Armed and Dangerous

Publisher: LucasArts
Developer: Planet Moon Studios

Here is a game I think deserves mentioning. It's over 5 years old now but I think it was very underrated when it came out and has been ever since. Although it seems to have been lost over the years I thought, when it was new, that it had great potential for a sequel or spin off or something. It plays like an ordinary third person shooter, most of the time, but it is also very funny and interesting. HERE is a link to the IGN page that tells all about it. Anyone who has an Xbox or Xbox 360 should pick this one up if the chance ever arises. It's backwards compatible so there shouldn't be any problems for 360 owners, unless you don't have an internet connection. It is definitely if not one of my favorite games, at least one of the most memorable games I have ever played. I highly recommend it.

Picture from www.ign.com

Happy New Year!!!

Yay... a new year. And a promising year for video games. With the recent slew of great games (Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Rock Band 2, etc...) I can't wait to see what this next year brings. Unless the economy completely craps the bed, which I'm not ruling out, 2009 should be a glorious year for all gamers.

A word to wise shoppers

Just a couple months back I decided to buy a new Xbox 360 because mine was starting to show symptoms of the dreaded RRoD (Red Rings of Death). I bought a new 60GB Xbox 360 Pro and decided to give my old 20GB version to my nephew. When I gave it to him I told him it had slowed down a bit and was sometimes stalling and the disk drive didn't open properly. He decided to take it and keep it for as long as it would last. Well, it didn't last very long. Just recently he told me it had died. He decided to buy a new system but keep the hard drive, which was working fine. Gamestop sells refurbished Xbox 360 core systems with a wireless controller for $170 so he chose to go there to get it, since they have a good return policy and are usually very friendly and helpful. The refurbished core system costs $170, but if you want a brand new Xbox 360 Arcade, which comes with 5 Xbox live arcade games, a free game, a 256MB memory card, and a wireless controller, you need only cough up an extra $30 for a total of $200. It is ridiculous to buy a used system when you can buy a brand new one for just $30 more, and even more so when it includes extra games and accessories. Even if you are buying an Xbox 360 for the first time it is smart to buy the Arcade version. You can buy used 20GB hard drive for $60 at gamestop and that's plenty for the average gamer. There is no reason to buy the refurbished Xbox 360. Chances are, if you can afford $170 you can afford $200. Don't be stupid! Research a product before you buy it.

PS: They have a deal I saw on Xbox.com for anyone who has an arcade console. If you give them the serial number from your Xbox 360 you can get a 20GB hard drive and 3 months of Gold Membership to Xbox Live for $30. That is one of the better deals I have seen in a while.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Pandemic Studios

Release Date: January 13, 2009

Any fan of Star Wars: Battlefront and Lord of the Rings should be excited about this one. It seems like it should be called Lord of the Rings: Battlefront. Instead of going out as a Stormtrooper equipped with a blaster rifle you'll be an Orc equipped with a huge sword or a bow. From what I have heard it plays similarly to Battlefront as well. There are different missions and in each mission there are four different characters to choose from: A warrior, an archer, a scout, and a mage. If LotR: Conquest is anywhere near good as the Battlefront games then it should be a definite must buy for any fan of the Battlefront series..

All pictures from http://www.ign.com/

The Elder Scrolls V

OK, so now that Bethesda Softworks is done with Fallout 3 I can't help but wonder if they have already started on the next Elder Scrolls game. I'm sure they have. I did here some rumours that they might abandon the series but I doubt that after how well Oblivion sold. Actually I have heard rumours that they are and that they may not do it, so I'm going to wait until it is officially announced before I believe anything. So I suppose the fact that most people liked Oblivion was a good and a bad thing, for me at least. The good thing is because of its success there will most likely be a fifth installment. The bad thing is that they might take some of the stuff i don't like from Oblivion and carry it over to the next game. One good thing is that Bethesda always makes their games from the ground up. The don't use anything from other games, except ideas of course. They take the ideas and build a completely new and unique game, which I give them a lot of credit for. Most video game companies settle for the quick, cheap, one year later sequel. Let's see... Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty, to name a few. All these series have installments that just feel like an update rather than a whole new game.

Well, back to my point. I always seem to get sidetracked on something. I just hope Bethesda builds more off of Fallout 3's success, minus the gore and dismemberment of course, rather than Oblivion's. Yeah, I would love to be able to chop peoples arms off with an ebony longsword but I think The Elder Scrolls series is meant for a younger audience. And by younger I mean like 13 and up or so. One thing I would like to see is more of a destructible environment. Like being able to destroy houses and trees and stuff. And I would love to be able to shoot a bolt of lightening at someone and see them burst into flames. Also, the cut-and-paste dungeon structure has to go. I want to be able to go into a dungeon and know I have not been there before.

Oh yeah, on the subject of Oblivion, I hold to the fact that I was the first person to discover the "Secret Door" inside of the Temple of the One in Imperial City. I got bored and started to wonder what would happen if I jumped outside of the town walls. Well all there was was a weird, barren landscape that was all glitchy and strange. For those who don't know, you're not actually supposed to jump outside the town walls. You're supposed to leave by the gate. Well my roof hopping led me to Imperial City and eventually I tried to get to the top of the temple. I just fell through and there was a door there that brought me to the final stage of the last mission of the main quest. I didn't hear anything about it online for a couple more weeks. I also got to the top of the big tower thingy, which I can't remember the name of, using the paint brush trick. (The paint brush trick is a glitch that caused all the paint brushed in the game to float in the air when dropped, so you could build a kind of "staircase" with them). It took me about two hours. I even have a saved game of it. I'll try to get a picture of it and post it.

Fallout Movie

I've been hearing rumours online that there is a movie in production based on the Fallout series of video games. I really have absolutely no idea if it is true, but if I found out it was I don't think I would be able to contain my excitement. If it ends up being true I have to remember to not keep my hopes up, video game based movies are rarely good. If they could actually pull this off though, that would mean sticking with the series' quirky dark humour, it would be one of the most amazing movies of this decade, in my opinion at least.

Songs for Rock Band

This is a list of the top 50 songs I would like to see in Rock Band:

1. Hotel California, by The Eagles
2. Life in the Fast Lane, by The Eagles
3. Victim Of Love, by The Eagles
4. Take It Easy, by The Eagles
5. Already Gone, by The Eagles
6. One Of These Nights, by The Eagles
7. Peaceful Easy Feeling, by The Eagles
8. I Feel Free, by Cream
9. Sunshine Of Your Love, by Cream
10. White Room, by Cream
11. Crossroads, by Cream
12. Takin' Care of Business, by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
13. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
14. Roll On Down the Highway, by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
15. Shotgun Rider, by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
16. I Want You To Want Me, by Cheap Trick
17. Listen To the Music, by The Doobie Brothers
18. Black Water, by The Doobie Brothers
19. Don't Bring Me Down, by Electric Light Orchestra
20. Lucky Man, by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
21. Cocaine, by Eric Clapton
22. I Shot the Sheriff, By Eric Clapton
23. Blues Power, by Eric Clapton
24. Rhiannon, by Fleetwood Mac
25. Hot Blooded, by Foreigner
26. Sundown, by Gordon Lightfoot
27. We're An American Band, by Grand Funk Railroad
28. Time Machine, by Grand Funk Railroad
29. Walk Like A Man, by Grand Funk Railroad
30. Shinin' On, by Grand Funk Railroad
31. Rock & Roll Soul, by Grand Funk Railroad
32. I'm Your Captain, by Grand Funk Railroad
33. Inside Looking Out, by Grand Funk Railroad
34. No Time, The Guess Who
35. W*O*L*D*, by Harry Chapin
36. Born On The Bayou, by John Fogerty
37. Proud Mary, by Creedence Clearwater Revival
38. Down On the Corner, by Creedence Clearwater Revival
39. Sweet Hitch-Hiker, by Creedence Clearwater Revival
40. Green River, by Creedence Clearwater Revival
41. Sunshine (Go Away Today), by Jonathan Edwards
42. Only the Young, by Journey
43. Wheel In the Sky, by Journey
44. Be Good To Yourself, by Journey
45. I Am A Rock, by Simon & Garfunkel
46. A Hazy Shade Of Winter, by Simon & Garfunkel
47. Renegade, by Styx
48. Wild Thing, by The Troggs
49. Still Of the Night, by Whitesnake
50. Get Together, by The Youngbloods

I realize there's not much of a chance that most of these will make it into Rock Band, but I can hope. The Eagles and some of Cream and Eric Clapton's stuff is what I would like to see most. You can't beat Clapton for guitar solos. Some of these may also be impossible to do because of the lack of bass or something but I think most of them are good.

New Red Faction

Hearing the name Red Faction brings back some good memories. Four player deathmatches with plenty of ridiculously accurate bots to hunt you down. Blowing people into little chunks with a rocket launcher and also blowing holes in the wall, which was a pretty new thing back then. Killing people through walls half way across the map with the rail gun. I remember feeling like an idiot when one of the bots actually won the match. Ahh... good memories. So you can imagine my excitement when I turned to page 28 in my copy of OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) and saw the heading "Red Faction: Guerrilla". It is supposedly set 50 years after Red Faction 2. It is no longer first person but has switched to third person (hey, it worked for Gears of War). It also promises plenty of explosive fun, this time meaning almost everything is destructible. It says it will be released some time in early 2009.

Keep it in the real world

Video games are a source of enjoyment. I play games for entertainment and don't want to have any kind of political propaganda shoved down my throat. There has been a recent trend in video games having real world advertisement in them. I don't have a problem with this if it fits into a game, such as being seen on a billboard in a racing game. I just learned that Barack Obama purchased advertisements in certain Xbox 360 video games this past year, one being Madden NFL 09. The ads were apparently only seen in 10 states and were downloaded from Xbox live when gamers signed in. It is disgusting that EA accepted his offer. Political ads have no place in a video game. At no point should a person be forced to view a political ad on something that person owns. This is disturbing news and I hope it does not open the door for future abuse.

Rock Band 2

Publisher: MTV Games

Developer: Harmonix

I haven't posted anything in 4 days. And Rock Band 2 is the reason why. I loved the idea of the first one but the songs on it were terrible. There were some good ones but most of them I couldn't stand. In Rock Band 2 there are songs from all genres and from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and 00's. There are over 100 songs available when you buy the game, although 20 of them must be downloaded via a code printed on the back of the manual. As of December 2 there are over 500 songs available, either on the disk or for purchase online. That includes songs for Rock Band and Rock Band 2. All the songs that are downloaded can be played on either game and I'm pretty sure there is a way to import your Rock Band songs onto Rock Band 2. Visit rockband.com for more information on songs.

There are some cool features in Rock Band 2. You can create your own characters and form a band (by yourself or with friends). Just be careful what you name your band, if you use a naughty word it won't let you use it online. I named my band Sex on a Sundae (don't ask) and I had to change it to Cex on a Sundae. I don't know what's so bad about sex. I would think anything that can't be said on TV would be censored, but whatever. Back to Rock Band 2. You unlock songs by playing in the worldwide tour with your band, but you can also use a code to unlock them if your lazy or just don't feel like playing through it. The character creator is pretty cool. It isn't really detailed but it does the job. There are four difficulty settings and each person playing can choose their own. That means if your playing with your little nephew or your mother you can make it challenging for both of you. Just be aware that difficulties that make the music faster for you, make it faster for everyone, so if you're playing with someone who is really bad you may want to take it down a notch yourself. The game itself costs $60, but the bundle that comes with a guitar, microphone, and a drum set, is $190. It is definitely worth the money if you can afford it. It will provide endless hours of entertainment for you and your friends or family. Just be sure to pick up an extra guitar for bass.

Jimbo McCarthy: My Character (I know, the coolness is too much to handle)

By the way, this picture is from www.rockband.com . You can make a profile there and make pictures of your characters and stuff.

Picture from http://www.ign.com/

Call of Duty: World at War

Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch

Call of Duty is a series published by Activision. Each installment is handed off to a different developer. It switches between Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Infinity Ward's versions have been much better. Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4 (both by Infinity Ward) remain as 2 of my favorite shooters. This fifth installment, by Treyarch is a lot better than their last attempt, Call of Duty 3, which was, let's just say, not one of my favorite's. Call of Duty: World at War proves that they have learned from past mistakes and from Infinity Ward's accomplishments. While it is not quite as good as Call of Duty 4, World at War is a big step forward for Treyarch. One of the things lacking was good characters. In COD4 I actually knew my squad mates. They felt real and it was sad when they died. In World at War I never felt like I knew anybody in the squads. They all kind of blended together and none of them stood out. COD4 had great maps for multiplayer and for online matches. They had smaller maps you could play 4 or even 3 players on. World at War has less maps and all of them seem to be geared towards online play. While there are a couple that are fun for 4 players it is almost impossible to play 3 players on any of them. They are simply too big. The single player campaign is good but it is shorter than I would have liked.




For the most part, COD: World at War is a good game. Far more intense and action packed than COD4. It features more realism, such as improved AI and even dismemberment. Online matches feel much like COD4 and some of the maps are much better. It features similar perks to COD4, while adding some of its own. It is definitely a good game, but I would recommend anyone who doesn't mind waiting to hold of on it until the price drops. There are better games out there, such as Fallout 3 or even Rock Band 2, that deserve more attention and are worth the money.

More rantings about Oblivion and praises for Morrowind

Yeah, it's pretty obvious. I didn't like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I already bashed it in a previous post but I would like to clarify my reasons for disliking it. I was a huge fan of Morrowind. In fact, to this day, it remains my favorite game of all time. Even now, almost 7 years later, I'll take it out and start a new game or something. Basically, it was the game I had always wanted to find but didn't think existed. When I first played it I was amazed at the amount of freedom it offered. The almost limitless options for making your character. The varied and interesting landscapes, full of wonderful content to discover and explore. The, as it seemed at the time, almost infinite amount of dungeons available to find and loot. I played for hours on end without even touching the main quest. I was too intrigued by all the other stuff there was to do. Even now when I play it I still find things that I never found before. That, to me, is the mark of a truly great and timeless game. Yes, the graphics are a little dated and the fighting system may be aggravating for some people, but great games don't need flashy graphics to be good. This may not be true for other genres but, when it it comes to RPG's, graphics should not be what draws people to the game. That's what happened with Oblivion. Trying to reach out to a wider audience, the developers decided to revamp the graphics and fighting system (something which appeals to a lot of people), which is great, as long as other, more important aspects aren't left behind. Okay, call me a fanboy or delusional or whatnot, but a company should never alienate their fanbase by trying to appeal to a larger audience. The original fanbase is what made them what they are.

Before I go any further let me just say, I like Bethesda Softworks, I think they make good games (for the most part), and I don't think Oblivion is a terrible game. The thing about Oblivion is, like I said before, too much of what made Morrowind so great was left out. Oblivion has boring, redundant landscapes. There are three types of dungeons, and once you have seen one of them, they all look the same. Making everything adjust to your level was a big mistake. I don't want to be able to go anywhere and do anything when I first start playing a game. I want time to develop my character and have the excitement of finally being able to go to that place I couldn't go before. I also want the possibility of going to those places I shouldn't go to, who cares if I get my ass handed to me. The player should have that decision. My hope is that anyone who has played both Morrowind and Oblivion see the differences in both games, and see Morrowind as the superior game. Also I hope anyone who has played Oblivion and not Morrowind try it and see for themselves what makes it such an amazing game. I beg Bethesda Softworks to keep making this series and to learn from the mistakes in Oblivion (even though it appears they don't see it as such). I hope they look back at Morrowind, it was their masterpiece, and remember what made it so great.

All pictures from www.ign.com

When I buy a $60 videogame I want my money's worth

I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed a disturbing trend in video games. Video games are getting shorter and shorter each year. The genre most affected by this is the FPS (first person shooter). I recently bought Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War 2, both of which are good games with lots of intense action and fun gameplay. It's just that they both seemed to end and leave me wanting more. Both of them are beatable in 4-6 hours. If you take the price into consideration, that's $10-$15 per hour. Sure, there's multiplayer options and online capability, but some people don't have Xbox Live or people to play with. A lot of people buy games for the single player experience. It seems the game developers are beginning to focus more and more on online gameplay and less on multiplayer and single player.

Another trend that has been bothering me for a while is the lack of the "bot" option on all new shooters. There used to be an option in many games to add computer controlled AI characters to multiplayer matches. It added a lot to multiplayer matches and made games otherwise unplayable with 2 players more fun. I have to say though, recently games like Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War 2 have included a co-op option, which is great. There's nothing like sitting down with a friend and killing some Nazi's or aliens.

My ratings of recent games and some of my favorites

This is a list of recent and older games I have played on a ranking system of 1 to 10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. All ratings will be in multiples of .5. I hope to update this every once in a while:

10 = Almost perfect
9 = Amazing
8 = Great
7 = Good
6 = Average
5 = Rent first
4 = Play it if you must...
3 = Don't bother renting
2 = Not even worth a thought
1 = Play at your own risk

Newer Games (No more than 2 or 3 years old):

Fallout 3 - 9.5
Call of Duty: World at War - 8.5
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - 9.0
Gears of War 2 - 9.0
Gears of War - 8.5
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - 7.0
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 8.5
Burnout: Revenge - 8
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter - 8.5
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 - 7
Rock Band 2 - 10
Mass Effect - 9
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas - 8.5
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 - 7
Halo 3 - 8

Older Games (More than 3 years old):

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - 10
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 10
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - 9
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 10
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - 8.5
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - 6.5
Fallout - 9
Fallout 2 - 9.5
Burnout 3: Takedown - 8.5
Final Fantasy VII - 10
Final Fantasy VIII - 8.5
Final Fantasy IX - 8.5
Final Fantsy X - 8.5
Final Fantasy X-2 - 6

Fallout 3 vs. Oblivion

I recently bought Fallout 3 after months of anticipation. I am very pleased to say that it far exceeded my expectations. It is one of the best games I have played in a long time. Fallout 3 is an open-ended RPG similar to the open-ended gameplay of the past two installments in the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind and Oblivion. Just so there is no confusion Fallout 3 does have an ending, unlike Morrowind and Oblivion, but the thing that makes it open-ended is the fact that you essentially choose when it ends and what you do beforehand.

It's true that in a lot of ways Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns, but it offers so much more. While Oblivion was drab and repetitive, Fallout 3 has something new around every corner. Every inch of explorable land is crammed full of content. It is a lot smaller than Oblivion in land area but you don't notice because there is so much to do.

Oblivion had great graphics and an improved fighting system but lacked that which made Morrowind great. Everything seemed so redundant. When you've seen one dungeon in Oblivion you've seen them all. The quests for the factions were good but the main quest line was terrible. In the main quest you are forced to endure dungeon after repetitive dungeon until the last quest, which pits you against random hordes of monsters on your way to your destination. Probably the worst aspect of the game was that everything was adjusted to your character's current level. That means that depending on what level you do any specific quest on you could be facing harmless rats or ferocious monsters. I beat the main quest on level 5! Level 5!!! That means, literally, no good weapons or armor until you reach level 15 or so. You can't sneak into a cave laden with enemies that would otherwise obliterate you and steal some good loot at level 5. Nope, you must wait until you are at the approved level before you can have a big boy sword. What?... Level 5? It's a Steel Shortsword for you! In Morrowind I knew places where you could get a piece of the best armor or a great weapon before you even hit level 3! It just took some exploring and lots of saving and retrying. The developers tried to remedy this by making every dungeon in Oblivion regenerate every now and then. That means that if you explored it at level 5 you can still get good stuff from it at level 20. This was a simple remedy and not a solution. In Morrowind and Fallout 3 this feature isn't needed because there is more than enough content to keep people happy. In both Morrowind and Fallout 3 there are areas where you just can't go until you attain a higher level. In Morrowind you couldn't really even start the main quest until you were level 3-5 because the first mission was so hard.

Fallout 3 has everything that Morrowind had and Oblivion had (what little it did have) that was good and added even more. The fighting plays like an RPG-FPS hybrid and the main quest line is amazing. There are points in the story and in side quests were I really had to think about what to do because there were so many ways to do it. Another great thing included in Fallout 3 is Karma. Everything you do in the game affects your karma level, whether you choose to be good, evil, or somewhere in between. I usually like to go the path of the rogue turned saint but there are many characters to be made and developed. Fallout 3 is a definite must play for anyone into the action-RPG genre and even for anyone who is a fan of good games in general. Just a warning though, Fallout 3 is not, in any way whatsoever, a family game. Blood, gore, and plenty of exploding heads and dismemberment may make this game fun and funny for some, but horrifying and mentally scarring to others. So please, do not let anyone who is under the age of, I'd say, 16 play this game. It is not intended for children and should not be played by children. That is what the rating system is for, look at it before you buy it.

All pictures from http://www.ign.com/