Gaming Addict

After what I’ve been reading, and the videos I’ve been seeing lately, I’m completely stoked for Dead Rising 2.  The game’s plotline looks way more badass than the original, and all reports indicate that the horrific controls that marred the first experience have been essentially corrected.  In case you aren’t up on DR 2, this game follows a reality game show, in which contestants are pitted against hordes of zombies.  DR 2 will support 6000 zombies on screen at one time, so when I say horde of zombies, I mean a freaking horde of zombies.

As one such contestant you’ll have the opportunity to use all manner of crazy combat weaponry to take out the hordes.  We’re talking motorcycles with chainsaw attachments, chainsaws on poles, a completely revamped shooting system where you can actually shoot something effectively.  Exploding footballs to throw into groups of zombies, forcibly exploding them.  And my personal favorite, the pitchfork shotgun, as illustrated below:

I seriously cannot wait for this game.  Everything the first Dead Rising should have been.  Especially because this time around your character doesn’t run like he’s constipated and desperately searching for a solution.  

I still can’t tell if I should be excited for Borderlands or not.  I was when the game was first announced, as the concept sounds endlessly entertaining and brilliant.  The game centers around Diablo style RPG looting action, but with an FPS twist.  The game will actually create new weapons on the fly, so each time you loot there’s a huge potential to find something you’ve never seen before.  That sounds pretty cool to me, I love FPS, I love hordes of enemies to fight, I love Diablo style dungeon crawling. 

But the more and more that I see on Borderlands, I’m just not sold on the cartoon-y cel-shaded style.  I wasn’t really bothered by the style when used in a game like Crackdown, but Borderlands seemed like a game that took itself seriously at some point.  Now the whole thing feels like a big joke.  I’m not rightly sure how I feel about that.

How much of a 60+ hour campaign can I really play through if everything is a cheesy cartoon with repetitive gameplay?  

If you’ve been playing World of Warcraft for any great length of time, you’ll remember one of the game’s greatest moments before the expansions lauched, the battle with Onyxia.  That giant brood mother of the Black Dragonflight used to make for a pretty badass encounter.  Requiring raid groups of about 40 level 60’s, the old level cap, with ridiculously good equipment, and a crazy effective strategy.  Onyxia used to be a huge pain in the ass, and one of the most hardcore battles offered by any MMO on the market.

But that all changed when the level caps were raised.  Onyxia was left behind, and became an easy task for only three level 80’s to take down.  Instead of a crazy dragon battle that inspired fear and required ridiculously big and well organized raid parties, Onyxia became nothing more than a quick jaunt through the memory of one of WoW’s greatest battles.  But no longer…

WoW patch 3.2.2 came out yesterday which introduces a new Onyxia.  A level 80 boss for 10-25 player raids, with revamped and upgraded versions of Onyxia’s old drops.  Plus with the chance to win the ridiculously rare Brood of Onyxia, which is a flying mount fashioned after the look of Onyxia.  Of course the mount drop is ludicrously rare and unlikely for you to get, but would be really badass to whip out and show off if you happen to be so lucky. 

Top down viewpoint Left 4 Dead clone Zombie Apocalypse comes out on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network tomorrow, and I’m excited.  I thoroughly enjoy playing Left 4 Dead, but Zombie Apocalypse just has that old school feel that makes me really want to play.  Looking at the screenshots I’m reminded of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and the time I would spend playing through that with friends on SNES.  Of course I never beat ZAMN, because of the ridiculous difficulty you find on the game’s later levels, but I’m thinking I can tackle Zombie Apocalypse.

I’m drawn to this for the crazy zombie gameplay, and HD graphics in an old school style.  Zombie Apocalypse will provide the standard top down shooter controls with one analog stick serving as your movement, and the other for shooting.  ZA provides a wide variety of crazy weapons to take out the zombie hordes looking to make a meal of you.  You’ll also be able to find objects in the environment to interact with, and blow up the hordes.  

All in all this looks like a mix of Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Left 4 Dead.  Two zombie games I love, and would have fun playing mixed together.  The ability to play with up to 3 other people online just adds to the fun.  

 New announcement regarding the upcoming awfulness that is Lego Rock Band.  Iggy Pop has been confirmed as one of the first musicians to appear in the game.  In case you weren’t aware Lego Rock Band is the Harmonix alternative for parents that think Rock Band’s rock music is inappropriate for the younger gamers.  So Lego Rock Band is going to offer a more family friendly music experience, and if you know Iggy Pop, he definitely falls into the family friendly category.  So this move doesn’t confuse me at all.

Although I don’t really see the point of a Lego Rock Band.  I understand you want to protect your children from music you find offensive, but Rock Band’s track lists have always been fairly tame.  The announced songs for LRB really sound terrible, and not very entertaining for faux instrument play.

• Blur “Song 2”
• Carl Douglas “Kung Fu Fighting”
• Europe “The Final Countdown”
• Good Charlotte “Boys And Girls”
• Pink “So What”

I’m not saying they’re not entertaining from a technical stand point, but if you’re a concerned parent, do you really want to have to listen to your kid playing The Final Countdown or Kung Fu Fighting 8 million times?  I’d consider that right up there with waterboarding for interrogation methods that should be avoided because of their classification as torture.  Why not just buy your kids The Beatles Rock Band?  The Beatles are extremely non-threatening by today’s standards, and they have a much richer catalog of music that you can both enjoy.

I’d much rather hear The Beatles over and over again, personally.  And I’m not even a fan of The Beatles. 

Well, I figured it would happen sooner or later, and now it finally has.  The Star Wars franchise, in terms of videogames is officially dead to me.  I just played the demo for Stat Wars Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, and am shocked at the level of laziness shown by Lucasarts in producing quality Star Wars based content.  When they could be making another classic like Jedi Outcast, or Shadows of the Empire, or any of the Star Wars Battlefront games.  Hell I’d even take another Republic Commando game, because at least that was pretty decent.  But Republic Heroes?  Seriously, this is what it’s come to???

Clone Wars: Republic Heroes isn’t just bad, it’s obnoxiously bad.  I’m reminded of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, where they took the greatest concept in the Star Wars universe, the freaking Clone Wars, and made it lame.  Here you have another game that could have been fantastic.  The whole principle is fighting battles from the Clone Wars, and the whole thing has been reduced to an awful third person button mashing fighter/shooter.  With appallingly bad controls, appallingly awful graphics for a ‘next-gen’ game, and horrendous gameplay. 

They’ve slaughtered everything cool about Star Wars, and delivered a game experience that’s every bit as good as the awful animated series.  

Skate looks like it’s established itself as a franchise that will be around for some time, as EA announced the upcoming Skate 3.  This time around the series will have more of a focus on cooperative play, whether with a friend in person, or via Xbox Live/PSN.  In Skate 3 you’ll be able to build your own skate team from the ground up, which you’ll use to compete against rival skate teams in the area.  The new zone for Skate 3 is Port Caverton, where you’ll have to make your own turf, and then fight to defend that zone.  

You’ll be able to edit your own skate park, creating your own dreamland to skate within.  You’ll also be able to cut your own skate videos, and skate team graphics.  So essentially the entirety of the game is all about building your own skate franchise from the ground up, and taking on the world with your own personal dream team.  And as an added bonus if you preorder the game, you get access to the Black Box Distribution Skate Park, the home of Zero, Mystery, and Fallen skate teams.

Given the more customization options and the same fantastic gameplay that Skate has been offering for years now, I can’t wait to build my own team.  

I’m very excited for Grand Theft Auto IV’s upcoming DLC The Ballad of Gay Tony.  Mostly because this is being planned to offer all the fun larger than life stuff that GTA IV just doesn’t.  I almost lost the faith with Rockstar over GTA IV, because of the realism factor.  Realism is all well and good, but I also like the fact that GTA games in the past haven’t taken themselves too seriously, affording you opportunities to do crazy things.  GTA IV’s main storyline didn’t really feel that void that San Andreas had filled so well.

IV opted more for realism in almost every aspect of gameplay, and that was cool for a while, but I really like the GTA games of the past for their tongue-in-cheek view of the world.  Something I’ve turned to the Saints Row games for in the wake of my boredom with GTA IV.  But Ballad of Gay Tony is promising to remedy that, with plenty of awesome moments, the likes of which GTA fans like me have been missing. 

Starting from the premise in which you take the shoes of Luis Lopez, in his bid to protect his employer Tony Prince from the hands of more than a few crooked gangsters.  Promising to fill that skyscraper skydiving, tank street driving madness that Niko just didn’t partake.

So as this is being pumped up to be, Ballad of Gay Tony is everything I wanted GTA IV to deliver.  Too bad it’s only a 12 hour jog through the GTA universe, like Lost and Damned before.  

Eidos has announced that a new Batman Arkham Asylum DLC map pack will be released via PSN, Xbox Live, and PC, and will be completely free of charge.  Why can’t more game publishers follow this lead and give us all a lil something extra for free, after doing the right thing and supporting your game with our cash?  The new DLC pack will include two new challenge maps for your Batman enjoyment.  Promising to challenge your skills like never before, even if they’re lame at least they’re free.

One map is to be called the Totally Insane Freeflow Combat map.  In this pack you’ll have to fight your way through hordes of escaped lunatics as Batman attempts to escape Arkham’s secure records facility.  These lunatics are much faster than your average psycho, so your combat reactions will be pushed to the limit.  Timing will be key as you fight off the hordes of fast and strong foes that will be swarming around every turn. 

The next map, which is called Nocturnal Hunter Invisible Predator map, will focus more on stealth opposed to brute force.  You’ll have to make use of Batman’s gadgets and Arkham’s watchtowers to avoid the massive army of the Joker’s goons patrolling below.  This map will force you to become that fear in the darkness in ways that will push you to your limits

Sounds pretty cool. 

In a moment of complete unbridled videogame news hilarity, apparently Eidos included a little bug in Batman Arkham Asylum for PC.  This way when the game was cracked by hackers and posted to every peer2peer network in the world, a little glitch would be carried with the illegal copies.  One such player encountered this glitch, thinking it was just some bug in the game he went to the Eidos forum to ask for help.  Under the name Cheshirec_the_cat he posted this:

“It’s not a bug in the game’s code, it’s a bug in your moral code.”

Which I find hilarious beyond belief.  One, for the fact that Cheshirec_the_cat had the audacity to ask Eidos for help with a game that he stole from them.  Two, that Eidos put in the glitch on purpose and then rubbed his nose in the fact is absolute brilliance.  That’s what he deserves for downloading a free copy of a game, especially an excellent one like Arkham Asylum that’s completely worth the price of entry.

I hope many a Batman glitch deaths haunt you for years to come.