Godzillarex

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It was my roommate’s birthday last night so we decided to go to a bar with other friends. We went to this bar downtown called “La Cita” and it was a pretty interesting place. There was a section outside and a section inside, and though I always prefer to party in places that are indoors, as this allows me to be able to run around without my extremely heavy (but warm!) jacket. The music was really loud inside, so we had to sit outside though. We talked about stuff and it was fun.

One of the guys then had to leave and the girl that the birthday boy is currently kinda dating (that’s a whole other story there), wanted to go see her friend at another party. I should mention that this friend of the girl is about as exciting as watching two snails race. She speaks in such a monotone voice that even GlaDos from Portal 2 has more personality. Don’t know who GlaDos is? Well how about taking a look at this awesome Portal 2 video highlighting some of her hilarious quotes:

We were on our way to exiting the bar, and as they were paying for their beverages, I really noticed just how loud the music at that section of the bar was playing. When I remarked this to one of my friends, he couldn’t even hear me remarking it to him. I thought to myself just how silly that is, as you go to a bar to meet people, not to listen to ridiculously loud music. I thought I would rather listen to other things, such as the hilariously well put together Super Mario 64 A Capella:

So we finally exited the bar and got into the car again and made our way to the next party. We arrived and there really weren’t a whole lot of people there. Sadly, there were no available women to talk to either. I decided to make the best of it and went on a search of what free food I could have. To my delightful surprise, I heard there were yum-yum donuts in the kitchen. As I made my way to the kitchen I ran into a guy from college and told him about Mahalo Video Games. He was really excited about it and I told him he should definitely take a look at the Gears of War 3 Live Action video, or the most recent episode of This Week in Video Games:

After we parted ways I got to the kitchen and got a donut. And to top it off, they even had some Mexican Coca-Cola, perhaps the best Coke in the world. Why is it so good you ask? Because they use real sugar in their soft drinks. Not this High Fructose Corn Syrup crap most sodas use. Now, the challenge would be to find a suitable tool to open the bottle, as there were no bottle openers in sight. I heard a rumor that there was one by the snack table so I made my way to the snack table. As soon as I set my eyes on the bottle opener, a girl that I had not seen since senior year in college walked into the party and I decided I would save opening my bottle a little later. I said hello and stuff, and she seemed pretty excited to talk to me as well, so we’re supposedly on for a coffee date next week. After our chat I found the bottle opener and cracked open the Coke and took a sip. It was awesome. Just as awesome as this great first look for the new content that was released for World of Warcraft Cataclysm:

I noticed I had lost track of my friends so I decided to looking for them outside. I found them sitting on the porch and joined them. After some time the birthday boy started getting a little hungry and wanted to go have some Tacos al Pastor at a place nearby our hourse. I wanted to leave as well, but the birthday boy’s girl said we hadn’t been there long enough, and that we should stay 30 more minutes. I thought that was an extremely arbitrary number, and that if we were only talking amongst ourselves there was no point in staying longer.  But it wasn’t my birthday, and the birthday boy clearly wanted to respect her wishes, so I did not argue further. I instead thought of what games were releasing next week, and am pretty excited about what the members of the team will do with Call of the Dead. Here is what the guys thought of the recently released trailer:

After that 30 minute mark had passed I brought it up and more of the guys wanted to go as well, so we finally left the party. We had tacos afterward and they were great.

See you guys next week!

-Adrian

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I remember a time in the video game industry where the only month in which anything launched on was November. It was as if every other month in the year did not exist to developers.

Back then, video games still latched on to the idea that nobody really buys them until December, since developers were still very used to marketing themselves to parents. They strived to be on the shelves right at the time Mommy had to go buy something for little Jimmy for Christmas.

My favorite instance of this happening, and the one I will never forget, is November 2004. That was perhaps one of the craziest Novembers of all time. Metal Gear Solid 3, Metroid Prime 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Halo 2 all launched that November within days of each other.EGM even released a special 13th issue that year to commemorate those specific titles.

But the industry has grown since then, and although many developers still cling to the later months of the year to release their biggest titles, there are several other games that are sprinkled throughout the year to keep the gamers happy. This past Tuesday though they were all sprinkled at the same time. On one night Mortal Kombat, Portal 2, and Socom 4 were all released. And we were there to cover them. Check out these First Impression videos of Mortal Kombat and Portal 2:

My good friend Chad, who is covering Socom 4, also helped me out with my segment on This Week In Video Games, where I touched on a couple tips for the Multiplayer, along with my favorite password of all time: NTHGTHDGDCRTDTRK. Also known as the Big Cheat in Turok.

And in case you are aching for more Portal 2, our video review will be out in this coming week, but in the meantime you should check out our Top 10 Moments in Portal 2, along with the Top 7 Questions for it.  Furthermore, this week was also a record week in terms of reviews for us, as we have reviews for Shogun 2, Dino D-Day, The Dishwasher Vampire Smile, The Sims Medieval, and Conduit 2.  And to top it all off, we are even running an awesome giveaway for KontrolFreek, details in the video below:

I hope you all enjoy your Sunday. Happy Easter! See you next week!

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Video Games are really quite a tough pickle to categorize when it comes to modern day entertainment. They are like movies in that they deliver fully produced scenes, but they are also like books since they can explore their narratives for a prolonged period of time.And of course, they are in a category all of their own since you control the protagonist. But the issue here lies in just how much story versus gameplay should there be in a game.

Some games are entrenched in a pure gameplay experience, and offer a very simple or bad story. The game I just recently finished, Rush’n Attack, adheres to this philosophy.  The story seems like an afterthought with generic characters that have no goals or desires, and not even a voice.

But when games veer so sharply into the gameplay category, it usually means the gameplay is extremely polished and addictive. Sadly, this is not true for Rush’n Attack, but it is true for several other games. Ninja Gaiden, Metroid Prime, Yoshi’s Island, and the recently released The Hunter come to mind. They are all extremely light on their stories, but make up for it with amazing gameplay. Here is the review for the Hunt, along with Yoshi’s Island, as I featured it in my top 5 platformers of all time list in This Week in Video Games:

Then there are games in which the story makes up a huge part of the gameplay experience. The Final Fantasy series is notorious for this, along with Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect, and the newcomer Heavy Rain. A large portion of the game is spent watching and interacting with cut scenes. This is by no means a bad thing, as it is common to motion capture actors now which results in fluid life-like performances. Moreover, scores have transformed from 8 bit repetitive twenty note melodies to fully composed orchestral soundtracks. Sometimes composers who work in the film industry even lend their talents to score video games, such as Harry Gregson-Williams did for most of the Metal Gear Solid series. It is no wonder then that developers love to flesh out a story when so many tools to tell the story have advanced over the years. Here is the opening to Metal Gear Solid 4:

So now that begs the question, what should developers concentrate on? I think that when it comes to video games, the gameplay really should take precedence over story. The story is very important to a game, but it is common for games to get carried away with this. Yakuza 4 features a long story, but it feels padded and boring more than anything else.  Here is the beginning of the end to that game in case you want a taste of that:

Nonetheless, this is not to say games shouldn’t have storylines. The best games in the market strike a perfect balance between the two; where the gameplay complements the story and vice versa. It’s kind of like great action movies, where the expensive set pieces serve to advance the plot and don’t feel tacked on. Though Metal Gear Solid 4 had great gameplay, it unfortunately got a little carried away with the cut scenes, and by extension, the story. Metal Gear Solid 3 definitely felt a lot more balanced, and I think it is a great demonstration of what a well balanced game can achieve. To this day, I believe MGS 3 has the best video game ending I have ever seen. Uncharted 2 is also a fantastic example of what can be done with modern gaming. It has a superbly written plot that is interwoven with your gameplay, and you never feel that dreaded “Oh God I hope this cutscene isn’t unskippable,”  feeling such as in Yakuza 4 .

So there you have it, my thoughts on Gameplay vs Story. What do you guys think? Oh yeah, my Dance Central video is also up!

See you next week!

I completed Rush’N attack and it was pretty dissapointing for me. I had been looking forward to playing this game since the first gameplay trailers showed up, and I am sad to say that it really isn’t that great of a game. Yes, the stealth mechanics do pretty much work. If you slowly sneak up to a guy, he won’t hear you, and you can snap his neck. And in certain parts of the game this works really well and I found myself having quite a bit of fun.

But I think what really brings the game down is the extremely generic and bad level design. Between the three layers, confusing map, and repetitive look, you will find yourself hopelesly lost trying to progress anytime you dip below ground. Furthermore, the “cutscenes” in the game are cheap looking exchanges between two faces with animated text. Here is a level so you can judge for yourself:

The first two boss battles are actually really fun though. They are very old school in their design where you have to figure out their set pattern and exploit it. But the final boss in the game. Ho boy. Have you ever played a game where you literally have to wait a couple minutes in the boss level before you fight him? Sounds crazy huh? Well that is how they structured it here. Just take a look at the final boss:

Yep, I just stood there for the first half of the boss, and then proceeded to spam the same attack over and over again for the rest of it. I decided to go ahead and feature that on This Week In Video Games. On the show we also had a heated discussion about Venom, and I said a few words about the upcoming Metal Gear clothing line which is set to debut tomorrow, April 11th.

And this past weekend we actually filmed a couple of our dance battles with professional dancers, which turned out really great. Here are a couple fun ones:

Furthermore, Brett decided to review the KontrolFreek, where you mount these nubs on your own analog nub for added precision. What did he think of it? See the video below to find out:

See you guys next week!

Before I get to the title of the post, I would like to wrap up my experience in passing Dead to Rights in Detective Difficulty. I finally made it to the last level and managed to not only beat it, but achieve gold ranking as well. As I finished playing the game I truly appreciated what a great final level it is. Not only do you infiltrate the bad guys command center and get to hear them complain about “Jack Slate and his fucking dog,” you also get an intense sniping section, an exciting stealth section with Shadow, and you finally get to control the ridiculously overpowered GAC suit. Lastly, you go mano a mano with the head of the bad guys in a pretty decent final boss battle. Hopefully that description has piqued your interest a little bit, so you may be inclined to watch the final level for yourself:

But just in case you don’t want to watch the entire level, I actually went ahead and featured it on This Week In Video Games. I shortened the 50+ minute level into an enjoyable 3 minutes and highlighted the most challenging sections of the level. Flitz also debuted the Top 5 “Splosion” feature with the Top 5 palette swaps. This was also Andrea Rene’s last episode, and it includes an exciting interview with Batman and Catwoman!

So where did that Batman and Catwoman segment come from? Well, it was actually an expansion of our hilarious April Fools Day episode where our very own Chad Neidt dressed up as Andrea Rene and did his best impersonation. Sohinki along with yours truly assisted in kidnapping Andrea for the event. In this episode we find out about Mass Effect 4, and get to see what Batman does on his day off.

So now, on to RushN’Attack. I have been extremely excited to play this game for quite some time now since it was announced early last October, and had pretty high expectations for it, as it has been delayed several times now. I finally got a chance to play the game and I must say that I am pretty dissapointed. The game promised to update the classic sidescroller where you are constantly being attacked from all directions by implementing stealth gameplay, but it really doesn’t succeed all that well. Yes, the stealth mechanics do kind of work, but the problem is that it still wants to be like the classic game where you are constantly, you guessed it, rushing and attacking. So what this results in is a clash of two completely opposite approaches to playing a game. Anyhow, I will go into more details about it next week when I finish passing the game, but for not, here is the first level:

And in other awesome news, our very own DK just started his strategy video series on Black Ops. Here is a cool video from it:

Also, just in case you missed it, here is Phil’s informative Bejewled Strategy video:

Next week we got a cool dance series coming your way courtesy of the Mahalo Video Games Team, so be sure to watch out for it!