buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Archives for 2009

An introduction is in order

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Will saved me the trouble of having to go first. Thanks, Will! I’m Jason O, one of the two new contributors to buttonmashing.com.

I was introduced to the wonders of technology at an early age. I remember when the PS2 was an early IBM home personal computer. I was gaming on it and an Apple IIe in wonderful monochrome. Years later the 4 color Jumpman would seem like the ultimate game in comparison. My first gaming console was an Atari 2600. I’ve observed the trends and changes in the gaming industry for over two decades and I still love this hobby and love to share it with others. I’ve grown from a wide-eyed child to a white collar professional and now have a family of my own.

I love talking about games. How well they play, if they are actually fun, the underlying design, and even how the industry is behaving. This is influenced by gaming as a long-time hobby and my current role in the technology field in general. While games are much different than the software I’ve been involved with personally, there are some commonalities between the two and I’m always interested in how games as a business works versus the more service oriented software I know firsthand.

These days I mostly game on the X-Box 360, I don’t even own a PS3, and the Wii is more for my kids. I don’t game much on the PC much anymore. I don’t have a strong preference or loyalty though. Next year I might be more PC focused, or maybe the PS3 will finally grab my attention. I might yet pick up a DS of my own. For me, games are more than a platform or a company logo. They are my passion, my favorite form of entertainment. Which is why I look forward to my future contributions here.

Hi There

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My name is Will, and I am one of the two new faces Tony introduced yesterday.

I’m a collector – one of those odd gamers that holds on to games and never trades them in. Over the past 20 years or so, this habit has resulted in a collection of about 800 games that span several systems: NES, Genesis, SNES, Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, N64, Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, various Game Boys and Nintendo DSes.

My Xbox 360 circa 03/08; one-half of its current size

Lately, my Xbox 360 gets most of my attention. However, I occasionally play my PS3 and Steam games. Feel free to throw a friend request my way:

Oh, and about that name. I like penguins. Back in college I was known as “Chill Will” amongst my frat brothers. So I combined the two and got Chill Penguin. I had convinced myself that I really made up that name, somehow glossing over the fact that Mega Man X is a game that I played a lot, and I always wiped the floor with Chill Penguin first.

I hope you enjoy what I will bring to buttonmashing.com.

[2 Minute Review] Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

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Sacred2 Banner

DO: Play like Diablo but with better graphics.

TYPE: RPG (Diablo with a splash of Baldur’s Gate)

PLATFORM: Xbox 360 (reviewed here), PS3 and PC

PRICE: $60

MEAT: You choose one out of six character classes. Of which the strangest class would have to be the temple guardian,”A Temple Guardian is not fully flesh or mechanical, it is a mixture, half human and half machine.” The temple guardian kind of looks like the egyptian god Horus (kind of) if you choose to go evil or Anubis if you choose to go good.

With all of the different items you come across and all of the different ways you can shape your character there is a good chance you will have a really unique character. I went with an Inquisitor that dual wielded a burning dagger and an ice shortsword. What’s cool about the game is you can choose to use any weapon you want as long as it’s not class specific.

The big let down with Sacred 2 is the parts in between quests which turns into the same thing over and over again. You get quest A and on your way to the location to finish the quest you encounter a plentiful amount of monsters on the main road the whole way there. There is a copious amount of side quests that can lead you away from the main quest which will add playtime to your total playtime. The time spent traveling can be cut down by either using a mount (different kinds of horses or class specific ones like a demon or a sabertooth tiger) or the warp gates which are scattered around the map that are usually near important locales like a town or city.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is where I think that game will shine. Having only played the game hotseat co-op for a limited amount of time I really enjoyed it with another player along for the ride, even though we had to share a screen and couldn’t seperate. Playing online multiplayer will allow the players to be in the same world while being able to roam wherever they want. This gives the game more of an open world feel.

PERKS: Having quite a bit of room to customize your character. My personal pet peeve in video games is when you equip and awesome new sword or piece of armor and then it doesn’t show up on your character, they just have the same sword/armor the whole game through. Sacred 2 did this part of the game right, everything you equip on your character shows up so I had a burning dagger hanging on my back while I rode my horse. Also if your into being into a game for the long haul then this is right up your alley. I’m not even sure how long long you could devote your time to the game but it seems like it could suck you in for a while. The world is pretty huge so the words, “NEVER ENDING!” come to mind. One of the very first things I noticed was how expansive the world was. After searching around for a few minutes in the game world I looked at the the map and only a tiny bit of the map had been lit up showing where I had explored. The world looks great from the grass blowing in the wind to the lush landscapes Ancaria looks good.

SCREAMS: LOADING! The worst time I had with loading was in a town where within 10 seconds the game had to stop the screen from progressing to load the next section of town five times. Now if you install it on the hard drive I’m sure it will help immensely with the loading issues but the game shouldn’t have that many to begin with. How about a boss fight that isn’t just some monster with a long health bar?

Give me a story to care about. The only thing that stands out storywise for the game is that they were able to get the EPIC band Blind Guardian to be apart of it. To have better detail after you zoom out, having the camera zoomed in can give you some great detail with nice graphics but zoom out to where you can actually see whats going on and you won’t be able to tell if it’s the same game. That was a major let down in playing Sacred 2, not being able to enjoy the good graphics the whole time.

VERDICT: Buy. I think you’ll definitely get your $’s worth out of this game. You can play it until you’ve discovered everything in Ancaria which will take you a long time or just go straight through the games main quests. Regardless of whether you’ll be playing the game by yourself or with a friend the enjoyment you’ll get should be the same. If your on the fence about this game I would suggest a rental and you’ll be able to get a feel for the game and whether you want to buy the game or not. I had a good time in Ancaria and I’m pretty sure you will too!

New Look, New Faces

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So if you’ve visited the site in the last 16 hours or so, you probably noticed a new look here at buttonmashing.com. Nat has been working hard on a new theme for the new look. Big Huge Thanks™ to Nat for putting this together, I think things have come together nicely.

Content-wise, things won’t change dramatically around here, but navigation on the actual site will. Now, there will only be two posts on the main page, the most recent post and a “Featured Post,” where we can highlight a post that we think deserves a little more attention or warrants more discussion. This post will change periodically. Recent posts will still be available in the sidebar to the right. Below the Featured Post will be a collection of Asides which are short, Twitter-like posts that don’t really qualify as a “post” but are still things we think are worth a look. Everything will still be available via the feed.

We’re still working on some items, including reorganizing the categories and the links to other sections of the site. This shouldn’t take too long.

If you’re reading the site via a feed reader (which I assume most of you are) things will continue uninterrupted, but we invite you to come down and take a look.

Along with the new look, we’re also welcoming two new contributors to the site. Will and Jason O will be joining the crew to add to the buttonmashing conglomerate. Both have been frequent commenters here at the site and both have done a bit blogging elsewhere. I’ll let them introduce themselves when they get a chance, but we should be hearing from them shortly.

So welcome Will and Jason and welcome all to Buttonmashing 2.0.

[2 Minute Review] The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

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Does hope really begin in the dark?

riddick1

DO: You are Riddick, a man with a very high opinion of himself. For some reason, however, he keeps getting caught. He likes the shadows and is willing to stab the occasional obstacle in the head.

TYPE: Stealth/Shooter hybrid

PLATFORM: Xbox 360 (reviewed here), PS3 and PC

PRICE: $60

MEAT: There are essentially two games here. First, there’s a remake of the popular Xbox One game, Escape from Butcher Bay, where you control Riddick as he tries to break out of prison. Having broken out of prison, he finds himself a prisoner of sorts on the Dark Athena, a mammoth space ship. The second game chronicles your attempt to escape once again.

Escape from Butcher Bay concentrates on more of the stealth aspects of the game while Dark Athena is shooter heavy. Butcher Bay has some almost-RPG elements as you can complete missions for fellow prisoners (which basically boils down to punching people in the face) as you try to figure out a way to escape. The hand-to-hand combat is quite satisfying. The sneaking around has its issues and the shooting isn’t perfect. But for the most part, when it’s sticking to one or the other, it’s a heck of a game.

Both games have their problems, I’m not going to gloss over them. As I said, stealth isn’t perfect. If I’m hidden, let me stay hidden. If I’m caught, but can get away, let me have the freedom to move around without being spotted from across the room. The PITCH BLACK room. There are swear-off-gaming-forever moments of frustration. There are also exhilarating did-I-just-do-that? moments that make you forget the aforementioned downers.

It’s a balancing act, but in the end I enjoyed Riddick.

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PERKS: Stealth kills are crunchy and will bring a smile to your face, whether you’re beating someone down with the “Peacemaker” or your stabbing them in the head with a screwdriver, it never gets old.

SCREAMS: That it would make up its mind! Either be a shooter or a stealth game, but don’t force me to do a shooter set-piece when all I want to do is hide until the badmen go away. The shooting is well done and fun. So is the stealth. But the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts. Stick to one thing and do it well.

VERDICT: Buy. I struggled with this one. After some of the frustrating moments, I would have said “Rent”. I would have said that it’s not worth the effort. Even after beating the final enemy, I wasn’t convinced. But looking back, taken all together, there is a really fun game here. It’s not a strong, 100% Buy recommendation, but I still feel confident that most buttonmashers will enjoy it.

Good games, dirt cheap

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Well, fifty bucks isn’t exactly cheap, but shortly after I wrote about wanting to pick up Red Faction Guerilla, I noticed the 360 version(you’ll have to select 360 instead of PS3) is currently on sale at Amazon.com. X-Men Origins: Wolverine(again, select Xbox 360 once you get to Amazon) can also been picked up on the cheap (combined with the coupon code XMENWLV5 brings it to $33.49 (via Gamerdeals.net)). I’ve heard Wolverine isn’t a sixty-dollar game, but maybe under forty is worth it?

I don’t know how long these prices will last. Just keeping you informed of deals we think are worth your time.

(Note: all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)

Yes!

Feeling out of it

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I was Blockbuster today, perusing the gaming section and thinking to myself, “Self, you are really out of it. Look at all these games you aren’t playing! Get with the program, man.” While I’ve never been able to keep up with all the latest games, I have fancied myself as someone who is “with it” and in the “in crowd” in terms of new games. Sure, I’ve been playing a little Sacred 2: Fallen Angel and a lot of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, but outside of those two, I have hardly played anything new. So there I am at Blockbuster, all the games I want to be playing are staring back at me, beckoning my rental dollars. Games like Bionic Commando, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Tiger Woods 10, Terminator: Salvation and of course, Resident Evil 5. It’s almost blasphemous that I haven’t played RE5, as RE4 is one of my favorite games of all time, and my RE4 translation guide is still one of the highest trafficked pages on the site.

I need to play some of these games.

To make matters worse, more and more games have been popping up, garnering good reviews and generating a lot of buzz. Those games would include UFC 2009 Undisputed, Red Faction Guerilla, Ghostbusters, and Punch Out. And those are just 360 and Wii games. Nevermind the PS3, PSP or DS. Good grief.

So I hope to rectify my recent absence of gaming. I picked up Resident Evil 5 while I was there at Blockbuster and have high hopes (notwithstanding Brock’s recent tweet). Too bad Xbox Live will be down today, I really want to try co-op RE5. Then it’ll be some UFC Undisputed and Red Faction. Oh, and I’ll finish up Riddick, as well. And I’ll have fun, dangit!

How do you keep up? Or do you even try?

Rocket Riot Is, Well, A Riot

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Coming out tomorrow on XBLA for 800 MS points. (That’s $10 for us people who know the value of a dollar).

This hybrid mix of 2D and 3D looks to be fun. Oh, pirates and ninjas and zombies!



I’ll definitely be giving the demo a try. Anyone else heard of this?