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Archives for January 2005

ButtonMashing.com Exclusive! Hands on with Resident Evil 4!

An exclusive, hands-on preview of a game, here on ButtonMashing? Okay, not really. I did get a hands-on with Resident Evil 4. I say it’s exclusive because there was no one else in the store, obviously because they were waiting for me to arrive for my exclusive hands-on! Alright, it was a slow night at the store, but I do have a funny story leading up to my “exclusive” hands-on:

I went to the local rental shack to see if they had put RE4 out for rental yet (I have enough games, I don’t need to buy any more, but RE4 looks too tasty not to at least rent) and unfortunately it wasn’t out yet. In fact, after my hands-on, I can safely say I wouldn’t be posting this if it was. I’d be playing it. Anyway, I mosy into the attached Game Crazy and it’s empty, save one employee. I’m not sure, but the lights may have been dimmed a little. It did seem strangely eerie. The worker is engrossed in a game. I walk up to the TV to take a look and the guy jumps out of his shoes. “Whoa! you scared me,” he says. I notice he’s playing Resident Evil 4. “Heh, that’s what happens when you’re playing a Resident Evil game.” We both have a chuckle. Off in the distance I think I heard screaming. Something about, “But mommy! I want to watch Harry Potter!”

I watched him play for a couple minutes and I must say – the game looks tremendous. The surroundings and environment look gritty and muddy. The bad guys look, well, bad and intent on employing farm tools in your harm. The animation is fluid and the frame-rate looks solid, even when there’s a lot of action going on. After a couple of minutes, he asks if I want to play? Me? Absolutely. My exlcusive, hands-on preview! He hands me the platinum Wavebird and I can tell he’s been gripping it pretty tightly. It’s not just warmed up, it’s downright hot.

As I took control, the game felt a bit awkard. Within the first few minutes things felt natural. I have no idea what the story is but I do know that a 12-gauge shotgun can take down some serious walking meat bags. There seems to be a lot of interaction with the environment and things look and feel organic. This is a must-play.

I only got about five minutes worth of playing but I must say, RE 4 is looking most excellent.
Resident Evil 4

Bad back = no games

I threw something out of whack in the vertbrae area this weekend and so haven’t been able to do much gaming. I didn’t feel like sitting for any extended period of time, so I avoided gaming for a little while. Right now the laptop is propped up on my legs while I search for a comfortable pose to write this.

On a non-gaming note, I love the show 24. With the first four hours out of the way, we can now get down to business. 24 is hands down the best TV show out there. Lost is a pretty close second, but 24 wins out for me. I don’t watch much TV, but I don’t miss my 24.

Week in Review, Vol. 2, #1

Here we are for the first Week in Review for 2005. Let’s get right to it.

First, from Kotaku is a link to a story about a professional Halo 2 player. We all dream about making money playing video games. It’s crossed my mind before. In fact, I can say I have made a little scratch playing Diablo 2. I’ve sold a handful of charactes and items on eBay, pulling in about 300 bucks. While it pales in comparison to this guy, it’s better than nothing. But working out how much time I put getting those items works out to about 15 cents an hour certainly not earth shattering.

Age of Empires, I love thee. Let me count the ways. One, Ages of Empires. Two, Age of Empires, Rise of Rome. Three, Age of Empires 2, Age of Kings. Four Age of Kings, The Conquerors. And now five (and probably six), Age of Empires III.

Bad reporting and pirated games – a poor little ground playing a Disney-based game on her GBA. See Video Game Ombudsman for the full story.

Of course, this past week also ushered in the new year (sort of), so here’s a run-down of some of the blogosphere’s Top Ten/Year in Review lists.

At Render, there isn’t a top ten list, but this sounds like a Game of the Year to me.

Half-Life 2: Simply put, this was the most compelling gaming experience I’ve ever had. Plus, Counter-Strike: Source. Worth the wait, and the sixty bucks.

Mike at the-inbtween has more than just the run-of-the-mill awards. I really like this one in particular:

The “It Has Vin Diesel In It And I Don’t Absolutely Hate It, How Did That Happen?” Award:

Chronicles of Riddick

Mike at Pixel du Jour had a “Top Two” of popular culture, including games. #1 on his list (on many others, I’m sure) is WoW.

World of WarCraft, in particular, has devoured my soul. I’m usually the first to criticize the MMORPG genre for requiring little to no skill to play, but I cannot help but trounce around Azeroth for hours at a time, alone or with friends. I don’t even fully understand the game’s appeal. All I know is that I feel an undying desire to make it to the next level and improve my characters.

Of course many of us look toward Penny Arcade for the thoughts. I was surprised that Halo 2 didn’t make the cut but I was proud that Metroid Prime 2 did. Penny Arcade crowns World of Warcraft, as well.

It’s called World of Warcraft, but the addiction profile is really more along the lines of Diablo.

That’s all I need to hear to know I must avoid it like the black death.

Update (1/9/2005) – Posts on Sunday always fall into the ether when I do my week in review, but I just read this on the-inbetween, which looks at different pictures posted of Flickr with tags like “Videogames”, “Nintendo” and others. There’s a lot of pictures to wade through, but there are some interesting pics there.

ButtonMashing.com is evolving

There have been some minor cosmetic and content changes being made here at Button Mashing. The first change I made was the removal of my Blogroll. There’s nothing terribly wrong with the service, I just felt I had more control over my links by coding them myself. I know Bloglines has a similar service but I haven’t tried that out yet. I’ve also added a third category of blogs I’m linking to, video game blogs I’ve recently discovered. There’s also a link for non-gaming blogs, which will range from tech/gizmo/gadget blogs to blogs of friends, etc.

In addition to my weekly review of the world of gaming blogs, I’m also going to highlight some of the new gaming blogs I come across. Hopefully this will be a way to make more people aware of new/up-and-coming gaming blogs. Hopefully they will garner some new readers (and vice-versa) with all that huge traffic I’ll generate for them (uh huh, right).

This site is primarily dedicated to my gaming experiences (and thoughts) but I am also interested in the blogging phenomenon in general, so I also plan to comment on that as I see fit. I read this post over at render, where he mentions he’s thinking about commenting on things non-gaming, i.e. movies, books, websites, etc. I would love to see that. I have mentioned such things here, from time to time. It adds variety and flavor to a blog that has a single dedication. I don’t expect this blog to become a day-to-day journal of my goings-on at work, or as a dad or husband, but my family is inextricably tied to the rest of my life that it’s hard to separate the two. In addition, my opinion on such things as “I, Robot” (thoroughly enjoyed it, it didn’t try hard to be something it’s not) or what’s in heavy rotation on my iPod (“Shimmer” by Fuel, “Great Expectations” by Jurassic 5, others) adds a certain credence to what I say on gaming topics.

In scholastic terms, ButtonMashing.com is majoring in video gaming, minoring in blogs, and taking a handful of humanities courses.

Halo 2, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Style

First a disclaimer – I hate cheaters. More to the point, I hate people who cheat in online games. I don’t cheat, plain and simple. I don’t care how easy it makes things, how powerful it would make me, how cool it would be. As a matter of principle I won’t do it. Those who do are lower than pond scum’s scum. There is a special place reserved in the bowels of despair for cheaters. They ruin the game for the rest of us who try to play far and square. But, for the most part, I pretend cheaters don’t exist. I won’t let them ruin my experience.Crouching Tiger

But glitches are a different story. They are usually difficult to execute and even harder to master. I can live with glitches. Such is the glitch (bug? trick?) of the Flying Sword in Halo 2. After I read how to do it, I had to try it. Some friends were over last night to play some two-TV Halo 2 on Live, so before we embarked on some trash-stomping, we made a game to give the glitch a test. Much hilarity ensued.

The gist of the trick is to line up an enemy in the distance with a non-sword weapon. When the aiming reticule turns red, you switch weapons, and before the sword reticule appears you pull the trigger. If it’s done correctly, you zoom (fly?) right up to the unsuspecting sucker and disembowel them. It is hard to do. HARD. But the first time you do it is exhilarating. My first thought was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with Li Mu Bai gliding through the air, sword in hand. The difference is, when Li Mu Bai glides through the air he does it gracefully and effortlessly but Master Chief charges with impatience and anger. Watching the strike from a third person’s perspective emphasizes this point. You see Master Chief half-running, half-flying through the air, death in his hand. It’s a sight to behold.

But as I said, it’s a pretty hard trick to pull off, even if you do get the rhythm done. Executing the move in-game will be extremely tough, but my friend did pull one off last night. This is one glitch I will be proud to use, even more proud to execute, and will be honored if someone eviscerates me with. I will pick up my intenstines, stick them back into place and pick up a sword and bring it!

New Year’s Resolution

I’m a few days late on my resolutions, but I do have some. I wanted to share them here.

  • First, lets get these out of the way: lose weight, exercise more regularly, eat healthier, get to bed early and get up earlier, you know the regulars.
  • Post here at ButtonMashing at least once a day
  • Spend less time playing games when I could be with my family
  • Make the time I do have to play games more enjoyable
  • Add more humor to my posts. I’m a funny guy, really, I am. I think of funny things all the time! I just struggle to articulate them.
  • Kick some serious butt all year long

There you have ’em. Will I keep ’em? You better believe it. There will also be some changes around here. Nothing major, but I’ll keep everyone updated. Here’s to a great 2005. Thanks to all my regular readers, I appreciate your patronage and hope you enjoy your visits here. To any new readers, I hope you come back often. You never know what you’ll find.

dallasobserver.com | Have Gun, Will Travel | 2005-01-06

dallasobserver.com | Have Gun, Will Travel | 2005-01-06: I love Halo 2. I enjoy fragging and eviscerating as much as the next guy. But when I play, I don’t really think about the possibility of playing in tournaments or making money. I know money is out there, lots of people are playing in tournaments and making money, but I don’t have the skill (or even the dedication) to be that good. Nevertheless, there are people out there banking on their skills. In this article, it seems that Zyos, Matt Leto, is making quite a little chunk of change playing Halo 2. From the article:

“And the money keeps coming. Semmelhack says Zyos is looking at ‘mid-five figures’ in endorsements alone this year. And with MLG’s tournament purse of $250,000 in 2005, Matt Leto, college dropout, professional Halo player, should be a six-figure 22-year-old by year’s end.

‘I am lucky,’ he says. ‘But it takes a lot of skill, too.'”

It’s a good read (link from kotaku) and an interesting look into the burgeoning world of Major League Gaming.

I can always dream about playing in the big leagues. I still dream about playing football at The Ohio State University. But, alas, my dreams are just that. I am a peasant in the heirarchy of videogamers. It appears that Zyos is the King and Emperor.

Video-fenky: F-word on computer game

Video-fenky: F-word on computer game – This is getting the attention of a lot of sites, but it appears that it comes from an unreliable(?) source, The Sun. Looks like they have some seriously lazy reporters over there, as the did a terrible job of fact checking. Luckily, intrepid bloggers, like Video-fenky and others, are quick to point out the ESRB label, which is only for games from the States. Turns out it’s a pirated version of the game. Score one for the game bloggers!

Of course the article never mentions this but rails against games yet again. Games with bad words! Hackers leaving their mark on games, and poor Disney gets the bad rap. Unfortunately people will have the knee-jerk reaction. Too bad.

Update (1/5): Video Games Ombudsman has a more detailed write-up than mine.

2004, A Year in Review

I don’t claim to be a definitive source of opinion or expertise. Heck, this is a gaming blog, remember. But I do have opinions and here’s my take on the past year. I did have a video gaming lull in the middle of the year, due to my securing full-time employment following my graduation last year. But I’ve made up time recently, so everything is all good. After my retrospection, I’ll look forward to some things I’d like to see in the future. So read on for the whole enchilada:

Biggest Surprises

The two biggest surprises this year for me belong to Halo 2. I was initially surprised with how engaging the single-player game turned out notto be. I had high hopes for Halo 2’s single-player offering, and what we got was more of the same. Now again, I can say that definitively because I stopped playing the single-player about a month ago. I haven’t gone back since. Which leads to the other big surprise for me – how addictive Halo 2 is on Live. I have logged countless hours, by myself and with my friends, fragging faceless entities in the great unknown. But it is definitely some of the best times I’ve had gaming this year.

Biggest Dissapointments

This, as far as I’m concerned, is a no brainer. The winner of the don’t believe the hype (no, really, don’t believe the hype) is Fable. I’ve railed against Fable time and time again, so I’m not gonna say much more. For me, Fable was a system seller. Promises of a grand RPG that could be played for weeks and months lured me in. Sure, I play Halo 2 and sports games, but I’m an RPG gamer at heart. I bought an Xbox for the express purpose of playing Fable. I think I played a sum total of ten hours of Fable. And the last two of those it was painful. The cheap trade-in-value spoke volumes, too. Stores give high trade-in credit for games that are in demand and copies are scarce. Well, when they offered me eight bucks at Game Crazy because they had so many copies, I said people are trading it in because the game sucked. The Xbox-fanboy manager said it was because the game is short. Nope, sorry, it’s because the game sucked.

Best Xbox Game

This was a tough one. I was disappointed with Halo 2’s single-player but it’s multiplayer fun is undeniable. The fact that it is basically the same three or four games played over and over again but is wildly addictive is a testament to the genius of Bungie. The game is accessible to the casual gamer but deep enough to engage the hard-core gamer, as well. For 2004, Halo 2 is the Xbox game of the year. Runner-up: Burnout 3.

Best Gamecube Game

I didn’t get a chance to play a lot of Gamecube games as the year came to an end (see above for explanation) but I have some of the better games already lined up for this new year. I can say that my Game of the year will be Metroid Prime 2. I’ve been playing it for a while and it is fantastic. Retro has done everything right from the first and done things even better with the second. I look forward to continuing this game. Runner-up: Tales of Symphonia. (Remember, these are games I have played enough to form and opinion)

Best games I haven’t played yet

I have a bunch of games on the “want to play” list that I know will be good but I haven’t played yet. They include Full Spectrum Warrior, Splinter Cell PT, Viewtiful Joe 2, Mario Tennis, Metroid Prime Zero Mission, the list goes on. I am also contemplating giving World of Warcraft a try, but after picking up an extension on Live, I may but that on the backburner for now. I’ve got too many games as it is now. If I can peel myself away from Halo 2, I’ll get to some new games soon.

Wish List for 2005

There is a lot of things I would like to see come about in the next year, but I know it most won’t happen. If I could wish for one thing, it would be for two different Xbox Live!s. Something like a 25 and older Live! with a 24 or younger Live! Better yet, a 125+ IQ Live! Anything to weed out the people on Live that drive me crazy: the twelve year olds who accuse me of sexual improrities (and question my orientation), say things about my mother, drop four letter words like they’re going out of style, and quit games at the most inopportune times. I wish I could personally ban them, but that isn’t possible. I like the Survivor style elimination. If you act like a prick, everyone you’re playing with can vote you out. You get voted out too many times, you’re no longer welcome on Live servers for at least six months. Maybe by then you’ll grow up by then.

I’d also like to see the Xbox get a decent wireless controller. My wish would be for something on the level of a Wavebird, but those dolts at Microsoft are completely incapable of doing anything right, so we’ll have to rely on someone else. My friend has one of the Logitech Wireless Controllers, which is nice but it’s no Wavebird. Man, Nintendo has it down!

Which is my final wish – I would like to see people get of Nintendo’s collective back. The Gamecube may not be selling as many units as the PS2 or Xbox. The PSP may be better than the DS (I still think Nintendo buries Sony in the handheld war). They may not have the third-party support the other two consoles have. But who cares? Why do I want a crappy adventure/shooter game like Golden Eye Rogue Agent when I can be playing Metroid Prime 2. There is a lot of garbage games out there, but Nintendo always rises above them. All the doom-and-gloomers need to give the anti-Nintendo rhetoric a rest. I am a fanboy, hear me roar.

I don’t have a Mac but I do have an iPod. Let Nintendo become the Apple of the gaming world. I’d be fine with that.


Happy New Year!!

2005 gets two exclamation points!

Happy new year to all you ButtonMashers! We here in the ButtonHouse are looking forward to a prosperous and gaming-filled 2005. We will be in a new ButtonHouse by February, so things will be changing for us here, but hopefully thinks will stay the same in the gaming (and gaming blog) world.

The new year has already started off with a bang, having my pathetic stats reset over at bungie.net. I heard chatter last night in a few Halo 2 games that there was going to be a reset, possibly to counter cheating going on? I was once accused of playing with a lag cheat, but I figured the kid was pissed becuase I was repeatedly whacking on the head with my bazooka, whack-a-mole style. I had no idea there were Xbox Live! cheats. That’s too bad if there are but I’m sure Bungie will fix it.

Stay tuned, as I do what everyone else has been doing, roll out my 2004 awards and look to 2005.