Hand drawn with no Photoshop, and no shame.

So now, apparently, Kratos, of God of War is a rumored character in
Soul Calibur IV. In a game with Darth Vader, Yoda, and Darth Vader's Secret
Apprentice already included, this is another SWEET shot in the AWESOME arm. So then I
would assume that Marcus Fenix would be the in Xbox 360 version?

In a generation that gave us the Super Smash Bros. Brawl Nintendo-gasm with added
Sonic and Snake sprinkles, Mortal Kombat fighting DC Comics characters, and even way
back when with a Spartain in Dead or Alive 4, and Ryu of Ninja Gaiden fame
being it's own Halo 3 armor...

Does it help? Or does it hurt?


Seriously, I'm asking you. I'm not sure myself. I love playing as Sonic and Snake, two of
my favorite video game characters of all time, in a game that lets me bash the hell out of
characters from a few of my favorite franchises ever. But where does it go from here?
What's the next Super Smash Bros. going to be like? Just more characters? It's going
to be pretty hard to top that one, even if Classic Mega Man might show up.

The same goes with Soul Calibur IV. It's one thing to have Link and Spawn, two
additions that are ridiculous in their own right. But Vader? And who wants to play as his
apprentice that we've only seen in trailers? Blatant advertising, yes. But aren't all of these
the same way? This is product placement at it's most incredible. What's the next move? Big
Daddy in the next Tekken?

While it's fun to see all these guys, I still would buy a game with good mechanics and it's
own characters with their own interesting personalities and looks.

I'm not trying to take the piss out of these titles or anything. I just wanted to see what you
guys thought.

Or yesterday...depending on when and where you read this.






I know you guys, (Sega) don't want to make a real Sonic game anymore. That's fine. I've
accepted that. Just please don't muck up Unleashed too much. Please? For me? For
everyone else?

Zombies and nerds (like us) have a long and rich history. They show up to eat us, and we
show up to eat up whatever it is they are promoting. (Zombie movies, games, internet
memes, etc...)

But don't get me wrong. I loved the classic zombie franchises of all mediums (...Of the
Dead series, Resident Evil, and so on) But it's become quite formulaic. A mysterious
virus/illness has broken out, turning people into zombies that eat other people that turn
them into zombies, and it's up to survivors to shoot/blow them up, preferably at a location
that represents Americana and consumer habits. I loved it, you loved it. It was fun! But to
me, i think it's getting stale.

We all complain about how Nazis and the Second World War are so done to death whenever
we see Call of Duty 5 screen shots, but I don't hear a lot of griping about [i]Left 4
Dead[/i], a game where, instead of Nazis, you shoot zombies. (Side note: Not
complaining about the game's mechanics...just the setting.)

Zombies are a narrative copout. Nazis were terrible people. Nazis in film, television and
games are comically evil. Zombies are almost worse because they don't even have a
Shindler's List style conscious-conflict. They don't even have working brains. They
just...eat you. And they'll stop at nothing to eat you.

If you haven't already, take a film class. When you write your first short, there will almost
ALWAYS be someone in your class who will write a zombie movie. (That, and the Reservoir
Dogs/Pulp Fiction style gangster movie, but that's a different rant...) It's the same reason
so many terrible, terrible horror movies get released every year, and so many first
independent features are horror movies: They are so fucking easy to produce.

Most people will tell you that zombie media isn't about the zombie itself, but rather the gore
that said corpse inflicts. And while that might be true, even that gets old after a while.
I mean, how many times can you rip someone's arms off and eat their brains? Despite the
fact that technology is so fantastic these days, people don't seem to want to use it to
innovate the gore factor in the way they should.

Do I want zombie games to stop? Of course not, don't be a fucking dipbox.

All I want is for every 5 games that involve people running from zombies/viruses, I want
one completely different take on the whole genre. It doesn't even have to be completely
and mind-blowingly innovative. Just something...more interesting.




Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse, is a great example of this. It puts you
in the place of the zombie, for once, letting you amass your own army to take out
humanity. It didn't reinvent the wheel, it just showed me the other side of the tire.


Zombies, don't get me wrong. I love you guys. It's just I'm tired of playing the same game
over again. It's a good game, and all. I'd just like to try something, a little different. That's
all.


I want to hear from you guys. Am I alone in this?


(I'm also looking at you, ninjas, pirates, monkeys, robots, and every fucking variation.)




(And also, In case you were wondering and even if you weren't, here's the zombie film I
came up with, in said film class.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCGVeYaF8V8

Yeah, in the new trailer for Sonic Unleashed, the titular hero is running fast. Sonic
normally runs fast, I suppose.

So him running fast in a 2D perspective suddenly marks a return to form? Silly rabbit.

It's FLOW, people! The classic Sonic games depended on fantastic level design to facilitate
flow...where the result was going fast.

Let me refer you to this great article from the online games magazine, The Gamer's
Quarter:


Issue #1: Dissecting a Hedgehog

I won't go into details much, because I actually would like you to read it, as it's an
interesting analysis on what makes Sonic playable and what is to be done in order to make
him playable again, but the key is not just being fast. You need to earn the right to be
fast.

Our very own Jim Sterling also wrote an interesting article on Sonic a while back, and while
I can't seem to find it, he also has snippets of it in his "Bargain Bin Laden: Sonic Advance"
article.

http://www.destructoid.com/bargain-bin-laden-30-sonic-advance-59215.phtml

Basically, he says that Sonic games now are all about pushing the "YAY WOOHOO" button in
order to win.

It feels, to me, that the Sonic Rush series is almost a parody of Sonic games, where
you almost EXCLUSIVELY hold right.

Sonic Adventure, while filled with numerous problems, still felt like they were
trying. It was the last instance where they were doing so. Every game post SA are
essentially like Sonic X licensed games. That's exactly what they've felt like. It's Naruto. It's
Dragon Ball Z. It's Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. It's a rushed to market
licensed
title.

Sega isn't all bad people. They still make quality games. (Outrun 2, Virtua Fighter 5,
Yakuza, and so on...), but please leave the poor hedgehog alone. Please dissolve Sonic
Team. Give Sonic up to another part of the company.

If it were up to me, i'd pull a Metroid Prime, and hand off the reigns to another
development team. My Suggestions:

-Maybe Insomniac as they produce excellent and charismatic platformers (Ratchet and
Clank) in an age where "excellent" and "platformers" haven't belonged in the same sentice
since Yoshi's Island.

- Maybe Q? Entertainment, makers of Rez and Luminies. Hell, we spoke of how
Sonic Unleashed looks like a rhythm game. Why not go the extra mile? Classic Sonic
married excellent music and psychedelic images beautifully, and that's Q?'s calling card!

- Shit, maybe Hal Labratory/Nintendo should take a crack at it, considering,
by default, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the only good game to feature Sonic in
almost 10 years.

OR SHIT, JUST MAKE SONIC 2 HD A REALITY ALREADY:



Yeah, I know I haven't played the game and have only seen footage. And it's clear that I'm
just venting over a cartoon character that was near and dear to my hearts. (As well as lots
of other hearts.) But this IS Sonic Team, who promised a reboot in 2006 and gave us
underage girls kissing oversized hedgehogs. The team who RUINED Nights.

Just saying.

You read the title right? Spoilers? Ok Good.
-----------------------


Metal Gear Solid 4 made me cry.


I wasn't balling or anything. But it yanked violently on my heart strings.

Playing (or was it watching?) the game, along with the last 3 in the series, built up such a
solid emotional tower from seeing and interacting with all these characters...especially
Snake and Otacon.

So seeing Hal so distraught, so emotionally strung up, as he was in the past, along with
Snake's tragic ways he delt with his own mortality while the world around him took a
nosedive...well that fucking sucks. Nobody wants to see their good friends suffer.

And that part near the end? Where you're pressing the triangle button as hard as you could
over and over, to the point of near torture ("And don't even think about using autofire or I'll
know!") while just above you, a split screen showed everyone else crossing the threshold of
chaos, all while climactic music rushes past you in the background? Jesus.

None of that made me cry. That was just the foreplay.

What really did it was when Otacon was talking to Sunny at the end, as she wondered
where the Legendary Hero was. "Resting" he said, barely holding back his tears.

Fuck, thats when i started to well up.

And yes, I'll make the Firefly/Serentiy comparason because it's just too damn good.
You're around all these characters, so you create an odd bond. Then to see them go to hell
in a handbasket, all at once? That's rough.

It makes me think on how videogames have grown over the years. Over our generation.
They are actually to the point of movies. Even better, some might say, because you, the
player, directly interact with it. Exciting times, these is.


Anybody else have this kind of experience? With this videogame or another? Am i just a
raging faggo-queer?