Really Random Star Trek Update

The above picture really has nothing everything to do with this post but I loved Star Trek and I just wanted to profess that love somehow on the blog. There it is and I also might want to play Star Trek D-A-C in the future. That's all folks, Star Trek was awesome, go see it again and again.

"Let's have a go at it."

It turns out that in between going through the Pitt searching for ingots, I do have some time to read and not only post news. Todays news is pretty exciting for me, as it is something I haven't been following at all and was surprised with this morning.

Valve has been consistently updating all the character classes in Team Fortress 2 to make sure the game doesn't become stale, and the Sniper update is now upon us. With the update, you get a brand new bow and arrow set, the Huntsman. You shoot the arrow at your enemy, the arrow sticks into their body, and if they have low enough health, they will be shot and stuck against a wall, forever being a reminder to your foes what a deadly marksman you are. I love playing the sniper personally, and this is just downright exciting for me. I mean, apparently Valve has been updating the game with new stuff for characters for months (including new achievements that apparently aren't making their way to the 360?), and I have just not been paying attention for whatever reason, so this is a great way to make me excited to go home from work.

When the Orange Box I came out, I will not beat around the bush when I tell you I bought the disc JUST for Team Fortress 2. I'd been waiting for it for years, and even though it is different than the game initially promissed to be (back in.. what... the 90's?), it was still an amazingly fun experience. Valve kind of has the corner on the market when it comes to awesome multiplayer games that are on the XBOX 360, matched probably only by the popularity of Halo multiplayer. But, unlike Halo, I can spend hours wrapped up in Valve multiplayer games. Left 4 Dead is a fine example of this, and with all the new updates for Team Fortress 2 that I have missed (due to me not paying attention), I will definitely be spending more time on that. So if you have a copy of the Orange Box, look for me online either playing that or Fallout.

Edit: Apparently, in all my excitement, I looked over the glaring fact that these updates are for the PC and not the 360. Rats. There is a forthcoming patch with all the updates included, but all things considered, it should be here by now. So rats again. I am highly looking forward to this update, though. I really want to try out all the new sniper stuff. I just kind of wish I had a PC right now, because it's a free update for them and Microsoft won't let Valve give us a similar free update (although Left 4 Dead had a huge overhaul update for free recently... harumph).

Game Diary - May 12, 2009: Pegs Part Duex

When I have been playing on the 360 I have been giving my attention primarily to COD4 on Veteran. I have most recently completed 'The Shot' achievement which for those who do not know involves waiting an extremely long period of time for a helicopter while and endless wave of hostiles would like nothing more than to shoot you to pieces try to do just that. After the helicopter actually comes you have to fight your way across the field in order to pick up your partner who got injured earlier in the mission and then carry him to the helicopter. It sucks and it was pretty hard. I am impressed with myself for completing it and today I will further my progress through another level that seems like it will never end. It is another level where you have to fight your way down a ridge in order to get to another helicopter while another boat load of guys that would love nothing more than to shoot you limb from limb, again, try to do just that. You are timed once again and you only have a limited number of "Close Air strike" that you can use. That one should take most if not all of whatever playtime I have today so I won't being playing much of anything else today or so it would seem.

Peggle for iPhone came out today and anyone in their right mind would not buy the same game for two different platforms, right? Wrong. I purchased it or Cindy's (my wife) iTunes gift card purchased it for me and I have been playing it on and off all morning. It eats my battery though so I'll have to watch myself if I plan on using my phone as a phone.

In terms of news that I have wanted to post about there has not been much other than this Modern Warfare 2 video that teases another MW2 video or this Duke Nukem Forever video that just makes me more sad that the game probably will never come out. That is all I have for you today. So sorry I know that you expect more from me.

Monday MUpdate: Wolverine entries, for fall, as well as KURONOTORIGA, there are other

God, I love Engrish! Morning, blogoverse. While I do not have anything particularly poignant to offer today, I do have some tiny bits and pieces of information, as well as pictures! I'll start with that:

My last entry had a secret picture from X-Men Origins: Wolverine in which I found the long fabled cake. While many believe this cake not to be real, I showed that not only was it real, but Chell was searching in the wrong place the whole time. But that is, of course, not all you can find in the game. I mentioned two others, without providing screenshots. Before returning the game, I got a picture of one of the other hidden places in Wolverine:



This is Desmond's fabled hatch, proving that LOST takes place in Africa, and all the Others are actually mutants.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! There's one more hidden place in Wolverine worth visiting for an achievement:



I bet you didn't realize that the world of Warcraft was actually Earth-616, did you? Well, now you know. Be on the lookout for the next WoW expansion as well, called World of Warcraft: Days Of The Future Past.

Anyway, I beat Wolverine over the weekend. The final fight against Weapon XI is pretty awesome. In fact, Weapon XI is much cooler in the game than he is in the movie. Don't get me wrong, I thought the end fight was well coreographed, but being able to kick ass ass myself was quite satisfying. The weird thing is, though, is that when I was fighting him on top of that nuclear power plant, my game glitched the frak out. I'm talking insane glitching. For whatever reason, my Wolverine avatar started getting flung all around the map, to the point where he was hovering in space in a place he clearly wasn't supposed to go. The game is nice to you because it recognizes you are fighting on a very flimsy surface and, unlike the fight against Gambit (which is SO much better in the game than it is the movie), it doesn't allow you to fall off. So when I started flying around defying the laws of physics yet still somehow damaging Weapon XI, I could help but let out a "WTF" while laughing my head off. I still beat him, despite that disadvantage though. The game also sets it up for a sequel outside of the movie continuity, so that's exciting, because who knows how long it will be until the next film? Either way, I'd definitely recommend the game. It's a lot of fun and, if nothing else, a lot of really easy achievements. I had it for 5 days and already have almost all of them. Oh, and the ending cutscene? Such a brutal moment. My jaw dropped. It was pretty awesome. If you wanna ruin it for yourself without playing the game, I'm sure it's on YouTube.

After beating Wolverine, I threw down some cash and got the Fallout 3 expansions: The Pitt and Broken Steel. I will not get to Broken Steel for a while as that requires me to beat the game again, and for those that don't know, I lost all my saves a while back due to an incident, so I can't just reload. I did start the Pitt, however, and it's interesting. I had to dress up in bondage gear and go do the dirtiest place on Earth, but it's all for the love of the post-apocalyptic future, right? My current character isn't that great and I'm out of bullets and caps for some reason, but I've got a sword. I've also got armor that gives me an insane amount of protection, so worst comes to worse I can throw it on, but I try and not use it so I don't have an unfair advantage so early on in the game (the armor is my prize for beating Operation: Anchorage. The Pitt looks great though, all things considered, so I'll have to play it more over the week so I can give better thoughts next Monday.

I also used left over MS points to buy the Mass Effect Premium Theme and, other than making me want to play Mass Effect again (which I keep saying I will do but never actually take the time to), it's pretty disappointing. I can't say I'm realy in love with any of the Premium Themes except for the Castle Crashers one, and a bunch of my friends already use that so I want something a bit more... original for myself. Nothing has greatly impressed me yet (although that Holiday one sure was nice!).

I have also been slowly yet surely pushing forward in Chrono Trigger. I love the game, and love the DS version of it, but there are such time gaps in between when I play that I always forget where I left off because I've played the game so many times. I need to devote more time to that because I told myself I wouldn't start my other games until that was finished. I will eventually sit myself down and force myself to do a hardcore run through of it, but I'm sometimes apathetic about gaming. I just have so much to do at all times that gaming can occasionally be put aside because it's hard to multi task while doing that.

So that's really it on all gaming fronts. Star Trek was ok. Entertaining enough. This week promises to be very busy for me, so I don't know how much gaming will be done, but I do have a very open weekend so maybe I'll sit down and devote some time exclusively to that. We'll see.

PC Gaming Diary #2 - I Remember When 60 Was Something Special

My girlfriend works weekends, so that's when I get most of my gaming in. This weekend I spent a good time on...you guessed it! World of Warcraft! I think my appeal towards WoW on the weekends is also due to the fact that I don't have to give the game 100% of my attention to play (lets be honest, it's just a lot of right click target, 4, 6, 4, 6, 4, 6, 7 then walk to the next target and repeat) which means I also get to devote some time to watching some of my favorite TV shows. This weekend it was finishing up Firefly. Other games such as COD4, COD5, Crysis, GTA4, FO3 need a bit more of my attention. But enough about TV!

This weekend I made a relatively large achievement. I leveled to 60! Now, if this were a few years ago that might actually mean something, but with the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions it really means nothing other then I was final able to purchase my epic mount giving me a 100% speed increase on the ground. Amazingly (and I honestly don't know how) I had the 700ish gold it cost to purchase the training and the actual mount. This is a new achievement for myself as I have only leveled one character to 60 thus far (and that's honestly as far as I have gotten in the game) and I never had enough gold on that toon to purchase my epic mount. So hooray on all accounts! Even though 60 doesn't really mean anything anymore, I'm pretty excited to have finally reached it and reached it significantly faster then my last toon. Seriously, Blizzard has made the grind from 1 to 60 WAY easier then it was a few years ago. Only 20 more levels to go and I have achieved my final goal!

Aside from all that WoWery this weekend, I got to playing a bit of Halo 2. See, I owe our friend Nate a replacement Halo Edition original Xbox so I found one on Craig's List and traveled down to Baltimore this weekend to pick it up. Nate won't be able to get it from me until Memorial Day weekend so I hooked it up and sat down to play a bit of Halo. Being the PC gamer I am, it's a bit awkward switching from the standard WASD and mouse one two combo of the PC gaming world to the console controller. I typically find the two joysticks confusing. I think I'm getting the hang of it, but I still have a difficult time being quick and accurate with the right hand joystick when aiming. I suppose it just takes some practice. I didn't spend too much time on it though and really didn't get very far, but I found it relatively enjoyable. There's one aspect of the console gaming world that I want in the PC gaming world and that is sitting down on a comfy couch to enjoy a game. There's something significantly more relaxed about console gaming to me then PC gaming. When I sit at my computer and play, I have to sit in my cheap computer chair and lean over my desk a bit. It's not as enjoyable or comfortable as a nice, plush couch. I have been toying with the idea of buying a 360 in the semi-near future, but it's the cost that's really keeping me from it. We shall see, maybe Halo 2 will make my urge to make that purchase even stronger.

Microsoft Aquires Big Park Studios

Microsoft announced today in a press release that they had agreed to aquire Big Park Inc. or Big Park Studios. From the press release:

BigPark was founded in 2007 by a group of industry veterans who led the creation and growth of two hugely successful software companies, Distinctive Software Inc. and Electronic Arts Canada. BigPark's founding team is composed of business leaders with over 80 years of collective experience in the video game industry, having produced or overseen blockbuster franchises including "Need for Speed," "FIFA Soccer," "NBA Street" and "SSX."

The only reason that this looks interesting to me is I might see a first party Microsoft sports franchise in my lifetime Ala Sony's MLB: The Show series of games. I would perhaps kill someone (in Halo)... for a good baseball game on the 360. That is the only reason I am even posting this.

Please Microsoft, I love baseball more than most things and if you can bring me a good baseball game I would be forever indebted to you.

It's not a lie.

I was playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine and I found this. I just felt it needed to be shared.

(Note: If anyone is wondering how to find this and get the achievement for it (The Cake), it's in the Sentinel level when you're searching for John Wraith. Right before you find Trask is where it's located, so if you reach him, back track a little bit. In the big room where you have to freeze yourself while on a track, move the teleporting device all the way to the right to find GLaDOS' fabled treat.)

(Other note: It's also possible to find the Hatch from LOST on the first level (achievement: Found!), and Frostmourne from World of Warcraft (achievement: WoW!) in the Alkaline Lake level. For Desmond's hatch, simply keep your eye open for a wall that looks flimsy, as if made out of wood. Hack it up and go through it. For the Lich King's runeblade, wait until you fight two W.E.N.D.I.G.O.s, and after you pass them keep an eye open for a "secret" passage on the right.)

3D Realms Shutters Doors, Economy Touches My Childhood (I Feel Violated)

This is probably a news story that most PC gamers, my age (24) or older, will find disheartening. I am not sure that it really affects the console generation but if this news hurts you in some way then we are all in the same boat.

The developer 3D Realms has announced that they are shutting its doors citing financial reasons.

While it is sad to see any developer this one touches my childhood. The game that I loved and the one that they were always most famous for was Duke Nukem 3D. It was the game I was all about after I had exhausted all of Wolfenstein 3D, a game that 3D Realms published. Over the past twelve years or so they had become the black sheep of game developers touting Duke Nukem Forever since 1997 as their next big thing. Now it looks like a strong possibility that we may never see this game and even if we do will it have been the developers original vision. Many have called Duke Nukem Forever "vaporware" and as of yesterday evening it is looking to be true.

There are no other reports other than 3D Realms are shutting their doors because of financial reasons. Great job economy (looking for a scapegoat here, sorry) you managed to come out and touch my formative years. I am feeling violated.

The lighter side of this news is that a Duke Nukem Trilogy is still coming from Apogee and Deep Silver.

Let's pour one out for all of the people who lost their jobs and wish them a speedy recovery.


[Ed note: Last night after reading this news at one in the morning the 3D Realms site was still up and running and as of right now I personally cannot get the page to respond.]

PC Gaming Diary #1: It's a Game Within a Game!

My roommate walked by my desk last night and simply stated "You are multitasking like crazy, are you playing two games at the same time?!" Well, in fact I was.

I've spent most of my recent days playing World of Warcraft. I own a good amount of games, but the one that usually consumes the most of my time is WoW. I have been playing for going on 4 years now and I have yet to level a character to 80. There was one point in time prior to the Burning Crusade expansion that I did in fact reach the maximum level at the time (60), but since then I have been a bit behind the pack.

Yesterday I leveled my latest toon (a female, retribution speced, blood elf paladin on the Skullcrusher realm) to 59. WoW involves a lot of non action at times. When you fly from city to city you have no control over your transport and are sort of left in limbo. Usually I'll alt-tab out of the game and do some web browsing or some chatting, but in the past month Pop Caps games has released two add-ons for World of Warcraft; Bejeweled and Peggle. You can customize the add ons to automatically open up when you get on a flight path and automatically close when you are done. You can also customize it to automatically open and close in other occurrences such as death, but I just chose the FP option. Bejeweled plays as it would normally play, although as points increase you also gain levels in regards to your Bejeweled skills. Peggle offers extra WoW specialties such as leveling and earning talent points that can be used to your liking (very similar to TPs in WoW itself). I tend to spend most of my FP time (which can sometimes take up to 15 minutes depending on where you're traveling) playing Bejeweled, mostly because I find it more simplistic then Peggle. I haven't quite caught on to the Peggle buzz yet as I find the game to be mostly luck. Maybe I just haven't realized the strategy behind it yet. It's fun though and props to Pop Cap for the add ons. It adds an entirely different level to playing World of Warcraft as well as casual gaming.

Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection Coming to Retail in July

Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios are going to be doing the right thing by me on July 28, 2009 by releasing the All Fronts Collection. Here's why:

The collection includes all of the Gears 2 DLC to date, along with Dark Fronts, a collection of seven new multiplayer maps...

In order to make the pack worthwhile to those who've already downloaded the majority of the Gears 2 DLC, the package also contains an introduction from Cliff Bleszinski for "Road to Ruin", a collectible poster, a strategy guide, and a custom Xbox Live theme.

As you may or may not know I have not yet made the leap into GOW2 DLC. It has come out too rapid fire for my tastes and I have not played in a while so I was just waiting until I was ready.

Like I said, I will be ready on July 28 when I can have all that is listed above for only 20 bucks. In my opinion that is a steal. Is anyone else excited by this?

[Via Kotaku]

Game Diary - May 5, 2009: Pegs Unite!

For the past few days I have been a "casual" gamer. What happens in these instances is that I tell myself that I do not have enough time to play anything like COD4 or The Dishwasher and I convince myself that it is okay to play some Peggle instead. [Ed note: One should note that it is never a good idea to talk yourself into playing Peggle as a good idea.] As a result I usually end up spending more time playing Peggle than I would have played the other two aforementioned games. Last night alone I played for at least an hour and a half. By casual gaming standards that is a long time to be spent on one game.

So for the past few days I have been trying to get the 'Cool Clear' achievement and I have not had a lot of luck. It seems like a relatively easy acheivement to get (hit the last orange peg and then the last blue on one ball), especially when playing one of the earlier stages but it was escaping me for several days.

I say 'was' because I finally got it last night, on accident, but I got it nonetheless. I was actually expecting to fail as I had been doing but the ball bounced in such a way that I got it on a stroke of luck (now wishing that I had that instant replay). I now plan to work my way through all of the challenge levels but I know that it will take a while so I will do that "casually" over the coming months.

The only other thing that I have been playing is The World Ends With You. I have been "stuck" on Day 5 of the second week for about a week now because I have decided to really "grind" and level up my character and all of his pins (I would go into explaining all of this but I really think that if you looked it up for yourself you would be better served). That is going well and I hope that as a result of doing this it will make the games harder bosses easier to beat (probably not).

I also think it is time for me to return to Fallout 3 soon because the Broken Steel DLC has finally come out and I can now play all of that DLC I bought and gain some new levels for it.

Lastly, and more as a side note, I watched Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog and that was fantastic. If you are as much as a geek as I am, you will love it.

Monday MUpdate: Uncaged Edition

In case the title is not indication enough, my game for this week is the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie tie-in game. On May 1st, the game came out and a demo for it popped up on XBOX Live!, just in time for the release of the movie. I, being the comic book reading nerd that I am, downloaded it as soon as I could and sat down to play it with little to no expectations. We've had Wolverine games before (such as X2: Wolverine's Revenge), and they have never been much of anything to write home about. Right off the bat, however, Wolverine sets out to prove that it is nothing like the games of the past.

The game opens with an absolutely brutal cutscene in which Hughverine fights off several attackers with absolutely no detail spared. An initial fear of mine is that Wolverine's naturally blood lust would be toned down so that a younger demographic could find the game accessible, but as soon as Wolverine had a whole blown through him and I watched the wound heal, full view of his organs and all, I got excited. As the actual gameplay started, it thankfully turned out that it wasn't just the cutscene that had all the cool brutal features of being the best at what he does. You can pick people up and impale them on a stick or pipe jutting out of the wall. You can pounce on someone and punch their face in to a bloody pulp. You can do to these people stuff you've only dreamed of seeing in a Marvel MAX series. It's a great feeling.

So to say that I recommend the Wolverine game to Wolverine and gamer fans alike is to put it lightly. This is not the deep and moving storyline you've been craving. This is the bad ass kill 'em all game you've been looking for that isn't called God Of War. It's loads of fun and definitely worth at the very least a rental so you can run around slicing and dicing. At it's very basics, it's just a fun and gorey action game.

Aside from the Wolverine game, I'd recommend the Wolverine movie itself, and you can read my review for that in another blog I write for, Multiversity Comics. I've also been plugging away at Chrono Trigger still, but to a much lesser extent now that I have Wolverine. I do have a lot more free time now that most TV shows are over for this season, though, so I guess when I'm not filling that free time with TV show catch ups and movies, I can play more. I'd really like to give Final Fantasy IV a shot, and I just heard news about a steampunk DS game called Nostalgia that's coming out. There's also a game called Borderlands that Kara told me about, it looks to be the next post-apocalyptic/Final Fantasy epic. It'll never replace the Fallout series in my heart, but I am definitely looking forward to this game, especially with all the new screenshots that they have debuted.

That's it from my front.

Brutal Legend Story Trailer (I Apparently Missed This Yesterday)

I was browsing True Achievements (good site) and their first news story today is about the new Brutal Legend trailer that you just watched. I picked the Joystiq video player because it looks better embedded on this site.

I am really getting more and more excited for this game and I think it is going to be at least as good as Psychonauts in terms of quality and laughs. I don't know that BL will ever achieve a cult status like Psychonauts did because I honestly believe that it is going to sell better than Psychonauts did. EA knows how to promote a game unlike Majesco. Anyone else looking forward to this as much as myself?

New Brutal Legend Stuff (Meaning Screen Shots), YES PLEASE!

Holy s***, this is going to to be awesome.

There is no news to be had here but you can go here to see more new screenies of the Legend that is Brutal.

If you did not remember this game is coming October 13 of THIS YEAR!!! WHY AREN'T YOU AS EXCITED AS I AM?

THIS IS MY SHOUTING VOICE.

I think I need to maybe calm down with the Mass Effect and the Brutal Legend posts... maybe.

[Hint: It probably will not happen unless both games suck and then... well and then... that would... not be good at all.]

Mass Effect: Jacob's Story - Color Me Interested

 

Joystiq recently broke this story about a Mass Effect iPhone game called Mass Effect: Jacob's Story. It was a tip from a Joystiq reader about a survey in relation to the game. This story makes me wish that I was the kind of news outlet that readers came to me with this kind of news. Obviously since this is a Mass Effect story I could not resist posting about this.

The reason that I considered not posting about it is because it is just that, an iPhone game. I have confidence in the iPhone as a gaming platform but I am skeptical on whether this game will be good as a good percentage of the games for the iPhone are crap. From what I can tell I am not sure if Bioware is developing this but as long as whomever is developing it does not take any unnecessary creative license with the Mass Effect universe everything will be fine. In the end it did not take much convincing; I am going to play this if and when it comes out.

This is what Joystiq reported about the reader survey:

The mobile game will feature top-down shooter combat and a stylized, cartoonish look. The survey notes that Jacob's Story will function as a predecessor to the upcoming Mass Effect 2, revealing some of the backstory of characters featured in the console game. The handheld adventure would be about two hours long and cost $2.99.

If the game does what this short quote says that it will do, it will be a nice experience to bridge the gap between Mass Effect 1 and 2. I am looking forward to it, I just wish there was a date on it.

An Introduction to a PC Gamer

Hello blogging world! With the recent post by Nate regarding my addition to the blog, I figured I'd give a quick introduction.

My name is Kara and I love PC gaming. I have never been a console gamer and have been PC gaming since the days of the Apple IIe when I played Castle Wolfenstein. These days I spend most of my gaming time (which is pretty limited with a full time job) playing World of Warcraft, but I also attempt to branch out now and then with some COD4, COD5, or Fallout 3. Some of my favorite PC games ever are Diablo II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Bioshock, Age of Empires II and Morrowind. Hopefully that gives you readers a taste of my general gaming interests. I tend to stay in the RPG/FPS realm, but every so often enjoy a good RTS. And I am not claiming to be all that great at any of these things! I just enjoy PC gaming, even if it means I get my ass handed to me at times.

I'm looking forward to contributing and look forward to some possible cross platform talk (delayed new releases for PCs, small differences in games between consoles and PC, etc) in the future!

Game Diary - April 28, 2009: Where We Go From Here

Yesterday I was privy to an experience that I do not often have anymore. I wrapped my hands around my 360 controller and I played COD4 on Veteran. I progressed myself far enough to net myself another achievement and though it is slow going I think I am going to make it through [the game on Veteran]. The only level I am worried about is the one following 'All Ghillied Up' because I know waiting for that Heli is going to be shit. I know that some people find it torturous to play these hard difficulties and a lot of time I agree with those folks but when it comes to shooters - most of the time - I feel that the challenge makes the experience more enjoyable. I know that when I was talking to Jarvis on one of our more recent podcasts he said he hates it and I know that Kara (Mercy Medical (we will get to that)) probably does not fancy it either. What is your opinion folks (seriously, drop a comment, I know your reading, where are your comments)?

Other than that I continued playing The World Ends With You on my train ride yesterday, that was, until my DS died.

But what I have been playing is really taking an aside to the other things that I have been working on regarding this blog. Matt, the author that steals news posts from me as of late (kidding of course), has been updating. As a result, more updates equals more site traffic. It is an obvious direct correlation but nonetheless I am happy about it. As a result I am adding a PC centric author: Kara (Mercy Medical), another author who can steal all of my delicious glory (again, kidding). I am enthusiastic about branching out and I think it will only mean future growth for this blog.

Lastly, I have been thinking about the site's design and the lack of an iconic logo and if there are any volunteers out there please feel free to contact myself using any way you know how. I can write the blog but I do not have the tech side of it down.

That's all for now, be sure to check back often or subscribe to our RSS feed so that you may enjoy this site on what I can only hope will be a daily basis.

Fighters and Zombies and MUpdates, oh my!

Today is a good day to be a nerd, in all regards. I'm here to drop two huge bombs of awesome on you, so please proceed to the nearest digital fallout shelter and prepare yourselves. It's about to get heavy in here.

First off, the big news this morning is that Capcom has announced the return of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. This wonderful little fighter is being brought to the PSN and XBOX Live! Arcade in a similar way to how Street Fighter II was brought back. We're talking HD visual filters, online gameplay, and all the stuff you used to love about this little classic.



Doesn't that just look wonderful? I am personally excited because now I can stop trying to get all those Arcade emulators and bootleg copies of MUGEN to run on my Mac. I can just wait until the summer and buy it. And it should be noted that I am not a huge fan of fighter games. They're only really fun when you have someone to play with. I am, however, a huge fan of fighter games with gimmicks. I loved Marvel Nemesis: Rise Of The Imperfects back on the PS2. I also love playing Marvel Vs. Capcom in the arcades. I also also own Mortal Kombat vs. DC. This is pretty much perfect for me so I can finally get my fix of using Captain America to punch the crap out of Wolverine. For those not familiar with the characters, here is a full list, and it should be known that you'll be getting all of these right off the bat. No unlocking required. And yes, you did read Sentinel correctly.

But this is what really intrigues me - call me crazy, but I think that this could be a backdoor game to Marvel vs Capcom 3. This is the logic that I am using: to be perfectly honest, Marvel vs Capcom did not do great financially (probably due to it being released on the Dreamcast), but it has since become a cult classic and a rare/popular game (most people would agree that the Dreamcast was a highly underrated system regardless). After seeing how well Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Street Fighter IV have done, as well as bringing back things like Mega Man and Bionic Commando, I don't think it's entirely out there to think that any success that comes from Marvel Vs Capcom 2 could give faith to the developers to bring about a totally brand new game, and I would love that. You can be sure that when the day comes in the summer that this is released, I will purchase it. In fact, I'm putting away the money now just for it!

Check here for a little trailer/game play video.

The other big news break this morning is the release of the trailer for Dead Rising 2 complete with motorcycle chainsaw. Motor. Cycle. Chainsaw. Awesome. The first Dead Rising (which was the first game I ever played/bought for the XBOX 360) introduced us to Frank West, who has covered wars and thinks that hanging around a zombie infested mall is a good idea. Dead Rising, to me, was notorious for being rather tedious to complete in it's entirety. This is not to say that I didn't find the game to be enjoyable, but I found myself running around just killing zombies more than I would take the time to complete the actual plot. The fact that the plot elements were on a timer, and there was SO much to do, always left me feeling rather dizzy (and to cure a bad case of the dizzies, one should always pick up a katana and hack the undead apart). I do not know how much of these things will be changed for the new game, let alone what will be different at all. What I do know, however, is that I love killing zombies, and I will buy this game when it comes out to do just that.

Speaking of killing zombies, for those that don't know, the Survival DLC is out for Left 4 Dead, and I played it last night. It is ridiculous, but awesome. It's free, too, so be sure to grab it. Basically, you sit on a brand new map (which is a Lighthouse), and try to survive as long as you can after hordes and hordes of zombies attack. It's pretty outrageous, to say the least. The goal is to survive longer than 10 minutes, but if you go any longer than 14 the game will destroy you, as in, Tanks will load in 14 seconds or under. Now, I don't know how this makes it more difficult than what I was playing with because when I played, Tanks spawned pretty fast and appeared to be smarter than they were before the update. I got punched off the map twice! So yeah, to say this provides high octane zombie entertainment is to say the least. If you've got Left 4 Dead and are still reading this, I honestly have no idea why.

Game Diary - April 27, 2009: The World Ends With Me

In terms of news as of late there is not a lot going on other than this awesome Ghostbusters intro video. Why have intro videos become the new thing? I look forward to seeing them for the first time when I first boot up the game but I cannot resist watching them if I am anticipating the game. Faults of the internet perhaps?

Anyway I have not been playing much on the 360 lately other than some Peggle here and there but I have been playing The World Ends With You (DS) on my commute. For people who follow this blog, you know that I have been playing this game for over a month (and I have had it longer than that). It is an awesome game though it is beginning to get really difficult. One can control the level of difficulty but truthfully if you do not play on the harder difficulty levels you are doing your character a disservice. The story is finally starting to make sense and I really am looking forward to seeing where it is going. It is bad in a way - that I am looking forward to seeing the direction of the story - because you have to devote a certain amount of time to 'grinding' and you have to know that it is not a good idea to rush through the combat to see the story parts.

I think that I have talked about the unique combat so I will talk about what I have been wondering. When you save the game you have a rating for everything in the game. As of the time of this entry my ratings aren't all that great and it has me wondering how good my ratings are going to be at the end of the game. I hope that if they aren't that great I will be able to go back to parts of the game and change that for myself.

That is all for now, I think I am going to go play some COD4 on Veteran.

Monday MUpdate #1

So, due to my eccentricities and enthusiasm as of late, Nate and I have agreed upon me doing an update every Monday, if only so I don't randomly pop out of the woodwork once a month to review a game. So this is the first of many MUpdates to come, and I hope you enjoy it.

In the "game diary" section of the world, I haven't really been playing much. I was heavily into Mega Man recently due to a random occurence that reminded me of how much fun they were, but once I got back to playing them, I remembered that in reality, the games were detrimental to my mental health. Those games are ridiculous! I don't know when is the last time you played the original Mega Man games, or even the new one on XBOX Live, but it's just ridiculous. So, in order to stay sane, I ended up selling it back to GameStop and getting games for my new Nintendo DS. I got Chrono Trigger, The World Ends With You, and Final Fantasy IV (and I still have $50 left in GameStop credit!), and have been re-playing Chrono Trigger since. I think this is my (over all) 4th play through? Maybe? I don't know. I've been looking into finding Final Fantasy VI Advance as well, for GameBoy Advance, because I'd love an excuse to replay that. When I was little, and first got a GameBoy, my parents bought me Final Fantasy Legends III because they didn't know the difference between what I'd asked for (Final Fantasy III, which is what VI was retitled to in North America) and that. Anyways, Chrono Trigger for the DS is great. It's pretty much a port, but I love that you can seperate the battle command options from the screen for a nicer picture. I haven't come across many of the new AMVs, but the one I did see was cute(I love Robo). I highly recommend this even if you've played the game before. It's just such a classic.

I also finally beat Operation: Anchorage. Good stuff all around. I'm glad to get back into the world of Fallout. I will be purchasing The Pitt soon. Probably when I get a free chance during the week, although I may not play it for a while. The new Left 4 Dead DLC is out with new achievements and playable options, so I'd really like to give that a go. Plus, I STILL have to do my play throughs of Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect in anticipation for the new games (mostly Mass Effect though). I don't know if I posted this here or not, but a while ago I accidentally deleted all my save files for every game ever on my 360. It was devastating, but it gives me the motivation to replay things. I also plan to replay both Penny Arcade games because I had everything maxed out in all characters. Oy.

Finally, I'd like to post a little link. It's NSFW, but it's amusing. It's a combination of "I'm On A Boat" by the Lonely Island and clips from The Wind Waker. To be honest, while the video didn't have me laugh all that hard, someone's idiotic typo did. User 'LllusionX has a fanboy...' posted the comment "I think Link accidentally all the water," to which a whole slew of awesome comments came from. I think Link is a pretty cool guy. eh sails baots and doesn't afraid of anything. Gotta love the internet.

That's all I have for today. If you have time, IGN has an article up about the 10 Most Overrated Video Game Characters. This article was done through a poll, and I must say, people do not really get the concept of overrated at all. For example, Marcus Fenix was an overrated character, but all the comments really have to do with the game Gears of War, not the character. There is a very big difference. Also, Altair made the list, and he's had one game, and will only ever have one game. That's a little unfair, don't you think? Ah well.