Seems like Polymar is crazy sick with damage. I kind of new that already (his three level super does 60% damage without Baroque, and his katana kicks are just painful) but seeing this just brought it home. At least he's sort of balanced out being being an exclsively close range fighter. But there are ways around that. That said, Polymar/Joe is an awesome team!

Okay. Beat the game last night on Mild and started on Bitter. Where the hell do I begin?

( Read more... )

Ranked 10 in No More Heroes 2 right now. I find this game to be very disappointing. More later.

Best horror flick spin since Behind the Mask. Calling it now.

In my post about fanservice and gaming's attitude toward it, I mention that I have so many games to slog through. Well, Robyn and I counted them out the other night (being the fair sport I am, I counted every game that may have been included on a one-disc collection individually instead of one collective game). The number? 75 games, and it's been growing, like an out of control weed. With all of these tempting PS3 titles floating around it's hard to just play my old games. I won't mention ALL of my games here, but I will mention the recent purchases:

Brutal Legend-The "non-RTS" RTS. Tim Schafer is in denial. TRUFAX. It's not a traditional RTS, but it's still an RTS. It's a quick game to play through and beat. However, the length of the story mode is not in the actual primary mission. It's hour-logging comes from finding all of the Heavy metal artifacts and secondary missions. The world is pretty detailed and expansive, so this is a time-consuming ordeal. Well it was until the Hammer of Infinite Fate DLC came out. It included a treasure finding GPS of sorts. However, DO NOT STOP PLAYING ONCE YOU'VE REACHED OVER 80% COMPLETION. There is some kind of bug (whether it be from the DLC or the game itself) that prevents you from accessing your save file after you've completed so much. I found this out the hard way, and had to start over. Overall the game will disappoint if you're not a fan of metal. I mean it. The multi-player is pretty fun though.

King of Fighters XII- Probably the most disappointing PS3 purchase I've made so far. Not because of the lack of content. I feel like the character designs are kind of...well...bad. There are frames where they look good, but for the most part they have a very blocky look to them, and the "smoothing effect" just destroys a lot of the details. It's like SNK leaped into the 2000's, but landed somewhere around Marvel vs Capcom 2. The fighting system is okay. The multiplayer sucks. I don't mind waiting my turn to play a game, but at least let me watch the on-going game so I'm not just sitting around like a chump--looking at the game screen for up to 3 minutes before something changes.

Darksiders- Hard. As. FUCK. The first boss battle with the demon Tiamat is ridiculous. I'm still playing through this game, and haven't developed an opinion other than the occasional nerd rage over why they would make something a certain way, but it seems like a solid title. Graphicall and technically astonishing so far, even though there really hasn't been one drop of new gameplay. It's all stuff you've seen before but, with a few exceptions, done to near perfection.

God of War Collection- Never played God of War. Decided to pick it up to see what all the fuss was about. It's okay as far as story and gameplay go. Nothing too wrong with anything. I like games about mythology (except for Odin Sphere. Just can't get behind it, and I OWN it.) so there's that. I pre-ordered the third game, as well as Dante's Inferno because the demo seemed badass.

We also have No More Heroes 2 and Tatsunoko vs Capcom coming out on the 28th, I believe. I'm going to have to start taking days off from work just to catch up on all this gaming...

1. Bold the shows you watch/used to watch.
2. Italicize the shows you've seen at least one episode of.
3. Underline the shows you own on DVD (at least one season).
4. Post your answers.

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City
45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers
40. Life on Mars (to cover both versions)
39. Monty Python
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted
35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood
30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf
25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office
22. The Shield
21. Angel
20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Dr Who
15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld
10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24
05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
01. The Simpsons

I watch a lot of TV, apparently.

Brutal Legend stage battle strategies. http://mycheats.1up.com/view/section/3163848/27727/brutal_legend/xbox_360

Internet, gamers, trolls, whoever reads this. WHAT. THE. FUCK. The guys who designed this game must also be holding the head honcho of the ESRB's children hostage. Why? Because this game managed to get an "M" rating instead of a richly deserved "AO". Look, guys, I know I said Bayonetta is pretty much soft core porn, righ? DANTE'S INFERNO IS MOTHERFUCKING PORN I AM NOT KIDDING. And this was just the demo! TITS! EXPOSED TITS! A WOMAN PRETTY MUCH BEING FUCKED BY A SPIRIT RIGHT ON SCREEN!

The gameplay is fine, the enemy designs are pretty cool, and the story seems okay enough. A bit on the God of War knockoff side, but whatevs. The two games have a lot in common, both dealing with mythology/religion and all. I dare say I even like the game. But to get an M rating is completely offensive to my sensibilities. If you think I'm exaggerating, download the demo for yourself. Already done that? Still not convinced it's that bad? Read the ESRB's watered-down description of the shit in this game, keeping what you saw in the demo in mind. The shit is going to be graphic.

What pisses me off so much about it is that my rage toward the people who shrug off belligerent fan service was pretty much justified yesterday at the GameStop. I was talking to some fuckhead behind the counter about the above and he said, "That's not so bad." Then I mentioned the fact that there's cock in the game (Which is cool. At least it's not all demon vaginas and titties) and THEN the fucker gets up in arms. Really? REALLY?! I'm going to fucking develop a videogame called Dr MacMeaty's Wild Banana Hammock Moustache Ride and see how many dudes complain about THAT fan service in a game. If you thought Cho Aniki was a sausage party? Brace yourself, bitches.

Fucking hypocrites. What's more is that I still feel like I'm viewed as the crazy asshole here because I seem to be the only dude on Earth anymore who has enough god damned sense to see how dumb other dudes are. THIS is exactly the kind of shit that makes all gamers (male gamers, specifically) look like desperate nerds who need virtual tits because we can't get any in real life. Guess what? I just want to fucking play videogames.

I understand that SOME of the game is going to have grown-up moments. It's about Hell. I get that. I don't even have a problem with the content in the game. Just give it the fucking AO rating. I'll tell you what, internet. If any of you played the demo and read the ESRB description and can give a solid defense as to why this game DOESN'T deserve AO? I'll take down this post, and never post another videogame related opinion ever again.

Keep in mind this is a game I actually plan on purchasing because I still think it's an okay game. This isn't because I hate it, or want it to get a bad rating so no one will play it. It seriously deserves an AO rating for its content.

WHoever did this: http://www.blast-o-rama.com/2009/12/21/better-in-theory-than-in-execution-the-shredder-hoodie/ is a dick.

Having never played the first game, I dove into the sequel with no expectations or prejudices. Having played through a decent portion of this game, however, it makes me never want to play the first one. Not only that, I want to corral every person who thinks these games are great, put them in a small room with no windows or light, and have at them with a rusty blade. NOW THAT'S ASSASSINATION!

Maybe I'm wrong for thinking games coming out on incredible consoles like PS3 and XBox360 should not only be good, but blow your fucking minds with how great they are. Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that things like camera glitches, unintuitive gameplay, and user UN-friendly HUDs and context sensitive action cues should be things of yesteryear. Maybe I'm just a stuck up gaming snob who needs to shut his trap. But if you read my game reviews and agree with the things I say most of the time, then that's enough for me to keep forcing my opinion down the internet's collective throat.

This game truly had the potential to be great:

-The second game in the series, which means they had a chance to iron out gameplay issues, and expand on what seems like an intersting story.

-It borrows from real historic events and facts to make for a semi-believable plot.

-You kill people.

All I found from this game is frustration and disappointment. You spend a lot of your time following people around while conversing with them until they send you on some stupid errand. Guys, you have to go beat up your sister's boyfriend for cheating on her. What. The. Fuck. You get tutorials that teach you how to do things...an hour into the game and after you've figured out how to do these things on your own. After a tutorial on how to pick pocket people (I had already gotten the trophy for stealing over 1,000 Florins before the tutorial), I actually uttered the phrase, "What's next? A combat tutorial?" About a half hour after a I said that, I was taken through a combat tutorial. I had already fought at least fifty enemies at that point.

"But hey! You can free run!"

Don't get me fucking started. The free running, once you get used to it, is mediocre at best. You have to hold in two buttons to initiate a free running sequence, and you'd better know what the fuck you're doing and exactly where you're going, or you'll mess up and leap off of a building. The camera doesn't help matters. You either have a camera that seizes madly while it tries to follow you, or you have a fixed camera that seriously fucks you in some places.

Did I mention that you have to pretty much free run to get through all of the obstacles? Get ready to try, try again! Fun, right? No. We live in the motherfucking 2000's, and I'm tired of lazy system designs that force you to accept a flawed system in order to play a game. If t's that complicated, design something less complicated. If not, then spend time working on the system until it is nearly flawless. NEARLY flawless, not halfway there. This wouldn't such an outrageous thing if there weren't chase missions. That's right. You have to chase fuckers down. Hey, did you know that EVERYONE in 1400 era Italy was a god damned free runner?! NO? Well according to this game they are. Everyone you chase is a fucking master of this shit, and I hope you enjoy chasing people a lot.

You end up in a lot of places where you have to be stealthy. In the middle of the day. When you're the only ass dressed in a white fucking hood carrying blades. Right. Fine. Whatever. You can blend into crowds, which works pretty well. What doesn't work so well is when you're in an area full of soldiers, and there are no real places to hide or blend. You can hide behind a wall, sure. Actually, that's a lie. These fuckers have eyes like hawks, in addition to being masters of free running. I wish I had more Italian blood in me, folks. I'd be a fucking BADASS with my X-Ray vision and acrobatic abilities. Want to take a rooftop so you can get the jump on someone on the ground? Too bad.

If you're spotted, you can attempt combat. By attempt combat I mean flail the weapon of your choice with the practiced ease of a club-footed 4 year-old with flippers for fingers. You're able to counter hits by hitting two buttons. Sometimes this works, and sometimes you simply deflect the hit, and other times you just get hit in the face. Itdepends not on timing or skill, but on how the game is feeling at the time. You'll be getting mobbed a lot, and have to protect people. People who have no sense of self-preservation, because they will not flee from their attackers. But they'll flee from your protection, forcing you to try and slog through a mass of people clumsily.

But I have to say that the most useless feature I've found so far is Eagle Vision. You remember Arkham Asylum? Remember Detective Vision, and how badass that shit was? Hell, I had Detective Vision on for most of the game because it was so useful. Well, Eagle Vision is a lot like the opposite of that. Everything goes dark as hell and your enemies are red. But you can't see thorough anything and your HUD disappears. Not that the HUD is that useful to begin with, but at least it has a fucking map.

There are escort missions out the ass, as well as courier missions. The whole game is pretty rage inspiring, and the only reason I haven't destroyed the disc in anger is because I'm borrowing it from someone.

If you thought the first game was okay, then good for you. Go play this one. I don't see what people could like about this piece of shit series, but whatever.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you also have to pretty much use your own money to rebuild a villa, revive its tourism, and manage its funds. Yes, that's right. You're playing fucking Villa Tycoon.

So yeah. If you read my last post, or follow me on Twitter, you know I purchased DJ Hero. I truly did scoff hard at this game when I heard about it.

I said hurtful things like, "I liked it better when it was called Beatmania!" and, "First they alienated my love of rock music, and now techno?! Thanks a lot..."

Then I read the tracklisting. I got tempted to play Daft Punk songs, as well as some of the intersting sounding mash-ups on the game. So yeah, I'm a hypocrite, and yeah you can lol at me all you want, intarwebz. But this game is good, and waaaaaay easier than fucking Guitar Hero. I love rhythm games, but when a game makes it harder to play than the actual instrument itself that's when things stop being fun for me. That's exactly what Guitar Hero did for me, and exactly what DJ Hero DIDN'T do (not that I've ever DJed, but I can imagine that creating your own mixes on a live turntable is much harder than this game makes it).

The game boasts in impressive list of respectable DJs who have mixed songs for your pleasure. You have DJ Shadow, DJ Z Trip, Daft Punk, and DJ AM (RIP). A lot of the songs get reused, but they use different parts of the songs in each mix, kind of making it a moot point. Oh yeah, GRAND MASTER FLASH AND DJ JAZZY JEFF MIX IN THIS GAME TOO SO EAT A DICK. If you have a problem with the music in this game, then this is obviously not the game for you and you have very poor taste in music. In particular, 2Pacs "All Eyez On Me" and Aranbee Pop Symphony's "Bittersweet Symphony" is the catchiest fucking mash-up on the game, in my opinion.

The gameplay could be a little more intuitive, and at times tries to force you to think out of both sides of your brain in ways that are pretty much impossible for me. But it's not bad, and the game incorporates features that let you change the difficulty in the middle of a setlist. This eliminates the frustration of having to start a set all over just to play a damn game.

The crossfade switch is a little tricky; at times being very sensitive, and others not being sensitive enough. The layout of the crossfade on the screen in tandem with scratches and taps makes it pretty much impossible for me to follow what I'm doing when the intensity of the game is at its peak. I can only imagine that this is the same for a lot of people, unless you're the asian rhythm game champ. Be mad at that if you want, but we all know asians own rhythm games forever. But I hope that in the future they let people who AREN'T DJs play this game in beta, and decide to make the layout of the game a little more friendly to those of us who only WISH that we were DJs.

I also wish that there were more original pieces in the game, instead of just mash-ups. Overall I highly recommend this game.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps3/file/958720/57901

Or maybe the other way around. I have to see how well I hold up online with Hakumen. My Shishigami ninpo style has been improved markedly, and my victory percentage is slowly on the rise. Spammy Taokaka players are easy now, and most Jin players are becoming a snap. But Noel, OH NOEL VERMILLION YOU EQUILIBRIUM-INSPIRED SPAMMY BITCH...

I have officially dubbed this game Blaz N00b. Seriously. I don't EVER want to hear anyone bitch about any Guilty Gear cheapness ever again. At least Sol, Chipp, Ky, Axl, etc. all require more skill than just pushing buttons.

Bang Shishigami combo list: http://s1.zetaboards.com/blazblue/pages/bangcombolist/

Need to get some serious practice in some time. Fucking Noel Vermillion...

Also why I will never play online or enter a tourney...

My PS3 name is Disco_Granny if anyone has a PS3 out there.

YOU'LL LOVE INDIAN THRILLER!

I've been playing videogames since I was old enough to hold a controller. My first game was NOT a Mario game, but it was Blaster Master. I loved it. I love good videogames, period. I always will.

( Let us begin, shall we? )

I LOVE horror movies. I have always loved them, since the days of being a four year-old lad who would pop in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies at 8 in the morning to watch them with his cousins. And don't get me wrong, folks, I thought the first two Saw movies were pretty damn good. But Saw 6? Really? We need SIX of the same movie?

If you're on Twitter at all, there is a fun trending topic going on right now called #Saw6taglines that you may enjoy. If not, add some of your own tag lines here that may be better, worse, or at least more entertaining than "If it's Halloween, it must be SAW." Here are some of mine:

"We can't let M. Night Shyamalan outdo us in the bland horror genre!"
"Saw 6: Swayzee's Revenge"
"Old men with cancer are fucking scary."
"Oh yes. There will be BLAH."
"How are we gonna beat a dead horse THIS time? Huh? HUH?!"
"If you thought the Scream franchise needed to fucking die..."