...except for those here on Destructoid.

That's right, I'm talking about charity.


Apparently her name is Charity according to Google Images.

So I woke up on Saturday morning and went through my usual morning routine of checking my email accounts and Destructoid. I saw that Dtoid was having a live 24 hour webcam/gaming broadcast to raise money for cancer research. Slightly intrigued, I clicked the link. That one simple decision, that one simple motion of lifting and pressing down with my index finger, changed the entire course of most of my Saturday.

I was greeted by a series of different angled shots showing the interior of the Dtoid Miami office, where three individuals were playing Rockband -- Rey, Colette and Not (Bizarro) Jim Sterling. Rey was belting out his own lyrics to Rage Against the Machine while in the chat channel thing on the right, anonymous fans were screaming "VISIONS VISIONS VISIONS" over and over.

What had I got myself into?

I was hooked. Next up, Colette sang a wonderful rendition of "Welcome Home" with Rey harmonizing on the "whoas" in the outro -- of course his lyrics were better than the actual song. Puuuuutaaa Maaaaadreee, etc. You get the idea.

This was about 10am PST. I ended up staying in my room watching the feed and participating in the chat for about 4 hours or so. It was one of the more entertaining Saturday (days) I've had in a long, long time.

The best part is, it humanized Destructoid a little bit for me. See I'm fairly new to this site. My length of membership is measured in months, not years. I've been able to get a feel for some of the site's editors via their numerous humorous posts a la Jim Sterling, or via the Podtoid (see Anthony, Samit, Topher, etc.)

But a lot of the other people were something of a mystery to me. Rey was the guy with the Hispanic name and the 3's in his user name. Colette was one of the people on the side bar under associate editors. And to me, Niero was either a made up character or a Phantom of the Opera-esque character with the Mr. Destructoid helmet covering up "the gross half of his face."


Oh, if only...if only.

But seeing them interact with each other, and with the people chatting in the channel, really brought them to life for me. Plus other Dtoid editors like Topher, Brad Nicholson, Jim, Hamza all showed up to chat too. Then (I don't remember his real name) Bacalao showed up, donned a blonde wig and announced that he was Mexican Chad. The chat was then filled with shouts of AMAZING and ASOMBROSO (Spanish for amazing.) The merits of Alien Ant Farm were discussed when Jim was there. Many other great things happened - rubber horse heads, pictures of Brad's biceps, (and many others I missed) and I feel fortunate for having gotten to see them.

I didn't stay for the whole thing, but I was there enough to really a feel like Dtoid is a living breathing community. Normally, I don't have the money to donate to charities, but the whole experience was so awesome that I just had to donate what little I could. Thank you Rey, Colette, Gabe, and Niero and everyone else that participated for really fleshing out my perception of Destructoid.

The fact that we raised over $4000 shows that the stereotype of gamers being apathetic losers doesn't apply to the great Dtoid community.



Plus I got to hear Niero speak. It sounded like angels playing golden trumpets while riding flying panthers.

Even though this game has a pretty robust Wikipedia article it remained forgotten to me until just a few days ago. So even though I've already done a Monthly Musing, I just had to share this little gem with you guys.

Let me begin with one a quote with one of my favorite PC games from the 90's: "And now, VWBT is proud to present the show that squashes reality like a bug. That's right! You better be ready to MegaRace! Annnnd here's your mega-host, Lance Boyle!"

The word mega-host should tip you off about the level of camp in this game. For those of you who don't know, MegaRace is an on rails driving/shooting game that was released in '94 for PC and Sega CD. You, the Enforcer, are a contestant on the virtual reality TV show, MegaRace. You race against virtual speed-gangs on futuristic tracks and the goal is to either pass or destroy all the enemy cars before you finish 3 laps.

When you finish a level, you get access to that gangs' car. Each car has different handling, armor, and weapons so you can choose whichever one fits your playing style. The levels take you to the hills of future San Francisco (New San), an underwater level, some industrial levels in space, and even to the twisting inside of a particle accelerator.



For the record, the particle accelerator level was pretty hard. I'd always seem to get second place.

Scattered on the surface of the tracks are different icons that represent either power ups or power downs. Some increase your ammo capacity while others reverse your controls for a few seconds. The worst one was on the "last chance" Tokyo track. One of the icons takes your weapons away completely, making it so you can only ram or pass the other cars to destroy them. Hitting that icon was like instant death. It was practically impossible to win without your weapons.

But all those things are secondary to the best/worst aspect of this game. That's right I'm talking about the one, the only....Laaaaance Boyle!

To this day, I can still remember some of his catch phrases and inflections. Portrayed by actor Christian Erickson, Lance Boyle was an over the top, snarky, and ultimately cheesy game show host who delivered terrible one-liners. What's hilarious is that the actor returned to "reprise his role" for the 2 sequels. ('96 and '01 respectively) I mean the guy was in a few other video games but if I hadn't seen that on Wikipedia, I wouldn't have known him other than the MegaRace guy.



Seriously. While I was writing this I went and watched the intro video on YouTube. The guy's over the top B-grade acting skills fit the game's aesthetic perfectly. They kinda suck. And looking back, so does the game. I'm pretty sure most of my perceived enjoyment of the game is coming from a pretty hardcore pair of retro goggles. Still my brothers, my dad, and I all spent hours playing this game back on our Windows 3.x computer.

One of the saddest days for me was when I found the old CD a few years after we stopped playing it. I installed it, but the disc was scratched so all the video sequences stuttered. Lance's dialogue came out worse than Porky Pig. However, apparently the game is up on Good Old Games.

The bad graphics, pretty bad gameplay, and awesome (read terrible) host clearly cement this game's place among the legions of forgotten games. As much as I may have loved MegaRace back then, I don't think I could sit through this type of stuff again to replay it.



Skip about a more than a minute to see the Lancey goodness. Photoshop skills by Cadtalfryn

Yes I know this is years late, but bear with me. Follow me on a young man's quest for greatness and videogame satisfaction. Weep as his hopes and dreams are dashed on the cruel, jagged rocks of reality. Ready? Let's go!

Lair. This single word is the name of one of the most cringe worthy titles of the PS3's library. When it shipped, it came with a terrible, terrible control scheme. You were only able to use SIXAXIS and analog controls were not an option. I didn't own a PS3 when Lair came out but once I got mine, I remembered reading the terrible reviews and swore I would avoid Lair like the plague.

Then came a day a few months ago when something in the back of my brain clicked. I thought I read somewhere that Lair got analog controls via an update. I did some research and found out my inkling was correct. After some more research, trying to find out what people had said about the game once the controls were fixed. A lot of the people seemed to be mostly positive in their comments so against my initial warnings, I decided to purchase a used copy for $10. I mean, it has dragons in it right? Dragons are cool.

I was hoping my experience would go something like this:



Yes I know that comic is being sarcastic, but I bought Lair a few weeks ago. I was young and foolishly naive.

Even with the new controls. Lair is a steaming pile of dragon shit.

The first alarm bells went off in my mind when I booted up the game (after installing the updates). You have to sit through over a minute long cut scene that's advertising the THX sound -- the one with the fat plumber looking robot plugging in a cow thing into the THX logo. I've seen that before at the movies, but you can't skip it and you have to sit through it every time you start the game. Annoying to say the least. Also the Factor 5 logo takes forever to load (and it's also unskippable)

I started the first mission and was impressed by the graphics -- they looked pretty enough on my SD TV so I imagine they'd look good on an HDTV. Once the gameplay started the problems weren't far behind.

Whoever came up with these gameplay mechanics needs to be drawn and quartered. There's a small targeting reticule that turns red when you move it over an enemy, but that's all there is for a HUD. I can understand that because I'm on a dragon, not piloting an F-18 or something. But at the same time, there's no map or compass in the bottom corner of the screen. The only thing that shows up to tell you where to go is a yellow arrow that appears at the top of the screen. It gets confusing because the arrow doesn't tilt very well to tell you what altitude your objective is at.

Next up comes the combat and camera controls. You can shoot fire at enemy dragons but it really only kills the weaker ones. The game tells you you should lock on to enemy dragons and hit circle -- it'll make your dragon dash over to them. Time slows down as your mount claws the enemy. During this time you're allowed to rotate the camera and lock on to other nearby enemy dragons to chain together combo dash attacks. The problem is -- the camera controls are terrible! I've only been able to get a two-combo. Pushing down on the right analog stick should make my camera look upwards (I have the Y axis inverted) but instead somebody mapped the "Look behind you" camera control to that specific motion. So here I am trying to find more dragons to attack when suddenly my view snaps to look behind me. My dragon finishes the attack and the slow-mo goes away. Combo failed.

My last big complaint is this. Since there's no HUD, it's really difficult to tell different dragon types apart. I'm supposed to be tracking down Dark Dragons but all I can see are a shit-ton of flying lizards. There's no way to highlight mission objectives (like the Dark Dragons) so I know which ones to go after.

I've played it through to the fifth level and I can't go on. There may be analog controls, but they don't fix shoddy gameplay mechanics. I think Factor 5 cleverly hid an acronym in the game's title -- Lame Aerial Interactive Ruckus Ah foolish optimism and alluring promises, you've steered me wrong once more.

So I don't want to steal Anthony's genre to suck at, but let's face it -- I suck at RTS games. And to over use a word, this sucks, because I like RTS games! Sucks.

It all started when I went over to a friend's house in elementary school. I think I was in 4th or 5th grade and he was playing the original Command & Conquer -- Tiberian Dawn for those in the know. I didn't know what to think when I saw him play it. He had already beat it, so I got to see the ending cutscenes first. He had a saved game from the moment before beating the Nod campaign. He told me that once he won he would get to use something called an Ion Cannon to destroy the White House, the Eiffel Tower, or some other landmark.

My only experience previously with Ion Cannons was from Star Wars so I didn't really know what to expect. He asked me which one I wanted, so picking the most recognizable landmark for my 5th grade self, I chose the White House. I sat next to his computer, transfixed as Nod hackers hacked into the GDI Ion Cannon -- a badass laser satellite basically -- and watched as they leveled the White House in a scene that would make Independence Day proud.



I was sold.

A week or so later, I used my allowance to go out and buy the game. Even though now, the visuals look horribly dated, this began my hate/love affair with RTS games. I loved the fact that they had real time cutscenes with hammy acting. I thought that was the coolest. I wanted to advance the story, to see more scenes, to learn more about the war between GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod, and most importantly learn more about Tiberium. The only problem was, I actually had to beat levels to do that.

I sucked. So bad. Even to this day I get my ass handed to me while playing RTS games: Sins of a Solar Empire, Red Alert 3, Tiberian Sun, C&C 3, Starcraft, Empire at War, you name it and I'll suck at it. I can never manage to build units fast enough or construct my bases well enough to beat even the simplest of computer or human players. I run out of resources, or spend too much money trying to build awesome more expensive units while forgetting to build defenses or actually attacking. (Zerg rushes are the bane of my existence.)



Basically, I bought and "played" all the C&C games, both the Tiberian timeline and the Red Alert timeline, but most of the time I had to resort to downloading trainers to edit the game's code. I would win by making it so the opposite faction's units had no weapons. (Or in the case of the original C&C -- technician pistols because no weapons wasn't an option.)

To this day, whenever my friends ask if I want to join them for a little Starcraft LAN action I have to say, "No thanks." When they ask why, I have to respond with my tired and true answer, "I suck."

So I'm not really in to 2D fighters but BlazBlue and KoF XII have been getting good reviews and lots of hype. Both
of them sound interesting and I'm actually considering maybe getting one of them. The question is, which one?
They're both kind of similar and both very different. I've read the d-toid reviews for both games and still can't
decide. I was hoping to get some opinions from the d-toid community to help me out.

So which should I get, King of Fighters XII or BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger? (I have a ps3)

Thanks d-toiders.

So I fired up Killzone 2 the other day and downloaded the latest update. I know people have probably already been talking about it -- about the way the games list screen has changed. You can now see the maps a game is playing along with other useful information. It's a much needed and welcomed improvement.

However there is still one thing missing! Duration.

Now I know that a 30 min game of body count might not take the whole 30 min, but most of the time, I don't have time to play a game that's 30 min body count, 15 search and destroy, 20 search and retrieve, 15 capture and hold, etc. etc.

I don't know how many times I've joined a game that looks promising. They're playing maps I like (multiple maps), not just Radec Academy, but each game mode has an obscenely long time limit. I want to be able to see how long each mission's duration is before I join the game and look like a dick for joining and then leaving right away.

Who knows, maybe there actually is a way to see the times or there's an easier to way to join and quit without the hassle. But I hope this feature is something that gets added in the next round of patches.

PS - On a happier note, I really like the Southern Hills map. Beach Head is pretty good too, but I haven't gotten to see much of it. When I found a game playing it, most of the fighting was taking place near the ISA base in the craters and pipes. But my reaction has been less positive than Southern Hills.

PSS - I need some friends for my friends list. Only 1 of my friends has a ps3 and he plays only sports games. So if there're any Dtoiders out there who want to play, hit me up. Triplzer0