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Well, in the mail yesterday I got this here Baseball bat. The thing special about it is that it's a GTA IV baseball
bat...it's pretty cool. The worst part is I don't know what contest I won it from. I vaguely remember entering one,
but don't bother asking for what, or even what the top prize was. Apparently, it was the "Microsoft Xbox Live
GTA IV Official Sweepstakes" according to the letter it came with. Nope, still doesn't ring a bell. Here's some
pics.
Cool huh? Can anyone remind me what I did to get this? read more
It's been out for a few days now, but I found out about the demo about an hour ago. It's only on PSN so only PS3 owners can try out LOTR: Conquest. Think Star Wars: Battlefront in the Lord of the Rings universe and you have this. Only...with a crappy camera...and unbalanced multiplayer, oh wait, that last one was in Battlefront too.
So LOTR: Conquest was honestly at the top of my most anticipated because...well...I still play Battlefront 2 to this day and I love the gameplay. The tutorial was great for Conquest, really showing the game off and the huge amounts of special abilities each class has. I played through the tutorial, kicked Sauron's ass while playing as Isilidur, and was about to jump into some more single-player. Well...there isn't any, it's just the tutorial.
Well, it's a demo, I guess. So I see that there's some multiplayer in the demo, try that out and...
THE MULTIPLAYER IS TOTAL SHIT!
So you think you're expecting to see 16 players with a large number of NPCs on the battlefield. NOPE! It's only 8 vs. 8. They advertise epic battles.I didn't really expect to have 8 orcs come to the Shire and kick some ass. I expected much more.
Aside from the extremely underwhelming "epicness," the camera is literally right behind your back. While this was the same in Battlefront, you could still see a motherfucker coming up behind you so you could defend yourself. Not here. No, you better turn around every five seconds because some guy can just come out of no where and just beat the crap out of you with whatever he's got.
That's another thing. The scout class. It's pretty cool to BE the scout class, but not so much to die from it. Adding on to the paragraph above, scouts can come up behind you and kill you in one hit. One hit. Fuck. That. Shit.
There's no lock-on system. What this means is, that if your a warrior, and your about to fight against another warrior, you guys practically just run around in circles smashing the god damn square button praying to god you hit him first.
Apart from the multiplayer, the single player was a lot of fun. Pretty much what I expected. I shouldn't be complaining too much as to this day whenever I play Battlefront 2, I NEVER play online. I guess it'll still be the same for this game.
NOTE: Sorry for the wall of text. Anyone know how to get rid of the weird ass spacing you get when you type up a blog on a Mac? I had to boot up my Vista processor just to post this cause Leopard had all this weird spacing. read more
First of all, I haven't blogged for over two months and the world still hasn't esploded. Amazing. Good thing I finally found a topic to blawg about.
So I'm playing some CODWAW multiplayer today, and I'm about to shoot this dude, and then my screen gets all checker boarded. Cool. So I thought it might be the TV and I quickly shut it off and turned it back on. The problem was still there and I decided to turn off the system and turn it back on. Yeah, that was the last time I saw my dashboard.
What happened was, there was one red light in the lower right quadrant of the ring of light, and it was blinking at me. Ominously. The screen said System Failure (or something like that), contact Xbox Support. It also had the code E 74 at the bottom of the screen, which just sounds awful. I call up the guys, the support dude was real nice and he told me to take out my wireless adapter and my hard drive and try to turn it back on. The problem persisted.
He then said I would have to send in the Xbox for a brand new system (even though I would imagine the one they sent me was a refurbished one as well), and for just 99 bucks. Considering I was out of warranty, 99 bucks ain't bad.
Well, so much for playing all the newly bought games over the next couple weeks. I was just getting sunk in to CODWAW and then my Xbox crapped out. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
I've got the red rings of death before and got it back generally quickly, hopefully the same thing happens. But goddamn this is annoying.
I was watching The Roast of Bob Saget (major lulz) and I saw this during the commercials. It's pretty much a short 30 second commercial for Mercenaries 2, but it's not like it's just a bunch of explosions and people screaming and babies crying like you would expect in the game. It's surprisingly...low key.
The song, apparently titled "Oh No You Didn't" pretty much sums up the story of the game and the art style of the commercial itself is pretty awesome.
Is it wrong that I love this commercial? read more
There’s no other game quite like Indigo Prophecy. No matter how many times I play it, I manage to do something different than I have previously. Sure many games these days are starting to the same, but when I first laid my hands on the game, I could instantly see how this game would make such a heavy impact on me as a gamer.
You play Lucas Kang, a regular old Joe with a steady job just living his life. One day on his way home from work he stops in a diner to grab a bite to eat. Next thing he knows, he’s on top of a man in the bathroom stabbing him in the chest. Pretty sweet, huh? Kang seemingly had no control over what he was doing, as if he were possessed, and he’s bent on finding out what had caused him to do this.
When I said you play as Lucas Kang, I probably spoke too soon. You play multiple characters throughout the game. As I said, Kang commits murder, so obviously the police are going to be involved. Which brings up the next two characters you control, the two detectives investigating the murder, Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles. This provides a very unique style of player choice, do you try and help Kang do the best he can to try and find the reason this is happening to him, or do you do all you can for Valenti and Miles in order to catch Lucas Kang?
Throughout this whole turmoil, Lucas Kang has also been experiencing an unparallel amount of strength and agility, as well as having recurring visions. Some visions may be showing the future a few minutes ahead of time, or even let him hear what people are thinking.
There’s one event in the game in particular in which Miles and Valenti are very close to catching Kane. Unsure of his identity, Valenti (or Miles, depending on who you send) is questioning Kang on the possible whereabouts of the murderer. Kane is able to hear Valenti’s thoughts, so the player is allowed to adjust Kane’s answers to Valenti’s questions according to Valenti’s prior knowledge.
In the same scene, Kane realizes Valenti is on the way to question him, so it’s up to you, do you leave out evidence so she can see it which can help her connect Kane to the murder? Or do you stash as much evidence you can in order to avoid going to prison and further your search into what is happening to you?
The story is really deep. The first half of the game is quite different than the end of the game. It dives into Mayan legends and leads Kane to find out that he is part of a Mayan sacrifice which is trying to link our world to the “other” world. Ultimately, if Kane doesn’t step in, the world as he knows it will be consumed by an unforeseen power.
The gameplay is one of the main things that makes this game stand out from others. It relies heavily on the control sticks as your primary source of reacting to the world and its own little take on quick-time events. Instead of punching different buttons that would appear on screen, you would have sort of a “Simon Says” layout on the screen corresponding to up, down, left, and right on the corresponding control sticks. It really made you feel that what was going on screen was directly because of what you were doing. For example, if you shoved both control sticks to the right, Kane would jump accordingly. Sure the events were scripted, but it felt damn good.
Another aspect of its gameplay was that you would use the right stick to choose a dialog choice. Mass Effect adapted this into its own dialogue gameplay but tweaked it just a bit. Similar to ME, Indigo Prophecy would have a one word topic choice that your character would develop into a full question, comment, or answer. Apart from dialogue choices, you would react to the world around you in a similar fashion. If you wanted to drink a cup of coffee, odds are you would push the control stick up and then slide it to the left. Or if you wanted to look under a table, you would press down to look under it. While it sounds complicated, the game executes these different aspects quite seamlessly.
The game also integrates a “feeling” meter. The peak is at “Neutral”, while the bottom of the spectrum is “Wrecked,” which could lead your character your playing as to kill themselves or go insane which forces you to continue at your last checkpoint. Almost everything you do has an effect on the meter. Drinking a cup of coffee could be +5, while finding evidence at a crime scene could be +10. Or, finding some devastating news could be -20. It’s really hard to keep each character happy, so this aspect is a chore in its own right. And not in a bad way.
The story and the gameplay work together so well that everyone must play this game at least once. It really stood out to me when it came out in 2005 even through all the other games I was playing at the time. I’m currently going through my fourth playthrough of the game and still loving every minute of it. All we can hope for is that Heavy Rain which comes from the same developer, Quantic Dream, is making progress and we’ll be able to see it in 2009.
Games like this are what keeps me coming back to video games. The original stories which really involve the player in such a way that's unparallel to movies or television. Hell, instead of saying "New Game" on the main menu, it says "New Movie." This goes to show that Quantic Dream knows what a gamer desires. They know what we want to feel when were playing a game. And Indigo Prophecy accomplishes that with complete perfection. read more
If you watched the above video, you can see that GTTV has an exclusive announcement on this weeks show for The Force Unleashed. And judging by Geoff's enthusiasm in the sneak peak, it seems like a pretty big deal. Which brings up my next question, why does GTTV get all the huge announcements rather than X-Play? First the Bioshock demo and now this.
And for all of you, including myself, who have been eagerly anitcipating the new Force Unleashed demo that was supposedly hitting the marketplace and PSN tomorrow, are going to be very very dissapointed. Apparently there was a rumor started by X-Play said that the demo would be hitting XBLM and PSN on the 14th. Senior PR Manager at LucasArts, Adam Kahn, has gone on record to say not only is it not coming out tomorrow, but not even this week.
“The Force Unleashed demo is not coming out this week. If X-Play said that it’s coming out this week, they’re wrong. They will have more information about the demo in their show on the 14th.”
So I guess we'll have to check out the show tomorrow to see what the hell they're talking about. Could Geoff Keighly be announcing that the demo's debut on GTTV? If so, what are they talking about regarding X-play? Who knows. But it's all we could hope for.
...Well now that we've broken the ice, I've got some good news. The oh-so-cute avatars that will be making an appearance on our Xbox 360's in the coming fall update will only be featured in games that are rated by the ESRB as E10+ and below. Eric Kilgorn of Microsoft stated that avatars will not be appearing in games that are marked as violent, innapropriate, or otherwise Teen, Mature, and Adult games.
I'd say this is good and bad news. The good, is that the hardcore fans won't have to see their avatars as much, but on the other hand, we can't be taking our anger out in GTA IV by shooting our friend's avatars with RPGs. It's too bad.
This isn't the first time I've expressed my hatred for avatars and I wish they would not exist entirely. But, it is good to see that I can ignore my avatar on my 360 just a little bit more by buying much more innapropriate games.
I've just returned home from work, knowing little about what was announced as of the first official day of E3. But I was able to fully take in all of Microsoft's juicy announcements and other gameplay debuts at their press conference yesterday. All in all, I think Micrsoft did a great job yesterday. Sure the new Peter Moore replacement isn't Peter Moore, but I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough.
What I'd like to talk about is what was more surprising to me than it may have been for others. It is of course, this entirely revamped New Dashboard Update coming this fall, featuring Avatars. Avatars (as Microsoft says) are a means to make gamers feel they can be more connected to their console and feel like it's a lot more welcoming. You don't have to hear me say that they're clearly going for a Mii-esque look to their console. I understand that, Microsoft. The competition is rough, but seroiusly, you MUST stick to your own audience.
Microsoft clearly has been taking aim at family oriented play in such upcoming games like "Scene it!" or "You're in the Movies," but you know what Microsoft? I've been a fan of you since the Xbox and I have to say that when I saw the demonstration of "You're in the Movies," I felt like you were completely wasting my time. You started out great, featuring two highly anticipated titles with their debut gameplay on your very own stage! But why, why must you try to connect yourself with an audience that most defintely has already attached itself to another system.
I own Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii. And I'll tell you why. Each one offers a different experience. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 are mainly used for my action and more hardcore games, my Wii is used for casual fun and when I have friends over or if I want to play with my family, were definietly going to pull out the Wii. What I'm saying is, family fun and casual gaming is not your strong suit. I bought the Xbox 360 because I know it's going to offer the hottest titles, the most exciting titles, and the games that I want to play. Don't get me wrong, I can always go for some Wii Sports, but I'm a hardcore gamer, and I'm always looking to my Xbox 360 and my PS3 for that type of satisfaction.
Your main competitor is the PS3. And by the way, the last thing I want to do is start a fanboy war here, but it's true. Xbox 360 and PS3 are offering the same sort of hardcore entertainment for the hardcore gamers. So Microsoft, I really need you to just focus on competing with the PS3 and leave the casual gaming to the Wii. I understand, the Wii is making incredible ammounts of money by doing what they're doing and you want in on that! I get it! But I'm really just trying to help you realize that you've lost that battle. Wii wins for the casual gamers. Wii is getting publicity because it can be fun for everyone, and the Xbox 360 will never achieve such satisfaction for casual gamers.
Additionally, the new Dashboard update is whack, apart from your new deal with Netflix and Live Party, the whole new interface is crap. It's plain. It's boring. Way too much white space. I love the dashboard the way it is, and yes, I know it's still going to be around when you press the Guide button in the game, but the new main Dashboard design is far from acceptable. You have turned my happiness of turning on my hardcore gaming machine, into a system where I have to be greeted with a fake image of myself standing next to my gamertag.
I love you Microsoft. But this whole thing is just letting me down.
Due to some hardcore matlocking skills (well not really...), gamers finally believe they have a month in which Lionhead has decided to release their game Fable 2. In the latest Lionhead Studios Video Diary (which can be viewed at the end of this post), Molyneux can be seen sitting at his desk, boxing in and, well, doodling around the word "October."
Personally, when I watched the video diary yesterday, I was paying close attention at what he was writing and, due to his poor penmenship, I thought nothing of it. But when Eurogamer asked Lionhead to comment on this "hint" that was given out during the video, they had no comment.
SUSPICIOUS MUCH?
Well in all honesty, it could be Molyneux just messing with our heads and just boxing in the month in which he's going golf with Santa Claus. We'll never know, E3 is write around the corner and we might even see an official announcment about it's release then.
Fun Tidbit: Peter Molyneux and Geoff Keighly have a $100 bet where Keighly believes Fable 2 will not release this year.
For the past few days, I’ve been completely inactive on Destructoid for two simple reasons: Lost Odyssey, and my love for a new Nintendo 64 Emulator I found. I’m not here to talk about the fact that emulators are the greatest thing ever (which they are) but that I have been replaying my childhood for the past few days on this emulator. I’m just going to go through a few games that I’ve really been playing, my impressions/reviews of them, and how fantastical they are. But first, let me quickly sum up what the Nintendo 64 means to me.
The Nintendo 64 was the very first system I actually owned. I played the shit out of my babysitter’s Super Nintendo but I never owned it, no matter how many countless hours I spent playing it. My dad got me and my brother the Nintendo 64 for the Holidays in 1996 when I was just six years old, but I remember bringing it home and playing a helluva lot of games. I wouldn’t say my “Start of the Affair” would be a Nintendo 64 game (that honor goes to Wolfenstein 3D) but it was definitely the system that introduced me to the idea, “I’m going to be playing video games for a very long time.”
That quick summary doesn’t even cover how much I love to have the sudden urge to whip out my Nintendo 64 from my basement and play some Goldeneye or anything else. But since my recent discovery of a fantastic N64 emulator, I’ve been able to play it comfortably from my computer whenever I want (as well as play games I never owned). I just plug in my USB Xbox 360 controllers and get to work. Here’s a few games that I’ve been playing the most out of all of the ones I have on here, and my thoughts on them.
Winback: Covert Operations Developed by Koei
In my opinion, one of the most underrated games of all time. This game was hard. And while the emulation was pretty shitty, (large blue boxes would float across the screen very slowly) I still managed to enjoy myself and get the gist of the entire experience.
You play Jean-Luc Cougar, a secret agent who’s sent on a mission with a team to infiltrate a laser satellites command center which, to no one’s surprise, threatens the entire world. In the first minute of the game, the helicopter that is going to take you to the landing point is shot down, forcing your team to jump out of the plane, separating everyone. Throughout the game your meeting up with your other team members, who usually die a few minutes later (I’m not kidding, you practically witness your entire team die in the game).
The gameplay is fantastic. It’s the first game that allowed the player to have the whole hide and shoot gunplay. Hide behind and object, pop up, shoot, come back down. I should probably mention I found this game to be very difficult with its lack of checkpoints and sometimes clunky controls. The game is really great which offers a pretty solid storyline, and one of the first games that actually made me feel sad when I saw a team member of mine standing next to me get shot in the head.
Here’s a piece of trivia I just read on Wikipedia:
“As a homage to the game, one of the dog tags that can be obtained in Metal Gear Solid 2 is of Jean Luc Cougar's. Cougar’s dog tags can only be found in the original version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, not Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. His dog tags can be collected while playing the Plant Level on very easy. His tag ID number is 26.”
Blitz 2000 Developed by Midway
You’ve played this game. Why am I talking about it? Because it’s fucking awesome. The late hits, the insane catches, and the fact that the computer player intercepts your passes 2938 times in one game just adds together to make one bitching (and frustrating) game.
I always enjoy a good game of competitive Madden, but I would prefer a game of Blitz any day. The pace of it is so fast and perfect that after you finish one game, you want to play another. The thing that pisses me off is that the computer is so fucking hard to beat. No matter how hard I try, they always seem to intercept my throws at least twice a game.
Did anyone play Blitz: The League? I played the demo on XBLM and it was complete shit. I couldn’t stand playing it.
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Developed by Lucas Arts
One of my favorite Star Wars games to date. If any people with epilepsy want to try this game on their emulator, don’t bother. I’m positive you’ll have a seizure because I have two ROMs and they both constantly are blinking while the game is going on. But I digress, this game is fucking awesome.
The story pretty much follows a bounty hunter named Dash Rendar, who’s slightly less badass than Han Solo. To be honest, I don’t really understand the story. I get how it’s going on parallel to the episodes 4, 5, and 6 but frankly, there are missions that almost seem completely unrelated to each other that I just don’t really know. What I’ve figured out is that there’s a guy who’s trying to get rid of Darth Vader as well as destroy the rebellion and Rendar kills him in the end. It sounds awesome when I say it, right?
What matters most is the gameplay, which is awesome. There’s pretty much three different types of levels. One is aerial where you’ll be placed in the Hoth Battle, in the middle of an asteroid field, or at the end of the game, destroying this huge clusterfuck of a machine that (like I said) I have no idea what it’s going to do. The second is on a swoop bike slamming into enemies that are on their way to kill Luke Skywalker (note that this is just one level in the game). And the other is in 3rd person killing bitches, which is used throughout most of the game.
The gameplay is a lot of fun, allowing multiple weapons, crazy boss fights (including a HUGE squid monster underwater) and even giving you the power of having a jetpack. You’ll see some familiar faces, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia, and even a boss fight against Boba Fett and Slave 1.
This emulator is awesome, and the fact that I can actually play it on a Xbox 360 controller is really easy to handle. Hope you enjoyed the read, I’m going to go play Diddy Kong Racing. read more
None! Or at least none I can think of. It was a big holiday season so I feel like I don't have anything quite to look forward to...
Some of my favorite games:
Goldeneye
Shenmue
Final Fantasy VIII, IX, and VII
Mass Effect
Jet Grind Radio
GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, GTA IV
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Call of Duty series
Bioshock
Legend of Zelda series
KOTOR 1 & 2
Super Smash Bros. Series
Star Wars: Battlefront 2
Saturday Night Slam Masters
Super Mario World
NBA Jam
Chrono Cross
Mercenaries (the first one, not that P.O.S. sequel)
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
