Spending approximately 5 hours and nineteen minutes getting horribly thrashed attempting to complete the same last chapter in a game certainly affords one the time to fully appreciate the influences of this wonderful zombie busting action game. It combines the run'n'gun action of "Hunter: The Reckoning", while retaining the HL2-quality of an FPS. It's like a next generation Guantlet, yet without the overextended level design and ridiculous amount of levels as well. They obviously set out for one purpose, to make a simple, effective, and flexible (future DLC, no?) zombie masher and they accomplished it.

However, I think this game certainly contains some of the attitude of an old X-Box title from about five years ago. It plays like a simple button-mashing side scroller for some parts and then a series of mini games for other leveld, it secured itself a place in my heart as being a standalone example of creative and fun gaming. I bring up Kung Fu Chaos as an example not because it's also four-player, it's also deceptively long, or because I've played too much of either. I am mostly interested in its use of cliche and film.

Cliche



It drives the characters, they're all the same characters you've seen everywhere else. Mysterious ninjas, fighting princesses, disco queen bad asses, biker dude burly bastards, and old grizzled warriors that should otherwise have their driver's licenses revoked for reckless driving had they not been shoved out back into the battlefield "one last time." It's so strange how this meme picks up, but Valve and Just Add Monsters understood the strength that such old rehashings can provide a game's structure and they did it despite the transparent reasoning behind it. (It's a lot easier than pretending to be creative).

What do they do so well?



However where cliche exists, originality can foster. Kung Fu Hustle creates such a bright and cartoonish world, I've forgiven it's flamboyant "evil director" character in favour of understanding and strongly appreciating the liveliness of the world it illustrates. Much like Okami, its bright colors and fluid design creates an impressionable world with cool bosses and a flurry of cinematic flourishes. The beginnings of each level are framed by a golden film grain and the director only demands exceedingly magnificent results each level, with the bar set higher for even greater rewards. This game builds from where others have only managed to achieve.

Not unlike Left 4 Dead, which somehow actually frames its levels the same way. This is a movie set and you are merely players shooting actors. However, the greatest performance of all comes from the zombies and the baddies that strike with such ferocity. As my brother and me stretched into our third hour of attempting to clear the last chapter of the second scenario, I began to understand my enemy's place. Specifically, the implications of each "boss" character.



A self-destructive glutton, a self-loathing witch, a vice-filled (literally, he's made of nicotine) strangler, a wrathful simpleton, and banal mass of passive consumers. The enemy is something to fight, because they might destroy you as much as you might become one of them. The player becomes the actor. The individual becomes the mob, or the destruction of the mob versus the individual as this case may be. This is a movie. You are merely replaying the action sequences. The end credits will roll. As they indeed do for the end of each Left 4 Dead "movie".

Where this leaves us?

Kung Fu Chaos and Left 4 Dead are movies in action. While the former creates a vivid cinematic experience each level, the latter sets the player versus various vixen and vermin with the intent to either end the movie with escaping survivors or just with the dead. Thus in using cliche to build their worlds, they manage to eek out some sense of a deep narrative that might have otherwise been lost in post prouction.

Be grateful for the time you will have to finally finish the Punch Out! game you downloaded to your WIi. Be grateful that a lot of classes are canceled this week and finals are going to be a breeze. Most of all, be grateful that your brother bought Gears of War 2 and rented Left 4 Dead just at the right time for you to come back to your home and not talk to your parents or visiting relatives.

Thanksgiving is the time for gamers all around the world to add one portion of that game they've been meaning to play for so long to their unhealthy holiday gaming habits. We shall all share in the gentle warmth of new games released, old games ported, and any other game revisited.

That new Iron Chef game might help out with prepping that stuffing or carving that first slice. The new Chrono Trigger might teach you never to fuck with time and be grateful for the time you have at a table you share with people you are only somewhat more familiar with than the characters you know in the games you will most likely be thinking about with the people at that table.

Remember past Thanksgiving parades? Well now this year's parade will hold special meaning since it will most likely resemble the zombie apocalypse that you face each time you start up another game of L4D. Imagine any annoying floats as merely the representations of roving zombie hoards, such will be the joy felt with each disgusting band of clown firefighters or bobble-head characters stumbling down the avenues.

Imagine what floats or costumes could have been. A big daddy lumbering down the street? A Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo Float? A "Mega Man jumping" giant balloon? A Reggie meat burger palace float? Mushroom kingdom float? A Warthog cruising down the street, with an army of space marines following in a march, and possibly a Halo marching band? A Destructoid Balloon? The list goes on.

Turn Thanksgiving into your own feast of gaming fantasies and pleasures. Build a Thanksgiving parade to video games in your mind (or maybe in jpg?).

Dead last apparently! [Second in a race of two (of a two-party system) is still dead last.]

Watch closely and you'll recognize some old Zelda baddies lurking in this 10-minute long epic by ex-Test Icicle member Devonte Hynes. It is soothing, slide guitar-y, and features a myriad of dramatic shifts.

This is a well-orchestrated ballad about the singer's obsession with an alternate world he could only wish to be apart of, which is, of course, the Hyrulian plains, majestic and magical forests, and Ganon-infested waters of the Zelda-universe. I imagine this is what happens to every gamer when they get stuck to their fantasy lands, be they Halo or Mushroom Kingdom. As well, it is inevitably a sad departure, however warm each stay may be.

The video even presents the singer as sort of fighting a mirror self. One who gets the girl, as well as himself, the one who must bow out gracefully or become spoiled by the experience. Even more pressing to sentimental gamers, such deep attachment to digital/pixalated/imaginative/literal creations. Why must one go through a game fighting what they dare to become or be apart of or at least to satiate those desires?

This song conjures such wonder about these strange bonds built between characters we only want to know more about. Such a great song to think about the hours one spends in these carefully constructed narratives.

That is all. *Ahem*... 156705... my score... *ahem*.

Thank you RFGO for making this title possible.

Anyway, I have been playing Fallout 3 for about 2 weeks and it's the same old thing... which is great! I love that this game only feels like a completely necessary step up of the Fallout series. With the slump in top of the line Fallout titles for the past few years, this one has KOTR written all over, yet this is what inspired KOTR, so f%&$ that!

This game has retained all the great creatures, artistic renderings of Vault boy, and it even carries over all the armors and weapons from the original, however it accomplishes the transition with candor, like the growth of a baby gosling... yeah, candor.

The world however brightened by the magnificent visuals provided when traveling through its desolate wastelands and ramshackle towns really speaks to the truth of the back story. It truly feels like the apocalyptic aftermath of the Cold War, or what people thought back then of what strange futures might unfold.

However, the game truly shined for me the first time I fought Super Mutants along side the Brotherhood of Steel. Not unlike the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, they all wear a one-size-fits-all suit of armor and are as bad ass as they have always been. By the way, Fatman, yes, the Fatman. If you don't know what the Fatman is yet (no, not MGS 2 Fatman), you should beware of the irradiated passion that it inspires. Yes, irradiated.

Right now my character is a sneaky little black widow who not only enjoys the taste of blood but can also power fist your punk-a$$ face. This is a surprisingly accurate description of my character, however she's also a sniper extraordinaire. All the skills and weapons you pick up will be useful. Do not be scared if you kill the Sheriff. Oh, and I love listening to the radio. Damn Chinese Ghouls...