Walking Dead Trailer

"I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 IN IT" -- James Silva

Ok, so The Walking Dead trailer has been officially released, and now we know it's premiering on Halloween.. Good call, AMC, I approve. So far this looks like a pretty good adaptation; they are going to be (p)adding things, but that's probably necessary if they want the show to have a lifespan.

I'm NOT caught up on the comic series,  I just finished the sixth TPB (issues 31-36), so don't spoil me fools.

I think it will be interesting to see how this one plays out on TV and how those pesky "mainstream audiences" react to it.




If you don't know what this post's quote is about, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 IN IT is an XBox Live Indie game. And it's just a dollar! Lookee:




The incredibly catchy theme song that made this the best selling XBox Indie game is now also available on Rock Band Network!

After last week's release of last year's smash hit "Do You Want to Date My Avatar", it sounds like it's time to give Harmonix some more of my money.

I'm gonna go have a fantasy football draft...

Silent Hill 2 Review

 "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." - Verbal Kint, the Usual Suspects

First, I can't believe that quote originates from the Usual Suspects, but the internets seems to imply it's a paraphrase from the French poet Baudelaire. (who?) Because you'll want to know: the Usual Suspects sucks and I figured out the twist to the movie about 5 minutes in without any prior knowledge at all.  But anyway...

The ACTUAL greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people that Silent Hill 2 was a great video game.  This might just be a side effect of him convincing the world that the Playstation 2 was a great console.

This could be the most over-rated video game of all time.

Silent Hill 2 (PS2, later Xbox (glitchy if played on 360) - released September 24, 2001)

I know the game is 9 years old, but the game was never really hyped as having cutting edge graphics (because the PS2 was only capable of 2 colors...gray and brown) so I figure I should still be able to comment on the supposedly amazing atmosphere and story.

First, let's look at the atmosphere.

Here's a typical in-game view of your surroundings.

Fog. Fog is not atmosphere. Covering up graphical inadequacies with fog or darkness to produce the smallest viewing distance in video game history is not atmosphere. Three types of super-slow-zombie-things-that- wander-aimlessly-and-only-attack-you-if-you-stand-next-to-them are not atmosphere. The music might have been good at the time, but in no way does it compensate for the lack of atmosphere elsewhere. And I'm pretty certain I would've felt the same way 9 years ago.

Even the bosses weren't scary. Abstract creatures that look like failed "paintings" by "artist" Dave McKean? I mean, c'mon people, are you really telling me Pyramid Head used to be scary?

This isn't scary.

The scariest parts of the game are clearly the controls and the forced camera angles. You could argue the Resident-Evil style camera and controls are a product of the times, and therefore a little unfair to pick on in 2010, BUT these are the main reasons why I never had a PS1 or PS2 of my own in the first place. Bad game design like this can never be bashed enough, less future game developers try to revisit it for nostalgic purposes.

As far as gameplay elements are concerned, the combat is pointless (and completely avoidable except for the bosses), the puzzles are easy except when they rely on pixel-hunting and the only reward for exploration is additional ammo and health that you will never need.

For those of you who haven't yet played the game and don't plan to because you've learned from my mistake, the "storyline" of the game consists of generic protagonist James returning to the town of Silent Hill because he got a letter from his wife....who died three years ago.  He wanders the foggy town, encountering mindless zombies and only 4 other "living people" as you put the obvious pieces together and conclude that you killed your wife, and this whole thing is you going crazy to try to deal. The girl who looks like your wife is a manifestation of your wife! The suicidal and homicidal NPCs are aspects of you! And the little girl is your guilty conscience with the added bonus of being someone for you take care of!

I was a little upset that as the clues continue to progress, you find out that your wife was already dying, and it was mostly a mercy killing.  It probably would've worked better for me if the main character actually was an evil murderer, but I still don't think we've had a game where you were the bad guy on purpose and NOT just being lied to and used as a pawn. (Braid didn't take it that far and was too obtuse, Shadow of the Colossus' ending makes no sense to anyone and is too open-ended.)

Many people praise the story as being "subtle" because it doesn't spend all game beating you over the head with what's actually going on with NPC or book-within-the-game exposition. The problem with this is that when you ONLY meet four people in the game,  they are the only things drawing your attention, and that's not subtle. The beating-you-over-the-head portion doesn't come along until the very end, and is still less skull-bruising than usual, but I would never accuse the game of being subtle.  Or good.

Hey, maybe I'm wrong about the subtlety, just look at this poll.Or this one. Nah! This is CLEARLY a case of people remaining in denial cuz they didn't get it.
 
Silent Hill 2 also has multiple endings, but according to the the internets, the game selects one of the main three randomly but giving the options higher percentages by taking some of your gameplay choices into account. Apparently, not healing yourself constantly is viewed as self-destructive and will most likely give you that suicidal ending. I bet 95% of gamers wouldn't agree with that statement. I'm pretty happy with the ending I got, as it seems to be the one that made the most sense.

James realizes that this is all him coping with killing his wife, gets in his car and drives into the lake. 

Which is a great lead-in for a future post.Why do video game developers suddenly so keen on the main character dying all of a sudden? It's no longer unique and is not as cool in video games as it is in movies. 6 of the last 8 or 9 video games I've finished have ended with the main character dying. And only 2 of those are from before 2008.

In Silent Hill 2's defense, the dead protagonist makes the most sense here as opposed to all the games that followed.  I suppose it's possible that I've become jaded against swerves or character deaths and this would truly have been an OMG ending in 2001, but I doubt it.  I vaguely remember (translation: clearly remember) controlling Cecil and Kane as they destroyed a town in Final Fantasy 4 way back in 1991. And by 2001 we would have been a decade past Twin Peaks and halfway through Buffy and well into the geekification of TV and movies.

As a comparison, last Christmas I was playing Luigi's Mansion to entertain a 5 year old. That came out only a few months after Silent Hill 2, and is a lot more fun even if the story isn't attempting to be art. And maybe that's the problem. If Silent Hill 2 was one of the first attempts at "adult" video gaming, I can understand everyone's nostalgia, but somewhere along the way, the developers forgot the FUN that should exist in all video gaming.

Which, unfortunately, is a problem that still rears it's head today.

DC Universe Online Cinematic Trailer

 "I'm in the stupid future."  - Superboy Prime

 Ok, so here's yet another 10 day old video from the in-case-you-missed-it dept. The super-long cinematic trailer for DC Universe Online. (Also available on the official site and for download on PSN.)




This was put together by Blur, who also put together the cinematic trailer for Star Wars: the Old Republic that everyone raved about. Somehow, they do a DCUO trailer, and half the internet is complaining that there isn't any gameplay footage.

I've been following this game for a long time now, so I've seen plenty of gameplay footage from the demo at NYCC in Feb 2009 through the E3 2010 mini-trailer/Harley Quinn episode/Q&A. If you haven't seen it here's some fuzzy footage from E3. (This mini-trailer also available for download on PSN, or available on the official site)



I've never really played an MMO, because the earliest ones involved way too much pelt-hunting for 1 gold and 1 xp, and because PC gaming sucks in general. I did try City of Heroes for a couple of hours last week just so I have a source of comparison later on, and the click-wait-click-wait gameplay was a perfect cure for insomnia. So I'm really looking forward to a console, action MMO.

The developer interviews sound like they're doing their jobs... the episodes all have at least one recognizable hero and villain to help or fight, the loot can be worn or just used for abilities so you can keep your own unique look,  and having a famous character as your mentor is sweet.

I'm a little scared that there may not be enough powers at launch, and some of the rumored limitations on color schemes (supposedly all fire will be some shade of red/yellow/orange so it can be recognized as a fire attack), and the mentors possibly only including the biggest names of the DCU. (Am I the only one who would rather hang out with Booster Gold than most of the JLA toolboxes?)

The beta should start soon, so hopefully I'll be able to check the game out, but as it stands now, I'm purchasing day 1 and staying signed up for at least a year, because I'm THAT kind of fanboy.

Daksiders review

"You underestimate the power of the Dark side" - Darth Vader

Darksiders (Xbox 360, PS3, PC - released January 5th, 2010)

Darksiders is an action-adventure game that was hyped as Zelda meets God of War and they weren't kidding. As an added bonus, a third popular game is also incorporated into the final dungeon.

The story is a mostly incomprehensible biblical epic. Angels fight demons and War, Horseman of the Apocalypse, has been mysteriously invited to show up early to the party. This breach of Armageddon-etiquette has apparently brought about the arrival of the Destroyer, and now everyone is REALLY in trouble. War is stripped of his Horsemen powers but convinces his bosses to let him go back to try to fix this mess and get his revenge. It all sounds like a bad 90s Image comic book, trying way to hard to be epic and doing as little as possible to explain what's going on in an effort to prevent plot holes and keep options open for sequels.

To go along with the mostly nonsense story, you might have noticed the mostly horrific design of the main character, War.


War - by Joe Madureira. Okay, COMPLETELY horrific.


While War looks mostly ridiculous, the overly bulky designs work pretty well for the demons, Samael and some of the bosses look especially good. (For more frightening Joe Madureira character designs dig up his old Battle Chasers comic book, although the Darksiders designs remind me more of Pat Lee's Warlands comic)

What really sets the mood for the game is the stellar voice acting. Mark Hamill voices your Watcher and even the merchant-demon Vulgrim is given a great performance by voice-over veteran Phil LaMarr.

The gameplay consists of God of War style combat breaking up Zelda style environmental puzzles. Like Zelda, you follow the plot through the over-world, until you get to a "dungeon" area. Solve some puzzles, fight a sub-boss, get a new toy, solve some more puzzles with the new toy, fight a boss with the new toy. Return to the over-world for more plot and extra pickups for health, wrath (magic), and pieces of abyssal armor. (Warning: acquiring the abyssal armor will make the endgame easy!)

I was having enough fun that I flew through the game in less than a week, and approximately 20 hours on the game clock. I found just about every chest in the game, and went back for the 3 i missed before fighting the final boss, so you can play through even quicker if you skip some collecting.

The gear is pretty standard, you get two alternate weapons (scythe and gauntlet that smashes rocks). glider wings, over-world warp tunnels, a horn that stuns creatures, boomerang, hookshot, gun, and the 4th dungeon surprise... a portal gun! Even with all this stuff, it remains easy to change items and weapons which is something a lot of games fail miserably at. You can also purchase more wrath abilities and combos for your weapons from Vulgrim. In a nice change of pace from most games, you don't actually get enough "money" during normal playthrough to purchase every option. This prevents the money from feeling completely worthless from mid-game like in too many other games.

The level design is very good. The puzzles are just the right difficulty to make you stop and think, without making you scream at the TV and run to Gamefaqs. The combat is pretty easy on normal difficulty. and gets easier as you power up.

The game's biggest weakness is the odd over-world map system, that only shows the main areas you can warp to, but not the smaller areas in between them or the dungeon areas. When backtracking for treasure chests, you can easily forget where certain "boards" are located on the over-world.

The game has gotten some mediocre and bad reviews that seem to focus on the "unoriginality" of the game, stating that it doesn't just pay homage to Zelda and God of War but copies them completely. I don't understand this complaint AT ALL. How many FPS games are released every month, and how many of them add anything new to the genre? (Hint: none)

I've been saying for years that Zelda needs more combat, and God of War needs more puzzles and now my prayers have been answered in Darksiders. Add in the Portal gun, which hasn't had the opportunity to get stale yet, and it's a winning combination.

Unoriginal? Maybe. But I could fill a few posts with my complaints about how the Zelda series has stagnated, and how God of War 3 was a bit of a disappointment in its sameyness. This game takes unoriginal parts of three games, but merges them together incredibly well. And that should be applauded not criticized.

The survival of certain characters and the last 10 seconds of the game do a great job of setting up the inevitable sequel, and if they can rein in Joe Mad's character designs and get someone who didn't grow up on 90s Image comics to flesh out the plot and dialogue, Darksiders 2 could really be amazing.

If you like Zelda and God of War and Portal and haven't played this game, what are you waiting for?