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Posted on 06.21.07 by skintari @ 9:35 am
Hello, fellow readers, Today I post on something that’s going down in the gaming community. As you see, I play games. I like them. I like the creativity, novelty, and education that goes into a game. Not to mention the hard work and constant stress it takes to refine it into something that can be enjoyed by many. However, I don’t like when certain people force their uninformed opinions and jurisdictions on me. What I’m referring to is the recent debacle known as manhunt 2. It is a game that may never be released thanks to the governments bully tactics. and by bully tactics, I mean the esrb. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great idea to keep adult material away from the hands of children, but I also strongly believe that the best person to make a childs decision is THE PARENTS. Manhunt 2 is just a glimpse of what our society can regress to. It IS an ultra-violent game with a sadistic theme and protagonist. However, it is a creative game nonetheless. The esrb is currently rating this game as AO (adult’s only), which is fine. but that limits the places that will actually carry this game for retail. That means any national retailer will not carry it (although I have seen movies, such as hostel, be promoted at these retailers). It also means that some consoles will not carry it at all (as is the standard policy for Nintendo AND Sony). I also believe that the AO rating is bs. Why is there an M rating? Wouldn’t Mature also be Adults Only? While an AO rating could be “technically” applicable, why is it that it’s only applied to games? In fact, this game has already been completely banned in the UK. How soon before games are completely banned in the States as well? And why do games get negative preferential treatment? Is the creativity not as in line as movies? Are games, which have always been viewed as children’s entertainment, not allowed to “grow up”? One would think that Grand Theft Auto, Bully, and other “alternate reality” games made the point that games are purely fiction and there is no correlation to real life. No matter how “real” the games may seem? As a responsible adult, I can tell the difference between right and wrong and I can discern between virtual and reality. Why must I be forced to adhere to a policy (the ESRB) that is unfair? Our only way to combat this biasedness is to talk. Make it known that you’re a rational person that wants to experience Manhunt 2. With enough of a stir, somebody will have to listen. And hopefully that person can be a collective voice for us all. As Dennis Hopper once said: “You know what’s wrong with America? If I lovingly tongue a woman’s nipple in a movie, it gets an “NC-17″ rating, if I chop it off with a machete, it’s an “R”. That’s what’s wrong with America, man….” That couldn’t wring more true during this debacle… Filed under: General and Rant and skintari Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.19.07 by skintari @ 10:06 am
Morning, all! I come this morning to tell you some very unfortunate news. I fear that the Wii may not be all it’s cracked up to be. “How can I say this?”, you ask. Easily. I rented Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. This game is the one that’s supposed to really utilize motion sensor and the freedom of both controls. It doesn’t. I can’t say I disliked the game, it is rather enjoyable, but for the PS2. I found the Wii-mote and the Nunchuk to be unresponsive and sluggish. What used to take about .5 seconds to do a combo now took close to 3 seconds. This gave your opponent plenty of time to block. The fact that all the special moves were done by holding the B button and flailing your arms about also became futile. In the off chance that the “special” moves worked, you had to be far enough away (but not too far) from your opponent for it to be effective. This only happened once every 15 times or so. The game itself is a reiteration of the PS2 version. That means it was exactly the same, save for the motion sensing. Nintendo, I am disappointed by you. I am so hoping that the Wii can support games that can take advantage of the motion controllers without becoming frustrating and bothersome. So far, I feel that the list for those games are going to be very few and far between. *I am not going to give this game any stars as it’s not worthy on the Wii. I suggest you find the budget title for the PS2 and get that. It’s worth the $10 dollars. Filed under: Rant and Review and Wii and skintari Comments: 4 Comments |
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Posted on 06.12.07 by skintari @ 9:56 am
Hello everybody, It’s been awhile since I posted, as I’ve been on vacation. But I’m back now with an all new review! First off, Tiberium Wars (Command & Conquer, like 45..) is a good game. If you are a fan of the RTS or if you’ve just enjoyed a previous C&C game on the pc, then you will like this game. I say that, because I’ve only played a couple of the pc games and have always had fun with them. By no means am I swayed by the name itself or the genre, they’ve just been entertaining to me! Alright, on to the game facts! TW works well on the 360. The controls are fluent and the game play hasn’t lost anything in the transition to the console. Most of the commands can be activated using the trigger buttons, and you still maintain control over your home base while in the midst of battle. Using the sticks give you the same versatility as using of a mouse to scroll over troops or to view the map and the a/b buttons work as well as mouse clicks. The graphics, to me, are equal as to what you’d see on a pc. Although, I think they did a fantastic job on the actual cutscenes. If you have a “hi-def” setup, you can certainly tell that they put a lot of effort into the quality of the scenes. I think this adds to the overall viewing of the game as I found myself wanting to watch them in between the battles. Another thing to note is that they actually brought over all of the actors to resume their rolls in the series. They also added a very special guest. I will not divulge who that is, as it was a treat when he strolled onto the screen! Now, onto the bad. One of my biggest gripes of this game is the squad selection. There are some instances when you want to select a few troops. In order to do this, you have to hold the left trigger and select the troops with the A button. This can be a little flaky and you either end up selecting too many troops, troops that you did not want to select, or it’ll just give you directional arrows (which I do not understand what they do at this point because it’s all relatively point and click). The only correction would be to reselect the armies you want. This doesn’t take a long time, it’s just frustrating when it happens in the middle of battle and you’re trying to bring in reinforcements. This issue is so sporadic that it doesn’t necessarily effect game play, it’s just a hassle every once in a while. Another problem I have with this game is the menu to see your current missions. The way it works now is that you have to hit the back button to go into the mission archive. I wish that they had put it as an overlay screen instead of pausing the game to review what is left to accomplish. And finally, the building process can be a tad tedious. Once you have a building ready to be built, the game makes you cycle through your commands to actually build it. It would be a bit more fluid if it would just select the building automatically when it’s available. Most of my complaints are cosmetic and do not necessarily hurt the game play. In fact, These are really the same complaints that I’ve had with the pc versions as well. So with that being said, I really encourage gamers to give this one a shot. It’s a good game and is quite fun, even if you’re not a true RTS fan. Plus, you’ll enjoy the special guest in the cutscenes, I promise! I give this game a 4.5/5. It’s worth a rental to see if you like it! And definately worth buying if you do! Filed under: Review and Xbox 360 and skintari Comments: None |
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Posted on 05.22.07 by skintari @ 9:43 am
Here’s a little game that came out, courtesy of D3. It’s the Americanized version of “Genocide Grand Prix” (Japan). This game costs about $10 and you can find it at just about any local game store with a tad bit of looking. I definately recommend picking it up for the sheer thrill of it! So, what is Drive to Survive you ask? Well, it’s not a very good game. The graphics are dull and common, the camera can mess you up, and the AI can be “too good”. But the fun of this game is the multiplayer! It’s your basic 3rd person racing game. The difference is that you have weapon pick ups that you can use on your “enemies”, ala Twisted Metal. The cars handle like a wet sock, but that sometimes works to your advantage. The game is not very deep either. There’s 3 tiers of single player racing with about 15 different tracks. Once you beat that, there’s not much else. But the multiplayer is the meat of this game. With 3 friends over, you can spend hours blowing each other up. Every time I have played the multiplayer, I have ended up in tears from laughing so hard. It is that much fun! Overall, this game is a 2/5 for single player. But the multiplayer is definitely worth a couple extra points…..so it gets a 4/5 for that. My recommendation is if you see this game, it’s worth the few bucks to pick it up!
Filed under: PS2 and Review and skintari Comments: None |
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Posted on 05.15.07 by skintari @ 9:57 am
I know, that title prolly doesn’t seem like something you can wrap your head around, but wait! don’t skim past this article! I’m talking about a new game called Puzzle Quest. This game comes a referral by Beuks, so you know it’s gonna be classy. The basic premise of the game is a combination of the online fan favorite, Bejeweled. The difference is the rpg twist that it has incorporated. Now, this may seem a little absurd, but the game actually flows nicely. You start off by creating your “character”. The choices are pretty basic, warrior, knight, “magician”, and druid. You really only pick the sex and makeup, no additional features can be changed, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about gameplay! So you start off in the center of the map with a standard rpg story line. Go see your father, go check out different towns, and so on. Once you begin, you can stop at the tavern and get some helpful clues. Then you start the training. It takes awhile to understand everything that’s going on, but once you do…..look out! The battle sequences look something like this….  If you notice the different colors, those are for your spells and weapons. Once you have collected the sufficient amount, you can cast damage or protection. Each character also has it’s own unique set of items that they can use. During this battle, you can also collect mana (money) and the purple bursts are used to boost your experience. The skulls are what inflicts damage onto your opponent. That’s pretty much the jist of the battles. Once a battle is over, you can return to the castle where you can spend your money on various weapons and upgrading you castle. You can purchase things like a forge which gives you the ability to make “super weapons” and specialty items. Some buildings also let you capture creatures after beating them in battle 3 times. The way to capture a creature is buying completing a puzzle. Some of these are easy and some of these are hard. But they are pretty fun. The only negative is that the game can get pretty overwhelming on some of the battles. Some of your enemies cast spells that gives them like 8 turns and the whole time you just sit there and watch your life drain. Other times, there will be only one move you can make, which then opens the board up for the enemy to make 4 in a row. I wish the AI would have been a little more forgiving with this. I can’t tell you how many times I had an enemy down to 6 or 7 hit points and mine was above 20 and I still lost the battle. But overall, a very fun little time waster, especially if your a fan of rpg’s. So, all in all, I’ll rate this little guy a 4/5. I think it has a ton of replay value with each character and, of course, it is bejeweled! Filed under: Nintendo DS and Review and skintari Comments: None |
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