The game ends with credits

I got a Nintendo DS Lite. This is surprising, even for me, considering the last handheld video game system I owned was a Pikachu edition GameBoy Color that I still use when I am crazy bored. But now I have a DS, and now a whole slew of games I never had access to has opened itself to me.

The World Ends with You (2008) is an action role-playing game from RPG gurus, Square Enix. Square Enix as a company gets more fans jerking off at their games than Atlus, and as a GameStop employee I can tell how mind-boggling that is. As a rule, I am always hesitant to play a JRPG if only because I don't have the goddamn time to sit through them, anime graphics annoy the every-loving crap out of me, and after living with transgendered people in college I no longer enjoy making them hit monsters with giant swords. Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, EarthBound, and Super Mario RPG will always be fantastic games that I can always go back and play but the newer incarnations--even the Persona series which has amazing gameplay by chibi graphics that make me want to rip my eyes out--can rarely catch my attention. I picked up this shiny little title because, as I remember working the games release, it seemed different and somewhat cooler than the crappy console RPGs like Infinite Undiscovery that were out at the time. The World Ends with You ended up on my short list of games to try for the DS.

The game takes place in an alternate version Shibuya district of Tokyo that brings you, Neku Sakuraba, into a game designed to erase faces. You go through different games, because each time the designers of this game are dicking you over. I can't give a whole lot more away without ruining the whole thing, but that's the fun of role-playing games.

The story aside, the gameplay is kind of a lot of fun. You drag your character from one long dialogue-heavy cut scene to the next, but the part that's fun is the battle system. You are forced to fight the same battle on the top and bottom screens, using various touch commands on the touch screen and pounding the D-pad for the top. As you progress through the game, you collect pins and have to pay attention to what brand of clothing will get you better or worse stats in different neighborhoods but I didn't buy the strategy guide so I pretty much just ignored it. The pins are what give you the different attacks, and you can sort them in ways that make the most sense, battle-wise. The Tin Pin Slam mini-game is a colossal pain in my ass, but that's my opinion of most mini-games.

As being among the first DS games to really grab my attention, I am enjoying it thoroughly. I had originally thought the DS would be a goof to me, something I pulled out when I was bored at lunch or waiting around for something trivial. I find myself reaching for it when I have a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii within my grasp. The role-playing games for the DS--The World Ends with You in particular--bring a lot to the little handheld. I do still love throwing in Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ to kill a few minutes, though. My next venture should be to procure a PSP, I believe.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

CoD fOr ToO

Where EA used to be the company that would only publish the same crap every year and screw the consumer and comedy outlets out of fun and money, Activision has very clearly taken its place while Electronic Arts continues to lighten up and come out with some really good games and deals. I really dislike giving Activision money by buying their games and have literally waited to buy them used just to avoid giving CEO Robert Kotick another dime. Kotick, if you didn't know, tried to get EA to not publish Brütal Legend by suing, claiming that they still had rights to it--which Activision obviously did not. Kotick said, when asked about the high prices of bundles such as Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and Tony Hawk: Ride, "If it were up to me, I'd raise the prices even further." He has openly said that his mission is to take the fun out of video games. I just have a problem supporting another asshole, despite the quality of the product. However, I made an exception for this game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3) is just about the biggest game release ever. Going back to Infinity Ward, the original makers of Call of Duty, the series has been made by another company called Treyarch who made Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty: World At War. Their games are nowhere near as good as Infinity Ward's, but Activision loves making money on people who don't know any better. CoD4:2 had an obvious amount of hype surrounding it, which was realistically all deserved.

The single-player campaign is as short as you have heard: about six hours on normal difficulty. This is not a bad thing. It has some epically intense moments, including the ridiculously stressful and awesome crescendo of the game. The landmarks of the game do include some pretty grotesque scenes, including the "terrorist level" that you have to kill an airport full of civilians, but those traumatized by certain events do have the option of skipping out of them. The story of Infinity Ward's games have always been spectacular, but I feel like they pushed it a bit far in this one. It was just on the other side of realistic, where there stories have always had to do with World War II history in the past or with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare it was a super-realistic look at the world's battle against terrorism. Modern Warfare 2 has set-pieces that make your jaw drop to the floor, but when everything comes together it seems less genuine than some of their other storylines. The campaign mode, still, has a lot of replay value--especially on the higher difficulties.

Infinity Ward's answer to Activision putting zombie levels in Saint's Row 2 and Call of Duty: World at War was the new Special Ops mode, which is twenty-three co-op or single-player missions using set-pieces from the Modern Warfare games. Each mission has a possibility of three-star ranks, depending on the difficulty level or how well you do in the mission. Unlocking stars unlocks new Special Ops missions and it's like that. It's actually a very fun mode to just poke around with, and the story is just as simple as "Complete objective" which is usually "Kill people and run your stupid ass to the end."

The multiplayer is new and improved, but I unfortunately have very little to say about it. I don't play a lot of multiplayer, but from those that I've heard from it's amazing Xbox Live didn't crash after all the people swarming online to play it. The killstreaks are easier and they've added a new deathstreak feature, where you can get perks from dying a certain number of times so you can recover from utter defeat if you know how. Most people bought the game for this function, but if you did then you already know that Call of Duty multiplayer has always been some of the best and you already know that you'll like it.

The soundtrack was done by Hans Zimmer. For those who are unfamiliar: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, The Last Samurai, Gladiator, do I need to go on? Saying this soundtrack is epic doesn't do it justice. The score forces you to play the game--it drives you through the blood-spattered screen. It is among the most impressive music in an action game and I really can't stress that enough.

Despite Activision's constant douchebaggery, the game is worth every penny. Between single-player story that blows the mind, Special Op co-op missions, and multiplayer, this game is good for every gaming mood you happen to be in--unless you want something less shooty and something more stabby or role-playing-y. As was a possibility, this may have beaten Brütal Legend as far as my game of the year goes. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 builds on the perfection that Infinity Ward made with first-person shooters with the first Modern Warfare. The game is win. Don't let it get away.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Horn-abüse

When there's an update on a Wednesday, it's going to be about a video game. That's the first rule of this new release format I just invented for the rebirth of the review blog.

I could not have cared less about this game during its production, despite being fans of the company that makes the game, the person who wrote the game, the person who voiced the lead character, and the subject matter. After realizing all of this and playing the demo, I kind of lost it and went nuts for this game.

Brütal Legend (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3) is the first game Tim Schafer has made in four years. Tim Schafer, other than being the founder of Double Fine Productions which has only released Psychonauts before Brütal Legend, is a former writer for LucasArts where he wrote the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. Well, damn. With a list of games to your credit like that, why not buy anything he even looks at? Because he only releases two or three games a decade, it seems. Brütal Legend, his pièce de résistance, features Jack Black, tons of heavy metal, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, Lemmy Kilmister, and did I mention the metal?

The story of the game is thus: the roadie to end all roadies works for this really awful band with the guy who did Invader Zim's voice on guitar, gets killed on stage and bleeds into his belt buckle which proceeds to come to life, kill the band, and Eddie Riggs (the previously mentioned roadie) wakes up in a church where there are monks trying to kill him with swords. Then the gameplay starts, but not without already instilling a great sense of humor. You are in a world of myth and metal, and must defeat the local wildlife and hemophiliacs. There are demons who work for a guy named Doviculus, and then there are glam/hair metal guys with a heavy metal Stewie Griffin character named Lionwhyte, and then a bunch of goth kids, and then back to the demon guys. The thought of returning you, Eddie, back to your world is dashed with a single "Pbbbbt" about twenty minutes into the game. The rest is too good to give away.

The gameplay is a cross between God of War, Fable II, and Grand Theft Auto III. It's hacky slashy fun, with different abilities (ie axe, guitar) mapped to different buttons that works pretty well, and you fly around at high speeds and crash into things with little to no damage to your car, only this time there's something other than Chatterbox to listen to. This time there's tons and tons of metal. About half-way through the game, you're introduced to a new battle mode--the Stage Battle. The first time you play it, it's pretty cool and fairly innovative. The second time you think, "Alright, I totally got this." By the third, fourth, fifth ones--the ones that dominate the last third or so of the game--it starts getting tiresome, old, and is reminiscent to real-time strategy games that I haven't been able to get into since Age of Empires II. This Stage Battle mode is also the only multiplayer mode. This is a giant looming black mark over the game, but is playable regardless. The "extra stuff" of the game is all the collection, hide and seek side quests, and find-the-hidden-item crap that is common in sandbox games, but Brütal Legend does it in a less offensive way by making them fairly easy to find and adding actual fun gameplay for reward for finding them. They mostly consist of unleash the metal dragons and kill the metal creatures.

For someone like myself, who can remember when he heard his first Ozzy Osbourne song and remembers the swell of metal within his chest, this game is an absolute must play. Brütal Legend is a legitimate contender for game of the year, as far as I'm concerned. The only things that can realistically change that is Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and possibly The Sabateur, but to be honest, none of them have the appeal they once did to me, save for CoD4:2. If you're into action adventure games, Tim Schafer, or metal at all, you are a fool to not buy and play this game to completion. It's a comedy/metal adventure that you'll never forget.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Halloween Return

In accordance to me having not posted anything in two months, I intend on returning with a more steady flow of aspiration as to not burn out. Perhaps ever week or two. I'll figure it out as I go along. Anyway...

I have a bunch of mini-reviews to gain fervor for my return, as I have done a great many things that I would like to review in the future, but figured snippits of some less noteworthy things still deserved merit.

The Time Traveler's Wife was a chick flick my girlfriend brought me to see as payment for bringing her to see District 9--which I am not reviewing because everyone and their dog has seen it and knows it's pretty much balls tight--and that I was vaguely interested in and I'm a naive Doctor Who fan who drools at the thought of time traveling. The acting was pretty good, but the writing was all off and while the directing had some decent shots, most of it was lackluster. If you want to see basically that same story but done way better, see the "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" story from season four of Doctor Who. The only thing they missed was having Ron Livingston in it. On a personal level, I have a new girlfriend.

Dexter seasons 1-3 had been on my list of things to finish, and having seen all three seasons I believe each one was better than the last. The writing, directing, and acting are always spot on in the show and Michael C. Hall couldn't be a better fit to Dexter Morgan. The story grows with each season, and the character of Dexter follows real development. It's obvious at times that the series is based on novels with quirks in the writing or the presentation of something, but not too much and not too often. I can't wait to start watching season four.

Weeds seasons 1-5 was equally good as Dexter, but for slightly different reasons. The writing was, like Dexter, very well done. I prefer Brian Dannelly as a director, and the cast is stronger overall. Mary Louis-Parker and Hunter Parish were both amazing in Angels In America, and their performances in Weeds do not disappoint. Kevin Nealon is a favorite for his pure comedic value in the show. The progression as the show is the driving force of the plot, as opposed to Dexter's character-drive one. On my top three shows to follow.

No Hero by Warren Ellis is a comic book my ex-girlfriend got me into before we had started dating. Written by the same guy who wrote Crooked Little Vein, the comic is about a world where a league of super-heroes actually exists. They're not like Marvel or DC heroes, but rather in the 70s, there was a drugged formed that pretty much makes you trip out so bad it gives you super powers. Everyone gets different powers, but they are all strengthened to the point of immortality. The issue is, someone's found a way to kill them and they're throwing a fit. The art in it is really interesting, and the writing is very cool. The ending seemed like a giant disappointment to me, so I'm not sure how I can recommend the eight-issue comic, seeming as how it all builds to...blah. Just blah.

Other quick words:

Mass Effect DLC - Pinnacle Station (Xbox 360) is kind of dumb.

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo (Xbox 360) looks cooler than expected, but you're still paying full price on the exact same game.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3) is a competent 2D fighter from the makers of Guilty Gear with a tricky control set-up. Worth it if you like 2D fighters.

Rock Band: The Beatles (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/Wii) is a Rock Band game with lots of The Beatles, and yet somehow not enough. If you know you'll like it, it's worth it.

Dead Rising (Xbox 360) is a zombie sandbox I replayed and got the true ending for the first time. The story is laughable, but the game is still fun as hell.

Later on, according to a new schedule I will eventually make, there will be longer words on these, in no particular order:

Brütal Legend (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
Borderlands (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
The Darkness (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
Earthbound (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)
The Conduit (Wii)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009)

..among other things.

It's good to be back.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Word to your Mothership

So again Fallout 3 has supposedly come out with its last piece of downloadable content and again I have come to finish it in a day and subsequently review it. Let's not waste any time.

Mothership Zeta is the fifth DLC released for the Xbox 360 and will eventually be released on the PlayStation 3. Among the shortest contents released, the story of it is that you're released by hobby-horse-building aliens and must escape. Complete with finding and rescuing cryogenically frozen samurai, cowboys, astronauts, and Alaskan soldiers; exploding alien generators, and an outerspace dogfight. It was obviously pretty sick. My biggest complaint is that the Mothership Zeta is, at times, goddamn impossible to navigate the hallways. Some items are impossible to pick up except at a certain time when you're not even looking for it unless you checked the Fallout wiki before hand. Other than that, the add-on is short and sweet.

Being the shortest DLC with only about three hours of gameplay, it could be argued it's not worth the 800 Microsoft Points (ten dollars) but those people arguing that obviously don't know what they're talking about. What it may be worth to do is waiting until October when Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition comes out with all the DLCs with it. I have spent a total of $110 on everything, where if I waited till October it would have been $60. Despite what everyone may think, it was totally worth it. For those who haven't picked it up, the GOTY is going to be a must-buy. Time to tell those mommies and daddies what you want for Christmas.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Preyers

Most everyone has that game that is "the reason" they bought a next-generation console. Some people got it launch for no reason, sure, but the rest of us needed a reason to cash-in on our PS2s for the Xbox 360. For me, it was two games: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and a crazy first-person shooter that my tattoo artist introduced me to in my first hands-on experience with a 360.

Prey (2006) was a game that was supposed to be released around the same time as Duke Nukem Forever, but OH SNAP Prey ended up coming out after all. Belonging to the vaporware headliners, 3D Realms, the game was in production since 1995, originally supposed to be for the Nintendo 64. The main character went through name changes, the soundtrack went from KMFDM to something less industrial, and the graphics became some of the best I've ever seen on the Xbox 360--especially dating back to 2006. The demo had the first two levels and a bunch of multiplayer levels. The main reason this wasn't released thirteen years ago as opposed to only three years ago was what the game engine needs: variable gravities, portals that Valve would have trouble sinking their teeth into, and reflections in mirrors and the aforementioned portals that reality can barely talk shit to.

The story of the game is thus: you are a prick Cherokee who wants your girlfriend to move away from the reservation. She, along with your traditional Native American grandfather, like being a Cherokee and want to stay. Before you can start arguing too much about whether or not Cherokee beliefs are crap or not, aliens abduct you, kill your grandfather, and you must embrace your Cherokee abilities in stepping outside of your body, coming back to life after death, and following your dead pet hawk's ghost around. The shooting is functional, in the way that enemies fall down when you shoot them. The rest of the gameplay--especially the groundbreaking ones--work really well with environmental puzzles usually involving you needing to flip the gravity in the room, go through a specific portal, or use your out-of-body experiences to walk through otherwise impenetrable forcefields and press a button to turn them off.

The plot of the game definitely keeps you coming back, and is nearly absent of the frustrating segments that make some shooters near unplayable. Your ability to not die is done by every time you do die, you have to shoot some flying things with a bow and arrow to build your life back up, and then you respawn exactly where you were. A good way to avoid frustration while keeping the mid-life spat short and engaging, but, like a hooker on a virgin, it does suck all the challenge out of the game out. The only challenge of the game exists before you get the ability to access the spirit world and come back to life after shooting the Disgraced Ancestor, at least on Cherokee difficulty because the only difference between the two settings is that the harder one doesn't have health pick-ups. The story claiming that we're a species of seed planted by alien races so they could feed seems a bit far-reaching for aliens. There are far easier ways to make food.

The multiplayer is under-played now, and never really set worlds on fire in the first place. The game is much like The Darkness with its slightly innovative ideas (gravity shifting in Prey, imp crazy in The Darkness) still were not beating Gears of War and Halo 3--there were no Prey clans. Forgoing this one tacked one aspect of what fills the title of "the game", it is one of the most under-appreciated gems in the world of first person shooters.

The game received better than average reviews at the time of its release and has gotten several review references in my personal favorite, Zero Punctuation, as a good game. I've bought some titles for only that: nothing, but random random game cases that pop up whenever Yahtzee spouts off the words "good game" (by the way, expect a review of Beyond Good and Evil for the PS2 coming soon). But this game has a super low price tag (as does Beyond Good and Evil--find out if it's worth it, in the future when I finish it and write a review) so it's only a couple of bucks to play a great game.

When I bought an Xbox 360 and my two choice games it cost me, after Target employee discounts and Best Buy Rewards, three hundred dollars. This included the Xbox 360 Pro back when it was $400, Prey when it was priced at $59.99, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Limited Edition was priced at $70. I got an awesome deal, even considering I've spent another hundred dollars on a new Elite and another four dollars on rebuying Prey after it became another casualty to the games that got traded in to something even more awesome, as I traded it towards Fallout 3. I was without the game for less than a year, and had to rebuy it--despite its flaws.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Joint Hookup

So, Bethesda announced a while ago that they weren't quite done making expansions for their post-apocalyptic role player, Fallout 3, and that the expansions were going to come out for the PlayStation 3 eventually. Today was the day that the first of the two DLC pieces they put together was released on Xbox Live, and like every other month this happens, I got it the first day, tested it for bugs, and then went about my merry way to more post-nuclear-war-torn US.

Point Lookout once again moves you away from the Capital Wasteland and instead of Alaska, Pittsburgh, or some hidden air force base in DC, we go to Point Lookout, Maryland. The landscape is very different, as all the DLC has offered with a different look at how different areas are dealing with life in an irradiated world, and appears to be a bit bigger than all the previous downloadable areas. The swampland has grown some weird fruits, made people grow in odd ways, and made it sound like a good idea to have your brain operated on. Despite the crazy people, the small settlement at the pier seemed harmless enough. Outside of the normal folks and ghouls around, the enemies in the swamp look like they came out Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes--very weird, and I'm not sure retard strength begins to cover it. Another thing is if you just picked up the game and downloaded the Point Lookout pack, do not go there right away. The creatures here are hard to kill even at level 30, with super good stats, Lincoln's Repeater, and infallible headshots. These baddies do not like going down.

The quest-line seemed a bit shorter than usual--and all the DLC quests have been a bit on the short side. Even the exploration achievement was a bit too easy to get as compared to what I was expecting when I first got to the area. But regardless, it still rocks to have more reason to play Fallout 3. And let me tell you, some of the things that happen will make you say "Double-you tee eff, Mate!" Definitely worth the playthrough, and maybe worth the revisit if you weren't as thorough with exploring as I was and you want to level boost with the good XP amount you get from killing deformed mutant people. The added items, such as the sick energy weapon at the end of the quest, is damn worth it too. One thing this seems to be missing is a few side-quests that the other packs had that made it necessary to go back to those areas at some point, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

All in all, if you have Fallout 3 and have the other expansions, just get this one already and look forward to Mothership Zeta.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

i'm FAMOUS

As you may notice from reading here, I really don't have a lot to say about Sony properties. When I think about it it seems odd to me, if only because in my youth I was very against the Sega Dreamcast, GameCube and the Xbox in exchange for my PlayStation/PlayStation 2 fervor. My very first post here was my first impressions of two particular PlayStation 3 titles, and I have hardly mentioned it since. This is because, as mentioned in my second post here, that I tend to play games on the Xbox 360 unless it is a PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii exclusive. Here is one such PlayStation 3 exclusive that my manager received as a free gift from a game developer and she gave to me because she doesn't have a PlayStation 3.

inFAMOUS for the PlayStation 3 (2009) is a new super-hero sandbox by game developer Sucker Punch Production. You may know Sucker Punch from such games as the Sly Cooper series. inFAMOUS is the company's first game in four years, and it's kind of obvious as to why: it's a PlayStation 3 sandbox game, and it takes a whole room of people just to render the graphics of one of these hobos. But the game came out and I was utterly uninterested, even after playing the demo. Since I got a free copy--and instead of trading for another, better game--I decided to keep it and try it out for the sake of reviewing it for all of the fans I may or may not have reading this.

The story follows Cole McGrath, who is a bike messenger and is unlucky enough to have a package blow up in his hands but lucky enough to survive it and be granted to manipulate electricity in such a way that you can't step in water, hold guns, or make friends particularly easily. Everyone blames this explosion, which killed thousands of people in Empire City--an obvious New York skyline copier--on you. You start on a mission revolving around three big baddies, your friend Zeke, and your estranged love-interest Trish. You go through, fighting through three islands each inhabiting different gangs, and a morality system. The story is really good, and is actually affected by your moral choices. Things that hold true for evil route do not necessarily in the heroic road.

A historically common grudge of mine resurfaces in this game, that I haven't had to explain in a while: the enemy's aim is WAY too good. Their accuracy is that of the highest powered sniper rifle of the face of the planet, but their using automatic machine guns, rocket launchers, and miniguns. In the meantime, I'm scaling buildings, trying to find out where the hell I'm being shot from, and ultimately falling off the building for being too slow at both. And on the subject of climbing, why can't Cole climb chain link fences? The bitch from Velvet Assassin can climb chain link fences. Alex Mercer in Prototype, which is functionally the poor man's inFAMOUS, can climb them too so why can't electricity man? And on other gripes, what is with the soundtrack? The song playing during the credits is among the worst I've heard in a video game.

The good things about the game, other than the story, is the progression of powers. You start with relatively weak powers, but enough to excite you and keep you playing, and each of the other powers add to the excitement. The side quests of the game, which free up territories of the map and make enemies less frquent, are all repeating, but not in a way that gets boring or aggravating. The collecting of dead drop messages and "blast shards" are easy enough and entertaining, even if the "blast shard" collection can get a bit tiresome.

In the end, the game is just like every other sandbox--when it's over, it's totally over. There is less of a need to keep playing after the story is done than usual, unless you played the evil way and killed everyone and then you can just continue killing everyone, but that gets boring after a while. Collecting things, trying to level up by kicking people and then healing them and maybe fighting the odd enemy that happens to spawn nearby, and free running collecting trophies does not a fun post-game-play make.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

What is that, velvet?

Renting games from work sometimes isn't as easy as it sounds. There are games I want to play, but we need to wait until we get a used copy before we're allowed to actually try it. And then, when we get a high-demand title, we have to wait for a second copy, and then if I'm really into a game, say, UFC 2009: Undisputed, then it's hard to motivate myself to try something new. But when I get so fed up with the same ground-and-pound/submission filled minutes, I need something new, even if I fear it will suck.

Velvet Assassin (2009) is developed by SouthPeak, who in recent memory have developed some of the worst games around. Two Worlds, X-Blades, and Legendary--the only game with an original story being the last listed, as the first two were complete and horribly done rip-offs of Oblivion and God of War respectively. I figured Velvet Assassin was a preemptive rip-off of the upcoming Saboteur, which is an artsy World War II stealth action game, just as Velvet Assassin is. Upon playing it, however, it is actually closer to a rip off of Hitman: Blood Money.

Now let me say, the Hitman series is one of my favorites, as you can do whatever you want in regards to stealth or going in guns a-blazing. Velvet Assassin does not let you do this, which is fine for me, because since playing Metal Gear Solid 4 so many times, I've gotten accustomed to restarting the checkpoint every time I'm spotted, but I can imagine this is not what some people want. But what everyone wants doesn't concern me.

The story is as follows: you play British assassin Violette Summer in a hospital as you have memories of some of your best throat-slitting moments, a la Agent 47 being all deadified and coming back in wakeful gun-fire at the end. Where Hitman lets you do pretty much what you want, you MUST be stealthy in Velvet Assassin, which makes the mandatory shotgun segments not make much sense. You can take very little damage, so a straight up gun fight usually leads to reloading. A lot of the gameplay is artificially lengthened making you go all the way back to the beginning just to get a combination for a safe.

All in all, the game was a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be. The stealth was done pretty well, if a bit trial-and-error at times. The graphics are cool, as is the "oh crap" morphine button, that lets you fix whenever you get spotted by one--and only one--Nazi. What I found odd is that the Nazi's didn't seem to care for their fallen comrades until near the end, when they all of a sudden figured out they weren't just sleeping. But the game was fun, and I would consider playing more of it if I had it for longer.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Tandem Fighting Reviews

I know I haven't updated a lot over the past month or two. I haven't had my chance to view/play/read/experience the things I've wanted to write about, so to make up for the lack of updates, I'm gonna review two games for you here.

So, while I was waiting for the inevitably awesome UFC 2009: Undisputed to come out, I needed to fill some of that custom-fighter-gaming need. As I work in a video game store, I had a lot to choose from. Being as I, in a former life, was very interested in wrestling and the games had entertained me as recently as two years ago, I decided to try out the new WWE game.

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania (2009) is the latest installment in the WWE franchise as made by THQ, which is funny, because it plays like the very first THQ wrestling game. The only buttons that do anything are the face buttons. The triggers, bumpers, and dual analog sticks do literally nothing special, as if I was playing this on the PlayStationOne again. Despite the antiquated control, the game was actually really fun. The importing of the roster of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009 (including the Create-A-Superstar) adds a lot to the game in the way of entertainment and gameplay to the story-absent game. The Relive, Rewrite, and Redefine matches were all really fun, as are the Legend Killer gauntlets. I didn't have the game long enough to play online, but I'm sure the constant quick-time events with potentially laggy connections would suck pretty hard. Oh, yeah. All the finishers, irish whips and chain moves are done via quick time events. They get super old, but work relatively well. The game has literally no replay value as far as I could tell, but thats just the way it is, I guess.

So, that game was super fast. I got all the Xbox 360 achievements for it in a day without even trying. Then all I had to do was wait for the UFC game to come out, which finally did and I played literally for a week straight.

UFC 2009 Undisputed (2009) was first written about here when I played the SICK demo. Since then, I would just play the demo when I got bored, waiting for the chance to play the full game. So, the game was released at midnight at my store so when I got home from work, I played until about 6am. I created a character and brought him straight through career, making an undefeated muay thai knee-throwing jui jitsu submitting middleweight. Sick. Then, I made a knockout-artist kickboxer/wrestler heavyweight with thirty-three wins and only one loss. After the career, I brought him online and knocked out sixteen people, then went to my middleweight and submitted seventeen people, only losing six times along the way. Assholes still find a way to drop out when they're losing, mostly by signing out of their profile or just turning off their Xbox when they're about to get tapped, which generally ruins the fun for everyone, but they're not super frequent from what I've noticed.

The aforementioned career mode is pretty fun, starting with creating the fighter you want to proceed in a relatively in depth create mode--one of those ones that takes forever to get good at, but easy enough for anyone to mess around with--then playing roughly thirty-five fights before being forced to retire. In between each fight, you have a certain number of weeks to spar, train, and attend special events. Then the fight occurs, followed by you winning or losing any number of ways and repeat. Training raises your strength, speed, and cardio and sparring gives you points to add to any of your lets say several stats which include all forms and positions of striking offense and defense, plus grappling, takedown, and submission offenses and defenses. You meet the top ranked fighters along the way, fight them, and move up the ladder until you get the championship of whatever weight-class you're in and then defend the belt until the end.

Which brings me to one of my gripes about the game. Weight classes. I was looking forward to beating the hell out of Brock Lesnar as BJ Penn, because I figured it would be funny and Lesnar deserves to get beat by someone 100 lbs less than him, but there are no catchweight fights. You can online fight in one given weight class at a time. Some of the fighters are in two weight classes, but that's not really the same. It's a little problem, but something they should fix as you can play in cross-weight-class fights in things like Fight Night.

They have a classic fights mode, which I honestly haven't played yet, but the basic premise is the same as the Relive matches in WWE Legends of Wrestlemania and you have to exactly recreate the outcome of the matches, which I can imagine will get a bit frustrating as I have on several occassions accidentally knocked someone out or been knocked out when I was going for a submission or decision--especially when you have to win by one particular submission, like a rear-naked choke in the Griffin vs Rua fight that you can only do from one position that doesn't usually yield an actual win, even with huge ranks in submission offense. But whatever, I'm sure those matches will be fun to play eventually.

In the long run, I enjoy both games, but have only kept UFC and intend to keep it and continue playing it until I grow so bored of it that I can never watch another UFC match or until the next one come out, making it my sports game to buy every year like a stupid ass lemming. In other words, I'll be keeping the game.

In an unrelated review, I have the best girlfriend ever. She gave me Earthbound for the SNES. I'm going to play and review it eventually, depending how long it takes me. Sweet deal.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Fixed Steel

It's that time again, where I need to write about Fallout 3 again. New downloadable content, exclusive to the Xbox 360, and I am so happy I didn't get it for the PS3 despite the better graphics. So here it was, Broken Steel, the DLC that came after the at-first-glitchy Pitt, which was glitchy itself, but it was Microsoft's fault--screw them. So the game came out proper, and here's the review, then.

Fallout 3 no longer has that ending where once you beat the game it's over, kaput, and done with. Now you wake you "Two Weeks Later" and start three more quests. Only three. Three quests hardly seems like enough to take out what was left of the Enclave, but it did add a lot to the game, including seeing Liberty Prime do his thing again, breaking into the Presidential Metro beneath the White House, going to an Air Force Base, and raising the level cap to thirty.

The higher level cap is damn good, considering how easy it was to get to twenty but there is a problem, at least for me. I have done all the quests. All the main quests, side quests, DLC quests. So, at the beginnings of level twenty-seven the only thing I have to do to raise my level to thirty is wander around, collect the few things I can turn in for XP and kill things. And, as said in my other Fallout 3 review, I like achievements so the fact I can't get the last three because I can't raise my level without painful HOURS of walking around aimlessly in the Wasteland and shooting everything that moves in the face is aggravating to me.

But that's a minor problem. I could easily start a new game and get there, or just let my roommate do it. The new finale to the game is pretty awesome, and leaves you with a really good karma ending depending on what you do. More DLC has not been announced, but it has been speculated so here's looking forward to that.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

You Eff See De Mo

I really didn't care for fighting games until recently outside the odd WWE game or two because I like the create-a-character section of it (wrestling as an entertainment form bores the hell out of me now that I'm no longer fifteen). But I started playing Soul Calibur IV and fell in love with the new Street Fighter but now is another WWE-ish (but way-the-hell better) fighting game that I scored a demo code to.

UFC 2009 Undisputed Demo codes were granted to people who pre-ordered it at GameStop, and I love swag. So, in preparation for my UFC 97: Redemption shindig I have going on, I played the hell out of it. The demo is a lot like a Fight Night demo: tutorials and an exhibition option where you can play as one of two fighters and beat the hell out of the person you didn't pick. In this demo, it's Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell--a fight that is actually happening TONIGHT. I was looking for a real reason to buy this game, and I think I just got it with this demo.

Firstly: the control. I was worried the controls wouldn't work very well, with the history of UFC games that came out. The controls are complicated, but work really well once you get the hang of it. The face buttons are kicks and punches. Heavier punches and kicks are done by pressing the left stick forward, as if leaning in to the punch. The D-Pad is used for taunting. Blocking is done with the right bumpers and triggers, bumper for face and trigger for body. To strike the head exclusively, press the left bumper. For the body, left trigger. To grapple in a clinch or on the ground, use the right stick. The most complicated part is how you have to do Skate-like flicks of the right stick to change position while on the ground, but they are easy to do once you watch the tutorial--something I didn't do until I had already played for about an hour. I would suggest doing the tutorial first.

Second: the fights. I was concerned the fights wouldn't make sense. Chuck Liddell sure as hell better not try to submit me, and if I can't throw a well-timed and well-placed superman punch right out the bell and knock some out there is some unrealistic issues to be dealt with. But what do you know, I could go a round and rock them (Fight Night slow time style), knock them down, knock them out, submit them (after I watched the tutorial) and even knocked out Rua with a single counter-kick to the head. I was so pleasantly surprised, it's almost unfair.

I fought several fights as both characters, knocking out, submitting, and being knocked out for a few hours and I didn't even get bored. The submitting is a bit difficult from what I can tell as I couldn't actually win in the first round with a submission, but I'm pretty sure it's actually harder to submit someone than it is to knock their teeth in. I am looking forward to the full game, the actual fights taking place tonight, and having my little party of fighting, beer, and video games. Word.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

The Shitt

As can be seen on the bar to the right and as I have mentioned, Metal Gear Solid 4 is my personal pick for best game of 2008. The stealth play was great and engaging, as were the first play-through where I decided guns solved the answers to all questions. A very--and I mean very--close runner up was Fallout 3. I loved The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the thought of Oblivion with guns and post-apocalyptic goodness excited me to no end. I waited countless hours at the local game store--not even my store, mind you--to get a pre-street dated copy as their shipments came sooner in the week, but later in the day. When Operation: Anchorage came out, I gobbled it up right before my 360 red-ringed. And now, the latest DLC has been released and re-released because of glitching and I couldn't wait to dive in.


The Pitt takes you out of the wastes of Washington DC and puts you in the rubble of Pittsburgh. As with Operation: Anchorage, the quest line is started with a radio signal you picked up via your PipBoy, which while it seems to repeat a few times, it is infinitely better than the Oblivion method of adding DLC quests by "A messenger brought you a deed to a place your long-lost relative left to you." But you find yourself at the very top of the map buying some slaves, taking their clothes, and then taking a train cart to Pittsburgh which is now known as The Pitt and posing as a slave so you can eventually find a cure for radiation poisoning. It all makes sense in the game, I swear.

The game is still fantastic, as always, and the new DLC shares all the good graphics, writing, humor, and style of the rest of the original Fallout 3. Length-wise, it only took me about five hours and I could have done it significantly sooner if I didn't spend so much time looking for all one hundred steel ingots. Speaking of which, I am the kind of gamer achievements were made for, but I hate collection achievements. Twenty bobbleheads was a pain enough, but one hundred steel ingots was just stupid and unfair, even though they were all in the same area. But anyway, the length of the DLC was a bit longer than Operation: Anchorage, but not by much, and it has the added benefit of being able to be returned to at any time throughout the game despite what ending you choose. And the scenery of Pittsburgh, while doesn't offer the vastness of the Capital Wasteland, does give an appreciated change. But, as with most games you've beaten the hell out of, once it's over, it's over.

The DLC is definitely worth the 800 Microsoft Points ($10), and I would suggest it to anyone who has the game and Xbox Live. Now I just wish I had some MS Points left over so I could download Don't Stop Believin' for Rock Band this coming week.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Senko Yes Ronde

As previously stated, I work at a video game store. The people I work with are gamers, much like myself. We don't always like the same types of games, obviously. One of my coworkers is very into fighting games. When we started hanging out, I couldn't have disagreed more. I prefer games with a good story and interesting and fun gameplay. The "same crap, different shovel" approach to games is NOT what I'm going for. But in the time I've been there, fighting games have grown on me. One game in particular caught me awkwardly. When it was first presented to me I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen--absolutely pointless and why the hell is this even on my tv? The next morning, I couldn't get it out of my brain and I wanted to play it.

WarTech: Senko No Ronde for the Xbox 360 (2007) was originally released in 2005 as an arcade game in Japan. Less than a year and a half later, it was ported to the 360 in Japan and nearly a year later, the Ubisoft brought the game to the states. Why Ubisoft did that I will never understand. Then again, I will never understand why Ubisoft publishes games like Haze and the Imagine series when it could be doing Assassin's Creed, No More Heroes, and Rainbow Six. Publishing companies have been going up and down in ranking of completely useless to pioneering and fun--places that historically were held by EA and Activision respectively and completely flip-flopped in 2008--but Ubisoft have always pushed a few really good titles while grinding out the crap with a vengeance. Not as harshly as CodeMasters, but crap nonetheless.

Since story is so important to me, I feel like I should mention it here. Problem is, I've never been able to decipher it. So here is what Wikipedia says.

"Due to a past catastrophe on Earth, humanity was forced to live amongst the stars for several centuries, resulting in the creation of the S.D. calendar and the birth of the Aria Federation, an empire whose influence extends from Earth to Saturn. In S.D. 1478, an embassy located within the empire's capital on Earth's moon was seized by terrorists, and forces deployed by Aria's Special Space Service ended in disaster as the terrorists triggered a self-detonation device, killing themselves and several civilians in the process.

The actual game begins six years after this event, with the player assuming the role of one of eight characters who will become involved in a mastermind's scheme to take control of the Aria Federation's superweapon and use it for his own purposes."

Yeah, I'm not even sure if that's right. But there it is, I guess.

WarTech is a cross between a top-down shooter a la R-Type and a 2D fighting game. You're probably thinking what my cousins, friends, and siblings think when they see me play it: Double-you tee eff. That's what I thought too. I thought this was the most retarded collection of pixels to ever invade my television, and I couldn't wait till my friend left and took the abomination with him. But the next morning as I play Soul Calibur, I couldn't help but want to taste the graphical explosions of that Japanese epileptic seizure. I went to my local game store and bought a used copy for less than $10.

Each character has a crappy anime picture of them, but its irrelevant because they fight in these robot suits called Rounders (don't ask me why, I don't know). These Rounders shoot random patterns of lasers and bombs until someone presses the right trigger and the Rounder becomes the irritating B.O.S.S. at the end of all those levels of Aegis Wing. Problem is that this mode is harder than hell to control. Unless you have a strategy guide in front of you--or you're Japanese--you don't know what buttons do what, so it more or less becomes "Button-mashing mode" and hoping something you're hitting will be the ultra-super attack that wrecks the other player. The BOSS mode is a good way to save yourself if you're low on health and a good way to kill your opponent if you can press it before they do.

Other than the obvious Versus mode, there is a Score Attack, which is basically arcade mode, and a Story mode. I have beaten Score Attack with every character and Story with all but one and I had NO idea what the story for the game was until I started writing this review and looked it up. That, and they all speak in Japanese, with tiny English subtitles. Even in the middle of fights, when the last thing you're paying attention to in the maelstrom of blasters, missiles, and spinning melee attacks are the semi-transparent little faces with words coming out of them.

Where Soul Calibur is a fighting game which is based on the 360 degree fighting arena and your moves being particular to what angle you're attacking from, Mortal Kombat is based on the unique moves of each character, Street Fighter is based on each characters strengths and weaknesses, and Virtua Fighter is based on combos, WarTech's fighting system is based on how close or how far away you are from each other. When you're far away, you fire wildly. A little closer, and it gets a bit more concentrated. Closer to the inner circle, you spin out of control and try to hit them with a melee attack. It was hard to get at first, but after a couple of matches, the gameplay really comes together.

I tend to recommend this game to most everyone I know, but it's mostly because I think it's funny to see their confused faces. No one ever plays it. It is a crazy storm of random crap that will never make sense and is far too short to ever amount to too much fun. But for under $10, even brand new, you really can't lose. It's been compared a lot to Virtual On, which I played once on my Dreamcast, so if you've actually played and enjoyed those games, I would seriously suggest WarTech: Senko No Ronde. Otherwise, I will suggest you play it only because it amuses me.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Biases and Preferences

I realize that part of the reason my Killzone 2 first impression "review" was so long was I kept interjecting with reasons why I felt certain ways, comparing to other games--especially when it came to online multiplayer. So I figured to avoid that in the future I'd make a short list of things that will be present in my reviews and why I may say some of the things I will usually say.

Video games - I am a gamer. Most of my reviews will probably be for things of this type. I own an Xbox 360, a PlayStation 3, a Nintendo Wii, a Sega Dreamcast, and a PC. With very few exceptions, any game that is multiplatform I will play for the Xbox 360. I enjoy all kinds of games, from first-person shooters to in depth role-playing games to fighting games. I like a lot of artistic games as well as the exploration of game as an actual art form. Graphics are important, but do not make or break gameplay, except in the case of overly chibi-anime graphics that I cannot stand and won't play past the first few hours. Persona 4 is a good example for this. The gameplay was fantastic and I was really into it, but the graphics couldn't let me enjoy the game properly. As previously mentioned in my Killzone 2 impression, I don't spend a lot of time with online multiplayer. My reviews of games will not always be positive, as I work at a gaming retailer and have access to all kinds of games. My reviews of games will not always be new titles; a lot of them will be retrospective titles that I have a lot to say about, especially if I find the game hasn't garnered the attention it should have.

Movies - I do not watch as many films as I used to, with school and work eating my life. I like a lot of gore, but I also enjoy comedy, drama, and pretty much anything that will entertain me. From seeing movies with friends, I find I do not watch films the way most people do. I named In Bruges my best film of 2008 not to be contrary from most people swooning over The Dark Knight as many have accused me of, but because the entire movie was fantastic. The acting, the soundtrack, and--most of all--the directing was out-of-this-world good. The directing of a film can break a film that has a lot going for it (ie The Da Vinci Code) but it cannot--or at least very rarely--save a bad film (a la Silent Hill). When the art direction of a game is also good, such as Sin City, a lot of other things can be forgiven. The characters of a film also must draw attention and be relatable in order to feel some form of sympathy for them. The first three Saw movies did this well, making you feel that the victims didn't necessarily deserve to die for their "crimes"--something Saw IV threw out the window when it was rapists and wife-beaters being killed as they rightly deserved, taking away from the sympathy and therefore the unpleasantness that should be expected from watching a torture-porn film. Classic movies are also a favorite of mine, and I hope to review some of them as well. With the current spewing out of half-assed films, a lot of reviews on newer movies may not be very positive.

Television - My favorite television show of all time is M*A*S*H. I own all eleven seasons on DVD and watch them regularly. Some of favorite currently airing shows are House, M.D. and Doctor Who. I enjoy a lot of comedy in my television watching, but a taste of drama is necessary to keep me coming back. When I review a show, I may review an entire season, a single episode, or perhaps even the series to date, depending on the life of the show. A lot of my TV watching is spent either on DVD or Nick at Night, when I'm doing homework in the background, so it is safe to assume a lot of my reviews of television shows will be from the past, but the new season of Doctor Who will lend to a few interesting reviews regarding that show and the history of it's 45-year life. A lot of what I said for films is also true for television, so expect different opinions on shows than your used to.

Books - I also don't get to read as often as I would like, outside of books for literature classes. My favorite authors are Chuck Palahniuk, Mike McCormack, TA Barron, and Christopher Rice. I tend to not read books I don't like, so a lot of my reviews on books will be positive. There probably won't be as many classic reviews as with other mediums as I don't particularly enjoy the classics, but I do appreciate some of them. Some of my book reviews may be closely related to poetry or an art form of some kind. Some reviews may be based off books I read in my youth, and if I feel particularly venomous, I may give my scathing opinion on JK Rowling, the stupid bitch.

Music - I am a metalhead, but I also listen to a lot of different music. The only thing you will not hear me listening to on a regular basis is rap music. I listen to avante garde stuff, some straight rock, some soft acoustic music, thrashing metal, folk, punk, alternative, and really anything that catches my ear in a good way. My pick for best album of 2008 was Amanda Palmer's debut solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer after her departure from one of my favorite groups, The Dresden Dolls. The choice for best album for me to the wire between Ms Palmer and Weezer's Red Album. I am the host of a radio show, which you can listen to 9PM to midnight EST on Mondays on http://www.wmwmonline.com.

Other reviews I post, such as for concerts or sporting events will probably be limited to UFC events as I am a big mixed martial arts fan. I do not base my reviews on any outside sources, only on my own experiences. Being articulate and having an opinion is something I enjoy, so there will hopefully be all kinds of reviews coming here in the future. With more reviews will hopefully come a readership, so I hope this will turn into a regular happening.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor