Mashing buttons since 1984
Everybody remember this? Now we’ve got some proof:
(I don’t know why YouTube’s videos have gone all diarrhetic the last couple of days, but it works.)
I’m really starting to like what the fine folks at Criterion are doing. Yes, I will still pay for it. My only concern is that they’ve not said how much.
Just a few days left before Christmas and we’d thought we’d share our wishes.
Nat: I want for SEGA and Team Sonic to stop making crappy games with Sonic and create a new Sonic game in the same vein as what Capcom did with Mega Man 9. Bring back to speedy glory.
Ehergeiz: I want Capcom to put out a Resident Evil 5 demo on Live before Christmas, which would be like tomorrow or so. That would be great…ah…Christmas wishes. Come on Capcom don’t disappoint.
Brock: I want the local (and online) game retailers to refuse to sell me any games for the next 12 months so I can get a headstart on catching up on all of the games from the past 2 years. And if they can’t manage that, I guess I’ll go with a new Ace Attorney or Hotel Dusk game.
Tony: Can it be only one thing? If so, I want Dead Rising 2, online co-op (2 or 4 players, doesn’t matter to me) with Frank West making a return as the Zombie Genocider. Another mall setting would be fine (Mall of America, anyone?) or a small, zombie infested, city. I don’t care where. The moon would be fine. I just want Dead Rising 2.
What’s on your wish list?
…at least for Sony products.
TRANSLATION: This anti-theft practice is just ripe for a lawsuit when grandma slits her wrists open with her new PS3 controller packaging so she can get her Sackboy on.
Kudos for them to try and make it easier.
March 13th 2009 cannot get here soon enough. More RE5 screenshots here.
This will only be funny to some of you, but it made me laugh:
I found this in a random Google Reader Shared Items feed.
Portal, eat your heart out. YHTBTR is my new game of the year.
In fact, go check out the top 5 indie games of 2008 on Gamasutra. Cursor*10 is awesome.
When the announcement was made about this game, the first thing that came to mind was that it was a complete hoax. There was no way that the brutal and sometimes comical violence that was everywhere in the Mortal Kombat series would be paired up with the DC Universe Characters.
After playing the game….you know what?
It actually works.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the DC characters actually out shine the MK roster. Now if that’s only because they are the new guys in the neighborhood or if they actually made a good game with comic book heroes in it, I don’t know(could be because I love comics too). All I do know is, I like what I’ve seen. So let us begin with the story shall we?
The story mode is the best part of the game for me. I was Impressed to hear that they actually hired a pair of comic book writers to develop a story for the game, it kind of needs a good story in order to merge two universes together. At the beginning you get to choose from which side’s perspective you want to see the story unfold. Then you play through the story of that universe with only the characters in the respective universe. There is a chapter per character but not all of the characters get their own chapter, but everyone shows up and plays a part in the main story of the game. From the very first cutscene I felt like I was watching a movie the whole time I was playing through it. Here’s a taste:
The only draw back is that I wish the story would have been longer than it was. Since after you’ve already beat both sides to the story mode there’s really not much of a reason to go back through it.
However, the story mode isn’t the only reason to play the game. The gameplay is great, it’s solid, and just feels like a Mortal Kombat game. I’ve felt that the recent additions to the Mortal Kombat titles have been different form the original concept of the series, the new games just felt too different than the earlier games that got me into the series. With this new addition of MK vs DC I feel that the gameplay has gone back to what it was somewhat. Sure, there are a few new fighting mechanics like
Free-Fall Kombat
Klose Kombat
but they feel apart of the same idea as “test your might” was. In the old games test your might was a clear cut stop in between the endless fights you went though, but now test your might is partly the same, it’s only in the middle of a fight. Whenever your close enough to the edge of a certain stage you can hit/kick/whatever your opponent through the wall and as you buttonmash all four buttons on the controller you smash him through wall after wall racking up the damage. Now your opponent can do the same thing in order to reduce the damage which can be reduced to zero if you don’t work for it or as much as 17% or more.
The other two mechanics actually make a big difference in a fight, especially the free-fall kombat. I have been on the losing end of a fight (online) a few times where a free-fall kombat was the thing I needed to swing the round in my favor. The free-fall kombat and klose kombat features are both pretty random in nature, you press one of the four face buttons and your opponent tries to guess which button you press and match that button press. If you match the button pressed you either switch places in free-fall combat and become the attacker or you counter an attack with your own in klose kombat and end it early while doing some damage in return.
A big part of the story mode is something called “The Rage,” which also is a new component in the actual game. After you’ve beat someone up enough or taken enough damage your rage meter builds up. There are two bars that need to be full in order to trigger rage mode.
There are also pro-moves which I wrote about earlier.
The roster includes a decent amount of people from both universes totaling 22 fighters evenly split from both sides.
The MAJOR downside is there are only 2 unlockable characters, considering this is a Mortal Kombat game I expected more characters to be available. There is the possibility of downloadable content/characters which could add some more playability to the game. The characters that they did put in the game are definitely polished and you can tell there has been a lot of work done on them. Which speaking of the characters they look awesome(well most of them anyway)! You can see the fabric of their outfits man! The Unreal 3 engine is pretty sweet, there’s no doubting that.
Now for probably the biggest let down for Mortal Kombat fans…….the lack of real fatalities. I never understood why when your game is known for something, something special and unique, why would you go and mess it up? Now I realize that they wanted a T rating for the game, that’s fine, what I don’t get is the real lack of imagination for some of the fatalities. Take for example: Baraka the guy is a beast and the best thing they can come up with for a fatality is to have him slash someone two times stab them in the gut and throw them over his head to land on the floor behind him. ???? Seriously??? I’ve seen more brutal things on cartoons on T.V. probably for kids who are 7yrs old. Now that’s not to say that some of the others aren’t that bad. One of Superman’s is a pound the other guy into the ground heroic brutality (call it what it is, a fatality) is reminiscent of the old Superman movie.
Now, I’ve played a decent amount of matches online and it’s pretty fun. When you play a ranked match there’s no talking allowed, but for regular player matches there is, which can be cool to talk to someone while your playing it’s like you have a buddy right there playing with you. After you win or lose a player match you can choose to play again or not, it’s up to the both of you. There are also chat rooms where you can challenge someone to fight and they can politely decline or you load into a fight. It’s pretty basic and simple to get into. Playing online has made me seriously think about trying to get a 360 arcade stick controller because the D-pad on the 360 controller can be in-accurate at times. I’m proud to say I have a winning record in ranked matches which is all that matters right?
Over all, if your an MK fan I think you’ll like the throw back to the older style of gameplay with the addition of new mechanics. Most of the core characters are included so you should find someone that suits your style/tastes. For anyone who’s a DC fan I think you’ll love the game even more, this game is a great comic book game in my opinion. There is a decent spread of characters from the DC universe and they all have moves that are specific to that character which makes each character unique. So for anyone interested in the idea of being Scorpion harpooning Superman in the chest or Batman opening up a can-o-you-know-what on Sub-Zero then this is definitely the game to pick up. Absolutely a must buy for any fan.
(Plus Midway could use the $)
Say, the next time you want to try to win your daughter back, just get her a pony. The apocalypse just doesn’t cut it. – the Prince.
I deem Prince of Persia to be good. Above my expectations even–and they were high.
This has been traveling around the net on fire for the last couple of days. I spent almost all of last night enjoying it. Certainly the best music/game app on the web right now. Please come to the DS.
A game on the edge of pure brilliance and utter frustration.
Mirror’s Edge is 90% exuberant fun and 10% controller-smashing annoyance.
DO: Run through a stylized metropolis, pull off incredible jumps and try to outrun bullets.
TYPE: First Person Parkour
PLATFORM: PS3 & 360 (360 Reviewed)
PRICE: $59.99
MEAT: Mirror’s Edge places you in the red sneakers of Faith, a Runner in a sterile city set somewhere in the near future. Due to surveillence of nearly every form of communication, Runners are used to courier sensitive information from point to point in the city. Sadly, this is about as good as the story gets in Mirror’s Edge. There is a murder, someone gets framed and Faith has to save some people, but what passes for storytelling in Mirror’s Edge is basically there to give you context for why you’re running from point to point. The cutscenes are also rather underwhelming. As a traditional 2D animation afficionado, I don’t have a problem with 2D cutscenes in my 3D games. However, the ones in Mirror’s Edge don’t look very good and seem like something done in Flash.
Enough about the story. The real meat of Mirror’s Edge is the first person jumping/running mechanic. This is where the game succeeds brilliantly. The signature Runner Vision effect, which causes an optimal
route through the level to change colour, is a big help in the early
levels but is much reduced by the end of the game. There are times
where the route highlighted by Runner Vision is not the fastest
or safest, which encourages the player to experiment and find safer and
faster routes than the one suggested by the game. Each level will have you trying to get as high as you can and then progressing in a series of jumps, leaps and wallruns to the end of the level. At certain times, you are put in a room where you need to figure out the best way to reach an air vent or catwalk, but most of the game is spent leaping from roof to roof, which never gets old.
What DOES get old is the combat, specifically the guns and the cops shooting at you. This is where the game took a 180 degree turn from brilliance to frustration and landed flat on its back. Faith is not a super soldier who can soak up 300 rounds. 2 shots will usually put her down and a couple swats with the butt of a rifle will result in a quick trip to Runner Heaven. Unfortunately, Faith’s fragility doesn’t help when you’re trying to subdue a gaggle of cops in riot gear. Further aggravating the situation is the fact that while Faith has a solid punch and a few neat disarm moves, you’ll find yourself fighting the game engine itself instead of the enemies. If you punch a cop, you have to wait for him to stand up and then start the ‘swing-the-gun-at-Faith’ animation before you can attempt a disarm. This leads to many instances of either throwing off your timing or having one of his buddies shoot you while you wait for him to stand up.
Thankfully, these instances are not in the game very often but when they do pop up, they’ll often throw up a roadblock to success that will take many, MANY attempts to overcome. This is particularly egregious from Chapter 7-9 when the game starts to focus more on these combat rooms and shifts away from the platforming. In the interests of full disclosure, I did get the “By Faith Alone” achievement which means that I did not fire a shot for the entire game. Looking back, I think that striving for this achievement is probably what made the areas where the game goes into combat mode so annoying. The game is a lot less frustrating and a lot more fun when the guns are used and upon reflection, the 80 points I got for the achievement were not worth the frustration felt while trying to get it.
For those who just want to run, there are a plethora of time trials and speed runs to go through which pit you against the clock (and the times of other players) in a bullet-free obstacle course based on the levels in the game.
PERKS: An exhilarating sense of speed; awesome visual design; some very cool first person cinematics
SCREAMS: For no guns in the sequel; more first person cinematics; a better melee combat engine; more compelling characters and backstory.
VERDICT: Rent. The core gameplay is a great take on first person gaming and the brilliant presentation shows is a welcome change to the greys and browns that pervade the majority of ‘next-gen’ games. Unfortunately, the momentum that Mirror’s Edge builds as you hop from rooftop to rooftop slams into a brick wall due to the pervasive and infuriating gun-toting cops and the broken melee combat engine.
As always, you can check my Gamercard to see that I have finished the game.