Sunday, December 9, 2007

Guitar Hero pwned my wife

As I type this, my wife is "watching" the credits roll for GH3. Which means she's rockin' out to some crazy song. Anyway, we got it yesterday and she's obsessed. I like it too, but she's much better than me.
Had a heck of a time finding it, actually. Went to 4 stores to find a copy with a guitar for the 360. We got the wired guitar with it, which kinda sucks, but I didn't feel like doing any more searching. Rock Band was easy to find. I guess I wasn't the only one scared by the price tag.

Updated: pictures

Thursday, November 29, 2007

How to play Assasin's Creed without hurting yourself or going crazy

First off, this game is great. Altair's movements and the camera work are top notch. Also the story is really pretty good. The game gets knocks for being very repetitive though.

  • Attach a rubber band to the controller so that it holds down the RT. This allows you to run all the time and not cramp up your hand. Mine was so severe that I had to take a break from the game for several days
  • Whenever you talk to someone in the Assasin's Bureau is a good time for a bathroom break since they're usually idiots and don't really tell you anything useful (Also, why does every town have an Assasin's Bureau? Wouldn't that be a good sign that your town is unsafe?)
  • Don't bother completing more than 3 tasks at each location or collecting flags
  • Don't miss the chance to fast travel to cities that you've already been to like I did by repeatedly hitting A to make the horse gallop when you get to that certain archway

Sunday, November 11, 2007

New Mass Effect trailer

Here's how I'll be spending my holidays...

I haven't been this excited for an RPG in a long time.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

When one blog links to another...

DS in the wild. Oh, and some purty trees.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Metroid Prime 3 final thoughts (spoiler free)

So I finished MP3 earlier this week and was a bit disappointed. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since I already knew that:
1. This hero doesn't talk much
2. I wasn't too impressed with most of the parts where you interact with the GF general guy.
I liked how the last planet/stage is different from the entire rest of the game but I wasn't too impressed with the final boss.
Oh, and in the "I'm an idiot" department, I initially got excited when I thought I could get an .mp3 file of the music in the game. Then I realized that just stand for Metroid Prime 3...Oh :(

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The Awesome Portal Song


So, I just finished Portal tonight and got a chance to hear what must be one of the funniest video game songs I've ever heard. Check out the link (minor spoilers) to view the end credits along with the awesome song "Still Alive". It's funniest if you've played the game and get the references (especially about Black Mesa - "Just kidding, ha ha, fat chance!").

Of course, if you like funny video game songs it's hard to beat this (2:45 in).

Sunday, October 14, 2007

New Smash Bros Gameplay Footage


I found this pretty cool gameplay video of Smash Bros. It's pretty awesome, but it makes the wait until Feb. 10 seem longer than ever.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Wind Waker cake


I saw this article at Kotaku and thought you guys would enjoy it. I'm guessing that the cake probably didn't taste very good, but that's wedding cake for you!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

What I've been playing: the Xbox edition

I figured I'd sum up what I've been playing in one tidy little post. Since there's apparently some sort of "Halo" thing out now, I thought I should see what it's all about and played through the first two games for the first time. I was very impressed and I didn't even get to the multiplayer, which I've heard good things about as well. While the levels and enemies can get repetitive, the controls are tight and there are a good variety of weapons. I'll start on 3 sometime next week.
Gears of War is another I've spent some time with lately and it's really growing on me. The over the shoulder RE4 style view works well but the duck and cover mechanics take some getting used to. Again, no multiplayer on that as of yet either.
Rounding things out, I've played a few matches of Bomberman Live w/ my wife. I think she may be addicted to that and Hexic.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Why Smash Bros Brawl will be the best game of the year...


I always knew Snake was going to rock in Smash Bros, but I was not prepared for this level of utter awesomeness. Behold...












Snake on Samus






Halo 3 Screenshot and Movie Editor


I'm really enjoying the extra tools they've added to Halo 3. The video editor is probably my favorite so far, but I haven't had a chance to mess with the level editor yet. The game saves the most recent 15 or more match replays so you can always go back and learn from your mistakes or enjoy your victories.

The accompanying image shows what happened to the guy who got too close to my grenade. What's really cool about it is that I was able to pause the movie and dynamically place the camera in 3d-space. It's pretty fricking awesome once you start messing around with it.

It's getting colder, get your Wii remote jacket for free

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/jacket/jacketrequest.jsp

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Wii remote = lightsaber


I thought the Force Unleashed game was gonna be a 360 thing but perhaps there's some Wii love as well.

Friday, September 14, 2007

August sales numbers

It looks like the August sales numbers are out for the U.S. While there aren't any surprises as far as hardware goes (Wii sold 400,000+ and DS sold 380,000+), I was pretty surprised to see that Metroid Prime 3 sold 220,000 copies in the four days it was available in August. From IGN's article, MP2 didn't reach that level until it had been on the market for two weeks. I wonder how much of that has to do with MP3 being a good game and how much of it reflects the strong need for a good hardcore game on the Wii? Either way, more sales means more Metroid in the future, which is always a good thing.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Metroid 3 Graphics Comparison


Gamespot has this feature up comparing the graphics of MP 2 to MP 3. Pretty interesting. I know that the Wii isn't a graphics powerhouse, but I've been disappointed that developers don't even seem to be trying to make the games look nicer. Just one more thing to enjoy when I finally start playing this one. For those of you who have played it, are the updated graphics noticeable, or do they even matter?

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Metroid 3 & Bioshock

So I've been playing a lot of both of these lately and it got me thinking about linearity in games. Both are fairly linear stories with a few optional side quests here and there. One thing about Bioshock that gives it more variety though, is the endless stream of weapons and plasmids. I get to decide just how I want to kill the crazy denizens of Rapture. Should I freeze them, put a few bullets in them and watch them shatter (one of my favorites) or set them on fire, or just shoot 'em? An important question, for sure. :) But Metroid just gives me a few options to dispatch foes.
I guess I don't really have any conclusion here, I just thought it was interesting...

Saturday, September 8, 2007


Kotaku pointed out this post at gunslot.com (go figure) where someone lists the top 25 games (or 29, including ties) worldwide by sales, but doesn't include packaged games such as Wii Sports or the original Super Mario Bros. It's interesting, though not too surprising, to note that 17 of the titles were created by Nintendo. Lots of Mario and Pokemon, but where's the Zelda?

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

16-player online Mario Kart for the Wii



This sounds pretty freaking awesome! Looks like it's money-printing time. (Too bad I couldn't get blogger to animate the gif!)

Green, Blue, RED...AAAAHHH!


I can't think of a game that I've played recently that has had as much staying power as this curious little thing. I mean, it's basically Bejeweled with some ogres and swords thrown in right? Right, but that combination gives you a reason to play the same puzzles over and over. It's more satisfying to match four skulls in a row when it does massive damage to some brute that was selling your people into slavery. That's much better than some vague concept of 1000 points or a super double bonus or something. Plus there's the inexplicable pull of wanting to level up your character. Although I'm a couple levels ahead of my wife after the long weekend, I doubt it will last long. She's just as addicted as I am.
So if you don't have this game, get it. It's been my go-to DS game for months.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Game Q and PA

I'll be a happy gamer playing these for a while. Actually, it doesn't look like I'll actually get Metroid until Tues. or later. Stupid postal service and their days off. How dare they!?
(Oh, My wife was disappointed w/ the lack of pictures, so here ya go.)




Oh so we're trading links now are we? If you like Penny Arcade, Wired has a great write up on them here but it's a bit lengthy.

Zero Punctuation: Heavenly Sword and RE 5

This guy has some pretty funny comments on the Heavenly Swords demo and the Resident Evil 5 trailer. I'll warn you, though, that it's flash animation and probably not safe for work due to some harsh language in a couple of spots.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1350-Zero-Punctuation-Heavenly-Sword-and-Other-Stuff

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Knock knock...

So what's going on in here guys? Due to a sick mother-in-law, I had to miss todays lunch.

I did play quite a bit of Metroid Prime 3 to make up for it though.

Blog Archive