Flame War ON

It has come to my attention that some clown name Mike has joined the crew and has initiated the shit talkin', to which I say BRING IT ON.

But first since I haven't been reviewing many games recently but I have been playing them, here (in no particular order):

The Phoenix Wright Series, a collection of amazingly written storybooks games dealing with a cast of zany characters following about 4-5 cases each game. The strength in these games lie in the accessibility of the DS, where you can play part of a case and come back later never missing a step. Honestly, I have become addicted to playing DS games before I go to sleep because of this series instead of my usual routine of jacking it, watching TV, surfing the intrawebs, or all of the above. The series is hokey sometimes but I love playing detective and if you enjoy Law and Order and anime at the same time, try these games. They are like 10 bucks each at the Gamestop ffs.

Another DS game I recently love is Professor Layton and the Curious Village (I am addicted to saying the full name every time I bring it up). Basically it is like doing those STAT math puzzles as well as some abstract teasers and classic puzzles while playing through another storybook-esque game that has amazingly well done cinematics (think Spirited Away style).

No More Heroes is the exact game you'd expect coming Suda 51. Though not as good as Killer 7, this game has motion controls that actually work for Wii and has a crazy amount of gore. You play Travis Touchdown a wouldbe assassin that has to kill 10 assassins ahead of him to become number 1. You should know by that description that the game shines at the boss battles as each are as unique as Zelda bosses. The combat is neat too using a pseudo-katana kata with low and high stances to hit enemies weaknesses which is not even that important when a slot machine spins each time you kill a mob and you get some new crazy mode. Zero punctuation does an amazing job as you would expect reviewing this game. Pluses for this game are the gore, slick controls, cel-shaded, boss battles. Minuses have to be the bullshit overworld you have to transverse, those lame filler jobs/hits the game makes you do, and the bullshit overworld. Honestly Suda you aren't making GTA, if you cut all that bullshit and just made the game linear I would of been so much happier.



Which brings me to GTA IV. Buy This Game.

Oh you wanted more, well it is just plain awesome. The Havok Engine is incredibly detailed with physics fans creaming themselves over the crazy shit you can do with all the vehicles. I also like the Gears of War adoption of duck and cover style with even some innovations of its own. I've played I think 45 hours now and am only 50% done, to say that is impressive. I'll be honest I didn't like San Andreas or Vice City too much, but this iteration is THE next gen title I have been looking for. With 6 million worldwide sold already, I'm extremely happy for Rockstar's success.


Super Smash Bros Brawl - Awesome fighter, FIX THE ONLINE FOR FUCKS SAKE. Geez, every game is laggy, you have to play 2 minute matches with non-friends, WITH ITEMS ON, bullshit Smash Balls which is god mode in those lag storms, no ranking system. Nintendo please learn have to properly use online kthx. Honestly, if you've played Melee, you've played Brawl. It is less of the slippery controls, more of the "features", and a shitload of characters. All of them pretty balanced surprisingly.




Mario Kart Wii - Nice job with the online, a SERIOUS improvement from the jackass online that SSBB had. With rankings, fast matches, ability to play as your Mii, and roulette style race choices. Nintendo has to be realizing by now that there is a market for the online play. I would gladly pay for an online service like Xbox Live but with a million Wiis sold every month I don't think Nintendo cares too much. I just hope they realize their mistake soon, they can cater to the causal market AND make the hardcore players not migrate to other systems if they just learned from their mistakes. Get a non-friend code system, release headset support for games, and make a HD for download content.


God of War: Chains of Olympus is another amazing game. That and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core are the reason to own a PSP. Too bad Barry got pissed at the difficulty and broke his.


The Orange Box, a great value and must rent.




Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors for Wii is too long of a name for such a simple little diversion. The game is like No More Heroes in that it has too much random overworld bullshit to maintain to get anywhere in the story. Not all games need an overworld, you can linearity for the sake of not BORING the SHIT out of your players. Also, the game gets crazy hard for no reason on some boss fights (the best part of the game). Really a lot of little annoyances add up fast to why I couldn't finish this game and that's a shame really. As I really liked the Wii controls and the premise.

The localization of the new Fire Emblem games by Nintendo is a great step toward more RPGs on the Wii/DS. If you ever wondered who the hell Roy and Marth are, you'll have to keep wondering as they are still in the Japanese prequels but Ike from the new Smash Bros Brawl is in the Gamecube/Wii games and is a badass. These games play alot like Final Fantasy tactics and have some good stories attached to them. I have really gone back to console gaming like I used to in my childhood. I had a decent relationship with MMOs that ended with WoW last summer. But this is where I belong, and at the most important time when the games market is breaking records with each month, week, year, and AAA title that is released. 2007 was a fucking awesome year for gaming and I expect this year will be just as great. Now if only John (Player 3) can get us a PS3, I can enjoy the next Metal Gear Solid 4 and Little Big Planet when they come out later this year.

So that's it, I don't feel like there is much to say about myself. I think I am the most obsessed with games out of all of us, so there is that. I have a lot to say when it comes to these games, some of which isn't always fair, but I love this medium and am optimistic about the future. Next I will be renting Boom Blox for Wii next so I'll tell you how it is. /endrant

Oh and Mike's gay.

Good point from the clown

So Mike brings up a good point, none of us here have really introduced ourselves. Our readers (I pray their out there) do not really know who the hell we are, or why the hell we are even qualified to do this.

So I will introduce myself.

My name is Barry, yes there are many variations of the name, none of which I will list. I have been into computers since I was a little kid when large 12 inch 2 megabyte hard drives ruled supreme. Green screen was cool but if you have the option to go orange you were strait up ballin'.

I specialize in overkill, I know no less and it shows in everything (crosses fingers) that I do. Take for instance my computer setup. I thought to myself, "I have a 32" flat screen...it needs to be a computer monitor." thus the setup you see below you was born. the computer specs are as follows:

Gigabyte motherboard
Intel Q6600 quad core 2.4 ghz processor
2 gigs of mushkin high performance ram
Radeon Fire GL 3400 workstation card
320 gig SATA hard drive

32" Sharp Aquos HDTV
19" ViewSonic flat panel
and the standard accessories



By trade I am a mechanical engineer with 3 years of college under my belt and a pretty big ego. I like cars and all that crap, but I really love doing things with excel its quite liberating.

Enough about me time for a gaming moment. Just tonight I got an urge to play Bioshock, not because it won Spikes best game of the year award or sold millions of copies or because we got it for free because Hollywood video forgot to charge us. But rather because I was reminded of the unique mood and theme that the game played on and how it was a paradise lost experience. After playing for roughly 10 minutes I got bored because I just wanted to look around and not kill splicers. I also have a hard-on for art deco/art modern styling even though I got bored it is still a damn good game IMO.

Things to look forward to

One game I am really excited about is SPORE, a procedural based asynchronis MMO game designed by Will Wright. If you haven't heard about it click on the god damn link, and take it in because I sure as hell am not going to regurgitate what they have up in an easy to watch flash.

The newest addition

Okay, so apparently the 3 Daniels and 1 David that were the originators of this blog are a failure. This is where I come in. See Barry and I go way back, and hopefully we can make this an interesting read without the 4 D's fail plane. Hey, at least it isn't a fail boat. Short version: Barry and I are holding down the fort.





My first subject of discussion has to do with my personal interests so that avid readers (if any...) of this blog can know where I'm coming from. Since this is for the most part a gaming blog, I'll start off by giving a little gaming background on myself. I own a NES, Sega genesis, N64, Gamecube, Xbox, Xbox360, and the top notch gaming computer right now on the market. I enjoy playing games that actually require skill, and are not just based on how much knowledge of the game/how long you play. FPS is my strong point, but I enjoy strategy and RPG some of the times. Currently I am playing Call of Duty and Halo 3 on my 360, and Crysis and Tabula Rasa on my PC. Tabula Rasa is taking up the majority of my time, and for good reason. The game is pretty sick. I don't have much of an MMO history...the first multiplayer game I played online was Diablo 2. That game was also really sick...until it got overran by little kids (more on this subject later). I have also beat Mass Effect and all the DLC for it. Loved this game, and I stand by the review that Barry gave it. Now imagine Mass Effect made into an MMO. In a nutshell...this is Tabula Rasa. I usually got issues with MMOs, but this one is the exception. My non-gaming life involves working, school, paintball, and being awesome. That's enough about me...I'm gonna move on.




I consider myself to have a good amount of gaming systems. Most of these sit around and collect dust now, ESPECIALLY the Sega, Gamecube, and Xbox. The 360 and my PC are the most played systems right now, because of the current games I am playing.. The point I am trying to get to is that I PLAY MY NES AND N64 DRASTICALLY MORE THAN I PLAY MY GAMECUBE! I haven't touched my Gamecube since the last Metriod Prime game came out, and I'm sure it will stay that way. In fact, if it wasn't such a POS and worth more than a couple pennies, I would sell it in a heartbeat.

This is where I start making people mad. I think Nintendo is going down hill. I don't think the Wii is a terrible system, I just think they could have done a ton better with it. I do think that the feature of NOT having a microphone is perfect...for a certain community of gamers. If you are not about the age of 15, you should only be allowed to play the Wii. No 360 or PS3 for you scrubs! I know I am not the only person who thinks that the kids who have not hit puberty and decide it is there life mission to annoy/disrespect/flame every person who gets in the same game as them. Don't get me wrong, I know there are people of all ages that do this, but I can handle a voice that is not so high frequency that I feel like I am going to bleed from my eardrum. The last thing that makes me want to reproduce and have children to raise into respectable people is hearing a kid that can't be over 10 years old drop an F bomb or call me a nigger on xbox live. I mean seriously. Yes they are just words...but use some fucking discretion.

Discretion is the key word here. People, if you know that you are completely annoying and have no friends...please don't reproduce! Genetics do have a factor in how your kids turn out. Do you really want to have kids that will live the same pathetic life as you...and be just as annoying as you?












Alright, enough of flaming on little kids, I'm going to talk about my current obsession of a game: Tabula Rasa. Like I said before, this game is just plain sick. I don't know why they don't have more Sci-Fi MMOs. Fantasy is cool and all, but how do you decide between all the fantasy games out there? Answer: go sci-fi. I also seem to not have as much of a problem with little obnoxious kids in TR. The game is built so you don't HAVE to grind to get to max level, but the option is there if that is your thing. To me, it is just so much more satisfying to blow something up with a rocket launcher, than to slice at it with an axe. TR has most of the aspects of a fantasy game, it just explains everything in a sci-fi way through the lore of the game. The storyline is somewhat interesting to follow and there are a bunch of different play styles that the game supports. There are some major and minor bugs that still occur, which annoys me greatly, but every game has them. NCsoft and the DEVs of TR are very good about answering your bug problems and petitions. Just the other day I petitioned a mission bug, and no joke, within 5 minutes a GM contacted me. I was pretty much amazed.

Alright, well, that's all I got time for ATM, got to get back to work and make that money. More flaming on certain subjects/pictures, and game reviews will come as I have time. Thank you Barry for adding me to the blog, and thank you to whomever takes the time to read it.

Been a while, still looking for more additional filler

So it Has obviously been a while since we last updated. Last time we said we were working on content, well, we lied. But thankfully we're getting another writer on board who's lolcat experience trumps anyone here.









so to fill the gaps here are some recent games that we have played and liked:

God of War: Chains of Olympus, sweet playability for the PSP.
GTA4, not just a revamped San Andreas but a better game in all.
No more heroes, very retro gamer feel with tons of blood.
EVE online, one of the few cool space MMOs IMO.
Audiosurf, acid trip for your music.
The Orange Box, great for obvious reasons.
SSB Brawl, great rework of the older games with a bunch of fun still built in.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head.