memories are of playing co-op Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 on SNES with my friend Adi, taking turns playing Super Mario Kart (and later Mario Kart 64), playing Clue on SNES, and playing a shit ton of Kirby's Dream Course. This has become more and more rare. Hell, now multiplayer primarily means shooting each other online. Sure, it's fun. But I miss the other stuff. Multiplayer used to mean multiple players. Now it implies a deathmatch style competitive game. Playing together through a story mode is now called co-op. Both co-op and multiplayer games are now online and rarely local. Local play is where the real fun is.

Besides online FPSs like Call of Duty 2 and 4 and Team Fortress 2 and MMOs, I haven't done a lot of multiplayer. When I've played those even, it was with random Internet folk not people I actually knew or set up a game with in advance. Since I started college, my co-op and multiplayer experiences have been pretty limited. I used to play a lot of Mario Kart Double Dash with Will and Patrick during freshman year, and that was great fun. I really had a blast. Later I played Gears of War with my brother and again with Collin. Gears of War is a terrific first person shooter, and I really like the co-op campaign. I'm looking forward to the sequel. I also played through Contra 3 in co-op with both Edward and Jon. Back in freshman year, I beat Secret of Mana for the first time with gem. That was the last RPG I beat on a console! That year I also played Diablo 2 with Andy and Antonio.

When Smash Bros. Brawl first came out, I played it all night with Collin and Duncan. However, after that first night, I'm not sure I ever played against anyone again. Mario Kart Wii got quite a bit of play with gem, Jackie, Jo, Ed, Hannah, Justina, and Laryssa. I also played a night of Kirby's Dream Course with Collin as well as some co-op N+ obsessively for leaderboard positions.

A few years ago, my friends and I played quite a bit of Wario Ware Inc., Mega Party Game$ for a short while. We played Wario Ware Smooth Moves when it came out, but it definitely wasn't the same. We did have some good times with Rayman Raving Rabbids and Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 though. gem and I also went through LEGO Star Wars 1 and 2 as well as the co-op Guitar Hero 3 campaign. Tetris DS also got a lot of play, especially at AX 2008.

Of course, gem and I played a lot of Guild Wars. We made the guild Divine Alliance. I played a bit with Antonio, Jon, Gabby, and James a bit too but not very much. I also played Hellgate: London with gem and a bit with Antonio, making the same guild. I PVPed a lot in World of Warcraft with gem and William. I also ran instances with them and Antonio, Tri, and Andy. We actually ran 10 different instances (counting SM as 4). Our guild is called Playground Justice, and I do enjoy playing World of Warcraft with them.

This week I've been playing a lot of Castle Crashers co-op, but I'll write about that in its own post. I know I mentioned a lot of games here, but this spans over four years. I'd really like to play more multiplayer, preferably local co-op. In those four years, it looks like I've played 24 games with other people. I might be missing a few, but that's just 6 per year. Only 11 of those were co-op, counting the MMOs.

I'm not intending to make this post just to rant. I enjoy multiplayer and co-op especially. Rather than wish, I'm going to try to seek out co-op and local multiplayer games more often and will post my experiences here. Hopefully I find some good games out there!

Me: Do you ever use the snake voice in the bedroom?

Hayter: On occasion.

Me: How's that work out for you?

Hayter: Works every time...

When I first heard that Myst was being ported to the DS, I was thrilled. A truly amazing experience was being brought to a handheld I love so I could finally finish it, playing whenever I had a free chance anywhere. I was very disappointed. Myst is more awesome than I remember, but Midway did a horrendous job with the port.

First, let me talk a little bit about Myst without concern for the port. Myst is a first-person point and click adventure. While most point and click adventures provide puzzles with clear goals in mind, Myst's puzzles are usually quite vague and confusing. Across the island are various puzzles, and it is not clear what you are supposed to do with each puzzle or why. It is like walking into a room filled with technology with which you are not familiar. The only way to understand it is to begin to use it.

On the island of Myst, you solve puzzles gaining you access to linking books. These books transport you to other ages (basically Myst sized islands). I would not want to go into more detail because I would not want to spoil any of the game.

The audio consists mainly of ambient noises and fit in with the game very well. The graphics are dated now of course, but looked great at the time of original release. Myst was one of the first games to come on a CD-ROM, and many people bought CD-ROM drives just to play Myst. The game looks very realistic using beautiful pre-rendered graphics.

Now to my dismay, I must talk about the port.

The graphics are a direct port, without raising the resolution at all. The text is incredibly hard to read. To compensate, there's a magnifying glass that when clicked, will magnify the middle of the screen and put it on the top screen. However, the resolution stays the same. At first the text is too small. Now it's just pixelated and blurry. There's a feature allowing you to jot down notes, but I have not used it. You can take screenshots to look at later, but they do not seem to work right. I flipped to the middle of a book, took a screenshot, and went on my way to a puzzle. When I looked at the screenshot, it was of the first page of the book, not the page I tried to capture.

There are also many graphical bugs. First, some images do not line up. For instance, if there's a switch to pull, the screen actually consists of the background image and the image of a switch. When you select the switch, the image of the switch should change to the image of a flipped switch. However, it displays slightly off-center from where it should, resulting in a screen tearing-like image. On top of that, sometimes the switches will appear to be in a different state than they really are. One type of switch can either be red or green. In one case, the red worked fine, but the green displayed it at one quarter its proper size. Some areas of the game have the screen flash incorrect colors or distort when changing screen.

At one point, someone I was playing with saved and later reloaded. She was at a puzzle, but could not figure out what to do. When she tried to leave the puzzle, she could not. At first she thought that she could not leave until she finished the puzzle. However, I went there on my game and was able to walk away again. She was fully stuck and had to restart her save file. Horrible.

Puzzles also sometimes reset when reloading. Imaging working hard on a puzzle, saving the game, and turning your DS off. Later you come back and find that you have to do everything again. I realize some games do this, but other puzzles in Myst do save. Some of the puzzles simply do not save.

Myst is a wonderfully beautiful game. If you truly want to experience it, play on the PC. It is a little troublesome to get it to work on Windows XP or newer, but it can be done. It would work best on a Windows 95 PC. However, if you do not want to be bothered by that and really, really want a handheld version, then you might want to try this DS port. Keep in mind how many problems you will face. That said, I am playing it on the DS because I prefer being able to play in various locations. However, I have played the original and know how great it is. Please, if you play Midway's horrible DS port of Myst, keep in mind that the game was much better in its original form.

Mario Kart Wii is an excellent addition to the Mario Kart series. The core game is the same as always, but Nintendo has now added bikes, online play, more racers per game, team battle modes, and the Wii wheel. I don't think I really have a favorite Mario Kart game because I like them all. This game seems to have a worse battle mode and so far iffy online play. However, the local racing is superb, and I look forward to spending many hours playing Mario Kart Wii!

The first thing new about this game is the Wii Wheel. It felt very odd at first but very quickly got more comfortable. When you go off jumps, you can shake the wheel to perform tricks for boosts. If the Wii Wheel isn't your thing, you can use many other (any other) control scheme, however, the game keeps track of how often you use the Wii Wheel and displays it next to your name online when you're using it.

Online play worked very well when I first got it home. As I waited for the previous match to end, I was allowed to watch. Then we played, and I noticed no lag. I only raced. I haven't yet tried online battle mode. The next day when I tried, I couldn't connect. I played online with my brother though. First, we traded Wii friend codes because Mario Kart Wii has a feature that uses the Wii system friend codes to trade Mario Kart Wii friend codes. However, even after we added each other, it wouldn't confirm so we traded Mario Kart Wii friend codes. I entered his lobby, got kicked out, entered again, got kicked out, made my own lobby, and then he joined. I don't think that was a connection issue; I think he was confused and closing it. We played a game and it worked very well. The next game disconnected in the middle, and then I couldn't connect. At that point I gave up and quit. I'm hoping this was a fluke, but I'm not gonna keep my hopes up.

The bikes are more sensitive than the karts, but I think they're better than the Karts because you can dodge things faster. The levels are cool and gorgeous. I've been very happy with them. My favorite stage so far is Coconut Mall. In it there are escalators going up and down. If you're driving up you have to make sure to pick the correct escalator or you'll be slowed down. Battle mode is now two teams of six (I think, but it might be eight). In balloon battle, after you lose all your balloons, you're able to respawn. You can not be killed permanently. The other battle mode is coin runner. Coins are scattered throughout the stage, and the team with the most coins wins. You can knock coins out of enemies by striking them with items. While the battle mode used to be my favorite, it seems much more chaotic in Mario Kart Wii. I don't like it as much.

There are four "licenses," which function as save files. They physically show what medals you've received on which courses, and also keep track of all your other information. Besides being able to earn a bronze, silver, or gold cup, you also get a letter rank. Once you receive all stars, you get a star next to your name online. When you receive all two stars, you get two stars, and when you receive all triple stars, you get three starts. If you use the Wii Wheel enough, there will also be a golden Wii Wheel icon next to your name when you play online.

I'm gonna go play now.

Rockers | RockBand.com

Wednesday night Valve held a party at the Temple nightclub for GDC. The club was filled with developers and other people in the gaming industry, and Jonathan Coulton was there performing. For those who don't know him, he's responsible for Code Monkey and Still Alive. For his last song, he played an upcoming Rock Band song - Still Alive. Apparently most of the people at the club were screaming, and one person actually rushed the stage in an attempt to steal the song.

This just makes me want the game more.

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers is another NES game that really reminds me of my childhood. Besides liking the game, I remember hurrying home from school to watch this on television. This game is extremely simple. It doesn't have the challenge of Darkwing Duck or the music of Duck Tales. What I like about it is the art and level design.

Immediately I notice how happy and pretty everything is. I mean, you either play as Chip or Dale. You're a cute chipmunk. How could that not be great? The first enemies you come across are nice, large sprites of robot dogs. Then to fight them, you pick up things like boxes and apples to throw. This definitely didn't change the way games were made or played, but it's a fantastic Disney platformer with terrific art.

If only there really would be a Chip 'n Dale MMORPG.

Little Nemo: The Dream Master was a childhood classic. I remember it very fondly. The first thing you notice when you start the game is the wonderful theme music, followed by the scene of Nemo running towards his bed, jumping over the board at the foot of the bed, and going to sleep. Then level one starts, and the amazing music continues!

I really think the first level is the best in the game and a wonderful example for other platformers to strive to meet. Someone posted a speedrun of the game, and it can be found here. Definitely check out a bit of it to see why I love the music so much.

Now, what's fun about the game? What makes it different than other platformers? Nemo can throw candy. It'll stun enemies but not kill them. Touching enemies at all, including jumping on them, causes Nemo harm. Luckily, there are some animals that he can feed candy. After they'll full, they'll let Nemo "ride" them, which basically means you turn into that animal. Each animal has different abilities, and they're a lot of fun!

The second level is very similar to the first but has some fun water parts (and I usually hate water levels of any game). The third level differs a bit because you're riding a train. At the end of each level, you reach a door that functions as an exit to the level. There are a number of locks on the door, and you need to find at least that many keys in the level to unlock it. Normally that isn't a problem, but later in the game, the keys can be quite hard to find. By the last level (or was it the second to the last level?), I was very annoyed at not being able to find the keys. You either have to run around for a long, long time o use a FAQ.

I recommend playing the first level at least of this game if you ever get the chance. A wonderful, classic game! It might seem strange to call this game wonderful when I'm annoyed at the later levels, but I'm not telling anyone to go spend $60 on this. However, the game is fun even if the last levels are annoying, and the first level is amazingly good. Those early levels show excellent design, the animal riding is interesting and fun, the sprites are cute, and the music is great. Worth anyone's time who likes classic NES-era games.