As I sit here overwhelmed by the ending of mass effect, being envolped in its credits, having awarded the completionist achievement I now remember the reason why I play video games. This game, amongst a small amount of others, prove what real video game developers are capable of. Mass Effect shows a true genius of creativity knowledge and most importantly dedication towards work. Games like Mass Effect are few, but when we are granted such a marvel the gaming community fully understands what we stand for. It isn’t about who’s the “biggest developer” it isn’t about NPR stats and other financial graphs, its about an overwhelming satification. It’s that feeling a gamer experiences when completing a game in all its glory, about involving himself in someones dedicated work, about experiencing someone elses creation. Video games aren’t a hobby, its not something you do to waste time with some friends, its an obsession; an interactive obsession that can envoke true emotion in someone. Emotion that is able to overwhelm the player to the point where they feel they were truly emersed. If this didn’t convince you to play Mass Effect then I don’t know what will…. this game; and its ending shows humanities moment of triumph.

infinity/11 

The picture to the left would be the best way of describing my weekend in a mash-up of pictures. Read more to dive into a weekend full of XBOX 360 re-modding, Turok, Groundhogs day excitement and Super Mario Smash Brothers Brawl.
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So far we are 1 month into 2008 and I can sadly say I am looking forward to NOTHING in the realm of video games and technology. 1 month in… thats 1/12 of the year I have two games that are on my list: No more Heroes for the Wii and Universe at War for the PC. At this rate 2008 will produce a whopping 24 interesting video games. But the fun doesn’t stop there… whats with this lack of technological advancements? I was for sure Apple was going to released some new BIG product for us, but instead they released a shittier skinnier version of the Mac Book Pro.

Don’t even get me started on the amount of video game delays we have experienced this month! It seemed it all started with the announcement that Super Mario Smash Brothers Brawl was going to be delayed then the rest of the video game development world jumped on the band wagon.  Just today Haze and Mercanaries 2 were delayed. I know there are tons more I just crap them out of my mouth because of how pissed I am.

On top of all this crap, THQ buys a whole bunch of development teams, cancels a whole bunch of IPs and then looses stock… EA is buying everything that is waved in front of them, christ even Halo 3 is getting beaten out by Call of Duty 4. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WORLD?!

I guess this is good in some resepect… I might be able to do homework, and it gives me time to figure out why my 360 is burning every power supply I own. Maybe I can do something productive since the development community isn’t feeding my vegging addiction.

p.s. I have a new blog and new site…

It’s not physically a dry week, in fact here in Windsor is a very very rainy/snowy week, but in terms of video games there is nothing to get too excited over. I have quickly realized that the pre-christmas rush of video games is over and now we are getting showered with lesser DS titles. I’m not a fan of the DS, at least not anymore, so here’s my “catch-up” list; along with a few things I recently received that deserve some attention.

XBOX 360:
In terms of the 360, I’m not going to get too excited; mine is still without power until Zach decides to buy me a new one (or I get my shipment from DiviNeo), and I don’t really have time to play most of these games anyway… here’s the backlog (ps. I beat Kane and Lynch this weekend with my cousin… GREAT GAME):

• Assassins Creed
• Mass Effect
• Blacksite Area 51
• Blue Dragon
• Need for speed Pro Street

PC:
Really the only game I’m working on right now is Crysis, but I am too busy to go to the WGC to play that so I am really just waiting for my Mac Book Pro before I continue anything, but this is the backlog:

• Crysis
• Blacksite Area 51
• Unreal Tournament 3

Wii:
The wii is the only thing that I might have time for this week… heres my backlog:

• Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles
• Geometry Wars
• Link Crossbow Training
• Ghost Squad
• Medal of Honour 2

Imagine this scenario. You are headed home from school/work ready to wind down and get into one of those brand new video games you just picked up. After starting the game you notice you have to create an “account”; OK, fine… account created, many games these days have profiles. Then proceeding to click the singleplayer/campaign button you are confronted with something you haven’t seen before. There lyes two buttons before you, start LAN campaign, start online campaign; intrigued you click “Start Online Campaign” and then click “Public Game”. You are slightly confused… you’ve never seen the word “online” associated with singleplayer, but your mind is racing! Where is this going? Will you be suddenly transported to an online community based system only to scream “No!!!! NOT ANOTHER MMO!” Strangely, you start to see a cut screen, then an in game cut screen, then a mission selector screen. You say to yourself “This isn’t online at all! I was fooled!”, but you are somewhat relieved; you came home to play a singleplayer campaign and now you have the opportunity. The first level begins, you follow the objectives, you kill bad guys, you are having fun when suddenly you get owned by a bad guy is surprisingly better than you. This bad guy’s actions are not like the others, he moves quicker, he shoots straighter, he seems…. smarter. Confronted with a challenge you adjust yourself in your seat and start taking the game a little more seriously. Suddenly the bad guy speaks? He says “LOL pwned”, strange you say to yourself; the game developers have finally coded bots who speak to you. You continue, he proceeds to say “Are you there?”… you respond “Um… hi?”… he replys! This once thought bot is really a human being… one who has joined your singleplayer campaign. It turns out you have really created a mini-server one for others across the world to join, you are following your own campaign, you pick the missions, you still get to see the cut screens, but others can join! What a remarkable scenario… this is Unreal Tournament 3.

Upon playing I was stunned by the way Unreal Tournament 3 handles singleplayer. When you start a single player campaign you are actually starting a mini-server where you are the host. Players can choose to join your server or start their own, if they join your server they pick up where you are in the game. You control the mission maps, so you control which mission to go to next, and you continue to make progress on your account. Players can come and go as they wish which adds for an enjoyable interactive environment. This isn’t very hard to accomplish with a game like Unreal Tournament where every singleplayer level is essentially a multiplayer level with bots, but what if a concept like this was applied to a game like say… Half-Life?

Imagine playing your favourite singleplayer game and having someone jump right into the fray? This would be excellent with games likes Call of Duty or any war simulation where you could have multiple soldiers on the battlefield. To top it all off, imagine if it was totally random and unavoidable! Just think about it… you go to continue your campaign in the newest WW2 shooter and the game will attempt to find other people playing the same part of the campaign as you. If it does you can join up with them and help fight those evil Nazi’s; if not your client will attempt to make its own server and put you as the host.

Like anything in life there are people sure to complain to a system like this so why not have conventional singleplayer and networked singleplayer! If any game designers are reading this post then please hear my words… Coop is the WAVE OF THE FUTURE; take notes from Unreal Tournament 3 and expand upon it! Innovation people.. that’s what this industry needs to move forward into next gen!

Well this past weekend was somewhere between a blast and a bomb. My XBOX 360 Power supply blew up, but I did get to play Time Shift, COD4, and painkiller overdose. This week I will really be feeling the pain without my 360 because games like Mass Effect and Assassins Creed have been leaked all over the innertubes… so basically I will have copies of the games, but nothing to play it on. This is entitled the “Super mario Galaxy” week, but since I have already played and beat that before the street date I refuse to call it that. Instead I shall call this the week of “Crying” and let me explain why:

Assassins Creed - Oh I don’t got my 360 so forget about that
Mass Effect - Look up n00b
Crysis - Good luck getting my computer to play that
Blacksite: Area 51 - Look above AGAIN
Need for Speed Pro Street - If I had my 360 would I really play this?
Kane and Lynch - Ahhh no 360 again, thoughts of killing myself
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles - This is a maybe I’ll probably get bored of it
Soldier of Fortune Payback - One I actually might get to play on my PC
Medal of Honour 2 - God I can’t take any more of this shit
Raving Rabbits 2 - Looks promising
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics - Left over from last week
Battalion Wars 2 - If I get bored of the above.

If video games aren’t my foray this week I’ll probably be catching up with “The Office” or “Lost” or actually doing homework.

Ok, so maybe I exaggerate a little bit, maybe DiviNeo didn’t burn down my house, but they certainly did ruin my weekend. It all started with a friendly game of Call of Duty 4 between my cousin and I. Suddenly I smelt plastic burning, I thought I might have burnt something in the dish washer again so I headed upstairs. Thankfully there was nothing stuck to the heating element for a second time so I headed back downstairs and upon inspection I found that my DiviNeo XBOX 360 power supply was smoking. Check out this link to see what I’m talking about. Oddly enough my XBOX 360 was still running so I quickly shut it down, turned off the power, unplugged everything, turned on the lights and went in for a closer look. It turns out the first pin on the 24pin power connector overheated and burnt through the insulation. The copper wasn’t affected which was why the 360 was still running. It got so hot that the connector piece melted itself together… so much to the point where my cousin and I had to use pliers to pull the thing apart. I emailed DiviNeo so we will see how they handle this situation. I shall keep you posted… images below.

I just got my XBOX 360 last week and I am already reviewing my first game; Conan. I didn’t have very high expectations for this game, infact the only thing I heard about it was that there were boobies… and who doesn’t like boobies… I sure don’t! Anyway I had no idea what to expect, but I soon found out it was another God of War clone… another Third Person, Button Mashing, Action game. I myself am not too fond of clones, but this one was tolerable… it was even, dare I say… enjoyable!

Take one part God of War, one part Maxim magazine and one part Mortal Kombat, mix it all together in a barbaric jungle atmosphere you got yourself Conan. The game itself is pretty animalistic, not a lot of thought involved and constant button mashing. It weighed in at about 5 hours of total game time and it was fun to play when I had nothing else to do. Waiting for food to cook? Play Conan, Trying to wake up in the morning? Play Conan, waiting for my girlfriend to get out of the shower? Play Conan. To top it all off there were tons of save points and checkpoints sprinkled throughout the game so that I could continue my stop/go habbits.

The graphics are pretty good looking, its not Heavenly Sword but its definitly better than God of War. There are plenty of blood and particle effects to keep you entertained and the amount of dismemberment is absolutely enjoyable. The game runs pretty good considering its a constant circle gang of enemies trying to kill you. When you’re not getting ganged by a bunch of crazy Street Fighter wanna-bes there are tens of them dead and dismembered on the ground. There are enough achievments in this game to make you want to go insane. The CGI is nothing to get excited about, i’ve seen better in some of the older Final Fantasys, but the environments are close to stunning and realistic. The Havoc’s physics engine really gives the game that extra push into being slightly above average. Oh and did I mention there were boobies?

Like I stated before there isn’t much thought involved in this game. I found myself either mashing “X” constantly or mashing “Y”. I’m not one for memorizing combos, so I didn’t and it seemed to work fine. If you are one for trying new combos and experimenting then I’m sure you could have tons of excitment with over 100 different upgrades you can assign to Conan. One thing this game does better than God of War would be the wide variety of weapons. There are over 20 different weapons you can pick up in this game and they are all equally good and they all have their own special strengths; I was a little upset though when I couldn’t pick up an archery bow.

With all that said the game seems to lack some polish. There were times (towards the end of the game) when I would fall through walls and get stuck on some barriers. Also I had a couple of moments when Conan would “flash step” from one enemy to the other and the animation flow control didn’t seem to work at some moments. The story though was told in just the right amount of detail. I hate games that flood you with storyline and over fifty percent of the game is some off screen narration telling you some useless history. Here’s the long and short of it; there is some enemy, hes evil, you have to kill him with your Godly powers and you like to beat a lot of shit up. Oh and did I mention there were boobies?

One thing that absoluetly takes away from the game is the voice acting… mainly Conan’s voice acting. When I was watching the credits roll I made a point to write down the voice actors name, but I forgot… hes luckly… thats all I have to say. I have just about every horrible catch phrase memorized especially the one where he just simply says “Dog!” or “Name!”; at one point he said “Dog Name”, but I think that was just the two overlapping. A’kannas voice tallent is actually quite good, but Conans just makes you forget that and reminds you that he sounds like a douchebag. THQ should have just hired Arnold to do the voice of Conan, at least that would have been commical.  Even some of the voice acting of the “slave women” (read boobies) are terribly bad, but thats OK because they are naked and they have an excuse.

Overall the game is an average button mashing third-person action. I don’t suggest playing it if you have something better to do/play, but if you have some time to kill you might as well. I forgot to mention to not play this game if you hate playing rediculously hard and repetitive final boss’. Play it with a friend if you want, it’s much better making fun of the voice acting in groups rather than alone. I’d give Conan a 6/10. … ps there are boobies.

Checked wiikey.cn this morning only to find that they have released the 1.9g update for the WiiKey chips. Which means on this update was a Mario Galaxies fix! Unfortunately I had work all day until 5:30PM but as soon as I was done I booked it to the WGC to test out this “new patch” and it worked! We now have super mario galaxies for the wii, which means I now have super mario galaxies for the wii. To top it all off we also go Manhunt 2…. oh what a day!