Do you love Gears of War? Are you constantly envious of CliffyB? Do you wonder where he gets those sweet leather cuffs that went out of fashion in the 90s and are now the universal symbol of the modern date rapist? Well, I can't help you. However, I have got a "deal" for you!

Amazon.com is currently offering an exclusive replica of the Gears of War Lancer weapon (pictured above). If you order before 11/7/08, for the low price of $139.99 the Lancer and a free copy of Gears of War 2 could be yours. Supplies are limited. For an extra $10 you can get the "Limited" Edition Gears of War 2.

I don't know about you guys, but I think this is awesome! I am absolutely overjoyed at the thought of laughing at people who actually buy this bundle. You would think for that kind of scratch the gun would look a little less plasticky... or at least fire Nerf darts.

Anyway, you can pick it up or read the full description here.

Well, I finally purchased a Wacom tablet for my laptop and got to fooling with it tonight. I haven't drawn a damn thing for years and I'm still trying to figure out how to use the tablet, but below you will find my first attempt at anything interesting.

The inspiration for this comic came during work today while I was listening to Podtoid E3 No'8. I think you'll see how Nintendo's sub-par press conference and Jim's discussion of Reggie "Beef Burger" Fils-Aime played a large role in my creative process.

Edit: Now with more low quality JPEG action!

Retro Sensibilities is a weekly feature that examines modern games with decidedly retro sensibilities. Some games will be current-gen reissues that retain an old school flavor, others will be all-new titles that have the perfect mix of elements to quickly transport you back to a more simple time. Call them neo-retro, call them retromazing, call them over-priced jabs at your wallet, whatever you call them, don't miss out on these gems!

In my mind, there are two types of gamers: those that can beat Contra without the Konami Code and those that can't. Those of us in the former group view the rest of you as a bunch of spoon-fed pantywaists who never knew the bitter joy of retro gaming. If you were in any way offended by that previous statement, killsmooth wrote a great post about the desolation of Wii ownership that you should go read. However, if you've been thrown out of an arcade for kicking a Ghosts 'n Goblins cabinet; if you've seen the insides of an NES controller as a result of Turbo Tunnel-induced rage; if you've told your friends to stop whining because you think Mars Matrix is fair, then read on -- Shiren the Wanderer might just be the RPG for you.



Shiren the Wanderer's retro sensibilities are easy to appreciate. After all, the game is a remake of a classic Super Famicom game and one of the most iconic entries in the decades-old Mystery Dungeon series. For those that are unfamiliar, Mystery Dungeon is a series of rougelike games developed by Chunsoft, the original developers of the Dragon Quest series, that typically stars characters from a variety of gaming franchises -- most notably Pokemon and Final Fantasy. In fact, the Shiren series of games are the only Mystery Dungeon games to feature original characters.

As a roguelike, Shiren the Wanderer features the randomized dungeon crawling, turn-based play, and character development made popular by the original Rogue and featured in modern Mystery Dungeon games like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Chocobo's Dungeon. Those familiar with the PlayStation cult-hit Azure Dreams will also quickly recognize Shiren's influence. Where the comparisons between Shiren and other console dungeon crawlers end, however, is with Shiren's sheer difficulty and adherence to the Rogue formula.

The gameplay in Shiren is as follows:

You are a samurai in feudal Japan on a quest to reach the Land of the Golden Condor. In order to reach said land and it's bountiful treasure (which we will assume is something more substantial than a gilded vulture), you must traverse numerous dungeons with only intermittent rests in small, mercantile villages to recover. Gameplay operates in a turn-based fashion. Every time the player completes an action (walk, eat, attack, pick up an item, or equip) every other enemy and NPC takes a moment to complete an action. Thankfully, the player does not have to take a significant amount of time watching each individual action and, to further prevent slow down, health is recovered as you walk. The food in the game is used solely to reduce hunger, which works similarly to "stamina" in the more recent Metal Gear games. However, if you consume the flesh of a fallen monster, you will also gain the creature's abilities.

That said, the real meat of the game lies in learning how to effectively use items and navigate dungeons without dying. I cannot stress this final point enough. If you die in Shiren, you are sent back to the beginning of the game, stripped of your items, and all of your stats are reset. That's right, this is GAME OVER in the truest sense of the word.



Is Shiren frustrating? As hell. But, the developers have incorporated a few elements into the game to ease your suffering. First, each village allows the player to place certain items in storage, which are retrievable in future playthroughs. While this sounds like a great benefit, it's important to remember that you can't simultaneously store and use an item. So, while it may be helpful to have that souped-up katana on a future playthrough to further upgrade, it may also be more beneficial for you to continue your journey with it in hand.

Beyond item storage, an additional feature was added to the DS version of Shiren that drastically softens the blow of the player's untimely death: you can be rescued. Using a local wireless connection or Nintendo Wi-Fi, a player may opt to "rescue" a fallen comrade. The rescuing player must start a game and play through to the location of the fallen player in order to complete a rescue. Upon completion, the rescuing player is given a random item and the rescued player is brought back to life with his inventory intact, the current dungeon level clear, and the ability to send a "thank you" note -- complete with a gift, if desired. As cool as this sounds, your chances of actually having someone come to your rescue are slim. Furthermore, the feature can only be used three times before you are considered beyond saving. Despite this, the rescue mechanic is one of the more interesting and innovative uses of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection that I have seen.



Overall, the real joy of Shiren will only be appreciated by a select few. While the endearing characters and retromazing graphics have a decidedly broad appeal, this game is designed for the hardcore. Carefully considering the random dungeons and items, the seasoned Shiren player improves his game by learning how to interact with enemies and items. The age-old RPG tactic of hoarding items is useless here, as your inventory is limited and levels are full of single use items that you must use to survive. The ideal Shiren player is one that learns how to combo items together and develops new strategies against seemingly insurmountable threats. In this regard, Shiren plays more like Contra or Galaga than any modern RPG.

Shiren is brutal, unforgiving, and absolutely relentless. It hearkens back to a time when gamers would spends days trying to master a level, only to face more difficult challenges as the game progressed. Week after week of toil would eventually culminate in an underwhelming and poorly translated "congraturaions!" screen and the player would head off to the store to search for the next challenge. God damn I missed those days.

In the spirit of Butmac's old "I got your back" series, I figured I would pass along some deals to fellow Dtoiders. I normally don't like posting stuff like this, but there are some pretty nice finds.

PC:
Brothers in Arms: Road To Hill 30 DVD $5.90
Metacritic score: 87

Hitman: Blood Money $5.90
Metacritic score: 82

Shadowrun $5.90
Metacritic score: 68

Heroes of Might and Magic V $7.90
Metacritic score: 68

Silent Hunter 3 DVD $5.90
Metacritic score: 90

Heritage of Kings: The Settlers DVD $5.90
Metacritic score: 58

Happy Feet with Bonus Keychain $5.90
Metacritic score: 42

Xbox 360:
Gears of War $34.90
Metacritic score: 94

Viva Piñata $9.90
Metacritic score: 84

Ninety-Nine Nights $17.90
Metacritic score: 61

If you haven't played Viva Piñata yet, it's a really great game and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it for $9.90. On the PC front, there are a lot of really great, albeit old games to check out: Brothers in Arms: Road To Hill 30, Hitman: Blood Money, and Silent Hunter III are the standouts. Also, Snaileb wants you all to buy Gears of War.

I haven't played the PC version, but the Xbox 360 version of Shadowrun is a great game. The review scores were low because most people didn't think it was worth the $60 price tag at launch (they were right), but at $6 you get a really well-balanced and innovative shooter that will also boost your gamerscore (for the achievement whores out there). Also, I would love to get together a bunch of Dtoiders for some online PC & 360 Shadowrun multiplayer one day.

Finally, many FYE and Sam Goody stores nationwide are selling Bioshock brand new for $19.99. This has been going on for a while and is pretty tough to find, but you would be crazy not to buy it at that price.

It's undeniable that the cblogs have brought a wealth of talent and a wealth of stupidity to the Destructoid community. While the stupidity is often acknowledged with hundreds of spam comments, many times the better cblogs go ignored or unnoticed for a long time. In this sporadically updated series (hey, I can only update when someone is consistently good and unnoticed) I will feature these unsung heroes of Destructoid.

The decision to write this first Unsung Heroes was not an easy one. Not because there weren't any deserving community members, but because of the inherent danger of writing about this month's choice: Conrad Zimmerman. You see, Conrad is known to a few of us as "Destructoid Kryptonite." He has gained this title not only because his cblogs fail to garner much attention regardless of how well they are written, but because any cblog written about him typically goes unloved. For instance, when Necros posted a cblog about Conrad's RetRose Contest, it received only two comments until I tricked some IRC guys into commenting that Necros is a racist. As you can see, the popularity-sapping power of Conrad is strong and posting about this man is akin to playing with fire while being strapped into a cock guillotine.

"Well, Panda, what about Conrad makes him worth taking this monumental risk? Why is this Conrad fellow awesome?" you ask. Well, dear reader, that is what the rest of this feature will be about. The most obvious reason that Conrad is one of my favorite cbloggers is that he has two excellent and consistently updated features: RetRose Tinted and On the Table.



RetRose Tinted

RetRose Tinted is a weekly feature (updated on Tuesdays) that looks at games of the past through the eyes of a modern gamer. In Conrad's own words:

"Aside from being an amazingly witty play on words, RetRose Tinted is an attempt to look back upon retro video games without the cloudy haze of nostalgia. Each week, I play a game that I remember enjoying in my youth and see if my memories are justified."

Essentially, RetRose Tinted is similar to Rorschach's wildly popular Why the Hell Should I Play it? series with a few notable differences: (1) RetRose Tinted focuses on games the author has played before, (2) RetRose Tinted has been running as a series for nearly two months, and (3) no one seems to read RetRose Tinted. Games covered in RetRose Tinted range from The Lost Vikings to Rygar to Zombies Ate My Neighbors and all of the stories are written well enough to be interesting even if you've never heard of the game. And, if games you've never heard of get your pants tight, you'll love Conrad's other series of articles: On the Table.



On the Table

On the Table is a weekly feature (typically updated on Saturdays) that discusses those things that people used to play before video games. I believe they were called board games. Again, in Conrad's own words:

"On the Table is a series of board and card game reviews. Each week, I focus on a different piece of analog entertainment with coverage of basic gameplay, a little critique and passing mention of any digital versions I find of it."

"But, Panda, NVGR!!" you cry. Well, buck up and quit your whining. I happen to like both this series and board games and Conrad has provided some perfectly compelling reasons as to why we should care:

"Board games are fun, for starters. And with the popularity of games like Carcassone, Catan and Eye of Judgement, I felt there was an interest in this type of game. And it's my blog, so there."

Not interested in board games? In the words of Thuper Hardcore, "No likey ...? Don't fucking read it." However, by skipping this series you're missing out. Like Conrad's RetRose posts, all of the On the Table series is well written and interesting even if you're unfamiliar with the subject matter. Additionally, many of the games have freely available PC iterations that Conrad discusses in his blog. Hell, it might even do some of you good to have some non-gamer friends over to down some brews and play some board games.

The Rest

In addition to Conrad's regular series, he randomly posts interesting stories, events, or game reviews. In particular, two of my recent favorites were his recount of seeing The State Reunion and his brief impressions of the Metal Gear Solid cell phone game.

Well, there you have it. A brief glimpse into the world of Conrad Zimmerman. I hope you've enjoyed this first edition of Unsung Heroes and I encourage everyone to leave comments or PM me with suggestions for future cbloggers to feature.

My palms were sweating and my heart was about to leap from my chest. I took a deep breath and tried to focus. In a few minutes the third and final round was starting. I knew what I was about to do. I knew it was cheap. I knew some might even consider it "cheating," but the round began and I went to work. I blazed through the first level. I was a banana-collecting dynamo. Then, at the last moment, in the final pit, I took a plunge. The onlookers gasped, a red on-screen balloon popped, and a wide smile and hearty laugh erupted from deep within me--no one saw it coming. They had fallen for it.


I was in the last round of the regional qualifiers for the Blockbuster World Video Game Championships. I was twelve years old. The platform was Super Nintendo; the game was Donkey Kong Country, but not just any Donkey Kong Country. This Donkey Kong Country was a modified version designed for tournament play -- the world map was eliminated, extra bananas were hidden, and bananas were given as a bonus for completing a level.



This game now sells in the thousands and, yet, you can only play for 5 minutes before having to restart.


I glossed through the first round with an easy victory. My platforming skills were unmatched, but early in the second round my score was beaten. To my dismay, not only was my score beaten, but it was beaten by my arch-nemesis: James from down the street. Now, James was no friend of mine. His personal hygiene was terrible, he preferred Sonic to Mario, and, worst of all, he was the only kid I knew who could hang with me in pure, unadulterated gaming skill. This kid was nasty on the d-pad. He was the dirty, smelly version of Lucas to my well-adjusted, likable Jimmy Woods. And, like the real Jimmy Woods, I came back with a score to bash his skull in on the second round. While winning the second round was satisfying, we both knew there was still one more chance for him to beat me in the third round. This brings us back to our Tarantinoesque beginning.


Despite my physical manifestations of anxiety, there was little pressure on me: James had failed to beat my score in his third round attempt. Now it was time to showboat. While the onlookers gasped at my death near the end of Jungle Hijinx, I knew that none of them saw the method in my madness. As anyone who played the competition cart knows, completion of the first level brings you straight into the next level. While the bonus bananas from completing a level were huge, the disproportionately large number of bonus bananas on the first level combined with the ease with which the first level could be completed negated the level completion bonus entirely. The effect was only compounded when you considered that later levels included an excruciatingly slow water level.


The plan worked beautifully. I near doubled my previous score and I was well on my way to the next round of competition. While not a humorous retro gaming memory, this is certainly my most significant and has largely influenced my taste for competitive gaming today. The year of free pizza and video game rentals provided by Domino's and Blockbuster was a nice perk too. Thanks for reading my entry into ConradZimmerman's RetRose Tinted: Corrective Lenses Competition.