Bionic Commando

Someone once said "How can a game where you have a bionic arm that can swing from anything sucks so much?" That someone is our very own Marc De Leon.

In short:
Look: 1/1
Sound: 1/1
Feel: 3/5
Total: 5/7
71% = C
This game relies too much on Nathan Spencer's bionic arm and the physics suck. 85% swinging around, 15% shooting.

In long:
Bionic Commando is a 3d FPS game that forces you to use your bionic arm to clear gaps, rocks, bridges, holes, whatever. 85% of the game is spent swinging around and the swing physics in the game suck ass.

What I liked about the game:
The ability to swing from almost anything.
The story is canon.
Other arm uses.
No fall damage.
Waypoints.

What I disliked about the game:
Physics.
Slow running speed that forces you to swing from place to place.
Level design on some of the stages.
Radiation.
Weapons.
Nathan Spencer can only hold his breath for 5 seconds underwater.
Basis of story.
Emily Spencer.
No saving after a challenge/collectable.

Physics suck because:
You can reach full speed forward from a dead stop when swinging (sometimes and sometimes not).
If you grapple an object in the air, you may not be able to "continue swinging" if you grapple too close to an object. You come to a dead stop and need to hit "B" to pull out your bionic arm so you can swing again. This may not be an issue on a normal/easy game but on the commando difficulty, the delay between swings will get you shot and you will die.

Nathan Spencer can't run worth squat. If you try running from cover to cover, you get shot and die. So you're forced to swing from place to place, which sucks cause the physics suck.

Level design sucks on some stages because the game is presented as an "open map" that lets you THINK you can choose whatever route you want to go.
1. You can't grapple onto everything. Some buildings are "irradiated" so you can't use your claw to climb up them.
2. If you go off the map, or swing too high, the radiation will kill you. You can't see the radiation either. Sometimes there's a direct route to a waypoint but you have to go around. Very annoying.
These two things force Nathan Spencer on a pretty linear path.

Some stages have water in them (pool of water, river, whatever). If Nathan falls into one of these hazards, he needs to pull himself up because he can only hold his breath underwater for 5 seconds.
If his stupid ass arm makes him sink, he should ditch it.

Weapons.
You get a pistol and grenades.
You can carry one extra weapon. Hiker (shotgun), Tarantula (rockets), SMG, Sniper, Bulldog (Grenade Launcher)
Extra weapons drop from the HQ during scripted sequences in the game.
These weapons come with 8 bullets. (except the SMG).
Ammo for extra weapons are VERY rare (1-2 bullets per map).

Why can't I carry them all? Why can't they give me extra ammo? Why can't I steal the enemies' weapon? Why do I have to carry this shitty ass pistol though the game?

Previously in Bionic Commando...

You save the world from the Nazis and Hitler (Groeder). You are a hero.

THEN THEY SEND YOU TO JAIL, YOU DO NOT PASS GO, YOU DO NOT COLLECT $200.

FOR 10 YEARS.

ON DEATH ROW.

THEN ONE DAY THEY DECIDE TO RELEASE YOU SO YOU CAN GO INVESTIGATE A TERRORIST BOMBING.

ALONE.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Emily Spencer = stupid plot twist.

In the game Nathan can collect these icons for an achievement. Some of these icons are very hard to get (spend about 5 minutes on getting some of these). If you die before you get a checkpoint, you have to re-get all these icons again. Very annoying.

Most of the frustration in this game comes from the combination of the following:
Slow running speed + Nothing to grapple on to = Getting shot to death because Nathan can't evade bullets worth shit.
Swinging into radiation. You realize your mistake too late (because you can't really see radiation, its just an arbitrary boundary put by the level designer).
Dying after completing a challenge/collecting a collectable. You have to waste your time getting it again.
Swinging while getting shot at. Because of the physics in this game, you may not have enough speed to evade bullets.

Shadowfun, I think not.

Shadowrun is not fun. Shadowrun + fun is not Shadowfun.

What used to be a compelling Action RPG back from the NES days turned into a strictly Team Deathmatch game. The singleplayer mode in this game consists of Team Deathmatch with bots (and you can't get achievements this way).

The closest game to Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 is probably counterstrike. The difference between this game and other TDM games is the magic factor. In this game you can teleport around, resurrect teammates, summon minions and stuff. Instead of watching the corners for enemies, you'll need to have a 360 degree field of vision because enemies can teleport from the floor, the ceiling, through walls, etc.

Teamplay is essential here, since defensive magic (resurrection / healing tree) is beneficial to the team. Instead of killing a team of five, you might have to kill up to 15 enemies since the enemies keep on resurrecting dead teammates.

This simple logic makes resurrection the most important spell in the game.

Typical 8v8 shadowrun experience:
IF most members can make it to the center of the map and wipe themselves out. The remaining players (average two on each side) on the enemy team revives the players that died in the gunfight. The remaining players on your team runs around the map trying to find a place to snipe, since they never bothered to buy resurrection.
The remaining players usually:
1. Hide until time runs out.
2. Get killed.
3. Gang raped by 8 enemies.

Common Shadowrun logic dictates that the money spent on team spells should be used to buy weapons and gadgets because "I don't want to be a healer. I want to get frags. My teammates can do the healing for me." The end result is nobody buys resurrection and the scenario above occurs until you lose the game.

I prefixed the first sentence because around 1/5 of the time you get betrayed by your teammates for no apparent reason. So someone betrays you, you get them back the next round. Eye for an eye, playing field is even, EXCEPT YOUR TEAMMATES ACT LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN (Minion Preacher) AND CONTINUE TO HARASS YOUR TEAMMATES EVERY ROUND. JEESUS KID GROW UP ALREADY.

I can't get a god damn win because:
1. You are shooting me and I have no health.
2. we're down 2-3 teammates due to griefing. 8 v 5 of us makes us lose.
3. Making us lose forces me to spend my money rebuying weapons.
4. Trying to dodge your bullets every round gives the enemy times to set up an assault.

Conclusion:

Note: This game initially sold for $60.

Quote:

The most important thing is the value of what you're getting, I think there is value there at the $60 price point. If you play just about any first person, next-generation shooter that's come out recently, you're looking at the single player game being about 10 hours. I've been playing Shadowrun for three years... You can see this game truly has legs. So, ten hours of gameplay for sixty bucks, plus some probably lame multiplayer they tacked on, versus Shadowrun that you can play, lets [sic] say, for years.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_(2007_video_game)

Things wrong with this statement:
1. Lame multiplayer also applies to Shadowrun.
2. You can play any game for 3 years (ex. tetris).
3. Single player campaign lets you play by yourself without xbox live ANYTIME!
4. You're paying full price for half a game.
5. $60 for 3 year logic also applies to any other game.
6. You can't play "whenever you want" if not enough people are playing, you could just end up waiting for a game indefinitely.

I also like to point out that FASAstudio, the company that made this game, is out of buisness.

This logic + shitty teammates + griefers + lag makes shadowrun multiplayer a crappy experience. More power to you if you can find a static team to play with.

Last words:

Minion Preacher: You are a loser. Stop acting like a pre-pubescent 13 year old. You're like the KKK, nobody wants to be on your side (team). Go do yourself a favor and disconnect your router, it will make the world a better place to live in.
Note: I didn't say "go kill yourself." because I need people to work at fast food restaurants. I mean, my chicken soft tacos aren't going to make themselves are they?

Mushroom Kingdom sex tape scandal.

I think the title explains it pretty well. NSFW and all that, but goddamn hilarious.

Gears of Melee 2?

Okay, now that I'm done with the demon World of Warcraft (It took my mind for a while I just stopped playing entirely) I can move on back to my opinions and rants about games on Console. Let me start off by saying I like this game. I've owned it since it came out, I couldn't wait to pick the mother F'er up and play the campaign to HELL with my friend. I mean I loved part one, hated the achievements and the online game itself, but that's a tale for later in this article. Let me just start off by saying, anyone reading this; I'm sure you played this game if you own a 360, otherwise... seriously why do you own a 360? This is one of the powerhouses on the console, and if you're just not playing it because it's too violent you bought the wrong system. On mah 360 it's shootan games galore!!! PEW PEW FUCK CHAINSAW BRAAAA WHERE'S MY WIFE!? Okay I'm going off on a tangent, so I'm going to pick the game apart.

Story: Well it's a continuation of the first Gears, which by this time I completely forgot the whole fucking story. It seems like it's okay but I know shit is missing in between, which is why they wrote a book for it. Not because they wanted to milk people for money. NO, that would be wrong... I still have to pick up the fucking book. Anyways, the story is pretty action packed etc. but I have to say: most disappointing last boss ever. Raam as the last boss from the first game was like a party thrown by Jesus Christ himself compared to a giant fucking glowing Brumak.

Graphics: Pretty fucking good, the only complaint I can say when you load a level you can see all the texture layers falling over the characters... wait that's not really bad actually it's pretty awesome to me.

Achievements: Yeah.... a lot of fucking online ones... some I'm probably never getting. I mean I'll admit this now, I'm not good. I'm really just so so. Coming off Halo 3 I'm just a support kind of teammate.

Multi-player: Okay I'm conflicted, I love playing multi-player... with my friends. Online nobody fucking calls out SHIT. Rare will you find people with their mic on so why be the one yelling at nobody? Okay now that the teamwork factor is over, lets talk about the weapons. Get power weapons or fucking die. Sure you can be skilled and hammer burst someone quick, but almost every other weapon will wreck your shit. I mean hell every person comes with a power weapon, it's called the fucking shotgun. This is why I hated gears online in part one. The shotgun was SO fucking powerful, you could use it like a fucking rifle and it does MASSIVE fucking damage. YOU FUCKING START WITH IT. At least in Halo you have to go fucking find the weapon. In this game, oh no, you can just Melee Shotgun a whole fucking team. That's besides the fact it isn't fucking precise; you can shoot a bitch up close with a body shot and they live. Then you get clipped around a corner and, BOOM, you are a fucking hamburger. While I could blame this on me being so-so, host advantage is still existent. So that .1 second advantage the host gets to hit you first is crucial. Even so I find myself screaming at this game yet wanting to better myself at it.

Mmm... shotgun peppered hamburger.
I recommend this game though, if you have a friend to play story mode through it makes it all the sweeter, you got 4 other friends for online, have fun with that, also Horde mode is pretty fucking fun too. I'll gladly play this until Gears 3 is out on the 720 or Xbox 3 or whatever the fuck system its on.

Crying the distance

I'm playing Far Cry 2.
IMHO its a crappier version of GTA 4/Crackdown.
The game boils down to.
Drive, Drive, Drive, Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Drive, Drive, Drive, Drive, Drive, Drive, Car Breaks Down, Run, Run, Run, Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Get a new car, Drive, Drive, Drive, Car Breaks Down, Fix, Fix, Fix, Drive, Drive, Drive.

Why GTA > Far Cry:
Weapons breakdown too quickly in Far Cry.
Enemy has radar/can see through bushes/objects in Far Cry. The world is set in a jungle but you can't use the environment to your advantage (except setting it on fire).
Unrealistic Car damage in Far Cry (Your car gets shot in the back and the engine gets damaged).
Better story/characters in GTA.
Taxi (driving to a bus station is annoying) in GTA.

Why Far Cry > GTA
Better controls.
Bigger weapon selection (most of the weapons suck in the game however).
COD style multi-player rankings.

So save yourself $20 and get GTA instead.

Swine Flew

Thanks to my Twitter, Livejournal and Xbox Live friend Leesa for directing my attention to the above video. I haven't laughed out loud literally in a Halo 3 replay in a long long time. Enjoy.

What?! Final Fantasy XIV?! I'm sorry I can't hear you over the sounds of awesome boobs and ass jiggles!

The upcoming Final Fantasy XIV Online, which is pretty much the successor of the somewhat successful FFXI Online may have Taru Tarus, Mithras & Ninjas. And World Of Warcraft may have Blood Elves and Night Elves and all that other good stuff. But an upcoming MMORPG from the Korean company NCsoft addresses an issue that has been missing in nearly all the commercially successful MMORPGs to date. Their latest game, Blade & Soul tackles the issue: Can you manage to play an MMORPG with one hand on the mouse and another on your joystick?

cue: Ass & Titties song

EVERY RPG's character design should be done by the Magna Boobie Carta guy.