As I boringly clicked around IGN today I noticed there was an article discussing what should be done to make Kingdom Hearts 3 an awesome threequel. I didn’t even bother reading the article because most IGN articles simply state the obvious and most of IGN in general, beyond the comics and movies sections, is pretty much drivel as far as I’m concerned. However the article title alone provoked me into thinking about a third Kingdom Hearts game for the first time in a long time and made me think about what I’d like SquareEnix to do with the third installment once they’re done devoting far too many resources to Final Fantasy XIII.



Allow me to quickly state my views of the first two Kingdom Hearts titles so that you guys can grasp my view of things a little bit before continuing on. Most people consider the first Kingdom Hearts game to be the better of the two console titles while I however found Kingdom Hearts 2 to be the more fun, but noticeably easier, game. The story in the sequel seemed to flow a lot better then the predecessor and everything had a slightly more epic feel to it making me theorize that there were a few less Disney executives breathing down the next of SquareEnix, allowing for a little more breathing room to integrate newer characters and not lean heavily on a pre-manufactured Disney villains. However, both Kingdom Hearts games still have noticeable room for improvement that need to be addressed by the third game to avoid risk of becoming stale.

No More Roxas
While I said I found Kingdom Hearts 2 to be the more fun game of the two, the prologue featuring Roxas and his friends made me nearly quit the game. Roxas’ segments in KH2 were all far too long and the characters revolving around him for the most part were simply annoying, resulting in me literally begging to have Donald and Goofy back. If Roxas or his pals return in any sense for a third game it needs to be strictly a cameo appearance and nothing more then that, please just keep the player in Sora’s shoes.



Fully Integrate Final Fantasy
Squall, Cloud, and the others have been cameo characters in pretty much anything related to Kingdom Hearts since it’s birth (yes, I called him Squall by the way). While the Final Fantasy cast was utilized a whole lot more in the sequel, I think the half-assing needs to stop with them and I think its about time that Sora gets to explore some actual Final Fantasy worlds. Lets see Sora, Donald, and Goofy fight Heartless in the slums of Midgar, lets see some of FF8’s gardens get taken over by Nobodies. In short if you’re going to have these characters in your game then do it right. They lightly hint at some of the Final Fantasy storylines in the games (Cloud versus Sephiroth, little tidbits of stuff during the first games end credits, etc) so why not flesh everything out a little and shine some light on classic stories, and reinvigorate a little interest in some of the older Final Fantasy worlds at the same time. I’m sick of amalgamation worlds that simply exist as a fan-service melting pot for some rather legendary characters.

More Depth with Combat
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 weren’t exactly challenging games, combat was pretty much simply “hit X to win and use a spell here and there”. Both games only became challenging when you went out of your way to look for a challenge, like with the two Sephiroth battles and other optional encounters. Running through the game’s storyline however is a rather easy experience that makes even Twilight Princess seem like a challenge. The combat system in the series needs an extra level or two of depth and enemies that force you to use said combative tactics. Instead of hitting X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X and X to do a combo, how about something like X-Square-Circle-X-Triangle-Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right or something that actually brings in a risk of punishment for making an error? Add some variant physical attacks to the mix that require the use of more then one face button and actually let the user build some of their own combos? I think that would be kind of fun, I like not watching the same combo over and over for a full game.



When you strip away the graphical differences and look just at the guts of them the combat systems of Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry aren’t very different at all. They both require you to upgrade things in order to improve your abilities (spells/abilities in KH and styles in DMC), you have melee and ranged attacks (spells-KH / guns-DMC), and potions and other miscellaneous items to assist you along the way. The only differences being that Devil May Cry’s combat is noticeably faster and has a deeper-then-expected combo system. While I’m not saying Sora suddenly needs to become Dante, I’m saying that the combat in the game needs to be cranked up a little and Kingdom Hearts needs to make the next evolution in its fighting engine in order to keep fans of the series challenged instead of bored, because in all honesty if I wanted to hit one button for a good portion of the game then I’d load up Heaven or Hell mode in Devil May Cry 3 and simply mash the gun button.

Why Just Final Fantasy?
As kind of a continuation of the earlier Final Fantasy section, why not integrate further SquareEnix properties into the Kingdom Hearts Universe? Since this universe seems to be one giant amalgamation universe, it would seem to be the next logical step to include more properties. How about the Gummi Ship segments instead become more Einhander like? Dragon Quest fans might like to see cameos by their favorite characters and see them fight alongside Sora. Share some long deserved love for Secret of Mana. Or why not integrate the Chrono Trigger world into the mix since SquareEnix is so intent on stopping fans from doing anything with the property… not to mention imagine the possible coolness of time-traveling with Crono into the past to recreate epic moments from the first two Kingdom Hearts games. While I absolutely love seeing more of my Final Fantasy VII characters as much as possible, I won’t deny that more love needs to be given out overall.



Allow More Diverse Parties
This one always made me scratch my head in the first two games. If you’re going to allow the player to put a different party member in place for Goofy or Donald, why restrict it to one world? And if you know that you’re going to lose Simba after you’re done with the Pride Rock world, is there even a point to leveling him up? The various characters who can join your party should be able to move with you from world to world on your quest and not be chained to their respective levels, because really if Aladdin knows the whole fricken universe is at stake would he really stay behind to take care of Agrabah? Yes I’m aware that one of the key story elements revolves around Mickey assigning Donald and Goofy to watch over Sora and the keyblade, but that doesn’t mean others cant join in on the fun! I think I speak for everyone when I say I’d like to have the option of making my party consist of Sora, Cloud, and The Beast. I again fall back on saying that more variety will keep the franchise fresh, because if I have to hear “Gawrsh Sora!” one more fucking time I swear The Heartless will be the least of Disney’s problems.

Release The Fucking Final Mix in America or Don’t Fucking Do It At All!
The ultimate thing that pisses me off about the Kingdom Hearts franchise, and SquareEnix and the Japanese game developers in general, is that North America tends to constantly get screwed when it comes to content for games of Japanese origin. I’m not sure if it’s because they think post-release special editions won’t sell well overseas or if it’s because of some underlying bitter grudge against the Americas and other regions (cuz of that whole World War 2 thing), but we just never seem to get many director’s cuts or anything that would be aimed at hardcore fans of the franchise, and don’t think I’m excluding you too Euro pals because I know you guys are getting screwed too. Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix were Japan only releases of the games that are viewed as the ‘complete’ versions of each title. There was extra content, keyblades, and all sorts of other little goodies that make me ache when I know I can’t get them in my version of the game. Hell, the Final Mix of the first game even foreshadows the arrival of Organization XIII and introduces a side boss who is actually the final boss of Kingdom Hearts 2, and even fights in the same style in both games with the near exact same musical score. SquareEnix, if you’re going to pull another one of these special edition re-releases then do it right and let everyone enjoy it or don’t fucking do it at all. And if you’re not going to do it at all, go and finally remake Final Fantasy VII for the love of God.

It’s been far too long since someone has stood up in defense of poor helpless video game characters that cannot defend themselves against the harsh criticism and groupthink of the masses. These characters are both single individuals in the massive video game world and entire groups of similar individuals. There are the Cloud Strifes of the world who are overly ridiculed for one, not even dominant, personality trait even if the reason for that trait is well justified. Another fine example are hoards of the Living Impaired, commonly referred to as “zombies”, who are needlessly and pointlessly gunned down in front of their friends and relatives without a second thought. The Goomba community finds themselves constantly under the threat of being squashed by someone’s shoe thanks to the actions of a minority who enlisted in Bowser’s military, doomed to never escape the sins of their forefathers. Yet even all of these individuals and groups have not suffered as much, have never suffered such devastating bandwagon attacks against their very existence, as one innocent Kokiri fairy has.



I bring forth Navi the Fairy, the one character most in need of redemption in all of video games and who needs the record set straight in her behalf. Navi is stereotypically labeled as a constant nuisance who constantly berates the Hero of Time by endlessly yelling “Hey!” and “Listen!” into his ear, only to spill useless information to our hero upon compliance. Now because of modern day technology and instant communication, a terrible bandwagon effect has taken place over the years since Ocarina of Time . People blindly jump onboard the hate train and as more people hop on board this imaginary train the larger it becomes and thus more people become aware of it, creating a near irreversible cycle of hatred and unfounded distaste. Yet as people constantly hop on board, nobody thinks about the effects it has on poor Navi and how they hate on a kind little fairy that doesn’t have her own voice to defend herself with. It is time to free Navi from the shackles of stereotypes and unfounded hate. It is time to look at Navi and declare in one voice that the beliefs about her are not true.

I am SephirothX, and I confidently declare that Navi is none of these terribly annoying things.



When descriptions of Navi are drawn down to just the little bits of advice she offers up during the course of Ocarina then of course it would be easy to make the assumption that Navi exists simply to annoy. If broken down to her declarations of “Hey”, “Listen”, and “Watch out” then yes, repetition gets annoying once and a while. However how is Navi any different then The Wanderer contently yelling nothing but “Agro!” in Shadow of the Colossus? Is it any different then Solid Snake constantly following up someone else’s statement with an identical statement that’s in the form of a question (“Metal Gear?!”)? Do we bastardize those characters for what they do? Of course not, Navi a lone victim here and when you look at the full spectrum of her personality and character you too will see that what has happened to her is flat out wrong.

People will say that Navi is annoying; I will refute that and say that Navi is a kind-hearted fairy and her very first appearance in the game is a reflection of the heart she carries. At the very start of Ocarina of Time we see Navi befriend young Link and become his fairy. We are quickly given the question of why had it taken so long for Link to finally get his own fairy? It was simply because he was Hylian and one small difference made all sorts of other blatantly racist fairies turn a blind eye to Link and go after pure blooded Kokiri. Navi on the other hand came to Links side despite this minor difference proving that Navi does not care where you come from as long as you are a good soul. Link was criticized a lot by his peers for simply not having a fairy, so could you imagine the bad mouthing Navi must have gotten for choosing to become the fairy of an outsider? That alone takes a heart of gold, one that deserves mention.



Navi’s courageous attitude should also be enough to break her free of her unjust hatred. Within minutes of becoming Link’s fairy, she is tasked with following Link into the core of the Great Deku Tree in order to break a curse placed on it. If your first day on the job involved you going into the dark interior of a living tree to break a curse, what would you do? You’d probably run and go do something “normal” like the rest of the racist Kokiri fairies. Navi instead goes with you right into the belly of the beast and doesn’t even blink. In fact, did anybody hear Navi bitch when the Deku Tree told Link that a wicked man of the desert was attempting to conquer Hyrule and that only Link can stop him? I didn’t think so. Navi in fact stays along side Link through his entire quest, through thick through thin, and never cowers and hides. I don’t remember seeing Navi hide under a false alias for protection, like what Zelda did when she tried to save her own skin as Sheik. In the bleakest of situations as Ganondorf was flexing the Triforce of Power's strength against Link where were the Gorons? The Zoras? The Kokiri? I only remember seeing Navi alongside Link when the throw down against Ganondorf finally took place. Meanwhile the Sages and everybody else simply sat back and waited to do some easy mop-up work while Link got down and dirty. Were Navi’s calls to listen a little bothersome at times? Perhaps. Was some of her advice poorly timed? Maybe. But you know what, at least Navi was trying which is a lot more then anyone else in Hyrule could say. This all further baffles me as to why Navi is put alongside the likes of Jar Jar Binks.



Perhaps the hate on Navi isn’t directly because of her at all, perhaps Ocarina of Time was such a good game that somebody just had to find something wrong with Ocarina of Time in an attempt to bring it down from its high pedestal, and Navi may have become the fall-fairy. This is a much more believable theory since we are in a post-Wind Waker era for the Zelda franchise. Given that a good deal of fans support the blatantly inferior Wind Waker they tend to feel threatened by anybody who states the obvious facts about how Ocarina is a much more perfected game, thus they find the first obvious thing they can possibly rip Ocarina for despite how weak the foundation of criticism may be. This again leads to Navi becoming the unjust victim, and once the bandwagon got rolling it became impossible to stop.



Navi’s victimization is further unjust when compared to other supporting characters in the Zelda franchise. Compared to Twilight Princess’s Midna I personally find Navi a very tolerable and enjoyable character. I’d much rather be accompanied by a fairy who gives worthwhile advice instead of a smug twilight realm brat whom constantly laughs like a two year old, talks down to Link, and doesn’t even bother to walk on her own and forces Link to shoulder her along. All of Midna’s tips and dialogue are riddled with snide remarks all because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she only stays along with Link because she has to, not because she wants to. To top it all off, Midna ends her time in Twilight Princess by shattering the only gateway that links two fractured worlds that could benefit from each other, what a haughty bitch.

Plus, in all honesty, would any of you prefer having Tingle follow Link instead of Navi?!



Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to lift Navi above the confinements and stereotypes we have placed against her. It is time to let her rise up and shine above the rest of her fairy kind as well as many of the inhabitants of Hyrule as a true symbol of loyalty, companionship, and courage. End the injustice! Give praise to the worthy!

Summer is going through its dog days period right now which means that college folk are realizing school isn't that far around the corner, baseball pennant races are heating up, football training camp is in session, and the fall and holiday video game releases are coming. While I'm currently plowing through a bunch of titles I didn't get around to earlier this year (now including Left 4 Dead) I can't help but think of the games on the horizon that I'm getting all giddy over. However along with those certain titles that make me smile like a kid again, there are some titles coming that I really just can't generate enough interest in to pre-order them or simply keep an eye on. While these titles are not going to be by any stretch of the imagination bad games, don't expect me to be waiting for these on day one. Thus, in the spirit of blogging, I decided to put together a list of the top five games I really can't wait for and five games I just kind of shrug my shoulders at. To freshen things up from my normal format of Top ___'s in my blogs, I'll alternate between games I'm excited for and not excited for.

Honorable Mention: Splinter Cell Conviction

This game would definitely be in the realm of excitement had it not been for a delay until 2010, which sucks. I've been a fan of the Splinter Cell games since the start and I've really enjoyed the direction the series has been going in (and I personally thought Double Agent had the best single player story of the four existing titles). Splinter Cell has always been the go-to game for people craving a more realistic experience then what Metal Gear Solid provides, and it's already been far too long since Sam Fisher's graced a console.

Not Excited #5 The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

I'm not excited about Spirit Tracks mainly because this game seems to represent everything I dislike about some of the recent Zelda games; reliance on just one new gimmick in the game, Toon Link, and if the trend of previous Zelda games keeps up then it will probably be super easy too. Basically this game seems to have everything I don't want in a Zelda title in it. I'll explain my details of my dislikes about the franchise in a later blog. So, unless this title magically cures cancer upon being inserted in my DS, don't expect me to pick up this title any time soon after its release.

Excited #5 Final Fantasy Dissidia

I've been begging for a Final Fantasy mash-up fighter since before Smash Brothers made mash-up fighters cool to the masses. Yes, there was Ehrgeiz, but I wanted something good to play. Perhaps my desire for a Final Fantasy crossover was fueled by SquareEnix creating all these nice characters from game to game and then pretty much shelving them after there one respective title was up. But alas, we have Final Fantasy Dissidia on the way and it gives me everything I've wanted plus more. I can have Advent Children-esk battles with all of the main characters from the first ten games, I can also jump into the fray with some of the coolest villains in the franchise (and Jecht), and I can hopefully play as Sephiroth and pound the holy piss out of the waste of a villain that is Kefka.

Not Excited #4 Brutal Legend

I've already blogged about my disliking of Brutal Legend so my stance on it is pretty clear; the over the top clamoring about this games creators has over dosed me to the point where I cant stand the words Brutal Legend anymore, toss in the legal drama over the game and it's created a perfect storm of dislike for me. Why is Brutal Legend not higher on my list you say? Well, believe it or not my distaste for this game has actually lessened since I initially blogged about it to the point where I can mildly tolerate this.

Excited #4 Halo ODST

My excitement for ODST balances on two things; the games story and the potentially great survival mode it offers. Since ODST does not feature a full blown multiplayer mode like its Halo cousins this game actually seems to put a direct focus on single player and story, a major issue people have voiced regarding the recent Halo sequels. Considering I'm a huge fan of the Halo Expanded Universe I really hope ODST is a worthy addition to the canon and shushes up the idiots who put too much hate on the Halo games for its story. Plus, what's not awesome of playing a Halo version of Nazi Zombies while playing as the most badass Sergeant in the Haloverse?

Not Excited #3 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

There are only three reasons I'm not excited for Modern Warfare 2. One, I played way too much COD4 and W@W. Two, the current COD multiplayer engine has gotten old fast for me. I really don't want to simply grind through another 55-65 levels again earning the same perks. Three, I think the success of COD4's single player campaign was partially fueled by how “new” the game ways. In other words, COD4's campaign was Call of Duty in a totally different light we had never seen the franchise in before and, even though it was without a doubt an amazing campaign, it will be extremely hard to recreate the awesomeness that was COD4.

Excited #3 Bayonetta

Hot babe with sexy librarian glasses who gets almost totally naked while doing over the top attacks? Sounds like my kinda game. Wait, it comes from the guy who gave birth to the Devil May Cry franchise? Fuck yeah, count me in! While my pal Trev says that Bayonetta is what Devil May Cry would be without Capcom sticking their nose into things, I politely disagree and say that's a crock of bullcrap. But that doesn't stop me from me from getting totally worked up about Bayonetta? No. Does it look perhaps a little too much like a Devil May Cry clone? Yeah, probably. But I eat Devil May Cry titles for breakfast and I'll gladly buy a re-skinned DMC if it comes from the same lineage.

UPDATE: The internet has informed me that the North America release for Bayonetta got pushed to January of 2010. Well, goddammit the internet just broke my whole combo here. But considering January 2010 is pretty damn close to 2009, and I'm a lazy bastard who doesn't want to update all of this, it's staying here!

Not Excited #2 New Super Mario Bros. Wii

In my opinion, the “New” at the start of this title means it's geared for a new audience of Super Mario fans. A.K.A. people who've never touched a Mario game before. I'm happy that the Koopa Kids are finally back because they were some of the best additions to the Mario franchise ever, but as a veteran of the franchise who grinded through the old school Mario games back on the NES I just can't bring myself to play a much easier game bearing the same title as the original classic.

Excited #2 Batman Arkham Asylum

From everything I've seen and played in regards to this game, Arkham Asylum really looks like it's doing everything as right as it can be. Batman fights exactly like he should fight, like a kick ass ninja, and has all of the proper stealth elements that make Batman everything Sam Fisher wishes he was. Throw in Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill from Batman: The Animated Series (the best comic-to-cartoon ever) and this game really makes me happy to be a video gamer.

And for random fun here's a video of Kevin Conroy's Bruce Wayne voice guest appearing on Matlock.


Not Excited #1 Final Fantasy XIII

Ironic that I'm excited about one Final Fantasy but another Final Fantasy tops the list of games I'm not excited for, isn't it? I was excited about this title, tried to stay excited about this title, and now I'm ultimately not excited about FF13 at all. Perhaps it's the fact that the game's been in development for way too long, perhaps it's my stubborn fanboy pouting and wishing they'd let some of their crew go free and remake FF7 (you'd think FF7 selling like hotcake on PSN would finally give them the idea), or perhaps I just am not keen on the idea of this installment having more then one game come out at the same time. I, personally, am also not very giddy about SquareEnix seemingly trying to plug this game as literally “The Next Final Fantasy 7” to the point where one of the developers literally called one of the Versus XIII characters a darker silver haired Cloud Strife. Or who knows, maybe I'm just not that into the Final Fantasy series that much anymore.

Excited #1 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

In my opinion Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is the best game of this console generation. I will argue it's better then Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, and any other GOTY candidate of the last few years. Now Uncharted 2 looks better, which I find somehow impossible to believe and even has multiplayer where I can run and gun as Sully, the most awesome guy with a mustache ever (sorry Old Snake). There isn't much from the Uncharted formula that needs to be tweaked at all and from everything I've seen it really doesn't look like they've messed with anything that worked. Count me on board for a day one purchase of Among Thieves.

No, I'm not dead and yes I still visit Destructoid. Normally the summer months seem to be the time of the year were there aren't a ton of great games being pumped out left and right, so you'd in theory think that I'd be posting more around here instead of less. Well, I specifically use the summer time to catch up on a lot of games I may have missed out for a while. Oh, and there was that whole new computer I bought that got me back into PC gaming a little bit. Yeah, that's sort of taken up a shitload of my time lately. Besides that I also just don't check Destructoid that much when I'm not at home anymore (aka at work) because my job's virus scanners seem to pick up any little bit of shit that come form Dtoid's banner adds all the fucking time. So, let me catch ya'll up on stuff for me.

1- Team Fortress 2 fucking rules... for PC that is

And now every time a bunch of animals are together it's called a zoo!... Unless its a farm!

Yeah, I wasn't that big of a fan of TF2 for a while but it was due to the 360 version leaving a rather terrible taste in my mouth. However The Orange Box was one of my first purchases once I got Steam up and running on my new PC (and whored out my friends internet bandwidth in the process, bwhahaha) and I must say, hot damn it's a fun game. I'm traditionally a sniper or a spy, they're both super fun (my Steam account is SephirothDZX for anybody interested)

2- Fight Night Round 4 is fun, holy shit it's really fun

Thanks to the 'upload your face' feature, I know what I look like after an angry man beats me up for 12 rounds

Most of you who know me probably didn't see this coming. I rented a copy of Fight Night Round 4 a few days after it was released because I had a mild interest in the game despite never playing a Fight Night title before nor being anything close to a fan of the modern age of professional boxing. After having the game for two days I immediately hauled my ass to Gamestop and picked up a copy because I simply can't put the game down. This game is my "I can't believe how fucking much I absolutely love this game" title of 2009 thus far, basically it's my personal surprise hit. Upon introducing this game to my friends the game took off like a wildfire and it's become one of the main event games of our gaming parties. Hell, here's how much all of is are in to the game right now... we bought a $10 WWE championship belt and use that as our World Heavyweight Championship belt to determine the best boxer out of our group (I'm the reigning champ, my second time holding the belt).

3- Commanding, Supremely

Big robots... Mmm... Big robots

Alongside Fight Night, Supreme Commander has had a renaissance amongst my main friends in terms of active played games. Since I obviously lacked a PC that could run the title sufficiently up until recently I missed out on the initial release of Supreme Commander, which disappointed me since it's the spiritual sequel to the best RTS ever made. I've caught up on lost time though and I don't care what anyone says, Supreme Commander is still top-of-the-line for RTS games.

4- Trying to build upon my social life

When doing a Google image search for 'no social life' this is what you get!

Given the town I live in this has been a lost cause, oh well. I've been actively trying to go out and actually do shit like get a girlfriend and what not. Unfortunately this has been going nowhere fast and women around here are kind of undesirable for the most part. So, it ends up bringing me back here to good old Destructoid where I see constant barrages of awesome... followed by a Hoborg blog.

Hopefully I'll put up more blogs soon, I have stuff I actually really want to talk about again!

Well I've been around Destructoid for a pretty good while and for the most part have found everything to be very honest and pretty dead on. I'm really, in a way, glad to see that it took so long for the Dtoid staff to finally drop the ball on something but I'm at the same time disappointed to see how blatantly far off the mark they were with something. The Destructoid review of inFAMOUS hit the front page today and it is very clear that the staff completely swung and missed with what the scope of the game was. The video review alone was enough to make me ask if they just got done with an all-night session of Devil May Cry or God of War, something that would make them play inFAMOUS in the most wrong way possible.

First and foremost; it's almost midnight while I'm typing this, it's been a long really rough week at work already and I don't feel like going through the process of slapping together pics for this blog. Maybe I'll do it in the morning or something later. By the way - Niero if you're reading this, you should really have someone look into the content that goes through some of the banner adds on the site. Some of the ones that pop up on the site have some nasty little “cookies” in them that light up my workplace's anti-virus systems like Times Square. I really don't want to explain to my boss why I'm getting trojan and spyware alerts on my machine 30 seconds after visiting Destructoid (yes, I know I shouldn't be surfing the web at work but everybody has slow days at their job).

Here's how obviously off the mark they were with the review. During the video review itself Jim Sterling is talking about, or more or less bitching, about Cole being frail and vulnerable to attacks... and this is immediately followed up with a clip - at the 1 minute mark roughly – of Cole using his shockwave attack right in front of a fucking car. I seriously had to stop watching at that point because the review was expecting and seemingly demanding the game to be something it never set out to be. inFAMOUS in no way was ever meant to be Hulk: Ultimate Destruction were you could just blast away at enemies at your own leisure. inFAMOUS is a game that rewards you for not playing the game like a mindless dumbass. It's a game were you have powers but still have human vulnerabilities, y'know so stuff like bullets actually hurt you and detonating a gasoline filled car at point blank range actually hurts you. The inFAMOUS review has honestly made me concerned about what Destructoid is going to think about Batman: Arkham Asylum, because if any of you have played the demo you will quickly realize that Batman goes down faster then Cole does once bullets start flying. In this apparent world were all superheroes are apparently invulnerable, this will probably be an instant dock against Batman. Did you honestly expect Cole to jump into a group of 10 heavily armed thugs and just take his time hurting everyone and think bullets wont hurt? If his levels of invulnerability were anything more what they were in the game, it simply wouldn't make sense. Lighting powers are in no way linked to enhanced muscle mass, thicker skin tissue, or any sort of crazy magic comic book crap that makes people take a shitload of damage. Spider-Man doesn't punch Green Goblin's pumpkin bombs out of his way at point blank range, why's that? Because it would probably fucking kill him.

Another complaint comes from the apparent “crack shot enemies” that inFAMOUS puts out. First, I hate the double standards people have about games becoming easier and easier and then complain when a game gets hard. Secondly, if you're doing this thing called moving the enemies within inFAMOUS aren't exactly Warthog-Side-Seat-Marine-Snipers. Basically strafing or running in one direction other than directly towards or away from them means that they usually miss you with their shots, since they don't know how to lead targets very well. I don't get the complaining about inFAMOUS's enemies, I ran through the game on hard and it was challenging but it wasn't even close to being so hard that it warranted docking the game for it. inFAMOUS didn't throw infinitely respawning enemies at you that threw more grenades then they could possibly hold, and expect you to simply push forward (I'm looking at you Call of Duty).

I think the biggest problem with the staff's view of inFAMOUS is very simple, they probably wanted it to be more like Prototype. Now while we already know Mr. Sterling's viewpoint on the matter – in an article that was nowhere near the appropriate gold that was the Killzone 2/Halo 3 article, and really didn't need to grace Destructoid's frontpage – the topic of inFAMOUS vs. Prototype has been going on for a while now. I refrained from saying anything simply because I did want to rent a copy of Prototype and try it out for myself. Well, I did rent the game and play it for a bit and I'm going to keep my opinion short and sweet.

If you really liked Prototype, you really are a fucking moron.

I hated Prototype. It was a brutally unpolished game, had major control issues, a story and main character about as generic and uninteresting as possible, graphics and a city that made Clive Barker's Jericho look like Viva Pinata, very little replay value, and no sense of consequence or morals. Plus, there's a whole different level of reason I don't like Prototype. I don't like Prototype for the same reason I don't like Bioshock, there's another better near identical game that came before it. If you've ever played System Shock 2 then you've pretty much played an older and much better version of Bioshock. If you've played Hulk: Ultimate Destruction then you've played a much better last generation version of Prototype that tops Prototype in pretty much every area except for graphics – maybe. Prototype is a simple cookie cutter sandbox game that is fun only because you can run around and maim countless amounts of people. Yeah okay, Grand Theft Auto 3 came out 8 years ago people. It's well past the time to praise games for allowing you to do exactly what you can do in almost every other sandbox game that's come out post-GTA3.

I dunno, this is one of the rare moments were I'll actually vent and rant about something. But I have no other way of explaining that Dtoid, you simply missed the point entirely with what inFAMOUS is. I mean honestly, you reviewed it in the totally wrong scope expecting it to be some stupid hack and slash sandbox game when it's really more on the lines of an adventure game with a world you can explore on the side. I think most people will agree with me that the only commonalities between inFAMOUS and Prototype are that you have some crazy powers and it's in an open world environment. Reviewing one game and expecting it to be like something else is stupid. My whole rant isn't here isn't just because I liked inFAMOUS necessarily (it's a great game that sill has some slight faults), but rather just that the review of it basically meant that the entire shape of the game needed to conform to the reviewers and not the other way around. I'd be equally pissed if Ghostbusters was reviewed and people expected it to be on par with Gears of War.

So, yeah, I'm done talking at this point. Glad you read my rant, but for the record I am generally a person who hates telling people simply "You're doing it wrong" and even with this blog I still say there is no exception for it. This was just a slight wrong I needed to address, now if you'll excuse me I need to go get some sleep. It's starting to storm out and I don't have a very stable surge protector yet for my new computer, plus I feel like being awake and alert for work tomorrow. (Hooray payday)

Hot from the Destructoid reddit comes this article from USA Today talking about a confirmed 'Help' feature coming soon. Miyamoto himself is quoted as saying the following,

"In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, if a player is experiencing an area of difficulty, this will allow them to clear troubled areas and take over when they're ready" confirmed Miyamoto, through his translator. "And yes, we're looking into this for future games, too"

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is going to include an option in the game that lets you pause the game and let the game beat difficult sections for you. Obviously I linked the article to you here, so you should just go click it and read it since I really don't want to copy and paste the article here and claim it as my blog. But really? Let the game beat itself for you? Isn't the whole idea behind old-school Mario games to overcome some really damn hard challenges? I mean it's called a challenge or problem-solving for a reason! Surely nobody plays a Mario game for the story, and really weren't games like The Lost Levels made simply for the purpose of being fucking hard? This is like playing tee ball where there are no outs, no score is kept, everybody gets trophies, and nothing fucking matters. Coming soon, Mario Kart Wii 2 which allows you to let the game turn the damn car automatically, and everybody gets the same amount of points after a race.

I mean really, just when I think my distaste for Nintendo is fading they always pull something like this. I know it's optional, but ugh the fact that they even thought to create it bugs me. I'm sorry, I actually like playing my video games.

(Also, kudos to Trev for pointing this out to me)