So I walk into one of the many local blockbusters Friday evening to return Dark Sector (finally, after 3 rentals) and what do I see? A brand new Nintendo Wii for sale. Of course my first reaction was to ask the dude behind the counter if they actually had one or if this was some sort of deception. He told me they had 1 or 2 remaining. (lies im sure) I immediately walk over to the Wii section to see what I would actually play if I bought this thing. First thing that jumps out is this “brawl” game I keep hearing about then I see Mario Galaxy out of the corner of my eye. I was sold. I decided I would rent them both along with my new purchase.
I was a little unsure how I would feel about these games for 2 reasons.
1) I have not had a Nintendo console since the NES and
2) I typically enjoy violent life like games such as COD4 and r6v2.
However, I couldn’t resist and was confident that Mario would be as great today as it was back in my younger days.
I was right. Mario Galaxy has given me feelings no 360 game has yet and is as fun as Mario 1, 2, and 3 was when I first played them. The game is genuinely fun! Imagine that. I bought a copy of Resident Evil 4 as well since I missed it on the GC and ps2 and have been eager to try it. I had a wonderful Wii-kend (see what I did there?) and am so excited that I got my hands on one! I think I will pick up Okami and No More Heroes soon. I also have to check out Twilight Princess (haven’t played Zelda since the sequel on the NES and Metroid Prime (haven’t played Metroid since the Original).
Any ideas or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
I would like to thank The Ninja Gaiden College Campus Tour for being the reason we have no Ninja Gaiden 2 demo on the Marketplace.
It is a good marketing move to generate some hype and get those kids excited to come check out the game but it sucks for those of us who are not in college.
It is quite obvious that they are allowing the college people to play the very demo we should all have access to. The thing is, if the demo were available nobody would go to their little tours when they showed up. Why should they when they could play it in the comfort of their own rooms?
So, although I give them credit for being creative and trying to generate excitement, I resent them for doing so in a way that excludes me. Its not like I cant live without a demo, but considering it is done and playable it would be nice to be able to play it.
Mark my words. The demo will pop up as soon as that tour is done.
Thanks college kids. First you get the cool college parties. You get the hot young crazy drunk college girls gone wild like orgies, and now this!!
So last night I decided I wanted to play some r6v2 MP. All I wanted to do was play some deathmatch. Every man for himself. It seemed like a good plan. I haven’t played much MP on the game because it seems like a big pain in the ass. I guess I had forgotten how much of a pain it was, until last night. I want to say that I have NEVER had such a hard time getting into a match, and that no matchmaking has ever pissed me off like this. It is flat out horrible.
The point of this is basically a big FUCK YOU to the makers of this game. How do you copy COD4 in so many ways yet fuck up the matchmaking so bad?? I understand that you didn’t change much from the first game, I can live with that. But you couldn’t update the matchmaking?? Why can I simply pick a match in COD4 then press A and be playing within seconds, but in this game its like a chore from hell to play the match I want.
Let’s start with selecting the match. You put in your choices then your list of options should appear. First thing you will notice is a poor connection in every available match. 2 orange circles perhaps, maybe a red circle. Very rarely will you see the friendly green circles you desire. Once you have found a match that looks ok it should be simple right? No. By the time you enter the room several things may happen.
1. The match has already started, leaving you to spectate on the sidelines. (for the WHOLE time)
2. By the time you get there, the game type has changed. I could have sworn I picked deathmatch, why is this a lobby for total conquest??
3. You get there and you have to wait for some cock sucking douchebag to start the match. Which he never does. If you were in one of those rooms with me last night you may have heard me cursing the scum bag who decided to host a room then walk away from his tv while we all sat there waiting. (seriously) (twice)
4. After you’ve selected your custom match, and go into the lobby, and leave because its fucked up, it will take you back to the matchmaking screen and do an automatic search. Sounds convenient right? Wrong. Because it searches for any kind of match and not the one you just specified moments earlier. Give me a friggin break!
Not to mention, there seems to be a lag problem that I have not experienced since playing The Darkness MP (once) Seriously, Lag?? I just dumped a clip full of bullets into this guys skull only to see him disappear then reappear behind me, killing me with a shotgun blast. Fun.
I played one match, then spent at least 30 minutes trying to get into another match. I must have entered 15 different lobbies only to be greeted by disappointment and frustration. Eventually I couldn’t take it any more and had to take the game out before I smashed my controller through the TV screen.
Where to turn? Good old COD4. Thank you for being there for me old friend.
To the lazy scumbag fuck ups who half assed the matchmaking in a game where MP is one of the best aspects, you should all be fired and replaced by the guys who made yaris.
I know these are free, and nobody is required to offer a demo but sheesh. It has been at least a couple of weeks since a new demo has been offered up. It would be one thing if no new games were coming out, but there has been several releases as of late in which no demo was available.
Free demo's are awesome. Few things get me as excited as seeing a demo for a game ive been anticiapting showing up on the marketplace before the game is available.
Things like that are part of the reason I pay my live service fee each month with joy and spend a decent amount of time on the dashboard. I cant even count how many games I have purchased based on the experience I had with the demo.
Chances are, if I like the demo, I will buy the game. This leads me to believe companies fear the opposite reaction when they dont offer up a demo before the game is released.
Certain games obviously dont need a demo since we are going to buy them regardless. But others could definitely benefit from one. (The Club, Burnout Paradise to name a couple of games I wasnt so sure about until the demos got me hooked.)
My issue isnt so much about there not being very many demos lately, it is more about the people behind the games not doing everything they can to get us one before the game comes out.
Stop being pussies guys. Dont be affraid that if we actually get a chance to play your game it will turn us off so bad that we will want nothing to do with it. (Im looking at you Turning Point).
At the end of the day, if your demo sucks it might be a good way to find out how people really feel about it and potentially fix the problems before the game comes out.
So I got up a little early today so I could check out this beta. Im wondering if the extra 20 minutes of sleep would have been a better bet. I will say I didn’t get enough time to make a fair assessment of the game, and I will say I would rather still be playing it then be here at work. My main interest this morning was to check out the “destructible environments” I have seen demo’d in a few videos. In short, they sucked. In the video it looked like it was different than other games and what and where you shot would make a difference. It seems that the building damage is the same as I’ve seen in a zillion other games. I did shoot a few branches off of a few trees, which was exhilarating. Ok, so amazing destruction? Not so much. In the games defense, there was an awful lot going on around me that prevented me from exploring the way I would have liked.
The graphics were pretty impressive I guess, for those of you who are into that sort of thing. There was a lot of stuff going on, and honestly I was a bit confused. I killed a few of my teammates and managed to hop into a tank, which was pretty cool. I then shot a few rounds at a few more teammates. I don’t condone killing a teammate and would never do it intentionally, but I didn’t know what the heck was going on. Apparently the one mode they have going is an attack and defend type of thing where one team has to protect containers of gold, while the other team has to destroy them. As interesting as that may be, I really wish there was a deathmatch/team deathmatch option.
I did hop into some water and swim around the corner into the enemy territory, that was kind of cool. Before I got blasted. It did seem like some fun could be had, under the right circumstances. (rushing to work not being one of them)
It is fast paced and frantic, that’s for sure. I’m kind of enjoying the slower more tactical pace of R6V2 but might hop back on a little later to give it another more serious run through, if anyone else has it, hit me up.
What’s up with Rainbow 6 Vegas 2? Is it any good? Is it really a sequel, or is it more like r6v 1.5?? Well I will tell you, it is very 1.5 ish. That is not necessarily a bad thing in this case, just maybe not as exciting as it could have been. I would say it is definitely more of the same. Of course they have added in a new campaign which is sequel worthy imo alone not to mention several other great additions to the overall experience.
First thing I did when I put the game in was fire up the old xbox live vision camera to put my face in there. I was optimistic about this feature as I think its awesome and should be available in every game. In the first game it worked well enough, some issues with the hair line, but you could easily make it out. I imagined it would be way better this time, it is not. When my face first appeared in the game I was taken back. Is that what I really look like?? Is my forehead really that big?? Of course not, I’m way sexier, but it does the trick. That’s definitely me, (I look buff).
The customization from the get go is impressive and that wins me over every time. It is almost identical to the first game, but way more options than other similar games that we’ve been playing recently. Once I get the appearance as close to a storm trooper as possible I’m ready to hop into the action. First up, co op campaign. The campaign works wonderfully in co op, the strategic style of gameplay with multiple routes is perfect. I remember thinking early on how the usage of cover and slowly moving forward reminded me of what I was doing a couple weeks ago in Army of 2 only a “billion” times better. If you have played the first Vegas you know exactly what the campaign is like, the first mission was a little slow, but as soon as the second started I thought “here we go, this is the Vegas type action I fell in love with in the first game”. One thing that makes a single player campaign better and more fun from the get, is online co op, so its safe to say this is a fun way to play, and if you enjoy online co op and haven’t played Vegas before, you will no doubt enjoy it.
Next we move to the sweet, sweet terrorist hunts. These allow you to play up to 4 player co op and set on the realistic difficulty level are a blast to play. Teamwork is essential to your success and its a lot of fun to work through playing with a few friends. I personally could play these missions all day as it essentially combines the best of both worlds (campaign and multiplayer). But of course there is MP to play, and we all know we play r6v for the multiplayer.
I didn’t get to play all of the different modes available but did play a few fun rounds of team deathmatch and some deathmatch. Definitely more of the same there (I was a little shocked to see the map ‘killhouse’ which is in the last Vegas game) but again I will go with the idea that they know as well as we do, if it aint broke don’t fix it.
The maps I played on (that were new) were all pretty sweet and definitely a lot different from the gritty maps I’ve grown used to as of late. Variety is good and there is plenty of it to be found here. You’ve got your casino maps of course, and then a few that vary from junkyard to train tracks. One of the coolest additions is the way you gain experience points to unlock different items throughout every mode. The points you earn in single player carry over to Mp player and so on. They have implemented their own version of “challenges” that will flash across your screen similar to they way they do in cod4.
You wont notice any super duper graphical improvements here and it definitely isn’t innovative, especially if you’ve played the first, but they have definitely fine tuned what we enjoyed about the first game and given us an updated package with enough new stuff to keep us entertained and pull us away from that other fps we’ve all been playing. Basically what im saying is, it kicks ass.
So, its a sad day on one hand and a happy day on the other. Sad because last night after firing up the old cod4 mp I realized I had had enough. Sure I was searching and destroying. I was throwing frags across the map and planting claymores like it was the good old days. The problem was, it wasnt as exciting as it used to be. Dont get me wrong, I have played my share of matches, and have even been playing this game since the beta was first available. In fact, its most likely my most played game of all time. I need something different though and Im glad R6v2 is almost upon us. Im sure it will successfully fill my online fps needs, im wondering what will happen when the new cod maps come out though. Surely there will be a huge shift from cod to r6, but will the new r6 converts come crawling back to cod after the new maps? Will chinatown be enough to pull us from sin city?? I predict a pickle. That is until GTA4 comes out at least. Judging from the 15 or 16 mp modes that game will have, it may even become the new champ. Who knows?
I wish I had the phtoshop skills. The ability to create some sort of video. I wish I had the ability to create something other than these poorly written sentences to give back. However, I do not. So, happy birthday d - toid and to d - toid community. This site is awesome, and the personalities I come across every day within the site are even better. Thanks for the countless lolz and entertainment you always provide.
FOR FREE EVEN!!!!
I < 3 U guys
Also, < 3
Hello Destructoid. I play a decent amount of video games and spend just as much time (if not more) reading and writing about them. Why? Thats a good question. I'll have to get back to you on that one. In the meantime, i'd like to play some games and read and write about them.
I've been doing a small amount of blogging in the recent months and I recently decided that if i'm going to be doing that, I might as well do it here where someone might actually read it. Who am I kidding? Noone will actually read it.
I don't really enjoy writing, I do however get an amazing satisfaction from spell check. I'm old school. I remember the day I got my NES like it was yesterday, 1985. Well, actually I remember the year better than the day. Give me a break I was only 5. Do you remember when you were 5? Ok then.
Moving on. My next console was the Sega Genesis. Some of my best memories of that era revolve around the "beef" between the Genesis owners and the Super Nintedno owners. This wasn't some bullshit make believe beef like the "East Coast/ West Coast" beef was. This was real beef. You know, the type were "ya mom's ain't safe to walk the streets". I still have the "SEGA" tattoo across the belly to prove it.
Next was the Sega Saturn. (i did have the 32x and the Sega CD but those are hardly worth talking about as far as I'm concerned.) The Saturn was cool. I remember being rather impressed by the graphics and falling in love with Tomb Raider. Not because of the girl like some of you perverts but because it was just amazing. Somewhere around this time frame I was feeling a little bit of envy towards the Nintendo 64 guys. I don't know why I got off the Nintendo side of things, it wasn't intentional. I stepped into the Sega universe with nothing but the fondest memories of my Nintendo days. But alas, what can one do when receiving such things as gifts. Either way, I was quite happy with my Sega Saturn. That was until a new friend introduced me to his Playstation. (Although that might have sounded gay, by no means was it meant to.) He showed me how much better Tomb Raider looked, and how much better Tekken was compared to anything I had on the Saturn at the time.
This is where it all changed. I was sold. I needed a PlayStation. Even if it meant doing the unthinkable. Getting rid of the Sega Saturn.
And so it was done.
Moving into the the next generation, my recollections aren't quite as clear. I remember having a PS2 and I remember buying my Dreamcast. I don't know which came first but I know the guy who lived upstairs from me could burn those Dreamcast games onto cd's and they would play like a dream. I know he would give me 5 games for 5 dollars, and I know he seemed to have them all.
Could the PS2 do that? I suppose I could use Google and find an answer to that, but I'm trying to prove a point. What is the point? The point is SEGA KICKED ASS and they were steamrolled by SONY! That actually doesn't prove that point in any way, but you know what I mean.
Many years pass
Despite having my beloved Sega Dreamcast tucked away safely in a bed of pirated discs in my closet I purchased my 2nd PS2. This may have had something to do with the fact the DC had long been discontinued by this point.
Perhaps an XBOX would have been a good choice at this point? I was hardly aware of what was REALLY going on in the video game world by this time. I was on the outside looking in. Clueless. Much like I am today. The only difference is, I now have an XBOX 360.
It's definitely had a huge negative impact on my life. My wife moved out. My kids never answer the phone when I call and I cant seem to keep a job for more than a few weeks.
Just Kidding. I'm actually a pretty cool guy and I'm just working on finding the perfect balance of time between playing COD4 and bangin' super hot models.
