The Download

If any market knows how to listen to the cries of its people and has a good feel for the economic climate its the video game industry and it shows with companies putting out Downloadable Content to extend the life of the game.

So lots of DLC is just filling up bandwidth all over the place now, but what DLC is worth your hard earned cash?

It goes without saying that the Fallout 3 packs are worth it, with 2 more on the way it seems that Bethesda is trying to extend the length of its most recent epic game while it develops that other game that they make that might perhaps be called Elder Scrolls 4? possible? I think yes

Fable 2. While I wasn't a big fan of the game to start with, I have to applaud the fact that they are pumping out DLC to extend the life of the game because they could very easily stop that and just go and make another game that would cost $60 instead of $10.

Gears of War 2. Lots of action games might get a few extra maps added or things like that, but Gears 2 has had lots of post launch support, several map packs have come out and the newest one, set to release soon has added some new single player stuff.

Left4Dead. Ok a new survival mode pack has been released for Left4Dead and if I'm not mistaken it is FREE!! Go get this now, especially if you like to play online, and if you are a Left4Dead person you obviously do, this adds a lot of time to the game past the basic levels. Not to mention it can get pretty crazy after you've gone through the light house map dozens of times and still cant get that elusive gold medal.

There is always the arcade titles out there and there are some good ones that you can pick up:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
A great reproduction of the 1989 coin-op classic, all the punishing parts without draining you of all your Frankie's fun park tokens. $5 to revive all the childhood trauma

Uno:
Who doesn't love Uno? Now you can play it without all the cards and your grandma getting mad and turning the table over when she looses her honey bun because she doesn't know how a reverse works. All that for only $5

Aegis Wing:
This game came out YEARS ago but it is FREE! its an R-Type-ish clone game with 4 player Co-Op. The level design and just the feel of the game is classic.

Braid:
If you haven't heard about this game then where have you been? Yea it is that awesome, go get it, trust me it is worth it.

So that's it, poke around your respective downloadable marketplace/store/whatever and find something. In these rough economic times, isn't it nice that someone is looking out for your gaming needs?

~Ride Hard, Game On!

E3 '09

Well if you're a nerd then you know what the summer brings. No i'm not talking about sitting inside all day playing video games, or working on your Harry Potter fan fiction. I'm not even talking about another summer sitting on a hotel balcony with your game boy taking ocassional glances at girls in bikinis.

No friends the summer brings the G8 summit of the Gaming industry, thats right. The Electronics Entertainment Expo. Or E3 in l33t 2p34<.

E3 usually brings many big announcements, several eye openers that get people back interested. Some long awaited release dates (that will probably change the day after the press confrence) and ofcourse some dissapointments.

Sadly E3 will begin with a dissapointment that it doesn't even have anything to do with. I'll admit it has been probably a long time coming but Developer 3d realms shut down and with it dies Duke Nukem Forever. In all honesty when people started talking about the game back in 1997 we were wondering if the game was gonna be good. For the last decade we've been wondering if its gonna come out. Atleast now we know the answer. I cant say that I'm too dissapointed becasue the game probably would have been really terrible or it wouldn't have sold well. When the game came out Duke was something unique, now you can get the same thing on HBO. Most of the gamers who loved the Duke when he came out originally are either out of the gaming phase, or can't justify to their wives why they would spend $60 on a game about a flat-topped, bad mouthed, action hero. Also the parody factor for Duke is gone. The action hero archtype that he parodied doesn't exist in modern media anymore. So Duke Nukem, "you're an inspiration for birth control."

Games that should be at E3 and finally get solid release dates:

God of War 3 (SECA)

Assasins Creed 2 (UbiSoft Montreal)

Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward)

Bioshock 2 (2K Milan)

Splinter Cell Conviction (UbiSoft Montreal)

Tekken 6 (Namco Bandai)

Final Fantasy XIII (SquareEnix)

Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare)

E3 staples: These games always make E3

Madden (EA Tiburon)

NCAA Football (EA Tiburon)

E3 suprises: Games that may show up and give everyone a nice suprise
Alpha Protocol (Obsidian)

Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream)

Borderlands (Gearbox)

Alan Wake (Remedy)

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Vicarious Visions)

This is Vegas (Surreal Software)

There is one game however that is just going to "Nuke E3 from orbit."

Mass Effect 2. I cant imagine the game not coming away with multiple E3 awards much like its predecessor. I have been religiously checking the websites for videos or any kind of leak showing more of the game. This will be, by far, my pick for E3 game of the year and I'm sure it will be for many others.

The suprise I would love to see from E3.

I could say Shenmue 3 or KoTOR 3, but those will forever be dreams in my head and my fan fiction :P. If Epic decides to release some glimmer into perhaps a Gears of War 3 that would be a welcome, and wonderful suprise.

So there it is, E3 on the way. June 2nd.

Some recent developments

Alright I've been out of touch for a bit, this semester has taken me down a long road of torture and a severe decline in my gaming. But now the semester is over and I shall once again resume my reviewing. I shall start with a new game that I actually thought would be good.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The general rule is that movie games suck. Usually it applies very well. I had been following the development of the game for awhile and it actually looked like a game that would be good, not just a movie tie-in that they developed in a few months. Of course I was still skeptical because it was a movie game.

Raven however did not meet my expectations. They actually made a good game! That's right, if you'll believe it a movie game came out that is actually playable and even fun!

If you are a fan of Wolverine then this game finally is what he was supposed to be like. No holds barred. Slicing through dudes all day with his claws. Awesome instant kills and decapitations and just blood and gore flying all over the place, its great.

The game looks good and the controls take very little time to master. The combat is fast, visceral, and very rewarding. The AI is a little lack luster but I doubt I would be too excited to fight Wolverine either. Playing as an angry Canadian has never been so much fun!

That being said the game does have some issues but nothing too serious. As with any hack and slash game the environments are largely forgettable and canned, especially on the indoor levels. As you might expect the game does get repetitive after awhile as you mow your way through helpless soldiers. But hey that's all well and good considering that its a hack and slash. As long as there are some heads rolling its all good.

Let me be clear, this game is not for the younger fans of Wolvie. To get such a bloody M rated game from a PG-13 movie is kinda hard to believe. The game doesn't follow the movie all the way but there are recognizable scenes. The story is the same one that we get from the comics that makes your head spin and just makes you wonder when they will start to make sense of the whole thing.

So if you are looking for a deep game experience with lots of replay value, this isn't what you are looking for.

If you want to see what kind of damage a set of adamantium claws will do, then by all means pick this one up and give her a whirl, bub.

Gameplay: Fast, Fun and Vicious
Graphics: Character models look good. Environments, not so much
Sound: Its there
Replay: Low, some costumes to unlock but not much else

Final Score: 7/10

~Ride Hard, Game On!

Nostalgia thy name is Sonic

Anyone who grew up during the Video Game boom of the late 80's and 90's has fond memories of the 16-bit consoles that made our beloved video games so much better. The consoles had better graphics, better music, and the games sometimes even had a story!! The 90's were a simpler time with bright colored clothes and triangle patterned shorts in pastel colors, a president who "didn't inhale" and we Believed that Love was the answer. Not to mention we had a huge console war going on and it made for some pretty awesome games.

I could go on and on about the Genesis versus the SNES but I wont because that's not what I'm here for (If you are curious however I was a Nintendo Fan Boy) I finally got my hands on the self proclaimed holy grail of 16-bit SEGA goodness. "Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection."

I was first attracted to this game way back when I was reading on the SEGA website trying to find out some info on a little game called Alpha Protocol, and saw the Ultimate Genesis Collection (UGC From now on) plugged on their front page. It promised to have 40+ games from Altered Beast to VectorMan. Well being a product of the 90's and remembering those games from childhood of course I was intrigued. I made it a priority to get a hold of this game and run it through the Rough Rider Ringer.

I could take the time to detail all of the games included in the collection but who is going to benefit from that? Well definitely not my fingers, but I will put a list of all the games included in the collection.

· Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
· Alien Storm
· Altered Beast
· Beyond Oasis
· Bonanza Bros.
· Columns
· Comix Zone
· Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head
· Dr. Robotnik's MBM
· Dynamite Headdy
· Ecco the Dolphin
· Ecco II: The Tides of Time
· E-SWAT
· Fatal Labyrinth
· Flicky
· Gain Ground
· Golden Axe I
· Golden Axe II
· Golden Axe III
· Kid Chameleon
· Phantasy Star II
· Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
· Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
· Ristar
· Shining in the Darkness
· Shining Force
· Shining Force 2
· Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
· Sonic 3D Blast
· Sonic and Knuckles
· Sonic Spinball
· Sonic the Hedgehog
· Sonic the Hedgehog 2
· Sonic the Hedgehog 3
· Streets of Rage
· Streets of Rage 2·
Streets of Rage 3
· Super Thunder Blade
· Vectorman
· Vectorman 2

Quite the exhaustive list yea? That's not including 9 games you can unlock by doing some stuff within the games like beating high scores and whatnot. I wont spoil those games for you, well ok maybe one of them SPACE HARRIER! Yea that one you waisted all those quarters on in the arcade, or if you were a Dreamcast buff you waisted all your virtual Yen from Shenmue on that game.

So What did they do to the games? The biggest thing is 720P Full HD the emulation for the games is great nice and smooth; very faithful to their cartridge counterparts. Before you ask yes you can make the game 16:9 so you don't have to play with the stupid frames around the game that annoy you to death.

With virtually no loading time as should be expected for our current systems to run 10+ year old games. Each game has an interesting 'Museum' feature that you can access and read a summary of the game and get some interesting facts about, also look at some fancy Box art and the actual cartridge from back in the day. The controls are good as it would be rather difficult to mess them up.

Ok well let me sell you this game right here and I could quit now and would probably have the game in your hands.

All of the Phantasy Star Games 1-4 on one disc, that's right. While you do have to unlock the Original Phantasy Star to play it that collection alone would be worth the MSRP. If that's not enough All of the games from the Shining series are here as well. Still not enough for you? Well then this will get you for sure. ALL THE SONIC GAMES (the old good ones anyway) That's right they even threw in 3D blast.

Honestly 3D blast was pushing the console hard and you can tell the minute you boot it up. But it did a decent job especially since they didn't have real 3D they just used an awkward isometric view with prerendered sprites but it was a novelty. The next time they make a collection they need to put the Saturn Version of this game on the disc but hey.

Ok well there is also a little collection of games that start with Golden Axe and Streets of Rage but who likes those games?

Also there are a few stinkers in the collection. Alex Kidd, Flicky and Congo Bongo stand out from the bunch. They could have replaced those games with. Gunstar Heroes, or Revenge of Shinobi they already put Shinobi 3 in why not?

Every compilation has its good and bad games but thankfully the UGC had more good than bad and for $30 its definitely worth picking up, if you can find it I had a dog of a time getting my hands on it.

The Rough:
Good: Its a great collection, faithfully recreated with over 40 games along with bonus interviews and stuff to read. The graphics look and feel faithful and the price isn't half bad.
Bad: Some rotten ones in the collection annoying frames in standard mode. Useless smoothing mode. No Online?

8/10

~Ride Hard, Game On!

Unleash it Baby!

Along time ago in a galaxy far far away… I kicked summons ass with the force!

Alright so we all have at one time or another wanted to beat the ever loving shit out of someone because they pissed us off. Not just beat them but decimate them to the point that they never want to leave their homes again as long as they live. Well now we get that chance for the ultimate revenge and the satisfaction of pure pWnage.

Lucasarts has given us after what seems like ages of anticipation the Force Unleashed. I know everyone who knows about Lucasarts is saying it has shades of the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project and yes it does, but can you blame them? It worked; at least I thought it did. So here we are in 2008 with the Force Unleashed and the main piece of this project is the video game.

The game released on EVERY platform from 360 to PSP (strangely no PC release as of yet) so no matter what system you’re playing you’re going to get a chance for force aided ass-kickery. The premise of the story is one that finally bridges the gap between the trilogies with guess what, CANNON! Yes for all the Hard Core Star Wars nerds out there it is finally here we get to see what Vader and the empire were up to during the height of their power. There are several appearances by the Dark Lord, and our old mangled emperor, not to mention several members of a certain Rebel Band (Bail, Mon Mothma, Garm, even Leia) The story was great some say it was rushed but I felt it was classic Star Wars and with the amazing Soundtrack supporting it I actually got chills during part of the game, that’s how awesome it is. Enough with the story and whatnot though let’s get into what really matters, the game.

So if you’ve been following at all what’s happened with the force unleashed then you know they’ve thrown three different simulation engines into the game to work together, no mean feat mind you, the team at Lucasarts has combined the physics engine HAVOK, with the biomechanical AI engine Euphoria, that supplies all AI controlled characters with a nervous system and life like reactions, and they also used a new particle engine known as Digital Molecular Matter, or DMM that makes everything around your such as glass, and crates act as they would in real life, glass shatters, crates dent, huge metal doors bend and creak when crushed by a force push. All of these technologies are state of the art and without them the Force Unleashed wouldn’t have been possible. Of course these technologies were only utilized on the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game.

Ok so we play as Vader’s secret apprentice who is described as a primal, feral force user who after training with Vader is just super bad ass. He is deadly with a reverse handed shien style lightsaber form and the force, well it just is as awesome as we’ve always wanted it to be. You can grab stormtroopers and lob them across rooms (once you upgrade your force powers you can lift 3 at a time) you can pull TIE fighters out of the sky and crush AT-ST’s into cubes of crumpled durasteel. You can charge your lightsaber with force lightning and then launch a crate, imbued with the lightning at an AT-AT and short circuit it.

While mowing through platoons of Stormtroopers is fun the real challenge of the game is the battles with other Unleashed opponents, other jedi that you come into contact with throughout the course of the game (Yes you kill Shaak-Ti sorry for the spoiler but the deleted scene from Episode 3 is not cannon) and let me tell you on Sith Lord difficulty she is a tough one to bring down. In these battles you get saber locks and a new thing that I was excited about called a force lock where your force powers intersect each other and you have to do some interesting button presses to gain the upper hand. But the best part of these boss battles is the end when you get to go into a Context sensitive button press kill sequence where timed button presses will secure your victory as you beat the crap out of your opponent. From snapping the necks of Imperial Guardsmen, to throwing an old Jedi Master out of the windows of a TIE factory plummeting to the surface of Nar Shadda.

Yes the game is fun, it is tons of fun, and perhaps the most fun I’ve had in awhile playing a game what’s even better is that the game is beautiful. Even the scrap heap of Raxus Prime is nice to look at, the level of detail and the scope is enough to make you stop and look for a minute before moving on to finish your mission. That for me is a great part of where we are in gaming right now, something that hasn’t been possible in the past.

I know I’ve been rambling on and on and will probably be biased about this game because I’m such a Star Wars nerd but who cares. I won’t go and say that this game is perfect because it’s not there are some flaws like the camera it was difficult to keep yourself locked onto an opponent when you were surrounded or he got behind you but if you can overcome that, and the almost random deaths you get during some of the platforming sequences when a droid comes out of nowhere or some Dark Trooper (yes the dark trooper project is up and running in the game) comes and blasts you so that you fall off the platform you were supposed to land on it gets frustrating, but hey what’s a game without a little frustration? Lucky for us there are a lot of checkpoints so no random start the level over type of stuff.

All in all I loved the game and I’ll be playing it several times, already beat it twice and am hoping to do it again soon. If you’re still unsure if you want to get it or not, do it if only for the first level where you get to open up a can as Darth Vader himself.

The Rough:
Concept: Kicking someone’s ass with the force
Gameplay: visceral and fun, targeting issues but nothing to off putting.
Graphics: *DROOLS*
Replay: High, because you get to upgrade force powers and I am a guy who likes to collect stuff like concept art and special items and all that.
Bonus: It’s friggin Star Wars it automatically is awesome in my book.
Overall: 10/10 (MY 2nd ever 10/10)

~Ride Hard, Game On!