Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on XBOX Live! July 29th

By now, I believe most people understand what a die hard comic book nerd I am. My love for comics is limitless and is quite possibly greater than my love for anything else. Possibly. Regardless, when I heard that Marvel and Capcom were bringing Marvel vs Capcom 2 back on XBOX Live!, I nearly did a back flip out of joy. This is definitely one of my all time favorite fighter games. I can remember exactly how I used to go to the arcade to play this with my friends in Peabody because none of us owned this for XBOX or Dreamcast. We would even play it on our computers using emulators. Yes, Marvel vs Capcom 2 certainly is a very happy memory for me, and now I'll finally be able to buy it and play it on a video game console of my very own thanks to Microsoft's love of me.

So on July 29th, what do you think I'll be doing? That's right - using all of my hard earned birthday money to buy myself a copy of this game and then playing it all evening. For those wondering who you will be able to play as, look no further than this easy and comprehensive list. Personally, I will be creating a team using a combination of Mega Man, Venom, Magneto, Doctor Doom, and Captain America. Maybe Ryu too. Who knows. Either way, this will easily provide hours of entertainment for me, as Mortal Kombat vs DCU did. So I highly encourage people to pick this title up and play me online. My XBOX gamertag is Jewnado, and I'd be glad to take you down.

Gaming Diary: July 20, 2009 - The I Suck at Multiplayer Edition

The majority of my weekend was spent in a cabin in the mountains or on a boat on a lake so needless to say, not much gaming got done. Before I left, I had the opportunity to get in a few games of Battlefield: Bad Company with Nate.

I have been the first to proclaim my own inadequacies at playing multiplayer games online. I haven't really played any multi games online since Return to Castle Wolfenstein (where I dominated the beach map with the sniper rifle, I might add) so one could easily say that I'm a bit...rusty. I tend to stay away from the online gaming community because over the years as console gaming popularity has grown, so has the level of talent playing. My level of talent tends to fluctuate from poor to average so I tend to stay away to avoid a good ass kicking. I've played multiplayer campaigns of Left for Dead with friends, but that is limited to only friends so my level of humiliation is very small.

With all that being said, I did enjoy my time playing BF:BC with Nate, even though we most definitely got our asses handed to us time and time again. I might see myself venturing on the BF:BC multiplayer universe again someday.

Game Diary: July 20, 2009: Too Much to Play Edition

At the beginning of this week in gaming goodness I was still playing a lot of Fable 2.

I became the richest person in Albion and earned the Queen and Mayor titles from the Town Criers. I also, at some point, went totally evil, murdering the entire town of Bloodstone so that I could earn one or two new expressions. I was then working my way through the my Castle Fairfax. I got to a point where I had to shoot targets in a specific time frame (and now that I think about it I am wondering if I would be able to use the time control spell in order to get past this...) and it really is no fun.
Update: I just finished that part in Castle Fairfax and I have to say that what you get as a result is pretty cool.

It was one of those discouraging moments where I decided to just put down the game and play something else. So the next day I ended up playing the trial version of Sam and Max Save the World. I enjoyed it, though not as much as I would have been lead to believe. It was humorous and clever in all of the right places but I did not feel any compelling reason to continue and I even got stuck in the trial somewhere. Perhaps it will merit a purchase on another day.

Something that will merit a purchase just as soon as I get the cash is Battlefield 1943. I did not get to play it all that much but I now can officially call myself a Battlefield fan since playing and loving Battlefield: Bad Company.

Which brings me to the last of what I have been playing: Battlefield: Bad Company. I started the campaign on normal because I only ever got the hard difficulty achievements and unfortunately this is one of those games that is not intuitive enough to know that you should get the easier difficulty level achievements when the harder ones are unlocked. Regardless it gives me a reason to play the campaign again and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I also got into the multiplayer again with Kara and despite our inability to do well we still had a lot of fun. The squad mechanic of these games (Battlefield) is some of the best implementation of a "party system" I have seen since Halo 2 introduced it.

Monday MUpdate: OBJECTION!

Do you remember when I played video games on a frequent and frantic basis? When life revolved around a digital avatar and his survival? Do you remember the last time I came here with a finalized review of a game I had played from beginning to end? Those were simpler times, and finer times at that. My life, while filled with constant news of video games, has a severe gap in immersion to digital realms. I find that since video gaming is a task I can not undertake while multi-tasking, it often falls to the wayside due to my need to be doing fifty things at once. This is my gift, but this is also my curse.

However, I did manage to go ahead and do a slight bit of gaming this weekend. Nothing I'm overly proud of but still a fun amount none the less.

The first game I played this weekend was the special edition of The Secret Of Monkey Island. I had previously mentioned that I wouldn't be able to buy it, and I just wanted to play the trial, so that's what I did. I obviously can't give a full review of the special edition based on my brief experience in the redesigned world, but having played the original multiple times I definitely feel I can make a few comments on it, and the main comment I want to express is that as much as I'd hoped, I really don't care for it. At first I thought it was very cool the way the game started out with old school graphics and then slowly faded into the new ones, and I liked the theme song done with a full orchestra. I found myself humming along and smiling. But as soon as the game actually started and Guybrush walked into frame, I thought it looked too awkward. See, the original graphic setting worked because everything was 2D, however they're trying to place a 2D background that has been mildly placed into 3D with 3D characters trying to walk on it that are framed like 2D characters. Follow me so far? With the last Monkey Island game, Escape, we were given a fully 3D world that had set camera angles, and that worked out fine. Trying to take an old 2D angle and just sharpen the corners makes for an awkward setting for characters who can only look right, center, or left. That and, as much as I really honestly did like the voice acting, it takes away from the gameplay a little bit. I felt like I laughed harder when I read the lines because the game tries to keep the same pace as when you read it. In the opening scene where Guybrush is talking to an old man atop Melee Island, you still hear the pauses as if you were waiting for the game to load up the next bit of dialogue, and it doesn't flow as smoothly as dialogue in other games. I feel like that's kind of a nitpicky complaint, but that's the kind of complaints I believe I'm known for. So while I obviously didn't play the whole game, I kind of have to recede my recommendation of it a little bit. I still do honestly believe that the adventure genre is one of the best genres and we need more games like that, but if you can find the original Monkey Island and play it through some kind of DOS emulator, do that instead. You'll have a much better time.

The other game I so gleefully played was Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on the Nintendo DS. I. Love. This. Game. Have you ever played it? You haven't?! Ooohhh, you really should! This is the first game I ever played on the DS back in 2006 at Connecticon with my friend Brandon. I thought it was an absolute blast, and now that I have a DS I've been hunting it. I finally received it as a wonderful gift this weekend and I got to relieve all the hilarity and magic that this game has to provide. You play Phoenix Wright, an attorney at law, and you are given a case and have to prove your client's innocence. That may sound kind of corny or boring to you, but I promise it's not. It's a brain teaser and an excellent puzzle game and it's an absolute blast and a half to play. Sure, you're not running around blowing things up, but I think I've made it pretty clear that I have more fun in games that make me really think. This game does just that. The opening case puts you in defense of someone accused of murder, and what's further is you actually know who really committed the murder. You need to find holes in their testimony as well as provide evidence towards their innocence. It's so much fun. As the game progresses, you yourself collect evidence at the scene of crimes as well as go up against other Ace Attorney's, all of whom have been doing this for much much much longer than you have. Either way, this game is an amazingly fun game, and if you happen to come across it in a Game Stop, don't pass it by. It's incredibly hard to find but definitely worth your $20.

That's it for me this week. Tune in next time when I juggle a bear and eat a walrus.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has caught my interest

A few months ago at the reveal of the Star Wars: The Old Republic announcement I thought to myself, "Oh cool - finally - but I am probably not going to get to play this because I will need a PC first. After watching the video below any notion that says that I cannot play this game was thrown out of the window. I need to be playing this game on day one and this is why:



I had watched one of the many aforementioned reveal trailers and thought that it looked amazing but until this video (above) I was not sold.

As it tends to go with the MMO environments the game does not look amazing (there is a lot to render of course, I get it) but the stylized artistic aspect makes up for any lack of graphical fidelity. The voice acting - the real big thing here - also puts this game on an entirely different scale.

I want to be part of this universe as I wanted to be part of it when I played the original KOTOR. The only thing that still irks me about MMO's [as a generality] is that if I kill that captain of the ship (in the video) someone else will be able to have him alive through their own storyline. Am I right?

Still I think that the game is going to be a lot of fun and I think that I am going to have to hit up Kara on her offer to help me build a gaming PC. You can count on hearing more from me about this game as soon as I find something else out.