What the Playstation Store needs...

By now I'm sure you've all noticed that the Playstation Store is receiving an update to make it more "user-friendly", next Thursday. I'm pretty excited about the new features, and in case you forgot, or were just too lazy to look them up, here's a video that explains what it will be like: VIDEO

So, now that the Store is going to be easier to navigate, and have some cool new features, here are a few things that I'd like to see:

-Classic Remakes:
XBL and Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel have a wide variety of classic, arcade/ol' school games for download. While these are all well and good (as are PSN's PS1 Classics) I really believe that updated versions of older games would be best for PSN. No, I'm not talking about ruining a classic game with new gimmicks and attempts to reach the masses of casual players. I'm talking about something similar to what Capcom is doing with "Bionic Commando: ReArmed". Sony should really work towards partnerships with other developers, like Midway, Konami, Sega, etc. in order to take older titles, add some newer features, such as online co-op/vs. and bump the graphics and effects into the HD era.

Let's take a Playstation-centric series for an example. The Metal Gear Solid series (and it's predecessor, Metal Gear) is one of my favorites of all time. I already own the two original Metal Gear games, which I play quite frequently. Now, it doesn't take a genius to know that they are old games, designed for weaker machines. Sony and Konami could team up to bring a revision to the PSN Store. Imagine it: Metal Gear, from the same camera angle, only with next-gen explosions, character models, and environments. Add in a few extra abilities, such as Octo Camo and crouching (this wasn't in the original game) and perhaps some bonus content, like a two-player online/offline co-op mode, and a time trial. For $10-$15, this would be a pretty neat game, even for those of us who have the game layout memorized.

How about another example? "Shinobi III: Return of The Ninja Master" one of my favorite games for the Sega Genesis. Imagine this game with character models on-par with games like Uncharted, only still preserving the 2D stage design. Have Sony and Sega team up to make a game with some pretty crazy improvements. Sword combos, ala Ninja Gaiden for use at close range, next-gen physics for explosions, extra levels to prolong the length of the game, and onlien leaderboards. Pretty crazy, if you ask me.

-Episodic Content:
Valve's done an excellent job with this in their Half Life series, so why has virtually no one else been able to do so? I think this would be great for plenty of already released and soon-to-come PS3 games. Who wouldn't like a few extra levels in Ninja Gaiden: Sigma, Uncharted, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, etc.? This doesn't even need to be limited to full games, Sony could make games that are just episodic.

I don't know what happened to the "game" "Rat Race" that Sony had planned for a December 2007 release, but that was going to provide such an example. And I'm sure you've all heard the rumors of the game "Eight Days" going episodic too. What I'd really love is for Sony to go all-out, and make a game that is updated weekly with new episodes. Perhaps have each "episode" last an average of 30 minutes, and make enough in advance to allow for at least one "season" of weekly releases. Sell them for $1-2 each, and I'm certain that a fair amount of gamers would "gobble them up". Perhaps make a side-scroller which has constantly changing missions, only with the same cast of characters, and task gamers each week with fighting certain bosses and performing certain tasks. Sony could reward those who have every previous episode (obviously later on in the season) by providing better equipment for their character.

That's all for now, check later for updates.

Top 10: Sci-Fi Movies

Now that this tradition has been established, I'm bringing you list #2: My Top 10 sci-fi films. Just make sure to check out List # ! in case you missed it...

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Blade Runner
3. Back To The Future
4. Planet of The Apes
5. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
6. Star Wars (trilogy)
7. A Clockwork Orange
8. Mad Max
9. Journey To The Center of The Earth
10. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Now, to clarify a few things: I didn't include Monster movies (this, along with B-movies, will have to wait for another list) and I also tried to stay away from sci-fi/horror.

New Updates for 4/10/2008...

Those of you who visited the blog today might have noticed a few changes. In order to benefit you, here's a list of today's new additions:

• Poll: Each week a new poll will be added. You have six days from the launch of each new poll to vote, and the results will remain available for an additional day. This will also help to provide some feedback from readers such as you, which can benefit the overall layout and nature of the blog.

• Video Cinema: Thanks to Google/Youtube, I am able to post videos on the sidebar for your enjoyment. You can view these without ever leaving the blog. Every once and a while, I'll change what videos are available so as to provide some fresh content for more frequent visitors.

• News Links: I've added a few more websites to the list of links on the sidebar. Many of these are relevant to what I enjoy, and I suggest that you check them all out at some point.

• Open Commenting: Now, anyone, whether or not they have a Google Account, can post a comment about each individual topic. Hopefully, this will help to garner more responses on each new post that is made, and some of you could potentially offer some advice in a form outside of mere polls. However, don't abuse this feature, if comments get too out of hand, I'll have to start moderating them, and if they get too bad, I'll be forced to turn off the feature.
  

Top 10: Power Metal Bands

I'm starting a new feature to get some quick posts up here on the blog, entitled "Top 10" which, as you probably guessed, will include my Top 10 favorites within the specific category. Obviously, these are opinions, so you might not feel the same way, and I'd appreciate hearing what you think. So, here's list #1, my Top 10 Power Metal bands:

1. Gamma Ray
2. ManOwaR
3. Hammerfall
4. Helloween
5. Blind Guardian
6. Sonata Arctica
7. Rhapsody of Fire
8. Iced Earth
9. Iron Savior
10. Demons & Wizards

Films that MUST be brought to Blu-Ray

Well, now that the most recent format war has been over for just about two months, and we have one solid format backed by all the studios, I think it's time to start bringing some more classics to the format. We've seen many excellent films over the past two years, ranging from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Blade Runner" (two of my favorite sci-fi films) but there is much more that I'd love to see. As far as I know, none of the films on this list have been announced for release on Blu-Ray. I'll try to keep the list filled with stuff that hasn't been announced. Here are just a few:

-The Lord of The Rings Trilogy
-Star Wars: The Original Trilogy
-The Ten Commandments
-The Godfather Trilogy
-Spartacus
-Jaws
-King Kong (original AND remake)
-E.T.
-The Wizard of Oz
-Gone With The Wind
-The Indiana Jones Trilogy
-The Entire James Bond series
-Ghostbusters
-Toy Story
-Nightmare on Elm Street
-Gojira/Godzilla (original)
-Tremors
-Gremlins
-Alien

There are significantly more, but to keep things tame, I'll limit the list for now.

Check back for updates.

I sense another surge of anti-gaming and anti-gun reports *sigh*

This news may be a bit old, but it is sure to lead to further biased reports calling for the banning of guns and videogames.

As you would have figured out by reading the provided link, and 18 year-old shot and killed a 15 year-old when he refused to hand over the controller in order to play a videogame.

So, how long before someone claims that it was the videogame and the fact that the gun exists which caused this shooting, and not mental instability coupled with a lack of good parenting within a bad neighborhood?

Too soon, as we've already seen.

Seems as if, one again, fellow Americans are unable to accept the fact that they themselves are to blame, and want to shift this towards the media and the Second Amendment, which are always under fire (pun not intended) despite never actually having committed any murders.

Temporary internet fame AND infamy FTW

Every year since 2004, I've had a tradition of posting a fake news "announcement" somewhere on the web, hoping to take advantage of the fact that plenty of people know me across several web communities, and my general well-intentioned posting nature in order to get a few cheap laughs at an idea that I'd love to see.

This year I "announced" "Killzone: Wrath of Hakha" for the PSN. The game, at least in my mind, would be a spin-off of Killzone: Liberation and would use the advantages of the PS3 to provide for the best downloadable game to date. You can read all the details over at Killzoneunit.com.

I generally get a couple dozen people to fall for the trick, but after someone takes the time to read into the article, and realize that the news is too good to be true, and that the information is generally filled with obscure references to forum discussions and fan wishes, everyone remembers the date and gets slightly angry at me for raising their hopes.

I guess this year was different. The news actually made it onto a good number of websites and forums, and actually had to be "busted" in order to really die down.

As a matter of fact, VideoGamer.com was actually contacted by a representative of SCEE and told that this, in fact, was an April Fool's joke.

So, if SCEE knows about the rumor and the hopes that it generated, hopefully we'll actually see Hakha's Wrath in the near future.

April Fools 2008: Wrap-Up

What holiday contributes more to making gamers cry with fake "confirmations" of what they've always wanted, and causing slight inconveniences for everyone else other than April Fool's Day?

None, that's what. So, in honor of this holiday, here's the list of some of my favorite pranks from around the web today:

-IGN.com: "The Legend of Zelda" movie
-Youtube.com: Linking all "Top Videos" to a Rick Roll
-Blizzard: Announced "World of Warcraft: Molten Core", a console port to the Atari 2600, and the new "Bard" class, which pulls out a guitar and forces the player to use their keyboard ala a Guitar Hero controller to perform combos.
-DeviantArt: All user icons are changed to Mudkips animations.
-Gamespot.com: "Rock Band" for PSP news.
-Google: Gmail "custom time" and plans for the first Human colony on Mars.
-Kotaku: Now they talk about Cakes.
-Jeopardy Website: Alex Trebek with his old moustache
-Nestle is changing "Butterfingers" to "The Finger"
-Ed Boon is leaving the Mortal Kombat team to become a chef
-The first Mind Control Web Banners went live today at 12:01 AM
-Playstation.com Forums: By clicking on a thread title in Off-Topic, users are treatedt to a Rick Roll pop-up.
-Killzoneunit.com: "Killzone: Wrath of Hakha" announcement
-The Feudalist League of America: Site overrun by Vikings, changed to Viking Raid Party.
-This Blog: Because you wasted this much time reading.

Game Review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Although it has numerous "problems", Brawl manages to revamp the SSB gameplay in a positive way and end up my favorite out of the series so far.

Pretty much anyone who can call themselves a gamer (excluding hardcore "old school" PC junkies who haven't left Doom 2 since it first came out) knows about the Super Smash Bros. series. With its focus on "ring outs" over KOs, frantic fights between four players, and an ever increasing roster of Nintendo characters which have made certain members of the gaming community experience wet dreams on multiple occasions close to each game's release, it certainly is worth at least a majority of the praise which it has recieved over the past nine years.With the North American release of "Brawl" just over a week ago, gamers were once again brought into the frey, this time with a mixture of good and bad. As with the previous games in the series, Brawl has an extremely solid, albiet not perfect, character roster, sampling virtually every modern Nintendo series, and, in this installment, even some third party characters. Players can stay with previously seen characters such as Fox, Captain Falcon, Kirby, and obviously, Mario, yet they also can try out a wide variety of new, and extremely cool characters such as Wario, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic The Hedgehog, and yes, even Solid Snake. A majority of the characters which players can use are unique and well-designed, however, as with previous installments, there are some occasional problems.

First, and most evident to me, is that there are still clone characters in this game, despite being promised during development that there wouldn't be any. Gannondorf is still pretty much a slower version of Captain Falcon, new character Ike, who replaced Roy, is still pretty similar to fellow Fire Emblem character Marth, Ness and Lucas are almost exactly the same, and for some unknown reason, there are now THREE characters from Star Fox, who all play pretty much the same. Toon Link is pretty much the same as regular Link, however, his significantly nimbler nature, and undeniable charm let me make an exception with him.

Second, is the fact that the combat is still unbalanced. In more casual "brawls", it isn't as evident, however, in more intense fights, going up again Fox or Captain Falcon with Jigglypuff obviously isn't a good decision. This isn't a tremendous flaw in my mind, but it still exists as a potential problem, especially for those who don't like using the same characters over and over again.

Third, which ties a bit into the above, is that some characters seem kind of useless. King Dedede is an extremely slow character when compared to Sonic, Captain Falcon, etc. and unlike Bowser and Donkey Kong, he doesn't do a large amount of damage with each attack, either. Mr. Game & Watch still sucks. Pokemon Trainer isn't very effective when he uses Charizard, which is essentially a gimped Bowser. Jigglypuff, while improved quite a bit in my opinion, still can't emerge victorious against a good portion of the fighters, especially in four-way matches.

Fourth, is the issue of "Final Smashes". These new maneuvers are Brawl's equivalent of "Specials". At random times during matches, an orb will appear and start to float around. Players vie to do the most damage to this orb, and thus, break it open. Whoever breaks it starts to glow different colors, and with a simple press of the "B" button, can activate their Final Smash. As with the basic combat, these are quite unbalanced. Some characters have rediculously overpowered moves which result in numerous kills, as is the case with characters like Sonic and Fox. Others simply increase the character's damage, size, and/or speed, as is the case with Wario, Bowser, and Gannondorf. There are some characters whose Final Smashes don't do much at all unless in small stages, such as Ness. And then there's Luigi, who goes into a Drug Trip and causes people within a small orb to fall asleep and get dealt extra damage. While a majority of the other characters' Final Smashes are understandable if one has ever played their respective series, Luigi's simply doesn't make much sense at all. One would think he'd pull out a big vacuum cleaner, or just disappear like he does in most Mario games.It may sound like there is quite a bit to complain about, and not much to praise, but that isn't the case at all. Most of the characters are extremely fun to play, especially Meta Knight, Wario, and Solid Snake. Meta Knight feels like a cross between Kirby and a Dynasty Warriors character. He can do some pretty rediculous combos and can "fly". Wario is hilarious to watch in action, and decently strong too. He can pull a motorcycle out of nowhere and ride it around the stage, doing a great deal of damage to each character which he hits. He can also build up gas the more he fights, eventually unleashing an atomic fart which shoots him up into the air and sends out a shockwave that hurts any character that it hits. Snake is a "different" character than most. He is meant for evasion and tactics. He has the fastest and most controllable "jump" move that I've seen in the series, and uses quite a bit of CQC combos. He can also set up explosives such as mines and claymores throughout the arena and use a mortar to hit characters above him.The basic Super Smash Bros. matches are top-knotch, with excellent level design through a majority of the game's arenas, a wide variety ot rules, and the ability to hold 100-player tournaments. However, the newer modes feel quite tacked on, and, not all too much fun.

Subspace Emissary stands out the most as a "tacked on" mode. Replacing Melee's awesome Adventure mode, Subspace focuses primarily on side-scrolling and Boss Battles. While the Boss Battles are always thrilling to experience, and the side-scrolling portions are fun initially, Subspace is significantly longer than it needs to be. Clocking it at around 4-7 hours, depending on your ability and the difficulty, it certainly seems to become tedious, especially when half of that time is spent re-visiting the same levels from the first half in order to reach the final boss. After about 3 or 4 levels, the side-scrolling becomes quite boring. You'll be able to defeat most enemies with ease no matter which difficulty you play on, and you'll be quite confused by the mode's lackluster story. Even for a Nintendo game, I found myself questioning what was so horribly wrong with the plot. Something seems a bit strange when Captain Olimar is ambushed by enemies, and Captain Falcon suddenly comes out of nowhere and kills the Pikmin. Luckily it isn't the bulk of the game, and it does give you some cool music for the game's mediocre level editor.

Subspace also makes the game rediculously easy, allowing you to unlock all but 2-3 of the game's characters. Remember how it took you 200+ hours of game time and/or dozens of tough events to unlock every single character in Melee? That doesn't happen with Brawl. After beating Subspace Emissary, you really only need to beat the Classic Mode and about 15 event matches to have the entire roster at your disposal. Perhaps this was designed to allow for the maximum amount of players to experience every single character, or to make people less angry when they play online and see characters they have to work to get, but I found this to be a tremendous flaw of the game and very damaging to the replay value of solo experiences. This seems to be the deal with a majority of the game. Excluding some event matches which force you to play as weaker characters and try to accomplish tasks which require you to survive long enough, and the initial adjustment to using the Wiimote (which isn't necessary) I can't recall seeing any form of "game over" or "failure" screen over the past 9 days.

Speaking of the Wiimote, let me talk about the controls for a bit. Despite not even utilizing any motion-sensing features, Brawl still manages to make it into my Top 5 games for using the Wiimote/Nunchuck effectively. The reason why is because it doesn't force the controller upon you. There are no features unique to the Wii, which is a strength. Instead of making you play with clumbsy controls and completely altering the gameplay, as most games on the console have done, it sticks to what made the first two games great. You can also use the Classic Controller. For those of you who, like me, didn't blow $30 on a repositioning of a 7-year-old controller, you can also use your Gamecube controller. I'd strongly suggest using this, as the buttons are all well placed, you likely have one if you are a fan of Nintendo's games, if you don't they cost about $15, and you aren't prone to start moving the controller around to no use, like I initially did when using the Wiimote.

As mentioned earlier, the game has Online play. As one of the few games with this feature on Nintendo's newest platform, it deserves some props. It is also the most solid setup out of those few games. There isn't too much lag, and other than some issues with playing on the release day, I haven't encountered many problems with logging in. I don't appreciate Nintendo's silly "everyone must be anonymous, and everything must be adjusted for children" mentality which appears with Brawl, nor do I appreciate using "Friend Codes" which I have been pretty vocal about since Nintendo started using them in 2005. That said, other than that, there aren't many problems. There is generally a large amount of people to play with/against, and despite my opinions against playing fighting games online, Brawl's fighting style seems to prevent the usual occurrance of that one Japanese guy who wins every single match and is one of the three people who play it on a normal basis.

Also mentioned earlier was a Level Editor. While this does seem like a neat idea, to be honest, it isn't really in-depth, and thus, pretty much limits you to creating poorly made levels, and generic SSB levels, with the one large platform and the two smaller, floating ones. I've made roughly 20 levels, and while they are pretty fun to play, don't approch the level of awesomeness or variety which the real levels provide. Think of it like a Tony Hawk skatepark editor, only with significantly less space and objects, and you pretty much know what Brawl's level editor is.

So, I feel I've covered most of the gameplay and mode issues, so, I'm going to talk about the graphics. Graphics aren't all that important to me in most games. As long as they are consistant, don't cause any problems, and fit the game, I'm generally fine. Unlike a majority of reviewers and gamers out there, I don't see anything wrong with Brawl's visuals. Sure, it may not be as shiny as Super Mario Galaxy, and some textures are REALLY flat, but the game is locked at a high framerate, and each character and level mimicks those of their respective series. Everything is distinctly Nintendo here, with the pronounced animations, cartoonish style of visuals, and general impressiveness of effects.

My last topic will address loading times, which are a big turn-off with this installment of the series. The load times may not approach minutes in length, and are certainly shorter than a wide variety of more recent games, but for a game from Nintendo, and even more specific, a Super Smash Bros. game, load times before and after each match, and an initial load time of roughly 25 seconds is inexcusable. What makes them even worse is that the team didn't even try to cover them up. You'll simply see the screen freeze, hear your Wii spinning the disk (*waits for someone to laugh as if this was a perverse statement*) and then the battle will start 7-13 seconds later. I'd have preferred to at least have a screen change to the traditional "VS." screen of most fighting games, or have the screen go dark, but alas, this isn't so. Although I wouldn't consider this a tremendous flaw with most games, it isn't as if there is much to warrant the load. Four characters, with essentially the same graphics as the previous game, on a 2D arena. Doesn't seem all that demanding when compared to something like Call of Duty 4, with its semi-photorealistic settings.

If, after reading this review, you have recieved the feeling that Brawl is a horrible game, filled with flaws, let me stress that this is not true. My review has mainly focused on the negatives because what has already been established by the previous installments in the series is still rock-solid. Four-player, offline brawls will still likely be the mode of choice, and can get pretty instense, especially with some of the newer characters involved. What Brawl has brought back from Melee and the original game, it has, for the most part, improved upon greatly. In conclusion, it is one of if not my favorite game on the system, despite its flaws.

Pros:
-Excellent "Smash" signature gameplay
-Large, varied character roster
-Four player "brawls" are still among the best that the fighting genre has to offer
-Classic "campaign" is still fun to play, even if it feels the same as it did 9 years ago
-Solid control usage with multiple options
-Best Online multiplayer implementation on the system at this point in time
-Boss Fights are a great new addition to the series
-Event and Stadium matches are still fun to play

Cons:
-Clone characters still exist
-Combat is still a bit unbalanced
-Subspace Emissary becomes tedious quickly
-Even a blind person without arms could unlock every character within a weekend
-Mediocre level editor
-Unwarranted and frequent load times

Overall, an excellent game with several problems which keep it from approaching perfection.

My Guitar Hero IV Wishlist

By now most of you have probably played or heard of Guitar Hero. The series has seen releases each Fall since 2005, and shall see its second spin-off title in just a few months. While I myself don't own "Rocks the 80s" and don't intend on purchasing "Aerosmith", I do look forward to Guitar Hero 4 due to the series' fun-factor and generally good track lists (could deal without much of the modern stuff, but at least they have a good chunk of older stuff too). Although the fourth installment likely won't be released until October or November of this year, I'm already making my preferable track list, and you can all see it thanks to my blog (this will be constantly updated). Although I'd love to fill the list up with Iron Maiden and AC/DC, I'll try and stay in-line with the series by keeping one song per artist. So, here we go:

-"Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?" by Megadeth
-"Aces High" by Iron Maiden
-"Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne
-"Enter Sandman" by Metallica
-"Natural High" by Hammerfall
-"Children of The Grave" by Black Sabbath
-"Superbeast" by Rob Zombie
-"Would You Love a Monsterman?" by Lordi
-"Detroit Rock City" by Kiss
-"Another Stranger Me" by Blind Guardian
-"Breaking The Law" by Judas Priest
-"Send Me a Sign" by Gamma Ray
-"Paradise City" by Guns 'n Roses
-"Kings of Metal" by ManOwaR
-"Holy Diver" by Dio
-"Super Charger Heaven" by White Zombie
-"Thunderstruck" by AC/DC
-"The Bells of The 7 Hells" by Helloween
-"Blood on My Hands" by Demons & Wizards
-"Wolf" by Iced Earth
-"San Sebastian" by Sonata Arctica
-"Peace of Mind" by Boston (I know it was a GH3 downloadable)
-"This Love" by Pantera
-"No One Like You" by Scorpions
-"Fury of The Storm" by Dragonforce
-"Hot Blooded" by Foreigner
-"Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin
-"Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult
-"New Protection" by Ride The Sky
-"The Pursuit of Vikings" by Amon Amarth
-"Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
-"Otherside" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
-"Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
-"Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden
-"Schism" by Tool

Bonus Tracks:
-Beelzeboss (from "The Pick of Destiny" starring Tenacious D)
-The Original Power Rangers Theme Song
-The Dynasty Warriors 4 Theme Song
-"Devil's Forest" from the 'F-Zero X' Soundtrack
-"Cut You Up with a Linoleum Knife" by Mastodon (from the 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Movie Film for Theaters' soundtrack)
-"Awaken" by Dethklok

Hardest Guitar Hero ever? Try playing all of these songs on Expert in one sitting and then see how many fingers break when typing a response.
More to come!

-Xanog

Blog re-launched

Its alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (again)

Thanks in part to a newly freed-up schedule, I can finally start up the blog again.

So start reading so that I don't have to hit you through the internet.