Saint's Row: The Third (XB360): Swinging around a Big Purple Dick.

When I first heard about Saint's Row I had heard that it was a Grand Theft Auto clone and nothing more.  Because of this I had no interested in playing it. Same thing when Saint's Row 2 came around. But a few months after it was released I started to hear some rave reviews about how it was better than GTA. So intrigued I took home the second installment and after making a friggen picture perfect image of myself I began a highly entertaining play through that forever made me a fan of the game. After backtracking to the first game, I was more than ready to sit down and start playing...

SAINT'S ROW: THE THIRD (XB360)

The game picks up a few years after the events of  Saint's Row 2, and the 3rd Street Saints are the hottest thing on the streets since Wrangler jeans. Television shows, energy drinks, movie deals, their own clothing line, and still taking the time to bang on the streets. The game opens up with a severely made over version of the SR2 cast about to pull of a bank heist with some method acting movie star, although the routine has become that, just routine and uninteresting. However, this heist goes wrong as all the tellers are armed with shotguns and shit quickly goes haywire. After then ensuing gunfight with the bank tellers and the subsequent police swat teams, the Saints are arrested and then taken to the figure head of an organization known as the Syndicate. They offer the Saints a shitty deal and in typical Saints fashion mayhem ensues. After a daring escape we take control of the action and begin to take the streets of Steelport and get back at the Syndicate.

So right out the gate, I have to say I was a little disappointed with a lot of the hype going into this game. Primarily I was not thrilled with the overall design this time around. Everything in the trailer seemed very over the top and cartoony and when they started to show the game play footage it wasn't looking to be much better. When the game first opened up I wasn't even sure if the cast was the same until someone mentioned Shaundi. Looking at her new image I didn't even think it was her, I was actually disappointed because the easy going chill hippy chick had turned into the gun toting gangsta psycho. I guess it makes sense on a thematic level, she joins this gang and rises to the top ranks, then becomes famous has money so she changes her image, but ugh.. Makes her a lot less likable. It seems like all of the characters in this game took a step back visually, as pretty much every seems to have adopted a more animeish kind of appearance, and I would say this stands out with the twins the most. Its not off putting I guess, but SR2 did a better job of finding a realistic balance between real and silly.

Nope, not Tom Clancy's HAWX. Missions get as out of hand as this.

Speaking of the characters, the create a character for this one seems to be severely cut down this time around. I usually make two characters when I play a game like this, one of me and then just one designed completely off the wall. The first time through I try to make a reasonable facsimile of myself, ended up doing alright just inside of a half hour. But in Saints Row 2 almost every option had sliders which gives incredible depth to each option. This version of the game they took away sliders to just one extreme to another on some options. They also cut away layers as well. Before you could pick undies, socks, undershirt, shirt, jacket, pants, shoes, hat and accessories. And with almost all of these features you have a slider to adjust things and how they sit to your liking. Now you are restricted to upper body, lower body, undies shoes and hat. It seems like a nit picky thing to complain about but it seems like it would have been easy to just lift that from 2 to 3.

I felt the face wrinkles were a nice touch. Shows how fucking tired I look all the time

Ok, So watching me being all badass helps this game be awesome. Love when my character actually looks like me

Control is basically what you would expect out of this franchise. If you have ever played a Saint's Row game or even a GTA then nothing they throw at you here is gonna knock you for a loop. The combat is still fast fluid and fun with switching weapons and running and gunning being as simple and fun as it ever has been. Cars seem to handle a little more realistically than the last game but it still maintains that arcadey feel of being able to take a turn doing like 90 mph. Now if you are being pursued by another car you can actually shake them in traffic or turns unlike in the 2nd game where if you were being chased, they were on your ass constantly.

The game is presented as the typical GTA clone usually is. Although instead of finding your mission checkpoints on the map, now you have to make a call to one of the members of your crew to activate the checkpoint before you start the mission. Otherwise you are free to explore the city, fight gangsters, or complete the goofy minigames the city has to offer. Most of them are still there and to its credit, now they aren't exactly mandatory to do to unlock missions like they were in previous installments. This time around your respect functions as more of and experience gauge and the more you have the more abilities you can unlock. They did take away most of the cutscenes that go with it that explain why you need to do 300,000 dollars of damage with a tank or why you need to fling yourself in front of traffic. And what the fuck happened to the bouncer minigame, you pricks? I loved just flinging rabid fans off the roof of a building.

The games pacing is a bit off too. I get that the 3rd Street Saints are kind of a big deal by this point in their mythos, but you are basically in a shithole apartment for about 2 missions before you raid a massive multistory tower to get an elaborate pad. By that point you are already firing rocket launchers, sniper rifles, flying attack choppers. Weapons are pretty inexpensive and so are car mods. So there are two ways to look at this: Either its cool because it gives me the toys to wreck havoc early, or it sucks because there is no build up to get these rewards and their effect is diminished. Saints Row has always had a bit of a silly approach to the game, and by making the action as over the top it really amplifies this effect. Speaking of silly? Yes, this is a weapon....

No better way to humiliate someone then publicly beating them to death with a giant purple dick.

The game has a Whored mode which is basically just a series of rapid fire challenges its entertaining for a little but it just seems like something they could have spliced into the main game. There is also an online Co-op mode to play the campaign, but if you are going to play that make sure you have punched in your online pass. I have a friend who yelled at me for like two weeks about not playing the online mode with her, and after waiting for her for 2 hours to get to position to invite me to her game, she realized she didn't have the online pass and I basically waited for nothing.  More companies basically trying to kill used online gaming.

We did eventually get the online going, She gave her Vespa nitro....

Lastly I'd like to go over the sountrack a bit. One thing that Grand Theft Auto has over Saints Row is the goofy talk radio stations that you can listen to instead of the music stations. These to me are always funny and I was pretty disappointed to find out they weren't in this one. The radio stations were pretty lack luster for the most part I felt, there are a couple of decent tracks but for the most part nothing I really cared for. One feature that the game gives you is the ability to make a mix tape so you can just select the songs you like from all the radio stations and put them on to one. I was able to find some decent songs but ultimately I didn't think much of it....  However, on specific missions, they will play a song off the soundtrack to add to the feel of the mission. There is one specifically near the end of the game that I won't spoil (unless you know me on Derpbook) but its placement was so perfect and so genius that not only did it sell the whole mission for me, but it kind of dictated my decision to what I was going to do when I was presented with a choice as well. Days after I had finished it I was still humming the song and wanted to keep playing that mission. The soundtrack may have not been the best I've heard in a game, but they made some fucking genius calls for the placement of some of these songs.

Ultimately Saints Row: The Third knows what it is. It knows it was seen as a Grand Theft Auto knock off, so they go over the top to make things very silly and fun to play. Its because of this stance that I find myself agreeing with some of the people that think Saints Row is better. Even though I came into this game with lukewarm feelings about it, playing through it changed my opinion. If you have never picked up a game in this franchise you're really missing out. Its just a solidly built fun to play game.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (XB360/PS3): I've covered this game, you know....

So after the hideous abortion that I suffered through in Dead Island, I have been pretty eager to get around to playing this one. When the Xbox 360 was first released I was never a hurry to get one, and didn't till 3 years after release. They just released a shooter then a sport game, then a shooter, then a sport game. This continued for friggen years and I told myself I wouldn't get a 360 till they released some titles I had to have. One of those titles was Dead Rising, at the time a fresh angle from they typical Capcom survival horror genre to one of more hacky slashy action. With some minor frustrations it gave me everything I wanted in it. The subsequent sequel, they fixed many of those issues, but then took away the iconic hero we've come to love. So they've since released another version in....

DEAD RISING 2: OFF THE RECORD (XB360)

Basically the story picks up from the events of the first Dead Rising following the original protagonist Frank West. After being the journalist who uncovered the zombie infestation in Willamette, Frank was on a rocket to super stardom. Best selling books, hot girlfriend, meetings with the president, tv appearances, etc. But as his rise to fame inflated, it eventually had to burst. His TV show gets cancelled and he begins to bottom out, spending his time alone and drowning in the bottom of the bottle. As zombies become more common place he makes the decision to get his life back in order he'd make some money by going to Fortune City and fighting on a reality show apparently hosted by the Rock called Terror Is Reality, where he uses his zombie fighting skills to earn money. After an empty feeling victory, as he leaving he see's the Rock (actually called TK) make an a suspicious transaction with someone before fighting off some thugs who have cornered him. As he leaves the building there is an explosion that releases hoards of zombies and begins killing innocent people. After making his way to the saferoom with other survivors, a news story runs pinning the explosion on an zombie support activist group called C.U.R.E and their leader Stacey. So Frank and Stacey take to the zombie infested casino resort to discover the truth....

Did some of that sound familiar? Yeah, it did for me too. Almost like I have played this game already. Probably because I have, but then it was just called Dead Rising 2. Originally I thought it was intended to be an alternate timeline, like the game would follow along with the events that took place with 2's protagonist Chuck Greene. But as I found out right out the gate, its more along an alternate reality because aside from the story pretty much following the exact pattern of the first one, the first 2 that is, there is a cutscene and boss fight very early on where you actually have to fight Chuck Greene on his chainsaw motorcycle. Really, it was the most interesting scene because it painted an interesting picture and let me imagine how Chuck failed between Dead Rising: Case Zero and Dead Rising 2 and makes it a believable reality. That's always been an interesting concept to me, to take the hero of one game and make him a villain in the next, something that I believe was tried in Tales of Symphonia 2 and the now scrapped but being reconsidered Final Fantasy VII-2.

Chuck in DR2:OTR is one of the best scenes ever. The whole time you can imagine
 his decent from defeat to denial to insanity in the brief moments you see him. 

I'm getting off topic. Originally with this idea, I wasn't bothered that this is what they did. It fits well and its fun to see Frank's reactions to somethings.  But what bothers me is that it feels like in some of the scenes, Frank is just repeating the same lines of dialogue that Chuck delivered in the original version. I might have to replay 2 to confirm this. Frank does add to end of some fights some terrible cheesy one liner when he wins, and yes at one point he brings back his infamous catch phrase, but he delivers it with a smug irony, like he knows the humor of it now. However, when I feel the game starts to become something its own, sometimes someone will just say "Hey you're Frank West! Original dead rising 2 dialogue line!". This to me is somewhat irritating because it feels half assed. While the setting was the same, I hoped that the way the story played out would be different. Sure some scenes change subtly, but just call this what it is: Dead Rising 2: The version people wanted and we should have released first.  

Bibi is one of my favorite Pyscho's. Just an aging showgirl who just doesn't get it.
both Chuck and Frank act like their being hit on by their mom. Hilarious.

So for the most part, most of what made DR2 good is still here. Most of the controls haven't changed so its easy to pick up and start playing. Leveling up Frank functions the same way as the previous Dead Rising games, The best rewards are found from saving survivors who, like in DR2, are generally much smarter and braver than in the first DR game. So keep a handgun or shotgun handy for when saving people and order them ahead. They dash to the point and then huddle up and shoot anything that comes by. Much easier to save them in groups now. Bosses provide fairly decent PP as well and most of them can be found in the same places and times as the previous DR2. In addition to that, It wouldn't be Frank West if you didn't take pictures as well and taking them at the right time offers big PP opportunities, (lol, big PP.. It may be juvenile but its still funny). And yes the timed mission mechanic is still pretty annoying but at least you can just use the zombrex at the hour you need to than running back to the safe house to do it.

They have added some new weapon combinations and all of the old designs still work. The Bowie Knife + Boxing glove and the Broom + Machete combos are still the same arbiters of zombie decimation I grew to love in the previous game.  Some of them are good for a laugh but you'll basically stick to one or two powerful weapons and then if you are smart, you'll get the entertainment and blade magazines, when you get the Katanas you can pretty much the ride out the game with two swords that never break. Another good tip is when you find bars or coffee places, try to collect Wine or Coffee Creamer, combining 2 of each of those in a blender make a quickstep drink which covers a lot of ground quickly. So when not saving people its good to know where to make those because when saving people, they get the quickstep ability too, makes some rescues a breeze.

The soundtrack rocks my ass off. Dead Rising always has a kick ass soundtrack. The ambiance for the casinos and malls is the same plasticy "muzak" you would hear in actual malls. But when you would fight the psychopaths or other bosses, you get some kick ass hard rock, hardcore, or metal soundtrack that really amps up the fight and makes them very fun and entertaining. These soundtracks kick ass and totally make some of the fights and if you don't think so then you are brain damaged. Go to youtube and check out Celldweller's "Own Little World" or Chuck's boss theme "Firewater". Capcom understands boss fights and making them feel awesome.

There is also a sandbox mode, basically you get the freedom to browse the map and try to do various challenges that rank you online and reward you with money. You can carry this over to the actual story mode but It really isn't necessary as there are many was in the actual story mode to build money, its a neat little time sink though for the completionists.

The presentation in this game is what you have come to expect, graphically nothing has changed from DR2 to DR2:OTR. The survivors and zombies are pretty generic looking save the showgirls but not horrid. The major characters and bosses though, are all pretty well designed and have been polished up for the release, and with the proper HD sheen the characters could look downright lifelike, especially Rebecca Chang who admittedly I rule 34'd (don't judge me). The Boss characters are generally well designed and diverse as well, some of them just downright hilarious. A few of them reference some throw backs to previous DR games as well. I don't know why I didn't notice this before but something with the voice acting didn't settle with me. While most of the male characters act reasonably normal given the situation, all the of major female speaking roles with the exception of Stacey seem to be like they are all delivering their lines like they were hired by the soft core pornography actors association. All the dialogue they give is over sexualized and drenched in innuendo, and you barely get a feel for an actual character until much later in the game.

"Your performance was a little limp tonight, Frank. At that age you need pills for that."
I wish I was making that line up.

Rule 34: Its not always a bad thing... (seriously, Don't judge me)

One thing I wanted to specifically address about the presentation is Frank's actual appearance. When I first started playing the game I watched the intro cinematic and even the beginning play through, I thought little of it at first. "Oh there's Frank! This is gonna be awesome." But as I played on, in one of the first cutscenes the Rock mentioned that Frank sold baldness remedies, and it reminded me about the cover. I couldn't help but notice when I looked at it that Frank was definitely balding on the cover. It just looked strange, and now that they mentioned it I couldn't help but notice it. Then I started looked at his actual appearance as I played. I noticed Frank doesn't really run as much as he has kind of a waddling shuffle. He had that in the first DR but it definitely was more noticeable in this one, he also looked a bit more heavy set as well. I thought it was just design of the suit but nope, Frank got fat. At first I was somewhat off put by it, but then something clicked. Frank is an actual everyman. He's not a superhero, he's not some well cut trained soldier or a well traveled adventurer like say Nathan Drake. He's a dude who let fame get to him and lived a fast paced lifestyle that crumbled around him and fell into some bad vices. That topped on the degenerative nature of being bit by a zombie in the first game, it was completely natural and believable that he would let himself go. You tend to hear a large number of female gamers complain how women portrayed in video games are just over sexualized bombshells with massive chests. Now you are starting to see women in gaming starting to have more normal and regular appearances, but you don't really notice this kind of thing about men. I am going through the list of games across from my bed here, and aside from games with create a character, most of the male leads all have the same generic hero archetype. I stumbled upon this article that describes this realization pretty well. Perhaps this is a bit liberal arts douchey of me to make note of, but I thought it was an interesting point and I think I would like to see more actual average joe's as game protagonists.

Sorry about that, let me get back on track here. So if the game seems to be the exact same game as the one I played before, and not much of it seemed to just seemed to show any other variance the one before it, why would I continue to play it? Well, that's just the inherent beauty of this games design. Its just fun to run around to mash zombies into paste. And as I played through, the story does eventually start to branch off from the original path about half way through, making the game an alternate timeline as well.  I guess it still somewhat fits but the last boss is nothing short of ridiculous. But as soon as I finished, even having like 3 other games to play, I wanted to keep playing this one because I wanted to save all the survivors and keep leveling my character, keep discovering new weapons, want to rip through with my stronger character to see all the endings. I ended up playing this back to back just so I could rip through with all the levels and abilities I've earned. My same reaction to the other Dead Rising games.

Its a cool little add on to Dead Rising 2 but really it didn't need to exist. I, like most people, was pretty disappointed when Frank wasn't the star of the sequel but it was cool that Capcom listened to the fans and eventually gave them what they wanted. 40 Bucks for this title seemed a bit steep for something they didn't add all that much to, but I'm glad that I have it and its added the to play life of a game I was done playing. If you are a fan of Dead Rising, I would say it is worth a pick up but I might recommend waiting on it coming down in price a little bit. 

Bastion (XBLA): The indy game that could

As I recover from my new years hangover as I'm sure all of you are as well, I've decided to take a small break from the glamorous lifestyle of playing games by myself, and have enlisted the help of some contrasting personality and opinion for this next review. Lady Blue, The floor is yours...

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Hello! Big Sister here sitting in for our Ragemaster at the moment, to talk to you for a bit about Bastion - the little indy game that could.

BASTION: (XBLA, STEAM)

There were two things that attracted me to this game: the art style, and the fact that in the demo you could smash the fuck out of every single object in sight. I can say that the game delivered consistently on both of those points so if that's all it takes to drive you then it's worth a play through at least. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Bastion is a pretty simple, straightforward platformer. You play as a nameless character, known only as The Kid, who hacks his way through shortish levels capped off by boss fights. The Kid wakes up to an annihilated world and sets out to find what's happened, heading for a haven called The Bastion (which was conveniently built just in case this exact circumstance should occur). On the way there he realizes that pretty much everyone is dead, as a result of what they refer to in the game as "The Calamity". Adventure ensues.

I would not call the gameplay of this game its strength, as the levels (of which there are maybe a dozen or so) are pretty brief and the boss fights are not super challenging. What makes it so awesomely playable is Rucks, a secondary character who talks like a cowboy but looks like Colonel Sanders, and narrates your every move throughout the entire game. In in between action narration, he's dropping cryptic blurbs about the background of the story, what led up to this point, and where it could possibly be going. So, while you're playing the game, you're also being told a story. It might seem like it could get annoying, but it doesn't. Somehow it just works. In fact, I'm reading my own writing in Ruck's voice in my head as I'm writing it. How fucked up is that?

Other game elements include building up your home base with practical shops to work on your weapons or add challenges & powerups, collecting a series of weapons throughout the game which include melee and distance weapons, earning or finding special skills, and seeking mementos of all the folks who are now ashen corpses. (you run into them throughout the game and can hack them into smoky nonexistence. Effectively killing them twice). There are also some "shooting range" type of challenges for each weapon you acquire, with three prize tiers on each level.

As far as gameplay goes the play control is pretty good, although you can't really navigate in true 360 degrees so sometimes lining up shots is hard, but the game likes to auto aim on what's closest or mostly in front of you so it's not often an issue. If you're locked on, you can toggle targets, and if you're in attack mode, it will auto target to the next enemy once your focus is dead. You can be equipped with any two weapons at a time, plus a special skill and a shield which can also deal damage with well timed blocks. This brings me to one of my few complaints about the game: the in-level weapon swap. If you find a new weapon mid level (and you do, on almost every level) then it is auto-equipped-taking the place of whatever you were using before. You can't switch back until you return to the Bastion at the end of the level (unless you find an armory mid-level which happens not nearly often enough for my taste). At least the levels are short enough that you're not stuck with it for long, but I don't like being force fed an item. The only other real inconvenience has to do with the map edges. In this game, the ground is floating in an abyss. If you fall off the edge, you fall off the edge. You don't die, but you do take a damage hit when you come plummeting back onto the map. (Oh, I didn't mention that there is a lot of plummeting in this game).

As I mentioned, this isn't a long game. I played through in two sittings. If you want something super challenging then this probably won't grab you, but if you just want to be entertained by some beautiful game design a good story, and some odd folksy sort of music that is haunting and catchy in a way I never thought I'd enjoy but do in fact to a borderline obsessive degree, I'd say spend the points (or the five bucks, you Steam people).

The Ragey's: The Rage Quitter Year End Wrap Up.

So since I am an official blogger now so I guess I should do some kind of introspective year end post about everything I played. And since everyone and their brother seems to do some form of top ten list or awards listing, I guess I have to do one as well. Keep in mind, as I've said before, I am not a paid professional so I can only cover what I have played. So if I turns out I didn't list something you felt deserved and award, then I hadn't played it, didn't want to, or wasn't going to. So feel free to fashion an award with a wooden spoon and tin foil so you can accept on behalf of Gears of War 3 or Call of Duty because they won't get one here. Anyway, get comfy, and without further adieu...

The 2011 Ragey's: presented by Southern Comfort

It's not but seriously So-Co. Sponsor me.. Please..

10: The Angrily Masturbating outside of your Ex's window while their sleeping with their new fling award for "Game I wish I got to play" goes to....

The 3rd Birthday (psp)

Probably one of the worst things in of my most nerdy moments, is having to listen to me jerk off the Parasite Eve franchise. A horror action RPG that was released in 1998 on the Playstation and then released as a full blown survival horror with RPG elements in its 2000 sequel, this universe has always had a special place in my heart. From the very start of the first game where an opera house audience bursts into flames, I was in love with this game. After vanishing for 10 years it finally makes a return, but on the PSP of all things. It got very poor reviews and by that point I had stopped buying PSP games. So instead I lustfully imagine how much fun it could be every time I pick up the box longingly at work. Like I'm creepily stalking Aya Brea... Maybe someday.... someday...

9: The Adventure Express Garbage Coaster garbage award for "Biggest Disappointment" goes to.....

Dragon Age II (XB360/PS3)

I loved the crap out of the first Dragon Age and have played it through many times. It basically contained everything I liked about fantasy: long epic storyline, interesting and fun characters (except Alistair being a whiney douchebag), a reasonably simple combat interface, hilarious and serious dialogue, and a large degree of customization to character and story. So when I played the demo to see they borrowed some of the great aspects of Mass Effect II to give the character voice and make combat sharper and more involved, I expected DA2 to be superior in every way. More or less I felt that way about those two points but to make those improved they seem to do away with all the different maps, locations, and story. We almost get 3 mini stories that are rather slapdashly solved, leaving the game to just be one big tease to Dragon Age 3. I suppose its still fun, but it basically 5 maps stretched out to a massive intermission.

8. The Jigsaw was in the room the whole time award for "Biggest Surprise" goes to.....

Shadows of the Damned (xb360/ps3)

I had never heard of this game when it came out. It honestly didn't show up on my radar at all. Even looking at the box art I wasn't moved to play it. But when I went home that day and fired up my Xbox at least 3 or 4 friends were playing it. I flipped on my PS3 and 2 other friends were playing it as well. So out of curiosity sake I went back out and picked it up to try it. Needless to say it was basically all the fun I had with say Resident Evil 4 but what really grabbed my attention isn't so much the story as it was the sheer ridiculousness  of the banter and language used. The game is just a 8 to 10 hour dick joke. At first it came off as juvenile and annoying but the longer it went on the more silly and hilarious it became. Basically adding an interesting darkness mechanic, a stream of penis jokes, and a 3rd person shooter mechanic I have grown to love made this one of the best random finds for me this year.

7. The I don't gives a shit about two British Twats getting married award for "Most Over hyped game " this year goes to.....

Limbo (XBLA/PSN)

So I know I am going to catch heat for this one, but I can't think how many people came into their panties when they talked to me about how amazing this game was. One of the best things I can download on the marketplace. Almost every magazine gave it a stellar review and every critic ranted about how it was a must have. So finally getting around to play it I was stunned to find out this gem of a masterpiece was nothing more than a greyscale noir version of essentially a Mario game. Maybe platformers have passed me by but after a very impressive and cool looking first level featuring a chase from a massive spider silhouette, the game then dropped to a slow paced crawl for me leaving me with little motivation to keep playing. Don't get me wrong, Limbo is not by any stretch bad. I love the art style, the open ended interpretation of the story structure fits this game perfectly, and the puzzles are clever, but it just left me feeling emptier than I was expecting. That complied with a with a very abrupt ending, I felt that Limbo got a lot more hype than it deserves. I thought Braid was better.

6. The Ice Ice Can't Touch this award for "Amazing then Forgotten" game of the year.

Dead Space 2 (PS3/XB360)

So this listing was supposed to be my award for most underrated, but the 4 games I was going to mark as underrated were anything but after doing some research, so I'd like to take a second to talk about Dead Space 2. I really would try to push the first of this series when customers were looking for something different and people would give me endless complaints or reasons why they wouldn't play it. The 2nd game came out and sold incredibly well, selling well over 2 millions copies, yet whenever I discuss this game with others, I never seem to find anyone who likes the game. It's just a game with solid mechanics. A tried and true 3rd person over the shoulder shooter with intense action. The game may not be scary like other horror games are but its nice to fight things that don't just require a headshot to take down. If there are any games that deserve a replay, its Dead Space 2.

5. The 18.50 For two Coors Light drink minimum at the Glitter Gulch strip club in Vegas (seriously, fuck that place.) award for "Worst Value" goes to....

Portal 2 (XB360/PS3)

Man... This one is gonna hurt to write. I am such a huge nerd for the Portal franchise. But I have to be realistic. The first in this series was a wonderful little surprise stuck in as a bonus to the Half life: Orange Box, so despite it being a tad short, its more than adequate for what you paid for it. Portal 2 was a stand alone release and it can be near impossible to duplicate perfection. Now, I love this game. Love it to death, but lets be honest here. Its a tad longer than the first one and they did introduce some new characters and interesting mechanics for puzzles, but with no deviations to repeat playthroughs or the multiplayer getting fast enough DLC content, its a game that really you only need one play unless you're an achievement whore, which I am not. Love this game to death, but 60 dollars? I can't help but feel cheated.

4. The I'll have just one more then I'll quit, I can stop any time I want to award for "Best Value" goes to....

Yakuza 4 (PS3)

So I'll try to restrain from beating this game off any harder than I already have in the past 6 months since this blog's creation, but any game that I can play once, lose my save, play it AGAIN, and then continue to play it in premium mode tallying well over 150 hours and still only achieving about 34% completion, I can't think of a better example of money well spent. I still have the urge to go back and try to complete all the sidequests and mini games. With a mind numbing variety of different activities on top of the entertaining combat, Yakuza 4 easily takes best value.

3.5 The Lingering Sour taste in your mouth after a hot night in the P.E. storeroom award for the "award the writer did without checking to make sure the game was actually released in 2011, but didn't want to delete his work" goes to...

Final Fantasy XIII (XB360/PS3)

Ok Squenix, I know you are probably sick of making this franchise, but the middle finger you threw your fans with this game was absolutely heartbreaking. I didn't expect perfection again after you released the masterpiece that was Final Fantasy VI. But then you eventually delivered after so long with Final Fantasy X. I know things will never be as good as those two (7 is overrated, get over it.), but seriously? I felt completely cheated after this one. You produced a 60 hour straight line for us to walk, with potentially the worst and most dislikable cast of characters in franchise history, a story line that makes no sense and was completely uninteresting, a combat system that took away more control than XII's did, cut scenes that essentially repeated the same dialogue in every single one, and the cardinal sin of just slamming all the back story in boring text screens instead of weaving it into the game as I played. I played it through to the end was completely unsatisfied. Here's hoping XIII-2 in January functions as your apology, or you risk finally killing off this timeless franchise.

3. The Thankless Cog in the Machine honorable mention goes to....

Infamous 2 (PS3)

I don't really have very much to say about this game. They took a game that was very good and then improved upon it. They tried to change the look of the hero and the fans didn't like it, so they listened to what the fans wanted. They made sure to keep everything about the first Infamous that made the game fun and they brought in two other interesting characters and added some other elements for the hero to use. Its fun to go around the map and destroy things or just skyjump and hover around. And the story line (the hero one) was well done and actually gives a difficult moral choice at the end of it. Both versions of Infamous should be an absolute staple of any PS3 owners library. Just a very good game that doesn't seem to get the recognition it deserves.

2. The Surprise guest starring role in a Bukkake Video award for "Worst Game of the Year" goes to.....

Dead Island (XB360/PS3)

Proof that the addition of zombies to anything does not always make a game better. For a guy who doesn't play very many online games and especially one that didn't like ones like Borderlands, Dead Island was hands down my worst game purchase of this year. After playing single player for an hour or two, I became so bored that I wanted to stop playing and take it back. After a brief bit of fun with some friends and dropped further along, boredom sunk in immediately again as the game was now too hard to advance alone. Its too slow, too long, combat is buggy and not entertaining, the story is uninteresting, the character models look bug eyed, the soundtrack is depressing, I could go on. I was incredibly excited about this game but getting excited over a single promotional CGI animation can bite you on the ass. And It certainly did here. The more I look back on this game the more I regret getting it. Fuck Dead Island. Dead Island Sucks.

1. The Biagio's Large Sausage and Pepperoni Pizza incredibly regionally specific reference Award for "Best game of the year" goes to...

Dark Souls (PS3/XB360)

If you didn't see this coming, you need to get your brain checked. Being a gamer back in the C64 era, I have grown up on games being merciless to me. This game brings up a pulse rate and an excitement while I play it ever single time that no other game does. The fact that I can play it through multiple times and never get bored with it, memorizing every inch of map and learning every item combination, and still get my ass kicked by common enemies or drop in to win and lose PVP without having to hear children screaming in ear as I play just adds to this release. Every single time I play a character and say "alright, next time I want to try it as THIS type of character" and repeat the process over and over again. The game is brutal but easily the most satisfying when you start to master this game. And every time I stop playing it for a few weeks and pick it back up, its brand friggen new again. Dark Souls is just flat out fun and awesome if you have the patience to hang in there.

Thank you all for reading for the past six months and making this fun for me to do. Hope your holiday was good and your new year doesn't suck like I expect mine to. See you in January.

White Knight Chronicles II (PS3): Meh uhhh Knight....

When the PS3 first was introduced, I remembered seeing trailers and screenshots for an RPG called White Knight Chronicles. The graphics didn't seem like it was using the PS3's power but I chalked it up to being in the rough stages of the game. After a severely delayed release, and very lukewarm reviews at best, I still picked the game up. I found it to be fairly unimpressive and unimaginative, but enough happened in the story line to keep my interest to see it through, and the online aspect of the I did actually kinda like, so overall I enjoyed my experience with it. So with that I reserved and picked up the continuation of the story in.....

WHITE KNIGHT CHRONICLES II: (PS3)

Now, This game came out in September, Along with some other higher profile games so it's sat on my TV stand waiting to be opened, and I've finally caught up with everything I wanted to play so forgive me if this comes off as a bit of a dated review.

The story picks up about one year after the events of the first one, where the protagonist, Leonard, and his rag tag band of friends attained the powers of "Knights" to rescue princess Cisna and defend Balandor from the Yshreninan Empire, (I'll give you a minute to recover from the staggering originality). The 2nd opens up with a neighboring country of Faria breaking out into a civil war, and a blue clad knight who goes by Scardigne trying to escape with the country's heiress, Miu. Just as they get cornered and are about to be killed, Leonard and his friends swoop down to make the save. They join in the fight to save the girl and return her safely home, where they begin to start a quest to form alliances and learn the keys to the Knights to take the offensive and finish the Yshreninan Empire for good.

Cisna is a figurehead and driving force for the Protagonist, but is essentially useless.

As you no doubt have already noticed, this game is not exactly breaking the mold in terms of storyline. Even when I played the first game nothing about anything seemed overly original. It uses the pretty well tread evil empire/save the princess story line, and the 2nd one picks up just after that. Because so little time passes from the first to 2nd there doesn't appear to be much change in the universe and it doesn't even feel like its like the start of a new adventure. Final Fantasy X-2 while perhaps lacking in the story aspect compared to the first, at least showed some radical change in the game's world and the philosophies within it. WKC2 almost plays like a recap of what happened before, before making the jump to reach the eventual conclusion. Even the characters themselves seemed kinda bland and uninteresting. Nothing about the name "Leonard" screams savior of the land to me, but to be fair neither did "Tidus" and that was probably one of my top two or three favorite RPGs ever. All of the area locations and character names just scream young audience to me. The chief offender is the elderly party member who's name is Eldore. ELDORE. Seriously?! I would love to know the thought process that went into the creation of this character: "So we have a character here and he's some what older than the rest of the team.. He's their elder.. Elder.. Eldar... Eldore. Fuck it. Put it in." Every single time they say his name I get douche chills from it. The guy is never in my party. Every location and everyone with the exception of maybe Yulie, has a fairly common name that just spreads the blandness across the board.

The game plays like a mix of the standard JRPG, a bit of an MMO, and a sprinkle of action RPG. You have main control over your one character and the other support members follow you along. All of the enemies are clearly on the screen and unsheathing your weapon will take you into combat mode. Combat isn't exactly precise. So long as you are within a certain range your attacks will land as long as you were close enough when you first hit the attack button. There are 9 or 10 weapon classes available and some characters can't use some of them. But as you travel down the skill tree you get different variations of your attacks, that usually break into a Slash, Stab, or Smash variety and sometimes with elemental additions to them. You get three menus at the bottom of your screen where you can place your favorite attacks or spells so you can easily flip through the menus while attack or casting to set up your next move. In addition to this, you can also create combos to string together a number of attacks using action points. Your created combo only takes up one slot so you can make a few to help in different situations, (I usually would just make all slash, all stab, or all smash for enemies weak to one). The previously mentioned action points are used to use specific high level attack/spells, combos, or summon the specific character's Knights. The Knights are essentially giant Mech suits that can take a bit more of a beating and have bigger attacks. You can use them as long as you have MP to use the attacks or there are enemies to fight. I would say that combat is more exciting than a turn based counterpart, but I often found myself just running past battles after a while, as the rewards seemed kinda lacking and leveling took forever.

Graphically the game isn't all that impressive. It used pretty standard anime archetypes down to the oldest person with the squintest eyes being the villain. They don't even really go out of the way to improve the graphics from one to two. Enemies also seem to have the problem of only really being 6-9 different types of monsters with different color schemes, and even still the monster types aren't even that imaginative: wolves, bees, spiders. Yeah yeah I've seen it before.  I will concede that they did a pretty good job with all the CGI animations. Most of those are very sharp and fun to watch, usually in situations where there is a large monster or some epic war scale battle about to place. They move smoothly and cleanly but other than that nothing about this games presentation is anything to write home about.

When you start the game, you are taken to a character creation screen. When I first started the first game, this  had me incredibly worried that it was going to be one of those stories where people address a mute character, or make some joke about them not talking. Silent protagonists made sense in earlier days of gaming, but games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age 2 showed that you can create a character without having to make them a mute. So after designing my amazonian woman who would specialize with greatswords, I found out that the character plays more in the backdrop of the main story. She is occasionally addressed or noticed, but essentially she is just a silent helper for to use if you don't like some of the other characters (like Eldore). So you would ask if they have no functional point to the story, why include them?

The main reason for this is the online aspect of the game. As you go through towns or find new area's of the world map, you can buy or unlock online quests you can do for experience. You can play these when you enter the world map, each specific location has a set of quests you can do granted your "Guild level" is high enough. You can chose to play these online with other players for experience or item rewards, or you can play them offline with your current team. The difference there is you can only play your created character. So some of the boss fights can get tricky as you can't bounce to another character to use a specific ability or spell. If your created character drops, the mission for you ends unless its multiplayer or there are specific respawn rules. Its an interesting and entertaining mechanic, but its not something I did very much of. With one or two hour time limits, it gets draining going across the maps chasing a checkpoint sometimes. That being said I did do a little of and did a little commentary to show some of it. It probably sucks but here it is.

Something I was pretty happy with is that it gave me a fairly significant bonus for keeping my WKC1 save. In addition to letting me keep most of my stored items, money, and equipment, the game starts me off at level 35 and gives me all of skill points so I could re-allocate them wherever I wished which allowed me to hit the ground running. Most games that carry a save give you a fairly minimal bonus so getting this huge jump out the gate was nice.

Something I was not happy with, surprisingly, is saving my game. I know that sounds idiotic, but most games only take a few seconds to save, but White Knight? Well, just take a look....

I actually hit 80% at about five seconds and it more likely stopped at 32. But still, if saving my game took so long that I didn't want to do it, then thats a serious problem for my progression and willing to save often to be safe.

These games are pretty short too. I was able to beat both WKC1 and WKC2 in about 30 hours so as far as the standard RPG goes you could probably hammer one of them out in the course of a weekend. The biggest complaint that I have with WKC2 is that there is virtually no innovation or deviation from the 1st game. There is nothing really new that is immediately apparent to me. So I suppose my question here is, did we just get one full length game broken up over 2 releases, or did they just intend for them to be shorter because of the online features of the game? And if it is the latter, why did it take so long to release a sequel that was pretty much a carbon copy of the first game? There didn't even really seem to be very many new maps as you tread the game basically in reverse order from the first one.

Its hard to even hate on this game because it feels like picking on a 5 year old school project for "special" class when you are an adult. It is incredibly disappointing because I have come to expect so much better out of Level 5 games. The first game I played by them was on the PSP in Jeann D'arc which as far as tactical RPGs go, is one of my most underrated and wonderful surprises ever. They also produced the Professor Layton series so I know they know how to produce good, solid video games. So for them to produce an incredibly lack luster game, and then wait two more years to give me the same game again with a little furthering of the story, just leaves me feeling cheated and disappointed. Despite this tear I've been going on, I hesitate to call the game "bad". It's just so average on every aspect its not worth getting excited over, either with enjoyment or anger..

I would say this game could be good if you don't have a lot of time to invest in a deeper RPG like Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy or Disgaea, or if you are just looking to get the RPG bug out of your system. But other than that a recommendation for a game like this is about as lukewarm as its reviews. Wait for it to hit a bargain bin, because it most likely will. At least they have the courtesy to provide both games on the Blu-Ray for WKC2 so you only have to buy it once.

Hopefully I'll have something after holiday with a bit more meat on it, so hang tight.

Elder Scrolls- Skyrim (XB360/PS3): What the hell is wrong with you people?

I didn't want to write this one. 

I REALLY didn't want to write this one.

But I had a number people clamoring to me about this game telling me that its going to get game of the year nods and stands one of the best releases this fall. But god damn it, I knew how I was going to feel about it going in. Western RPGS and I have never gotten along. We have a very Love/Hate relationship. They love to suck, and I hate playing them. I didn't care of the games that have come before it, specifically: Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. But people kept asking, and kept asking, and kept asking for me to do this one. So I said to myself if I was going to review this game, I have 3 rules to follow: 

1.) Try to be as objective as possible.
2.) Do not compare it to Dark Souls at every given opportunity.

3.) Give it at least 3 days of play before I write anything.

So here we go. Remember readers: you asked me to do this. I didn't want to.

ELDER SCROLLS: SKYRIM(XB360)

The story starts off with my character waking up in a wagon with shackles on. Apparently he was caught and knocked out on the border of Skyrim, and is being carted away for execution because they assume you are part of a rebel resistance against their empire. This is where you create your character. Typically when I play an RPG of any kind where I get to create a character, I tend to fall into the archetype of either the area of effect mage, or the damage soaking damage dealing tank character.  So since I was playing something outside of my comfort spectrum, I decided to play a character type I usually never do. So Thus I used Skyrim's terrible create-a-character to create "Bainan Elvendrez" who was going to specialize in stealth and thievery. While the character creation did provide me with a myriad of options, I tend to find that all the options didn't seem remarkably different from each other besides the races. All the character designs looks rough, and despite giving me a number of slider options, all the characters still looked like shit. So after settling on a wood elf with some light scruff and a stupid Mohawk, my character is brought up to the execution block and just before the axe comes down, a dragon appears on a tower and wrecks havoc. My character bolts off to follow and you take control of the game. You can chose to follow either your captor or your fellow prisoner, but it was so clusterfucky that I just followed who it was I saw.

After a brief escape segment where it somewhat explains the buttons and directions and gives you some introductory equipment and some minimal direction, you enter the world of Skyrim. The open world map, much like it predecessors, is friggen massive. It doesn't give very much in the way of a linear path so it is easy to get lost just exploring things. Or if you are like me and have a poor sense of direction, just easy to get lost. After I escaped the first town from the dragon attack, my partner said I could find a small town just north of where I was. Instead of following him down the path I fiddled with the buttons a bit  to familiarize myself and lost him. So I tried to follow what seemed to be an obvious path, but where it ended up being a very narrow path on the side of mountain, not being a great first person player I misstepped and fell off the side of the mountain into a chasmy area. Basically a hole around steep walls. There was no where to walk and unable to climb. In a matter of minutes of starting the game, I got myself glitch locked in the side of a mountain. Not a great start for a game I had severe trepidation about playing to begin with.

But after cussing a bit, getting a drink, and reloading my save I figured out that I could take the game out of First person mode and instead play third person. This was a billion times more comfortable to me and this is what I stuck with the whole time with the game. So now I followed the guy down and found the town of my own accord. Helyen or whatever if was called. First thing I see when I walk into town is a chicken on the ground, so for shits and giggles I take a swing at it. Suddenly, the entire hamlet of Derpingsburg grabbed the torches and pitchforks and proceeded to lynch and gut my elven ass in a matter of seconds. Seemed like a simple "Don't do that or we are are calling the guards" would have been more and sufficient in this situation. The next time around I go around town and try to get a room at the Inn, I wanted to get a feel for the thievery aspects my character would be doing. For locked doors and chests, there is a small lock picking mini game, that's difficulty decreases the better you get at it. I was actually a big fan of this because it reminded me of a very old Nintendo game by the name of Hillsfar were you would you would have to pick locks with actual pick tools. However any fun I would have with this was effectively dashed by Delphie, the innkeeper. This bitch would stand in the doorway of the room I was in, and WOULD NOT FUCKING MOVE. I would walk around the room and try to duck or do ANYTHING to get her leave. Sometimes she would take a few steps away, I would dart to the door only to have her step back in the way. It took me me almost 20 minutes to get out of the damn Inn. Finally after talking to some of the villiage idiots and spending what little money I had on heath potions, I decided to do some quests.

Is Bainan Elvendrez gonna have ta cut a bitch?

The maps are too big, and the way points are not clear. This has always been a massive complaint of mine for this series. Traveling through the Skyrim countryside is picturesque and impressive. While the character models I felt look like shit, they really do a pretty good job with their landscapes. Everything that I saw from a distance was very serene and I also liked how the game appeared to move in real time between light and dark, and perhaps I'm remember wrong but I thought there were weather changes as well. My problem is without any major guide to let me know if I was on the right path or not, I continued to find myself wandering around, trying to find what specific path or road or cave I was trying to find to get my side quest started. I can't tell you how many times I was walking straight towards a way point marker and found myself circling a fucking mountain trying to figure out how to get up. More often than not I would start climbing areas I was not supposed to be and getting myself perched on ledges with no means of going higher but too steep a drop to get back down. If not that, I found myself getting bored just walking around. Sometimes eating up more than 30 or 40 minutes of time just trying to get to a destination. Occasionally I would get attacked by a wolf or try to kill some wild game. But that's not enough for me. This is a complaint I have made before in games like Borderlands, Dead Island, Oblivion, or even the Assassin's Creed franchise. If you are going to give me a stupidly large map to wander then you better give me some means to traverse it fast, or have shit happen while I'm walking into it. I never have this problem in like Red Dead Redemption, Saint's Row, or GTA because they provide fast modes of travel or things to do along the way. But no, In the Elder Scrolls franchise its just walk walk walk walk walk. It gets incredibly boring to me. Many people immediately shoot to me "Oh but you can fast travel." Which is true. But you can only use after you have already visited a location. And trust me, once I have I fast traveled constantly, but the over world travel is just boring as hell for me.

Yo Dawg, I herd you liek Trees and Mountains. So we put in like
10 billion of them between you and the destination. Enjoy.

So finally getting to some crypts for a quest I was doing, I finally got into the some combat. I think the first major one I did was trying to find a gold claw or something. The combat has a slightly similar button configuration to that of Demon's/Dark Souls in way that the shoulders are needed to swing the weapon or raise my shield. So because of those familiar buttons I didn't have much trouble getting used to that. What DID bother me, was the location of the jump and menu buttons. Perhaps I've played too many JRPGs but from the SNES on, the Top button (Y, Triangle, etc) is always the menu and B/O button is always jump. So in the heat of fights, I would try to quickly get to the menu so I can used my potions and instead I would jump in place and get killed. After a few cheap deaths, I finally had to switch those around. I still did it as I was learning to adjust to the new button locations but I finally did it less after the fact. The combat seems to be very loose as this games combat takes more of an action RPG route. It requires your reticle to be on target or the attack might miss. This is something that will happen often if you are trying to do a power swing, as the animation will usually have you swing right past the enemy. This to me is in desperate need of a lock on of some type, it would make the third person combat a bit more precise, Demon's/Dark Souls has pretty good example of how this kind of combat works, and while I am pining on about this, a couple of hit or stun animations would have been nice to signify when I hit or am getting hit. The life bars drop yeah, but if I am fighting two or more enemies I am not looking at the life bars. If its going to be like that then the least they can do is give me more of a window for my strikes to land, something comparable to Dragon Age might have helped too where you need to be somewhat within range. Much like the over world, the caves and dungeons seemed incredibly long and I would often find myself wondering how much longer before I found the end of it. They were never so long that I wanted to put the game down though, and some of them did keep playing a few hours longer than I wanted to for a session.

I suppose my biggest complaint, and this is probably more of just me being a snooty English major (not a good one, mind you), in the regard that I felt no weight for the story. I knew I was captured and that I was a "Dragonborne", and that I needed to meet the Grey Beards. But after that point I got so lost and distracted by side quests I didn't even remember where it was I was supposed to be going. A lot of times when I am trying to follow the story, some other asshole NPC will shout some dialogue over what I'm listening to and then I miss something important. I never felt like there was any weight behind my actions, and everything had an annoying fetch quest MMO feel to it. I was starting to get interested in the werewolf story lines, (and for exploration the beast form was a necessity for me) but even those got bogged down by massively far destinations, which would usually result in me starting up closer quests.

All the werewolf stuff was the most fun I had. Coolest looking characters too.

I've been told that the monsters in the game level up with your character, but a particularly infuriating moment of the game is when I actually needed to seek out these grey beards. I had a very difficult time finding where I needed to go specifically to get up to the top of the mountain they were on, climbing up on the wrong sides of them on more than one occasion, but after several hours I did eventually find the "7000 steps" I was supposed to take to get there. On the climb up I'd kill some baddies and then would be greeted at the top by a Frost Troll. This fucker wiped me out in a single hit. So I had to figure out were I went to get back up there. Eventually I found a path and kept getting crushed by it. I then had the brainstorm to save just before so I wouldn't have to keep climbing that fucking mountain. This thing was unbeatable for me. I couldn't take more than 2 or 3 hits tops from it, my spells were so piss weak I could barely register damage, my shouts did nothing to help me. This fight was a total wash, so my only recourse was to try to out run it to my destination. This eventually worked but not without multiple reloads.

Fuck these stupid things right up their hairy assholes. 

It was after that point I had a greater comfort level to the game, fast traveling to towns, ripping through dungeons, looting peoples stuff and trying to create new equipment. But during all of this, during the numerous hours I played it I could not once register any boss battle, enemy, dungeon or story plot that made me reflect that I was having fun. I just wasn't. Yeah some of it was interesting enough to keep me going, but I just was not enjoying this game.

I just don't get it. I'm a pretty savvy gamer. Ive played several games and pretty much will give everything a shot. I know that a number of the things that I said are the reasons people love these games. I argued with a number of my friends about my complaints and they stared at me baffled, like I was speaking another language. One friend said to me "You have a unique personality, You just look at things differently." and I suppose that makes sense, different people register different fun. I love bowling, but the template for whom Bainan Elvendrez was created has told me constantly he hates bowling. Different Tastes.

I really tried, people. I really did.  I really tried to give this game a shot, and try to take it for what it is, and tried to figure out what is that makes these games so goddamn popular.I didn't want to write some hate speech to be shocking, and did my best give an honest review with an honest opinion. But I am just not seeing it. Maybe I was just too late to the party to join in now. Maybe I'm too ingrained on the traditional JRPG systems that I grew up with. Maybe I just hate excessively long walks. I don't know. But what I do is this: I don't think I will ever enjoy the Elder Scrolls Series. Every single one of them leaves more bored and disappointed. I feel like I'm being left out of some club and everyone else is having a great time. But when I got in, I didn't feel right. I felt happier at the smaller club that was more to my taste and played the music I liked. I don't know how anyone could play a game like Dark Souls and then play Skyrim and then think Skyrim was better. It just baffles me. Making the map 300 times bigger than ridiculous doesn't make a game a epic, it makes it tedious. Having unresponsive combat doesn't make a game challenging, It makes it annoying. Having a multitude of different story options may deepen a game, but it can also distract. The VGA's (the biggest fucking Non-Award show in history) gave Skyrim game of the year, and nobody seemed bothered or surprised by it. Just met with a lukewarm acceptance that a game that's been out for about a month now is being mentioned as the best game of the year. It just stuns me. Look, if you are a fan of this series you will probably be a fan of this game.

But I think you people are friggen insane. Fuck this game.

PS: I put out a Gag Video for my friends before I started playing. Kinda wish I used the real stuff now. 

Yakuza 3 (PS3): Just a Quickie.

YAKUZA 3:(PS3)

Friggen hell. 9% How much shit do they cram into these games!?
How much time do you think I have Yakuza 3?!