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May 19, 2008 – http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/313

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Citing a gross misrepresentation on the stability of streetlights in Grand Theft Auto IV, the Furiously Angered Civil Engineers Union (FACEU) has held a press event in the Civil Engineering capital of the world, the GameStop on Foothill Avenue in Arcadia, California.

Don Southerby, Chairman of the FACEU, said in his opening statement that his organization feels that Grand Theft Auto IV is an insult to Civil Engineers everywhere and should be pulled off its shelves, not for its varied measures of allegedly extreme violence sprinkled throughout the game, but for its “sickening misuse of Civil Engineer equipment, such as barrels full of water, orange cones, off-colored barricades, and traffic laws.” Afraid that since only children play the game, not people that drive cars, they will think that it is normal to drive like maniacs endangering all around them.

What Don Southerby was really steamed about, however, was the fact that “streetlights are depicted as frail poles swaying in the wind that a car can simply sweep off its feet and be disconnected from the power grid with little to no damage to the car. In the real world, streetlights are powerful and a car can not simply run through it. Streetlights are built stronger than trees, yet not a tree in Grand Theft Auto IV can be run down!”

Don Southerby continued, “Do you know how many streetlights prevent drunk drivers from continuing their drunken rampage? A LOT. We owe a lot to streetlights in this country and without them the world would be a cold, dark place 12 hours out of the day. Not only that, but Grand Theft Auto IV does not punish players for not following traffic laws. Traffic laws are handcrafted by painstaking research of traffic patterns at each and every stoplight out there. Running red lights in this game does not show the respect to all those Civil Engineers who risk their livelihood everyday out on the streets.”

The FACEU’s Environmental sects have also railed Rockstar Games, maker of Grand Theft Auto IV, for misrepresenting trees and grass in the game. “Trees and grass do not look like that,” said one of the supporters at the FACEU press event.

After the rally had taken its course, many attendees bought copies of GTAIV, commenting that they were “planning on burning it later where the fire would not threaten any street signs or road pavement.”

Don Southerby closed the rally, with the following comments, “FACEU will not support any game that gives you high scores for destroying streetlights and Civil Engineering equipment. These vital parts of society are here for a reason and not meant to frivolously be obliterated by people who do not follow traffic laws.”

Tags: civil engineer, GamersMark, The DPB Tag, This Is Satire, video game

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Developer/Publisher: Capcom

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May 28, 2008 – http://www.gamersmark.com/reviews/view/1263

Overall: 9.0/10

Gameplay 8.0

Presentation 8.0

Value 9.5

Graphics 8.5

Sound 8.5

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The Devil May Cry series has been one of the more talked about games recently with the release of Devil May Cry 4, all with the exclusivity to Sony platform being thrown up into the air – but back in the day where none of that mattered, there was a game called Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition for the PS2. The Special Edition is the refining of the original game, Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening, and includes a bunch more goodies that the first version didn’t have, as well as a shuffling around of the difficulty modes. Usually action games peak out around ten or fifteen hours, but it’s easy to spend at least twice that with Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition.

Put simply, Devil May Cry 3 is an action game with horror and gothic elements. It’s not exactly scary, but the game goes back to its roots after Devil May Cry 2’s “offensive” locale. Not only that, but there is an actual story that you can comprehend, unlike any of the other games in the series up to this point. Though the story is actually worth its weight in words this time around, the main appeal comes from the gameplay itself, and it speaks volumes. Unlike most games, Normal mode isn’t for the faint of heart, and even that is considered “easy” by the original version of Devil May Cry 3’s standards.

The Devil May Cry series doesn’t have a combo system utilizing different buttons like in God of War. There is one button to use your melee weapon (typically a sword), one button for your guns, and one button for a special move. Used appropriately, you can string together all the different types of attacks to lay some serious hurt on the demons and rack up some impressive combos. Unlike Devil May Cry 2, you’ll have to hit the square button over and over if you want to shoot Dante’s guns (in Devil May Cry 2, you could just hold it down and it’d fire). As far as Dante’s pistols go, the faster you hit the square button, the faster he’ll shoot them. As you get different weapons, they all have their own firing rates, so clicking the button as fast as you are able to does not help you all the time. Melee weapons follow a bit different logic, however. A melee weapon has two or three different combos that rely on the timing of your button pushes. This can change a little from weapon to weapon, but it’s basically the same execution. In total, there are five guns and five melee weapons for Dante to acquire through the game.

The circle button comes into play when you want to use one of Dante’s Styles. The basic styles are Trickster, Swordmaster, Gunslinger, and Royalguard. Trickster allows you to make use of dashing and running up walls, which I found to be practically useless. Trickster is a hold-over from the circle-button command from Devil May Cry 2, but Devil May Cry 2’s execution in that regard was leagues better. Swordmaster is a bit more useful, and allows you to do some cool stuff with your sword (like throw it) once it levels up. Gunslinger is the one I used the most, and allows you to do quite a few things, like shoot your guns faster, charge them, and target two targets at the same time. Not to mention spin in the air like a tornado while shooting your gun! Gunslinger is by far the coolest of all the styles. Royalguard is kinda boring and only blocks. If you block enough, you charge up some power and can release it onto an enemy to kill them. It’s sort of ineffective at times, because you’ll still get damaged, and it’s not really smart to take damage since it’s very hard to find something that heals you. Other styles are acquired as the game goes on, but for about 80 percent of the game you’ll be stuck with those four. The more advanced styles you gain later on don’t allow you to level up at all.

The graphics are pretty nice for a PS2 game, but do sort of show their age as we get further into the current generation of consoles. The voice acting is not terrible at all, so that is something to be thankful for. The sound effects are good, but the music is where the game lacks. Every time you’re near an enemy, a cheesy battle score with horrible lyrics starts playing. I hated the song by the end of the game and tried to just ignore it, unfortunately to no avail. It would have been nice if they didn’t have such a horrible song, but what can you do? The story is good, and really the first competent piece of writing the series has shown after the first two games.

Overall, the game is very hard, even at the Normal difficulty. The easy difficulty allows for less experienced action gamers (or people who just suck at games) to get into the game to actually beat it and *gasp* enjoy it. Even hardcore gamers will probably at least take a pass through all modes of play the game has to offer, as it’ll add towards fully completing the game in every facet. Once you finish the game, a new gameplay mode called Bloody Palace will be accessible, not to mention being able to play as Dante’s brother Vergil in a new game. There’s plenty of stuff to unlock, so you’ll be playing the full game quite a few times, although it’ll be easier after the first time since you’ll know how to figure out all the puzzles.

Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition is a good game to play if you’re into action games. Since it has been out for a while now, you’ll be able to find it at a very cheap price. The Devil May Cry box set includes all three of the PS2 games in the series, and it’s a good value. Regardless of your feelings toward the second game, you’ll get a loaded action game in Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition.

Tags: Capcom, game review, GamersMark, PlayStation 2, The DPB Tag

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Developer/Publisher: Capcom

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May 7, 2008 – http://www.gamersmark.com/reviews/view/1252

Overall: 8.0/10

Gameplay 8.0

Presentation 8.0

Value 8.0

Graphics 8.0

Sound 8.0

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Devil May Cry 2 has somehow achieved the reputation of being the worst game in the Devil May Cry series, and there is no one out there who would recommend playing the game after the third and fourth games came out. Most people just say skip it. I’m here to tell you otherwise — Devil May Cry 2 is not that bad of a game. Sure, it might have a few flaws, but Devil May Cry 2 is a superior game to the first Devil May Cry in practically every way except the location.

The original Devil May Cry started out as a Resident Evil game, as most people know. It’s probably safe to assume that Devil May Cry 2 started out as some other game that was transformed into a Devil May Cry game with Dante slapped into it. That may or may not be the case, but it’s probably better for it, since I didn’t really enjoy the first Devil May Cry game as much as some people. The only thing the first Devil May Cry still has going for it is level design. In the first game Dante talked — not so much in the second one. But it’s a blessing when compared to the end of the first game where Dante becomes a prissy pony (read: not a badass).

Devil May Cry 2 didn’t have that great of a story, or anything that even resembles a story to tell you the truth, but I found that the gameplay was tremendously improved from the first game. Dante’s guns are Automatic, similar to the first game’s Easy Automatic. Unlike the first, it doesn’t feel like a machine gun and the animation is a lot smoother. Dante can now run up walls, and also dodge while pressing the Circle button. Out of the first three games, dodging has been executed optimally in Devil May Cry 2.

As far as the actual game goes, there are plenty of missions — a little more than 20. Not only that, but you can play as a second character right off the bat, named Lucia, who basically goes through all the same levels in a different way. Nonetheless, there is a lot of content to be mindful of even if there aren’t any extras. Lucia is a bit boring, however, so you might as well just stick with the Dante disc and forget there is a Lucia disc unless you want to see a French ninja girl jump around.

Basically what people hate about the game is that Dante doesn’t talk very much, the story makes absolutely no sense and you’re running around urban environments for the majority of the game. There is truth to all of that, but that line of thinking glosses over the actual gameplay. As far as that goes, lots of people think it was a piece of cake. It could be considered that, especially compared to the other games, but I had a difficult time enough as it was, so it depends on what kind of gamer you are when it comes to difficulty preference.

The graphics and sound are quite improved from the first game, but the first had better art and design than the second. There weren’t any bad frame rate dips at all, and of what little voice acting there was of Dante, it was fine. The annoying voice actors are probably just about everyone else in the game, but you get over it since they barely ever talk anyway.

Devil May Cry 2 might not be the best game ever, but it certainly is NOT one to skip over if you want to see the evolution of the series. As much as fans and even Capcom itself might want to ignore its existence and say to just “skip it,” it would be quite the mistake. If you like to see how the game series evolved, Devil May Cry 2 should at least be given a try.

Tags: Capcom, game review, GamersMark, PlayStation 2, The DPB Tag

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Developer: Yuke’s Media Creations / Publisher: THQ Inc.

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April 22, 2008 – http://www.gamersmark.com/reviews/view/1247

Overall: 5.0/10

Gameplay 6.0

Presentation 7.5

Value 7.5

Graphics 7.0

Sound 7.0

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The SmackDown Vs. Raw series has been around for a while. With its long-since forgotten relatives WCW/nWo World Tour and WCW/nWo Revenge on the N64, THQ’s wrestling formula hasn’t changed all that much from those days. It may have a new coat of paint and an updated roster, but SmackDown Vs. Raw 2008 can’t hold a candle to the original wrestling games that fans played to death when they were released.

SmackDown Vs. Raw is basically a 3D fighting game in its core foundation. While it’s not exactly “traditional” in that there is a life bar, the concept is still the same – beat the crap out of your opponent and make him wish he was never born. Wrestling games are a lot slower than normal fighters, because they try to mimic “real life” wrestling, whatever that may be. In SmackDown Vs. Raw 2008, you take control of wrestlers with practically no personality (that is, if they had any in the first place) and typically win by submission or three-count pin-fall.

In the game, you have some basic moves. You can punch, kick, smack, slap, run, weak grab, or strong grab your opponent to lay the hurt down on them. If you’ve played any wrestling game by THQ, most of it has remained unchanged over the years. The only thing worth commenting on if you haven’t played one of these games for a long time is that once you grab your opponent, you can execute a move by flicking the right analog stick in a certain direction to perform a specific move in your current character’s repertoire. While it isn’t as straightforward as pressing a button, it seems a bit more intuitive since you are mimicking a move as your character does it, in a way. If you get a hang of the fighting system, you might be able to have a good time with the game, as there is a lot of stuff to do if you really put your mind to it. If the system doesn’t really appeal to you, it’ll be hard finding your money’s worth if you’re a newcomer to wrestling games. You’ll also be furiously hitting on all buttons way more than you’d probably like to, so get ready to give your fingers a workout.

SmackDown Vs. Raw 2008 is the first game in the series to appear on the PS3. The 2007 version was canceled, to WWE’s major dismay, and you can see that there are still many kinks that didn’t get finished or optimized to a satisfactory standard. At the top of the list are the loading screens. Holy crap, there are a ton of loading screens in this game. Every time you start a match, there’s a loading screen. Before you even get to PLAY the match you just waited through the loading screen for, you have to go through three forced loading screens, even if you don’t want to watch the opening entrances of the wrestlers. It is so annoying to sit through what seems like five minutes of loading just to play a match – and worst of all, you can’t even turn the wrestler’s entrances off so you can avoid all that extra loading. Or if there IS a way to turn it off, they didn’t make it easy to find since I couldn’t find it in the Options menu at all.

As far as game modes go, there is a very barebones “career”-type mode called WWE 24/7, which is new to the series. In WWE 24/7, you can take a WWE Superstar or a created wrestler of your choice through a bunch of shoddy barely-thought-through storylines (and you thought the actual storylines you see on TV were bad?) with canned animations, e-mails that have voice-overs, e-mails that don’t have voice-overs, and spending money to unlock opening entrances (goody, more load times!). Online is also horribly laggy, and I always seem to be at a disadvantage against other players online because they somehow mastered the non-responsive controls in online mode and take advantage of the lag people get to absolutely dominate you. That’s probably beside the point, though, which is that it’s completely not worth playing against a human since there’s barely a difference in the satisfaction you may get from pinning an AI player. I guess it’s also worth mentioning that practically every wrestler you’d want to wrestle with is included in the game, as well as the ECW roster, making its debut this year.

Graphics are “meh” at best. Horribly annoying canned animations give absolutely no personality to any of the wrestlers you see, even though there are unique entrances for all the WWE Superstars. A limitation in WWE 24/7 mode seems to be that there can only be four characters on screen at the same time, and often there is no continuity between the story and what you see in the animations between characters. They are just replaced randomly with other wrestlers, so you’ll see the same scenes over and over. It might also be a boon that some of the models in the game look like the real wrestlers, but some of them look very off, like Edge. The sound is okay at best as the music can get kind of repetitive. The voice-overs are done by the actual wrestlers and personalities from WWE, so credit should be given for actually getting the real people to come in and donate their talents towards the project, although you might get sick of just about everyone’s voice by the time you’re through with WWE 24/7 mode.

In the end SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 is probably not worth your time. If you really commit to putting time into the game, you’ll be able to find a lot of content to busy yourself with. However horribly executed it may be, there is still a lot of playing time to be had. If you’re a long time fan of the series and you’ve stuck with it this far, you’re probably getting what you expect from a yearly “sports” title, but don’t hold your breath if you expect to find something redeeming in this year’s edition of SmackDown Vs. Raw. Maybe the 2009 edition of the game will have a fleshed out WWE 24/7 mode that will actually be worth playing, as it did show promise of becoming an interesting play mode.

Tags: game review, GamersMark, PlayStation 3, The DPB Tag, THQ, Yukes Media Creations

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Developer: Clap Hanz / Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

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April 5, 2008 – http://www.gamersmark.com/reviews/view/1241

Overall: 9.0/10

Gameplay 9.5

Presentation 8.0

Value 9.5

Graphics 9.0

Sound 8.0

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Sony Computer Entertainment’s Hot Shots Golf series has entered into the next generation in Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. Out of Bounds is an arcade-style golfing game developed by Clap Hanz in Japan. While not everyone will get the appeal of the inherently Japanese-styled characters, beneath what you see is a very meaty, fun, golfing game that provides entertainment for a very long time. An all-new online mode is introduced in Out of Bounds and adds a distinctive layer to the series.

The first thing anyone sees when they put their copy of Out of Bounds into their PS3 is an installation screen. Even though the game takes about a 4 giga-BITE (get it? okay, sorry) out of your hard drive space, it’ll be well worth it since the game runs like a dream from hole to hole. The only time you’ll see a load screen in this game is right before you start a new game, and only for a few seconds. Whatever your philosophy on mandatory installs may be, it is very nice to play a game where there is minimal time spent with loading, leaving more to actually playing.

Traditionally, the Hot Shots Golf series’ shot system had worked by the “3 click” system. First, you start the power meter, click the X button when it got to the power setting you wanted, and then when the dial came back to the beginning, you hit the X button again, in an attempt to get the dial right on target to where it had began. It’s a pretty standard system found in most golf games prior to this one.

A new Advanced Shot system is described as a more “analog” way to play the game, judging the power of a stroke by how far the club is raised, and how straight the ball flies by a closing circle. In Out of Bounds, instead of forcing you to go with the new Advanced Shot system, they give you the option of using both, but do make it very encouraging to play with the Advanced Shot system since it is more advantageous than the Traditional Shot system in almost all ways except for judging exactly how far you want the ball to go. Spinning the ball in different ways allows you to take extra control over what the ball does, as well.

Essentially, the shot systems are the game. There are six courses that will challenge your mastery of the particular shot systems, with weather, special rules, or even competition against another golfer being tossed in the Challenge Mode of the game. Golfers each have their individual talents, and there 15 to choose from. Challenge Mode allows you to acquire new gear, golfers, and other items. Also, as you progress through Challenge Mode, new courses eventually open up. In Stroke Mode, you can select any of the various ways to play each course and modify the individual course however you like before you play. A multiplayer mode allows for local play, but the main multiplayer mode that will suck up your time is the online multiplayer mode. Online multiplayer is quite interesting in how it’s presented. Unlike most online games where you simply join a game and play, there is a whole lobby and chat system – you even get your own cute little avatar to jump around and interact with people in a multitude of visual chat rooms. All of that is quite novel, but the main point is to play games online, after all.

The online multiplayer is unique and not exactly 100% golf-oriented, but obviously the point of the whole lobby system is to join games and play. Normal games that are created by other people in the lobby that you are currently in can be joined and created on the fly. Tournaments require a little bit more planning. You have a set time that the tournament starts at, and you book your spot in the tournament well in advance before it starts. You might be able to find a tournament starting right when you’re looking to play or plan ahead and find a game that is four hours ahead.

Additionally, Tournaments are separated in different rankings, GF, G0, G1, and G2. GF doesn’t count for much (everyone can play), while G0, G1, and G2 allow you to rank up, starting from G2, and getting to G0. The more you play (and win), the higher ranking you’ll be able to get. You’ll have to keep winning to keep your online ranking, and if you don’t get enough points to sustain your rank, you could actually get demoted, so it keeps you on your toes, constantly competing against other players online. Tournaments feature up to 50 players. The downside of that is that there can be a lot of time wasted, as you wait for everyone to finish the hole.

Graphics are very nice, and smooth — practically no jaggies anywhere and the lighting effects are quite beautiful. The sound effects are satisfying, and so is the soundtrack. What really annoys from a presentation-standpoint is the voice-overs. The voice actors are just astoundingly bad. I’m only thankful that we don’t have to hear them speak actual dialogue to propel a story forward, not that there would be one since it’s a golfing game, but it’s a curious choice in the localization process. If the American voices annoy you enough, however, you can switch on the Japanese voices.

Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds is a great entry into the popular golf series. Its easy to get in to, and the concept is simple – get the ball in the hole with as few strokes as possible. There’s a lot of time to be spent with this title, and fans won’t be disappointed with either the offline or the online modes. Not only is the game satisfying and full of content, there is also the prospect of getting extra characters and courses through the PlayStation Store.

Tags: Clap Hanz, game review, GamersMark, PlayStation 3, Sony Computer Entertainment, The DPB Tag

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Teastounding!

In what could be an astounding chain of events, Take Two has announced they have bought Electronic Arts.  Not disclosing any details of the transaction, Take Two interim CEO Benjamin Feder is hailed as a mastermind of negotiation.

“This isn’t some herbal supplement we’ve got here.” elaborated Chairman of the Board Strauss Zelnick.  “This is real Earl Grey tea.  None of that flavored stuff you get at some knock-off Trader Joes kind of place.”

The new company will be named TTEA – pronounced “Tuh-tee.”

You can expect to see a lot more games based on tea, starting with the spin-off of the Grand Theft Auto series, GTeA.

GTeA follows a know-nothing Eastern-European criminal that makes his way to the top of the tea industry, finding out the best way to make tea.  Platforms announced are the PS3 and 360. The Wii will also be getting its own delightful version of GTeA called GTeAWii in which you can actually stir the tea before giving it to your gangster friends.

Merchandising for GTeA will include a special brand of Tea, aptly named, GTeA.  One teabag of actual GTeA will come with each copy of the GTeA game, with whole packages being sold exclusively through Amazon.com.

“We feel that giving the user the ability to experience the tea that they see, hear, and make in the game is important to the synergy of the game and this merger,” newly appointed Chief of Tea John Riccitiello.

Commenting on the merger between Take Two, EA, and his new appointing in the corporate structure at TTEA, John Ricciteiello is “glad to finally be able to focus on what my life has really been all about — tea.  I hate all that money talk, what’s it all matter if you can’t get a good cup of tea at the end of the day?  I’ll make sure that every employee at TTEA gets the tea they deserve, as Chief of Tea.”

In the coming weeks, the board of TTEA will re-evaluate every single product that has begun development in the past year to refocus on making their games more “tea-oriented.”

“It’s unfortunate that so many games will be released before we are able to re-evaluate the value of releasing games that do not have anything to do with tea, but rest assure that BioShock 2 will be all about rescuing a crate of tea from the hands of that Colombian guy with the donkey who shows up in your window randomly and makes people drink evil coffee.  Oops, I didn’t just give away the story did I?” Strauss Zelnick stated at the press conference.

As a result of the announcement, Activision Blizzard has shown no remorse in the affability of the new mega-corporation’s name, simply stating “Ours is worse.”

Tags: April Fools, Electronic Arts, Take Two, The DPB Tag

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Yo yo this is the doctor of shruganomics “rapping” to you about the demo to my game Flaming K currently being worked on.

Play as the mysterious Flaming K who seeks revenge on pretty much anything! Drive a moustached SUV, fly a hang glider, get blown away in skin valley, collect cans of orange soda, and generally just be mischevious!

Don’t believe me? Just check out these shots bro and keep in mind they’re saved in gif so they have a loss in color:

http://fatandangry.com/games/fkdemoshot1.gif

http://fatandangry.com/games/fkdemoshot2.gif

Download here:

http://fatandangry.com/games/fmkdemo.zip

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!!!!

Tags: demo, download, fun, game, play

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May 20^th, 2005 - http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/162/

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When I went on the second day of E3, I had the pleasure of seeing the event how it should be: with all the lights on. Needless to say, everything looked brighter. I don’t know if it was the affect of brightness that made it more apparent that AJ was wearing a trench coat that was particularly eye-catching (to say the least, since like 50 people came up to ask him where he got it and stuff), but that wasn’t the only highlight of the day. No siree.

We left a little later than I would have liked. I’d say we’d actually gotten on the road at around 8:00 or so, because we had to wait in the drive-thru for Jack-In-the-Box. But that wasn’t even the part that took the longest. From Point A to Point B, we were in traffic that was crawling at about Five MPH. We didn’t even get to the LA Convention Center until about 9:15 or so, and I didn’t hit the speed limit once.

When we got into the actual building, I called Dan to tell him we were there. He said they were in the press room along the far wall. It should be noted that every time I talk to someone on the phone, I have to ask them to repeat what they said about five hundred times before I can understand them since it’s so loud, and I have a thing about not holding my cell phone the right way. After a little confusion (it took us longer than I’d like to mention) about actually where this mystical “press room” was, it turned out that it was the same place we got our badge holders in. Silly me. Another funny part of it is that each time AJ had gone down the hall that we were supposed to, I told him to go down another hall with me. So he went down the right hall twice before we actually went the right way together.

We met up with Dan and Marcus who were doing stuff on the web site at the time. Since I forgot that we were supposed to make business cards of some type, Dan gave us a handful of his to use between us, so that we could just write our stuff on the back of it and give it out. We left the area afterwards, and went to the floor, looking at the games we’d already seen the day before, and stepping in to play a few of them. This encompassed most of our day, and except for a small period of time between 10:40 a.m. and around 12:15 p.m.

The games I had played today, and forgotten to mention about yesterday are as follows:

StarCraft: Ghost – I hadn’t actually played the game, but I did see it played in what could be described as a Capture the Flag mode. The game was ridiculously awesome, especially since I’m a long-time StarCraft player (not exactly a veteran, but I do love the game) of about seven years, so it was really cool seeing how all the vehicles and Terran units were modified and changed after ten years since the first game came out. I had always wondered why they hadn’t done anything more with the StarCraft franchise, but the empty space in my heart has been filled with just watching other people play StarCraft: Ghost. From the looks of it, it seemed like it was better, and more unique than Halo. Since its set in the StarCraft universe, people could chose to be a Ghost, Firebat, or Marine, and drive Siege Tanks, Vultures (which seem like they handle exactly like a Ghost in Halo), and other original vehicles made for the game. The mode that was currently being played in multiplayer was a very interesting version of Capture the Flag. Instead of retrieving a flag and taking it back to your base, the object of the game was to infiltrate a factory, lift it off, and land it in your base for a certain amount of time. It looked really fun, because players of the other team were constantly raiding the factory, taking it over, and launching it off the ground back towards their base. I predict StarCraft: Ghost will put the Halo name to shame, even though I loved the original Halo.

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat – This game is another from the development team DICE and publisher EA, who have worked together in the past with Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam. Battlefield 2 is a modern combat game, using all of today’s weaponry, and the added surprise (to me at least) of artillery fire. While the featured demo was multiplayer and featured only one map, once you got used to the PS2 controller, the game became really fun. All the soldier classes (considering the types that are usually included in a Battlefield game) were available to choose from, so it provided a wide variety in the troops. I played for about an hour or so. You can read my preview of the game here:

http://www.gamersmark.com/previews/view/253

Burnout Revenge – I only played the original Burnout for all of about half an hour on the Xbox at my friend’s house, and was really not that into the game. Three games later, (and while I haven’t played it, I hear Burnout 3 is really good) Burnout Revenge has really impressed me. What could only be described as high adrenaline racing, you drive into your competitors, trying to crash them into walls, and it’s helpful to just be as reckless as you can while still trying to win 1st place. The crash scenes and the explosions are really amazing because of the angles and slow motion they use to efficiently deliver all the action that is happening. There were two courses available for play in a single player mode for the E3 demo that was on display. I’m definitely looking forward to the final product.

Kingdom Hearts II – Kingdom Hearts II builds on top of what made Kingdom Hearts so great, and added some level of complexity. This is definitely a welcome change for those who bought the first game, but I’m not sure how it be for little kids who played it. Complexity issues aside, Kingdom Hearts II is an all new adventure, bound to be full of the characters that were in the original, as well as different Disney movies like, Mulan as well as others, which will provide the setting. Hades (from Hercules) takes a big part in the game from the looks of it. There’s a boss battle where you fight the Cerberus with Auron from FFX, which allows for some really cool cooperative attacks. In the first Kingdom Hearts, the FF characters didn’t accompany you on your journey, but the demo obviously seems to suggest otherwise for the sequel. The battle system is just as fluid as ever, and with the inclusion of a concept of “forms” Sora can change his fighting style (the one included in the game allowed Sora to have double Keyblades) which makes for some pretty exciting innovations. One thing is for certain though, if Kingdom Hearts II includes the Gummi Ship minigame thing they had in Kingdom Hearts, then I’ll probably just scream, because I never understood how to do anything with that freaking ridiculous concept.

Now its time for the SNK predicament. This is a very special part of my E3 journal, because if I hadn’t played Kingdom Hearts II ,
Battlefield 2, and Burnout Revenge afterwards, I would have been pissed off.

10:30 – I realize its 10:30, and stop playing Kingdom Hearts II. AJ and I have an appointment with SNK Playmore, which is in the hall that we weren’t in. So we had to go — quick style.

10:40 – We arrived at the SNK Playmore booth. I went up to the Press Desk to check in, and told them who I was and that I was with GamersMark.com. The lady looked at the list she had, and “gamersmark.com” was listed on it. She asked me for a business card, which I gave to her with information I had written on the back of it. She asked me who I was supposed to meet, but I didn’t know any name because we weren’t given one. She said to hold on, went into the backroom, and disappeared forever. That’s right, I never saw her again. Maybe she was really hungry and decided the business card would be a delectable treat. So, under the impression that we had to “hold on,” AJ and I looked at the old Neo Geo stuff they had in a case. Then we sat down, still waiting. AJ took out something and started reading, sitting on the floor. I looked around and saw that someone was done playing Metal Slug 5. I took it upon myself to play Metal Slug 5, since all the other games they had were relatively uninteresting old games they were porting to the current generation of systems which would all eventually have Live-enabled multiplayer. Whoopidoo.

10:59 – I notice it’s nearly 11:00, and figure that they should be coming out to greet us soon. So I continue playing Metal Slug 5.

11:04 – I look at my cell phone again, and notice its 11:04. So I thought “Ok, maybe they forgot.” So I went to the Press Desk again and did the whole process again that I had with the first woman that was there, since the person there now was completely different. She asked me for a business card, and then went to the backroom. We waited for about a minute, and she came back out and waved us in. So I called to AJ and then we went in. The lady then said “he’ll be right out.” So we took a seat on the couches. At this point it was about 11:06.

Interlude: 11:06 – 11:40 – During this time, amid weird looks by other members of the “press” at AJ’s trench coat, AJ and I read all the magazines and stuff we got for free. I drank a can of Sprite. I got up and got a small turkey sandwich with a thin piece of lettuce in it. While I was getting the sandwich, the guy I had seen walking around every which way through the room complained to me about how they had no mustard for the sandwiches, because they had it yesterday. I just said “Oh, that sucks.” It was then I thought that it would be funny if that was the guy we had to meet for our meeting. At this point we had waited about fifteen minutes already. So I went back to my seat, and ate the sandwich. This random guy comes from somewhere, with a sandwich and takes a drink from the bowl on the table. He asked AJ where he got his trench coat, and after AJ said the same thing he said to everyone else, the random guy asked us who we worked for. We said “Gamersmark.com” and the random guy said “Oh, really. I think I heard of you. Kind of ’up and coming.’ I hear you guys are pretty cool.” Yeah, right. I doubt he’s ever heard of us. That was the most general statement for any web site. That’s why we ignored him after, and acted like we had no interest in him. After a while later, I finished my sandwich, and then the random guy picked up his stuff and left. Afterwards, we waited for like another ten minutes before I got frustrated.

11:40 – I just about had it at this point, because we checked in 20 minutes early, only to be ignored. So I went back outside to the Press Desk to see what was up. There was another different person there (so that counts as three different women I saw at the desk). She was talking to someone else, so I stood by waiting for her to stop talking. While she was talking to him, she looked right at me, so I had assumed that she would talk to me after. Turns out, that wasn’t the case. Another dude comes out of nowhere and asks her a question, and they talk for about a minute, so I stepped in closer to where she was so that she would pay attention to me.

11:45 – I told the 3rd lady that we had been waiting inside the backroom for about 40 minutes and hadn’t met anyone yet. She said she’d see what was up, so I followed her back there, and then sat back down next to AJ. She went into a room and told someone that we had been waiting for about an hour. So, whoever she was talking to was supposedly in a meeting still. So when the guy in the meeting left, the guy who I could only think is the Manager/Director of the booth for SNK came out and apologized for the long wait. He asked who we were supposed to meet, and I said we didn’t know, we just know we had an appointment with SNK at 11:00 a.m. The Manager apologized again and asked if we had taken any food or drinks. I said we did, and he said that was good. He said “You’re supposed to meet my pr representative, let me go get him.” So after he went chasing after him for about another five minutes, he brought back the mustard guy.

11:50 – “Ohhhh, so YOU’RE Gamersmark!” is what the mustard guy said. No shit, Sherlock. We’d only been sitting in that room for the last half an hour watching him walking around the whole time because we weren’t there for any particular reason. But then I guess I couldn’t expect him to actually look for two guys that work for Gamersmark.com that he was supposed to meet at 11:00. So, we finally got our meeting underway, except we had to do it together with another guy. Wanna guess who it was? The Senior Editor of Play Magazine. Great, not only do we get ignored for an hour, we get overshadowed by a more prominent figure in the video game media than us lowly Gamersmark.com staffers.

12:00 or so – The mustard guy told us about which of SNK’s games that they were porting from their Neo-Geo to release on Xbox/Xbox 360. The mustard guy said that SNK loved Xbox because the fanbase likes 2D games more than that of the PS2’s. Supposedly all their 2D game sell horribly on the PS2, and all their games being released are for Xbox, save for the Metal Slug 4/5 combo pack that’s coming out later this year. Depending on the success of that, they may or may not become exclusive to Xbox. He also said that they were making a Metal Slug game in 3D. During the whole time, the senior editor dude kept pressing for special treatment of playing the games that weren’t available out on the floor. So between my nods, and saying “yeah” to transfer the message that I was listening to what he was saying about release dates for games, I had to listen to the annoying senior editor guy asking about being able to play games that no one else could. The mustard guy said that they’d have something after the show just for them. So, lucky him. That was basically all that happened. I didn’t go away from the meeting I had with SNK with the same feeling I had gotten from Namco. Maybe it was because we were ignored for so long, or maybe because Namco actually made us feel like they wanted us to find out about their games and had people actually working on the game explain them to us. We got press kits from the mustard guy then left. On the way out, the Manager acknowledged us when we left, and we said thanks to him. The Manager was a nice guy, in hindsight.

So, thanks to all that, there’s a lot more on today’s journal than originally planned. Be happy. The rest of the day we just walked around, and played some more games. We left when we got tired. On a side note, I don’t hate SNK.

Tags: E3, GamersMark, The DPB Tag

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May 19^th, 2005 - http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/161/

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Today was the first day of the exhibits at E3. A lot more happened today than I could have really anticipated.

I thought that it was impossible for E3 to suck at all, except for one thing that could happen, that could make it suck. A power outage. And that’s what happened this morning in the LA Convention Center. It wasn’t the LACC’s problem, it was the city’s problem, so there was no telling when they’d be able to get the power back up. Fortunately, they had generators running to keep the emergency lights on around the building and the parking lot. That didn’t keep the parking lot from looking like a dungeon though.

After AJ and I got to the parking lot, we drove around looking for a parking space. We drove around for a half an hour at least, constantly behind a long line of cars, wondering if I had wasted money on the parking ticket I bought. After a while, we were finally directed to an area, by staff. In a dark abyss of a corner, there were finally some parking spaces. When we finally got in the door, people had to deal with the power outage, quite simply because there wasn’t really anything to do because of it.

We met up with Dan and Marcus, who were in line waiting for the media briefing that was held before the exhibits opened. Everyone in line would get a bagel and listen to the media briefing. Dan and Marcus lost interest in attending the media briefing, and both decided to go to McDonalds and eat something there. Since AJ and I already ate, we just stayed in line because there was nothing to do. However, because of the power outage, some dude that worked there (I’m assuming) said some stuff about “since the power outage is blah blah blah, so the media briefing won’t blah blah blah.” I couldn’t really hear him because it was really loud and he was kind of far away. So, AJ just said we should just leave because they probably weren’t going to even hold the briefing. But I contested wholeheartedly because we’d get a bagel. AJ said it would be a shitty bagel, but I said “how do you know?” Other people in line made some comments about what we were talking about, but we didn’t pay attention to them, because they were stupid.

We walked around for about fifteen minutes in the lobby. We were handed some publications to read by some random people. One was an issue of GameInformer, and the other was an E3 Newspaper thing made by the ESA (the group that makes E3 possible). We sat around outside (because it was hot inside) and read what we were given, wondering if there’s going to be an E3 still because of the power outage. We waited until about 9:55 a.m. before we went back inside. Then the doors opened to E3, and the huge herd of people flooded into the E3 with cheers. Took a little while to actually get in, but we did.

The whole day we walked around pretty much, looking at all the different games around. I saw a lot of games being premiered for the first time like Shadow of the Colossus, Jak X Combat Racing, SOCOM 3, and like a thousand other games. There were big screen TVs everywhere and it was freaking loud.

Random information I gathered:

Square Enix is releasing a slew of RPGs in the coming months, such as Kingdom Hearts II, Radiata Stories, Romancing SAGA, Fullmetal Alchemist, etc.

Namco is trying to make all new franchises for their expansion into the PC realm of gaming instead of porting their games from the consoles, so the games have a feeling that is more than “Oh its on PS2, but now they’re putting it on the PC,” however it wouldn’t be stupid to think that some could transfer to console systems. When I poised the questions to different members of the Namco staff on-site at E3, they declined to comment on any possible porting of the PC games to the consoles, which could be a good sign in certain cases, depending on the type of game.

Of the games I saw, I only played/learned about a few enough to actually know something about the game. The following games qualify for the list of “what I know.”

Phantasy Universe – I hadn’t played a Phantasy game by SEGA since Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast. I instantly noticed the control scheme was amazingly better than PSO. I didn’t know if it was online, but whatever mode I was playing, I was accompanied by three NPCs in my team. I thought that it could be a really good game from what I had played.

Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII – This is the mobile game we’ve been hearing about which is a prequel of sorts to FFVII. It was all in Japanese, so I couldn’t tell you how the story was or anything, but by the way it looked, it had the best graphics for a mobile phone game I’d ever seen. But the controls don’t make the same impression. While it was still only in development, I’ve seen games that come out and have horrible controls regardless, so I had told someone about the way I felt the game should be improved a little bit. It was definitely hard to control your character in an action-battle setting, where you had to dodge around and hit your enemies, while they were firing at you and moving around as well. Needless to say, you need something better than a mobile phone to control that well. Also, if you were hit by the enemy who had a gun (you only had a sword, since you were that red-headed Turk), their rate of fire was that that you couldn’t hit them with your sword before they hit you, making it hard to get any hits in at all. Another minus was that the enemies had a lot of HP for being such low level ones. I can only wonder how hard boss battles (or the final boss battle, for that matter) would be. I’d gander a “near impossible.”

Kingdom Hearts 2 – looks like it plays just like what made the first Kingdom Hearts so great. They probably improved certain aspects of the gameplay and stuff, but I didn’t have a chance to actually play it. Perhaps in the coming days I will be able to.

Warhammer – One of Namco’s PC-only games. Its going to be an RTS game, but all they had of the game was a trailer with no in-game footage. Warhammer is a cool concept, so its possible the game could be very good.

Hellgate: London – I can’t say anything bad about it. I really think it’ll be one of the best games to come out on the PC. It mends together aspects of First Person Shooters and RPGs in a really cool way. You can read my preview for it here: http://www.gamersmark.com/previews/view/235/

Mage Knight Apocalypse – Another game from Namco’s wave of PC titles. Based on a table top game, Mage Knight Apocalypse prides itself on the fact that even though its an MMORPG-type game, there is no leveling up at all, which they feel takes away from the experience of playing the game, because it pulls you away from it while you level up. They explained that the stats increased as you used certain skills during the game, such as swinging your weapon or using spells. The skills that are increased would only be increased based on what you actually used during the game, so that means that if you use melee weaponry, you won’t get a magic skill for doing so.

It was a long day, and there’s two more coming up. We’re going to be concentrating more on playing the actual games than looking around and getting a feel for what’s around so we can prioritize our time the next day or two. And on a side note, the displays and booths look really cool. Each company has its own style. All the non-creative/low budget companies took up cubicles in the back of the halls though, so they weren’t as interesting.

We also saw some dude from Australia who had a virtual reality hardware thing called the a_rage. The technology and concept was really cool, since virtual reality was actually feasibly possible with it. They are an independent company, so I hope their product succeeds to some extent.

(Thanks to Marcus for subtitle name for the article.)

Tags: E3, GamersMark, The DPB Tag

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May 17^th, 2005 – http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/157/

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So, I woke up today at around 6:30 and took a shower. When I got out of the shower, I got dressed and then called AJ. After I told him he was coming with me, I drove over to his place, and like we had decided last night, we went to go eat somewhere, but first AJ had to get batteries for his camera and some cash. Afterwards we went to eat some doughnuts. Anyway, there wasn’t too much traffic on the way there, since we caught the last bits of rush hour I believe. When we got there, there was no trouble parking, but I can only imagine how hard it’ll be tomorrow for that.

When we got in, we got our media badge holders, and looked around. Everything was still being set up, so nothing was actually being shown yet. Its a good thing we got our badge holders and everything really easily, because it’ll probably be hell tomorrow morning.

Me Standing In Front of Cardboard GTA Chick

After we got our badges we went back down to the lobby and looked around some more. I called Dan to tell him we were there. They said they were parking right then and that they’d call when they got to the lobby. So we hung out around the lobby some more, and AJ walked around behind the escalators, and low and behold we found the new Batmobile for the upcoming “Batman Begins” movie.

The New Batmobile from “Batman Begins”

When AJ and I met Dan and Marcus for the first time, we shook hands and stuff, then they asked where they could get the media badge holders. On the way there, they asked what was going on today, and we said nothing except the Nintendo conference. While they were getting their badge holders, AJ and I figured out that the Nintendo Conference wasn’t even at the LA Convention Center. Needless to say, we were kinda mad. So, since that was the only thing even happening today for the most part, we didn’t know what to do at all.

We looked at the event list and saw that there was an Educational Game conference hosted by MIT or something like that. We decided to just go, since nothing else was happening, and while AJ and I were looking around some place else, we lost Dan and Marcus. They didn’t say they were going right in, but we assumed they did. AJ was saying we should probably just leave since nothing was happening, but I thought we should at least tell Dan and Marcus before we actually left.

So we went inside the MIT conference thing, and saw Peter Molyneux (game designer for Fable, Black and White, and Black and White 2) talking about his new game where you can make a movie and then share it with people. It seemed pretty interesting. He was talking about how educational games can still be fun, as well.

He was talking about how educational games can still be fun, as well. He talked a lot about all the different things that game developers making educational games had to deal with, and the rising costs of development for the next generation consoles (upwards of 20 million dollars). The main points he made during his main talk was that he wanted games to be used in the classroom to teach. He made a reference to how he learned more about world history from the Civilization games than he had ever known previous. He also mentioned he liked to make games that gave you a choice of being good or bad, because people could see the consequences of their actions whether they be good or bad and see how things happened, similar to real life. He mentioned that in America, 75% of the people chose to be good in games if they were given the chance, but in Europe it was the exact opposite, with them saying 75% of them would chose to be evil. After a while of him talking, he took some questions from the audience. All together that probably took a good 45 minutes. Or at least it felt like it.

A funny part of the conference was that Marcus asked a question about what markets they hoped to appeal to with educational games even though they cost so much because of increasing next-gen development costs. After he answered the question with saying there are enough people out there who would buy an educational game (or to that affect), later on someone else in the audience stood up and made the statement that educational games always sell well, and that “they” (meaning Marcus) should check their statistics again, because she hates it when people say that educational games don’t sell well. I wanted to tell her to stuff it, cause it seems like she was trying to snub Marcus for asking that question, though she really didn’t know who he was. She probably worked for a company that made educational games now that I think of it.

Peter also made a reference to Leroy Jenkins from World of Warcraft, if you know who he is. Molyneux said that he supported the Xbox 360 (but not specifically ONLY) because of its abilities regarding multiplayer games, which he is all in favor of, because people would be able to go on quests with each other and stuff.

He said that major thing in the next-gen platforms was how they could bring people together to play with each other, and that was a very important value for him.

Another question that was brought up in the conference was about the fact that with increasing quality of games, it would be hard for schools that will always have outdated PCs be able to use the games that are top of the line. Molyneux responded with saying that a remedy for that problem would be using video game consoles instead of updating all the PCs every year, since consoles only come out every five years or so.

He also said that there are many games that could help teach courses, such as the Civilization games for world history, or using the Half Life engine (which he said was very useful) to create educational games.

After Peter’s interview/conference session was over, people started to get up and leave, while people stayed for the next conference by Leap Frog. AJ and I already decided we’d just leave after we told Dan and Marcus, and we stayed for the whole conference to do so. So we told them we’d just go since there wasn’t anything to do. They’re probably just hanging around there still, taking pictures and stuff.

Tags: E3, GamersMark, The DPB Tag

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August 30^th, 2005 – http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/173/

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This is a satire about the way a certain “parent” would look upon a video game. It’s written as if it was for a site that was run by mothers who denounce controversial video games based on third party information rather than actually experiencing it themselves, and making rash judgments about things they have little knowledge about. Instead of classifying this as a preview, this reviewer comes to the conclusion of whether or not you should get the game before anything has even been released/shown/known about it. The name of this “mother” is Soccer Mom Dave.

Let me tell you right now: I’m disgusted. Have you heard about that game “Bully”? It’s a game that those sick minds at Rockstar Games are going to impose on us. My own son has a bully problem at school, and any chance of him playing this game will only make him realize how much of a weak molested little boy he is (wait until I start emasculating him at his soccer games). Playing tricks on teachers is one thing, but starting fights (even killing!!!!!) students is completely absurd.

While sitting in at the Meaningless Organization of Mothers (MOM for short), I heard all about the game and how you can do everything and more in the game including raping school girls and taking a gun to the school to create one Columbine after another. In this day and age, there are just things you don’t do; this is one of them.

Now, what I also heard at the MOM meeting right before we went into the 56th discussion of Hilary Clinton’s book was that major politicians agree that Bully will harm our society. A large sect of MOM called the MOUTH (Motherly Order of the Uninteresting Tantamount of the Hamiltonian) presented their findings based on extensive research of Bully have said that in their closed experiment, children ages 0-4 who played Bully for 10 hours at a time had extremely violent reactions while starving in their 4’ by 4’ cage, while the ones not playing Bully and eating as many sugary sweet snacks as they wanted were generally calm and passed out peacefully once their sugar highs died down. What does this research show, you might ask? It brings unchallenged proof that the games of today’s society are affecting the behavior of our children at a young age, not because of the way parents raise them.

As parents, we have no responsibility whatsoever in raising our children as schools and day time television programming (minus Janet “Whataslut” Jackson) are the only institutions of which should raise our children. While our children are preoccupied with being shrugged off towards other parties to look for values and beliefs to hold on to, we parents (moms especially) can go to Robinson’s May to look for a new way to spend our neglecting husband’s hard earned money on worthless things to make it feel like he loves us indirectly and to waste our time talking about Hilary Clinton’s book, carrying it around with us wherever we go (as if it was actually compelling enough to carry around in the first place) and avoid any improvement on our reasoning skills to see through the totally biased and uninformed organizations like MOM judge things that haven’t even been released yet, like Bully. But that’s just me.

Bully is a horrible game. I have heard enough about it to pass final judgment on it, and it is to say boycott this game and Rockstar! The game doesn’t even deserve a score because of its horrid nature. There is no score that could even be assigned to reflect my opinion. Maybe we should just put the whole review over a denominator of 10.

Tags: game review, GamersMark, Soccer Mom Dave, The DPB Tag

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August 11th, 2005 – http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/169/

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This is a satire about the way a certain “parent” would look upon a video game. It’s written as if it was for a site that was run by mothers who denounce controversial video games based on third party information rather than actually experiencing it themselves, and making rash judgments about things they have little knowledge about. The name of this “mother” is Soccer Mom Dave.

I have never been so appalled in my life. Today, while I was neglecting my children and watching the latest episode of Alias, I came by a news break commercial about a horrible horrible horrible game that had been re-rated by something called the “ESRB.” Upon further research, I had learned that by giving players the option to do whatever they please in a made up world of lust, sex, violence, and drugs, GTA: San Andreas has made its strike on America’s morality, which can never be healed.

How anyone can find this game fun eludes (I used the thesaurus for that one) me. Telling a story about a gangster is absolutely Ludacris (get it?). So, because of the fact that the story offends me, I refused to actually read any more into it. I am abhorrently against anything that may represent true life, and this is definitely something I am against, because gangsters are not real people according to my philosophy. I have heard that Samuel L. Jackson voices a crooked cop in the game, but it only makes me hate it even more because Samuel L. Jackson is a very obscene and RUDE individual. He drops the F bomb more than a can of peas at sunset. Never mind the fact that you can sleep with a prostitute and then kill her to get your money back! This is a completely unforgivable act, and I can’t believe that they would even insert this into the game and force you to do it nonetheless!

As to whether or not I have seen (because I don’t play games – ever. I am a very serious person, except for when it comes to dating) any other games in this “series” (I call it more of a disgrace than a series), I would have to say no. I will easily pass judgment on them and say they offend me as well, even though I don’t even know their names.

As talented as the programmers of the game may think of themselves to be, I believe them all to be felons, and nothing less. They should all be tossed into jail for concocting such a horrible horrible horrible game to release to the masses, even though it’s the consumers’ choice to buy it in the first place.

I had also heard that the Grand Theft Auto games have a good musical selection included in them. I say it’s crap. Any soundtrack that doesn’t have “The Bomb” by The Bucketheads and the whole Barry Manilow album (deservingly titled) “Ultimate Manilow” deserves a big thumbs-down from this van-driving wannabe-soccer-enthusiast.

So, when I had seen the report on this GTA San Andreas game getting re-rated to Adults Only (!!!!!!) from a Mature rating, I was shocked. Not only was the violence off the charts, but there was a hidden mini-game included in the game where you can have sex with your girlfriend! How could they rate a game Mature for having full-on, hardcore, PORNOGRAPHIC content EMBEDDED WITHIN THE GAME AND HAVE IT ONLY HAVE A MATURE RATING!!?!?!?!??!?! THIS IS CRAZY. After hearing the news, I took part in helping the National Parental Warning issued by the National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) by calling up Easily-Offended Mom Anthony, Dr. Phil-Addicted Mom Elias, Horribly-Inept Mom Kevin, Irresponsible Mom Dan, Censoring Mom Ian, and 24-Hour-A-Day-Drunk Mom AJ and told them about the uncovered lie told by Rockstar. All were up in arms, and we told the rest of our community in hopes to spark an outrage.

I would never let my son touch this game with a sixty foot pole. Though he has asked for the game, I have vehemently denied him the right to, and threatened to not pay for his college education if he ever asks again. MY nine year old will just have to do with his other games like Manhunt, Killer 7, Killzone, Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and Madden 2005 (I once had to take it away for two weeks when he called me an I Formation with two Wide Receivers – that language is not tolerated in this house) for the time being until he gets old enough to play a game like GTA: San Andreas.

The overall score for the game is a Ban-And-Squelch-Free-Speech/10.

Tags: game review, GamersMark, Rockstar Games, Soccer Mom Dave, The DPB Tag

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May 7th, 2006 - http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/199/

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I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call for .hack//GU Part 1 this past week. Some new information as well as old information about the game was talked about during the conference. Much of the information presented was random.

The information I was able to get out of the conference is as follows:

• Fall release date on the PS2, developed by the same developer.
• The game takes place several years after Part 4. CC Corporation has built a new version of The World after the events from the first quadrilogy. The World is not the same – there are similar/familiar areas, but they’re not exactly the same. Someone who has played through the previous games should feel comfortable in the settings, however.
• The game goes for a much darker and grittier feeling than the previous games. It is very anime-styled with a cross between cg and cel-shaded.
• The story starts out with two people helping the main character with starting out in The World, not unlike Part 1. He gets into trouble and then gets rescued. He turns into an anti-hero sort of guy. Later on, he finds out about a legendary Player Killer, and after their first encounter, the main character’s level is dropped back down to 1. He tries to find out what is going on, only to find out that not everything has been fixed from the previous version of The World.
• While the core mechanics of the game is similar to the previous installments, the battle system is much more action oriented with combos. The higher the level you are, the more special attacks you can learn, which obviously give you a better advantage. The main character can change his weapons depending on the level he’s at, as well.
• Guilds are also introduced in the .hack//GU Part 1. Depending on how big your guild becomes, you can get a guild hall (which is like your own house), and it’ll have important items and the like for you to use.
• As opposed to the first four games, there will not be a dual audio option (meaning Japanese and English audio tracks) because there isn’t enough space on the disc. The space on the disc is filled up with all the new content they’ve added for the game.
• A class called the Multiblade can use multiple weapons. A player can learn different types of weapons as they increase their levels. They start out with the twin-blades.
• .hack//GU will be three parts instead of four. No separate DVD where there is an elaboration is going to be included, but there will be content that is separate.
• There will be some sort of memory card activity with the previous games, but it was not elaborated on in the call.
• The keyword system will make a comeback, but it will be easier to use.
• There are no online plans for the game, as the whole point of the .hack series is to simulate an MMORPG.
• All the characters in the game will be new, but they will look very familiar. What this means is that each class has its own “look” that anyone who played the previous .hack games will recognize as they played through the games.
• There will be voice-overs. The soundtrack is composed and directed by the same people as the previous four, but it won’t be as happy-go-lucky – it’ll have a much darker tone. However, the key change for this “darker” aspect is in the art.
• The game is going to be completely original, but people from previous games will still appreciate it.
• You don’t need to have played the original series to understand what is going on in the .hack//GU series. They want newcomers to feel welcomed.
• Email and OS interaction will be included, similar to the last games.
• Since the main complaint of the original games was the lack of new content, they’re going to pack .hack//GU with as much content that would be equivalent to all four of the previous games. There’s going to be a lot of new content, and it’ll take much more than 20 hours to beat each part of .hack//GU.
• Player Killing takes a part in the game, but you can’t just go into towns and kill people. You can’t go out actively and kill other players either, but you will be able to prevent others from hurting others if you chose to.
• There will be guild vs. guild matches.
• If people die in the game, it will take a negative impact on the game itself.
• The game is aiming to be a darker version of the original series, but its not going to be G rated. There will be mature themes, but it will stay within the same rating. They’re not going for a GTA-esque level, but they’re not going to be cartoons. It’ll be a middleground of sorts, aiming for the same people who bought the preious games.
• The World is more violent in general, since there is player vs. player interaction. There will be a lot more interaction with the game, battle and non-battle-wise. More character development is also an aim.
• A level-cap is still being determined. There is a class change cap.

A playable demo is still unconfirmed. There might be something at E3 this week, however. Keep watch for more information about .hack//GU at Gamersmark.com!

Tags: GamersMark, Namco Bandai Games, PlayStation 2, The DPB Tag

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June 22^nd, 2006 – http://www.gamersmark.com/articles/201/

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The Playstation 3 controller has changed quite a bit from its Dual Shock and Dual Shock 2 relatives. Whether or not its going to be called Dual Shockless (because of the lack of rumble) or end up being called the Dual Shock 3 (if by some miracle Sony puts rumble back into it), its got a few other changes to point out that are relatively for the better.

The form factor is quite literally the same as the Dual Shock 2, maybe changed a little to fit the palms easier, but all in all the same. It’s lighter, but still feels durable – maybe not as much as the Dual Shock 2, but that’s because of the weight that has been dropped between the two controllers. But this loss of rumble motor weight should help while using the motion sensing and battery life. Speaking of battery life, its supposed to last for about 24 hours on a single charge. The battery will be integrated into the controller, so that it won’t compromise the shape of the Dual Shock, though it probably would be a good idea to make it user replaceable.

All the controllers at E3 were wired, so they obviously were not the final controllers since very controller is to be wireless by Bluetooth. There are four lights on the top part of the controller to indicate which controller is which. As of now, seven controllers are still supposed to be used, but the lack of three extra lights on the controller might be worrisome to a few people. It’s possible to show controllers over four by displaying two lights at the same time, for a total of seven combinations of lights up to two lights on at the same time. There is also a USB port on the top of the controller for the final version which will allow for charging, and who knows, maybe even attachments.
The analog sticks became more sensitive, increasing from 8 bit to 10 bit in resolution. The game that really showed off the enhancement to me was Mobile Suit Gundam, during the aiming of its machine gun. The analog sticks seem like they will be more apologetic towards FPS games than any other PlayStation controller before it, so some people will be happy about that. A “Home” or “Guide” button has been added to the middle with the PS logo on it. The “Analog” button is gone now, so you can always assume that analog is on. Though it was nice to know your controller was working by having that light, the new indicator lights will replace that use, I’m sure.

As far as I could tell, pressure sensitivity is still there in the buttons, as well as the L3 and R3 (clicking sticks) buttons. The only buttons that have really changed are the L2 and R2 buttons. They’re more like true analog triggers, while still keeping their traditional button feel. Some people say they feel a little “spongey,” but I didn’t get that feeling at all. It’ll just take a little getting used to how they work as opposed to the L2/R2 buttons on a Dual Shock 2.

Motion sensing is obviously the biggest new feature in the PS3 controller, and is supposedly responsible for the removal of the rumble feature. The only game to use the motion sensing was Warhawk, and it definitely seems that the motion sensing will be a worthwhile function. It will not get as huge of a focus as the Wii’s motion sensing will get (most likely), but the way I look at it, it shouldn’t be. It will probably only be used for small improvements/functionality not otherwise possible before. The motion sensing itself in Warhawk at E3 felt like a fully spherical analog stick – instead of just using the top part of the sphere that regular analog sticks sit on top of. The motion sensing will probably see its biggest functionality be that of a substitute or third analog stick than anything else. Small flicks and the like might be all that’d happen otherwise, but developers should be able to surprise us down the line.

Though no one had a chance to use the “boomerang” PS3 controller, going with the Dual Shock design again is a good and bad thing. It’s good because we know how it works and how it feels, but it’s also bad because it doesn’t really try to improve too much of the ergonomics of how it feels. Maybe the PS4 will see another design.

Tags: GamersMark, PlayStation 3, The DPB Tag

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Developer: CyberConnect2 Corp / Publisher: Namco Bandai Games

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November 11th, 2007 – http://www.gamersmark.com/reviews/view/1221

Overall – 8.5/10

Gameplay – 8.0

Presentation – 9.5

Value – 9.0

Graphics – 9.0

Sound – 9.0

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Continuing its engrossing story from the first volume, .hack//G.U. 2: Reminisce is the second in the .hack//G.U. trilogy. Acting more as a bridge between the beginning and the end of the saga, it makes sense that by the time you complete the game you’ll be left wanting more. If you made it so far as to finish the first game, you’ll want to dive in head-first after the almost-too-long wait for the sequel.

Reminisce is a great continuance of the adventure laid out in the first .hack//G.U. There are some story elements that will answer questions, while new ones will be raised in their stead. What you once thought to be Haseo’s ultimate goal turns out to be something completely different. Without spoiling too much of the story, all I can say is that even though you may have defeated Tri-Edge in the first game, think again if you believe he’s actually gone for good.

The gameplay is virtually the same as the first volume. However, there are slight improvements that alleviate some of the annoyances in the first game. First, there is the Skill Trigger, which allows you to change from Haseo’s currently equipped weapon to another weapon, depending on the skill you have equipped. The only thing bad about it is that you may not be able to use as many of the skills for a particular weapon as you may like. You can only ultimately equip 4 skills, leaving you to basically equip one skill for each weapon and an extra one that you like. With Volume 2, A new Awakening is available called Divine Awakening which allows you to time hits correctly using the power of your teammates and throw a concentrated burst of energy down on your enemies for a massive amount of damage. It’s quite different from any of the Awakenings that were present in the first game, and it is a welcome change to the gameplay.

As you progress through the game, new and stronger weapons will be available. This game allows you to go up to Level 100, as opposed to the first which only let you go up to Level 50. There is also a whole new arena to take part in, so you’ll be on the warpath for a little bit of the game. This time around, it’s not as huge a part of the story as the first was. The game packs a lot of drama and shows the first effects of what uncontrolled AIDA will do to The World, which is amplified to near anarchy near the end of the game.

Practically all the production values have been carried over from the first game. As I said in the review of the first game, they are very impressive in the way that the game almost literally looks like a 3D anime. Not only is the game presented as such, but the game’s structure itself is actually laid out as if you’re playing through episodes of an anime, a little chunk at a time. Many of the CG movies are noticeably better than the in-game graphics (especially because of the lighting they use), but it keeps the same style going. The CG movies are fantastic — they portray The World in such a distinctive way not possible through in-game graphics, and just like a little 10 year old boy, I’m actually excited when I get to watch one of the movies.

Obviously, those that had tried out the first game and disliked it will most likely not enjoy the second volume of .hack//G.U. Though, for someone that really enjoys the game, it is a worthy sequel to an already pretty solid game. As the story is the main reason to play the game, the gameplay still needs a little bit of a reworking before there can be a killer game in the .hack series. While the gameplay feels ultimately mediocre, the additions to it in .hack//G.U. 2 does make it a bit more interesting. In the end, .hack//G.U. 2 can really be summarized as more of Volume 1 with minimal changes to the way it plays. .hack//G.U. 2 is simply a progression of the story, with a lot more AIDA battles.

Fans of the first game who are engrossed in the story and enjoy the gameplay well enough to keep going with it will find an immensely enjoyable game. Now that Volume 3 has finally been released (this time only a few months after the last volume’s release), Volume 2 is a vital part of the .hack//G.U. trilogy that should not be missed. Though the game doesn’t have many noticeable improvements over the first, it is still a worthy purchase or, at the very least, a playthrough.

Tags: CyberConnect2 Corp, game review, GamersMark, Namco Bandai Games, PlayStation 2, The DPB Tag

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