Wier Reviews: Dragon Age 2

Cool logo right? I mean it just exudes an aura of bad assery that most men dare not to dream possible in a RPG. But alas, beauty is merely skin deep in what I had hoped to be the next great step in a new and glorious series. Let me preface this review with a few notes about how I had originally planned to approach reviewing this game. At first I thought I would just do a direct compare and contrast to Dragon Age Origins but I found that would be a too depressing prospect the longer I played the game. Then I considered making it a "10 reasons why Dragon Age 2 is WORSE than real life" to be an amusing doppelganger to my DA:O review. Then I finished the game and the disillusioned rage I felt at that point filled my heart with such great darkness that I could not even begin to take the affront as lightly as I had hoped. The game had evolved into something higher level than the farce I thought it to be, it had become a cruel visage of something I had grown to love and a stain on the honor of the reputable story tellers at Bioware. Lo' the sky did darken and the heavens did split and from the blackness poured into our world a mediocre Bioware game!

Holy Quickies!

As I peruse through my list of games I've gone through with Gamefly, I realize that I haven't really said much about most of these games to anyone.  Hmmm.  Lets blitz through this! Reviews One paragraph or less!  RETS DO DIS!  LEEEEEEEEERRRRROOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Wier Reviews: RIFT Planes of Telara

Rift is the product of a company called TRION that is trying to cut itself a little slice of the MMORPG cash pie. Rather than fall into the classic pit fall of people trying to compare one MMO to another I will instead approach this situation as if I had not played any other MMORPG in my life but still know what they are about. After which I will promptly compare it to other MMOs.

Holy Review: Halo: Reach

Bungie has ridden the wave, and now it's time to move on. Ever since their first mega-hit Halo:Combat Evolved was launched with the original XBox system back in 2001, Halo has been their flagship franchise. Man. Has it really been 10 years since the original Halo was first published? Good god my age is beginning to show. Well, I'm going to have to say, bravo and thank you to Bungie. Wait what? I'm giving them thanks!? I fucking hate Halolololololo. But... But wait... Why do I hate Halo? This puzzles and confuses the Holy.

Goddamnit internet.  Goddamnit.

From a pure game standpoint, the Halo series isn't so bad. Halo has always pushed the edge of FPS gaming on the console level(Until COD4 came along but that's a different story). Graphically, all the Halo games have been up there. Lets be real. The story isn't that terrible. Hey, deep down inside. We all want to be Master Chief. I am greatly going off on a tangent here, lets get to the review.

First Impressions: FFXIV

Hip hip hurray! I get to tell you all about the latest and well...latest JRPG to come crawling form the Twisting Nether of creativity known as Japan! That's right boys and girls Wier is bringing to you a first impressions from a hands on with FINAL FANTASY XIV!!!!!



Ironically this JRPG is actually what we call a "Korean Grinder" MMORPG. What the hell is that you ask? I'm not 100% sure. I think it has something to do with being mindfuckinglingy frustrating. Let me come clean here. I am a Final Fantasy fan. Yeah I said it. But I am a Final Fantasy Fan that assumes that Satan took over the series and befouled it with malefic mediocrity energy after the release of 7. Or at least a Final Fantasy fan that realizes that Square + Enix is like EA + Anything, a vile machination not fit for human eyes. I must also admit that I am a WoW addict and therefor immune to all other MMORPGs that try and take my soul from the vice like grip of my little blizzard baby bear. So when I heard that there was a Squeeenix game on the table that was a MMORPG I knew I would hate it. Putting aside my hatred for jpop culture and the advent of the shiny spiky hared heroes...heroines....I think they are men. Heroes. Anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Oh yes. I put aside from hatred for these things and waded waste deep into my Final Fantasy Adventure.

First things first, I had to create a character. So I decided that if I am going to play something that was 1 part fan service and 1 part totally gay I would go ahead and pick the furriest/sexiest thing I could find (and no, I'm not INTO that). As such I became a Miqo'te which looks as follows:


Wait...maybe I am into....Ugh er never mind. Anyway, I shit you not. That's what they look like. That lesbionic fan art is 100% accurate. Why? Well from what I could tell there are NO males of this race and therefor they reproduce through some kinky cat-girl sex ritual. Either that or they divide themselves on a cellular level to produce copies which is totally asinine because clearly there is no lack of diversity. Anyway, after picking the race I had to pick the general look and yadda yadda. I had to choose a tribe which I'm not sure mattered to the min/max of the game. So I picked the ones that worship the sun thinking I would get some sort of bonus in sun light or something. Then after that I got to pick a diety. Not really sure that this did for me so I went ahead and picked the most evil God on the table. His name was Rhalgr, the destroyer. Feeling particularly metal at this point I decided to go with the ever amazing Fisher class. That's right, you can choose to be a fisher as your starting level class. To further enhance the amount of metal that I would experience during my adventure I named my freaky cat-girl Tiddlywinks Buttons. With all my character creation done it was time to take Tiddlywinks Buttons into the game world and do some good old fashioned monster slaying! Right?.....Not so much.

Let me start this section off by telling you all that there are three locations to start from. I chose Ul'dah. Because...well....duh. This (as do all three) begins with a completely worthless cut scene that takes you into what I suspect was meant to be a battle tutorial. Unfortunately for Tiddlywinks her only ability at level 1 as a fisher was "Throw Rock" which did a grand total of 2 damage. Considering that I started with 400 life I assumed that this was bad news. "Well at least it is realistic" I told myself thinking that it would be irrational for a level 1 fisher to have the ability to pull a vorpal blade out and split a big green ugly down the middle. My other ability at this level was "find fish" which would allow me to find a pool of fish within "400 yalms" which I assume is retardo land for yards. Ok, before I move on I have to tell you about the combat. First you click on an enemy, press 1 to enter battle mode, press the number for your attack and then click on the enemy for some reason to make it go again. Then you have to keep pressing the attack key or your character will sit there and be eaten alive. After that encounter and about three more cut scenes I was dropped into the world with absolutely no direction.

It was at this point that I realized OH SHIT there are a ton of menus in this game. So I had to go into a menu to bring up the menu that would give me the menu to find my quests. Keep in mind that some of these menus are labeled with made up RPG lingo that would have only made sense if I were given a proper tutorial, which I wasn't. Several EVE online menus later I found myself heading out of a...very large and confusingly built city out into the great big world. Tiddlywinks took up her mighty fishing pole and ventured to the first camp. As I journeyed down to my first questing node I began to realize a terrible mistake I had made. Apparently in my infinite wisdom I somehow ended up in the desert zone. One thing about a desert zone is a crippling lack of water and therefor....very very few fishing opportunities. This critical error would become rather evident when I realized how I must level as a fisher. The first quest node told me to get attuned to some crystal so I went up to the crystal in the center and started clicking it....Right clicking maybe? Double clicks? Uhh.... can I target it somehow? Well dash it all man what do I do?! What's that? There's an exclamation point on the top center of my screen looking as inconspicuous as an old lady in a retirement home? Well clearly I need to click that! God forbid I be given to convenience of double clicking a target to interact with it like I had been doing with every other freaking NPC until I got to that point.

Well, whatever! QUEST TIME! Time to begin this great adventure Tiddlywinks Buttons! My first quest is...To go fish up some fish. Well that is logical. Away I go to a far away oasis to catch me some fish. After a moment of time to learn map markings and mini map icons I made my way through the desert. There I was at my first objective ready to fish! Then a big bug came out of nowhere and one shot me causing a silent rage filled "Wtf?!" to echo through my psyche. So there the great Tiddlywinks lay dead...unmoving and well...nothing happened. I just got to sit there staring at my corpse wondering when I would get to release or respawn or what. After a minute of sitting there it flashed in my mind that this may very well be some sort of terrible "hard core" mmorpg where death = permanent death. I thought that was pretty fucking harsh for the low level fisher whose only crime was going where the game told her to on her very first quest! I suppose if I rolled a fighter I would have been sent to an Ancient Red Dragon's layer that had 4 heads and breathed armor melting acid. That would have been equally balanced... Oh well so after reading carefully through the menus AGAIN I found a way to "Return" to my questing point of origin. Needless to say the fact that I had to go through a menu option to DIE left me a little annoyed.

Rather than continue the debacle of Tiddlywinks Buttons the Fisher in the desert I decided it was time to give up on the game. The fact of the matter was the game was simply uninteresting at that point. At first I was excited to play an unconventional class. I was excited to be involved in the main story through character integration in cut scenes and I was even excited to stare at Tiddlywinks Buttons' sexy sexy cat lady body. But alas, my hopes were too high. Final Fantasy XIV had a legitimate chance to actually hook me into another MMORPG because it felt different enough to where I wanted to give it a chance. Unfortunately the story was too flat to be interesting, the menus were a total nightmare, the battle system was tragically painful to use, and the mechanics are never very well explained. All and all it was a very good looking but VERY clunky mess.

It is with a less than surprised sigh I must give Final Fantasy XIV 3 Miqo'te Samurai out of 7.

Red Dead Redemption Review

Today I have for you a review of the latest and well...latest Rockstar Sandbox Mini-Game Waste Time'a'thon title Red Dead Redemption!

Rather sit here and ramble like I normally would I'll go ahead and break this review into arbitrary categories.

Story: In Red Dead Redemption you play as John Marston (presumably of the Mars colony Marstons) a man trying to escape his troubled past who is called upon by the U.S. government to hunt down and kill his old crime pals. If he manages to kill is former outlaw comrades then he will gain the ability to return home to his wife and son and live happily ever after. I suppose this is the whole "Redemption" part of the game. I would tell you what happens next but I assure you the other characters in the game will tell you at great length exactly what the hell is going on. This is not to say that the story by any means is BAD, it actually is quite good and compelling enough to want to play through it. The problem is that there is almost a little too much of it.

The Opening Sequence (Minor spoilers ahead, this is a review after all you twit): In recent gaming history developers have decided that the point of the opening sequence of a game is to hook you in as if it were a movie rather than something you play. When you're trying to tell a story with a game this makes sense but sometimes you find yourself telling more story than actually allowing the player to PLAY the GAME. You start off on a train listening to old people, a preacher, and the spawn of Satan (a nice young lady) chat about their atheist tendencies, the weather, piles of cow dung and how they probably hate Indians. I imagine this is supposed to be a critical look at Americas past and the moral ambiguity of the time but it all came off as BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. I found myself wondering why I didn't just go to some pretentious coffee shop where I would have gotten the same experience. Anyway, the long boring cut scene ends and you get control of your character with the direction "Walk to the saloon." and you think "Awesome now I get to play!". Unfortunately this probably would have been better labeled as a quick time event that read "Press X To Continue Cut Scene™". So I get to the Saloon and enter another cut scene. Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH. I decided to make some popcorn at this point thinking I had accidentally wandered into a Hideo Kojima game. Then I get to ride on a horse, ho ho! Surely the game begins now! Well...no. You get on the horse and press and hold X to continue the cut scene. You see the X allows you to auto follow your guide on the horse freeing you up to pay attention to the following 8 minutes of dialogue on your long horse ride to your first objective whereupon you are promptly shot in another cut scene and then wake up to even more cut scenes. Needless to say Rockstar really wants you to understand the story, the weather, the feelings of your neighbors and how to create extensive exposition.

Controls: After all the blithering and subsequent bouts of blithering that follow from other characters you find yourself playing an actual game. Let's be clear before I start here, this is an ACTION game. That means that ACTION will occur. Seldom during an ACTION packed game do you find it necessary to be strolling leisurely about. John's default speed is grandma slow where he casually walks about and turns at awkward angles to ensure that you will not only not be able to make it up 4 inch tall steps but you also will hit the wall 18 times before you successfully enter a building. To further infuriate you the game asks you to HOLD DOWN X to run and then asks you to tap x repeatedly in order to sprint faster. So that's joystick to stroll, hold x to jog, and tap x furiously to run away. This is basically annoying when you find yourself accidentally walking around in gun fights because you forgot that the controls for running are retarded. Speaking of combat, the gun play in the game is not the bee's knees either. You've got a simple 3rd person gun control set up with the shoulder buttons, L1 to ready, R1 to shoot, fantastic. That's easy enough. The issue comes in from the auto lock on mechanic. Supposedly this is to help you aim, but actually it just confuses you. Sometimes the lock on works, momentarily, as it follows what you were kind of trying to aim at for all of a second before drifting off presumably because John got bored and his crippling ADD diverted his attention to the floor. The are other times where the auto lock on doesn't seem to work at all causing you to drop aim in an attempt to lock on again instead of just trying to aim yourself. Honestly they should have just dropped the feature and let the player PLAY the game. Heaven forbid that you actually have to aim at something to hit it. I suppose the game was trying to take the Final Fantasy approach to game design where there is as little game as possible to actually play without having to not call it a Video GAME. Oh well, at least there are horses right? Surely some part of this game has fluid controls. I suppose the controls of the horse are fluid if you find driving a tractor through a pit of tar a natural way to steer a horse. Rockstar has had a long tradition of making vehicles of any sort almost humanly impossible to actually work right, so it's no surprise that after ruining cars, bikes, motorcycles, helicopters and walking that they would move on to ride-able animals. I'm looking forward to Grand Theft Ostrich Races where the Ostrich handles like a brick glued to the back of a kitten.

Environment: Typically when someone mentions the environment it's so they can complain about oil spills or baby turtle ducks made of gasoline and discarded plastic bottles. However, I mean the actual scenery of the game! Red Dead Redemption sports a rather stunning and vast landscape that features a lot of open area to explore. The plains are rolling and empty (save some animals, random bandits, and even more deadly animals) with the human settlements being sparsely set up all around. This actually gives you a feeling of being in the time period which bodes well with that whole open world concept which Rockstar is known for. I would go as far to say that the more open and less densely populated world is a more interesting environment to explore than the bustling cities in Grand Theft Autos past. The game is simply a delight to look at which in some small part makes up for the failure of some of the actual game play.

Being An Outlaw: One of the features of Rockstar games is often the ability to be an outlaw if you so choose to be. This means you spread mayhem and destruction at will and collect the floating cash piles off the corpses of the innocents you have slaughtered. Unfortunately Red Dead Redemption falls short on the whole Outlaw scope that other Rockstar games have. Allow me to give you an example. Upon first playing this game I found myself in the first town distracted by the little mini games (we'll get to these next). I ended up sitting down and playing poker. Since I am as bad at poker in games as I am in real life I sort of lost my arse off. This lead me to the logical conclusion that I could just kill the other players and claim that they were cheating (they are computers after all) and get away with it. I got up, drew my gun, and they all ran out screaming before I could kill anyone. Then I was WANTED. Rather than allow my prey to escape (I am a sore loser at poker) I waltzed out to hunt them down whereupon I was being shot at by the law. Doing a quick bit of math (I was given 80 bullets to start, there are less than 40 people in this town and each person takes on average 1.2 bullets to kill...) I decided that I should just slaughter the town. So I went on my merry way shooting everyone. I mean EVERYONE (I found this a little bit ironic considering that I shot all these people with no complaint from the main character but whenever I went to skin an animal I had shot he complained like a sissy girl how gross it was, I guess he works for P.E.T.A. or something). After having slaughtered everyone I gleefully walked into the jail broke into the safe looted to place and found a "Letter of Pardon". "What the hell is this?" I wondered as I went to the telegraph to check how bad my bounty was at this point. I remembered shooting the telegraph operator a couple minutes ago but that didn't stop me from approaching the desk and turning in the "Letter of Pardon" to have all my crimes dismissed right away. Assuming my hands were red with the blood of my enemies I can only imagine what sort of government pencil pusher thought that documentation was official when it had bloody hand prints all over it and was probably inked in baby's blood. In short, being an outlaw is unnecessary and far too easy to get rid of. I long for a game where being a murderous jerk off isn't something you can overcome by writing an apology note or doing a bit of charity for the children you orphaned.

Mini-Games: As I mentioned earlier there is a poker mini-game that you can play in an attempt to win cash which is ultimately pointless. There is also a game of horse shoes and a flower picking race (in case you're a girl or of questionable sexual leanings). Hunting and skinning also comes off as a mini game as it serves no purpose beyond selling animal parts for money. If you decide to go hunting for money prepare to hear and endless stream of bitching and moaning from captain planet, I mean John. There are also races in the game which you may as well just give up on since your retarded inbred horse is sooner to fly you to the moon than it is to handle well enough for you to win. There is a fun bit of breaking horses for money that you can do but I was disappointed when I found out that breaking horses didn't mean that I got to beat mine with a bat until it learned how to steer properly. Once again, this is all meant to get you money which is basically completely pointless. You'll find yourself rolling in so much money that you will never have to worry about buying guns, bullets or potions ever. The guns you wont need to buy because you get them on missions, bullets are easy to come by, and the potions regenerate things that already regenerate on their own anyway. I suppose if you find yourself getting cold at night you could just burn all your money in a fire for warmth. (If you ever grow bored of these follow the standard Grand Theft Auto map to the nearest letter to continue the story missions).

Conclusion: All game play flaws aside this game is actually a bit of fun. It's a well told (if not long winded) story with a great looking setting and immersing environment. You will actually want to finish this game if you get beyond the starting town and the Blah fest that precedes it. This is a solid buy for anyone and it has enough value in it that you'll want to play it a few times over if for no other purpose than just exploring the big old sand box that it has to offer you. All I can warn you is BEWARE THE WILD LIFE, if it kills you the game will punish you by sending you all the way back to your last save point which was probably a 30 minute ride in the other direction.

This game gets a solid 4 nerf six shooters out of 6.

Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier

Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier

If you’re a fan of anime, big robots, hot ladies, some of whom happen to be robots, and a turn base RPG with a twist, this game is for you. Another gem brought over to the DS by Atlus, and the localization is done really well. The Japanese audio during combat is left intact, if you’re into that. You’ll get to roam about the Endless Frontier, which is several different worlds linked to each other by these Cross Gates, which allow access between them. While exploring a wrecked ship he comes across a sleeping girl and his adventures just take off from there. These strange crystals show up and seem to be destroying parts of the world or controlling people. He and his crew race around the different worlds trying to stop the crystals from spreading.

This game is kind of a traditional rpg with random encounters, and grinding. There is a unique gameplay element though. You’re able to have a total of 7 people throughout the game, including 1 slot for a special unit you’ll find out later on. The first four are the ones you will actually be using in combat, with the latter four being the support you can call on to attack during your turn. All your characters get experience even if they aren’t in the front, so you don’t have to worry about keeping your characters balanced. Each character has several different attacks they will learn as you level up, with their damage/costs differing. You can also use the menu on each character before you attack, and use an item, ability, a special skill, or defend. The primary mechanic here is to rack up as many hits as possible and keep the enemy in the air. If they hit the ground they will revert to blocking (if they were blocking before) or may end up going into forced evasion, in which all your attacks will do no damage. As you fight you will build up a meter that will let your character do a special attack. This Frontier Gauge will fill up faster with air combos as well as support attacks, which cost 5 SP. Your party starts out with 100% COM which lets them attack a maximum of five times per turn. During this turn they can call in a rear character for a support attack for a 5% in the frontier gauge, or switch to the character next in rotation for a 10% boost in the gauge as well as a 30% boost to their COM. Another key thing to figure out is that you can cancel any attack at a certain time and move onto the next for a boost in the frontier gauge. This may be better as well, as some attacks tend to leave the enemies dangerously close to the ground if you don’t time it well.

Here’s an example, as well as an introduction to Kaguya, one of the party members in the game.

Here’s an example of a turn of attacks you can do to keep the enemy in the air.

Haken Browning, a bounty hunter who fancies himself a cowboy. He’s your typical gunslinger guy with a rifle and pistols, and he is built for criticals. Most of his attacks are easy to cancel and he’s good at juggling opponents. I used him throughout the game.

Aschen Brodel is his constant companion, a cyborg who has a party girl mode when she uses her full power. A lot of her attacks are easy to cancel and she does decent damage, but I usually set her as support when I get a full party.

Kaguya Nanbu is a princess from Kagura Amahara, who is on a pilgrimage traveling all the known worlds. Aschen estimated her bust to be 100cm and she is the target of many jokes throughout the game. She can end up being pretty powerful, and she is the best healer in the game.

Suzuka is a shiki-oni princess from Kagura Amahara, and she controls a mecha called Jyaki-GUN-oh via wires from her fans, waving them around as she dances. I usually set her to support as well, as her attacks are a little more difficult to get the hang of. Some of her abilities are helpful though.

The crossover characters are:

Reiji Arisu is a character from the game Namco x Capcom. He is Xiaomu’s partner as part of the Shinra organization from Earth. His fighting style utilizes several guns and swords. He ends up being the strongest attacker if you use Soul later on. Most of his abilities boosts his own combat, but the good ones do eat up a lot of SP.

Xiaomu is a 765 year old sage fox and partner of Reiji from Namco x Capcom. She fights with a cane sword, pistols, and magic. She has the same special as Reiji, and her moveset has a lot of easy juggles. She can do pretty decent damage, but I usually leave her as support because her support attack is almost always a guard breaker.

KOS-MOS hails from Xenosaga. Her version is from episode 3 and she also seems to be infected with the neko virus from Xenosaga Freaks. She comes from the same world as Reiji and Xiamou, but far into the future. Her special attack is insane, and her attacks do a lot of damage. Her abilities are also well laid out, giving herself a guard break, as well as an ability to launch enemies higher after they get hit. Even without Soul she does very good damage.

The final rear slot is always going to be set aside for the mecha you will obtain throughout the game. They will show up in the support line in the normal rotation amongst your rear characters.

The dialogue in the game is hilarious and there will be many boob jokes. The plot is nothing revolutionary but the twist concerning the main character is well done. All in all this game is definitely worth trying out if you want a solid RPG for the DS. I’d rate this game as a solid 8/10. The good news is that the sequel Exceed is out in Japan, and it will have all the original characters and a ton of new characters from familiar series. Hopefully it’ll come to the US as well, otherwise we will have to get Holy to translate every line for us.

Wier's Short Nostalgia Game Review!

To keep in step with my good pal the Holynub I've decided to provide the world with a short review of one of the first games I ever played on the SNES. (That's the Super Nintendo Entertainment System for you people who are not even as old as my SNES)

This game is probably one of the best most legendary hack and slash games that was ever created.

Yes, you guessed it my friends... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time

Let us begin!



For some people the Ninja Turtles mean a lot. For most people they mean absolutely nothing. To me they mean hours spent mashing A, B, X and I think Y until finally I won the game. Turtles in Time had one of the most interesting features that I had ever seen in a video game. Multiplayer. I'm not talking about logging into your "internet" with your "google" and playing with your "friends", I am talking about getting physical human beings to sit their ass down next to you in front of your 12 inch television screen that had nail polish on the buttons because your sisters are evil. And it's not just the T.V. that has been vandalized it was the entire console, it had glittery paint all over it like someone unleashed the bedazzler from hell to consume the poor little creature's electronic soul. That's right, back in the early days consoles had souls and we all believed in the Earth Mother, but that's another story for another time (maybe an Illusions of Gaia review...).

The BEST part about the multiplayer was being able to choose from a diverse cast of characters with their own unique personalities. The type of in depth story telling and character development that really makes you feel for your character when his health bar goes down.


I mean look at those unique options! The blue bandanna turtle with DUAL WIELD SWORDS (Leonardo), the orange bandanna turtle with swingy doos (numchuks I think, he's Michelangelo), Donatello the purple bandana staff wielder (and not a pansy caster like most things that use staves these days, he straight up smacked the hell out of people!) and of course the red bandanna tsai wielding emotional nut bar Raphael.

Each one of these characters provides a unique persepective on the story because they each swing a different weapon and are a different color. If you're blue with swords and have always wondered what it was like to be red with tsais then you can experience both of these in Turtles in Time.

Now, if you thought that I have maxed out any credibility I have by telling you nothing about the actual story of the game then hold on to your horses because here it comes!


That's right, THE SHREDDER IS ON AMERICAN IDOL!!!!!!!!! Well, he could be. Anyway, the Shredder (Named for the fact that he shreds things with his ridiculous Ginsu knife armor) is a very bad man. So bad that he taunts the turtle on live television as if he were Osama Bin Laden. What else does the Shredder have in common with terrorists? Well he has stolen the Statue of Liberty, that's right, he hates Liberty.


Hey that's two articles with the Statue of Liberty... I smell conspiracy! Well, that's basically what the plot is. I forget why he wants to Statue of Liberty, but I think he was planning on turning it loose as a weapon of mass destruction (TERRORIST) by converting it into a giant robot (GUNDAM TERRORIST) and of course using it to finally defeat that giant ass Stay Puff Marshmallow Man (GHOST BUSTING TERRORIST). Unfortunately for the Turtles this means that they have to CHASE the Shredder around like a Saturday morning cartoon villain (since that's literally what he is). This results in the most worthwhile story and game mechanic ever contrived by modern man, you guessed it, TIME TRAVEL YAY! I love time travel because that is the only thing that could possibly explain well...this;


Yeah, that's an alligator with a cowboy hat fighting you on a train. I dare you to explain that plot point without time travel. Much like the plot of LOST this game is strangely linear while being completely confusing.

So how fun is the game you ask? If you have live actual friends that want to be near you and play a great beat 'em up game that borders on seductively addicting then this game is extremely fun. Despite all of the ridiculous parts of this game it is a fantastic nod to some of the greatest cartoon heroes of all time. Spider man? Bat man? No my friends, nothing quite beats the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

That is why this game will get Four polite Shredders out of Five.

Holy Review: Brutal Legend

Time to stretch out the old review legs.  Ow ow.. Brain cramping.  Uhhh.... one two, it sucks.  Three four, maybe I'd play it again.  Ok, lets dig around here.  Oh yeahhh, I had this gamefly'd.  Brutal Legend.  alright.  Lets do this.

Stupid special characters in the name

You know, I liked this game.  I heard a lot around the net about it being an RTS(Penny Arcade).  But from all the screens and videos, it looks like an action hack and slash.  So some investigation was needed.  And the results.  Were actually quite nice.

Tower Defense: THE GAME!

OMG what the hell? So many freakin posts all at once? Yeah, well that is how it works, deal with it noobs!



So anyway, been posting a lot of talky blah blah posts, so here is some actual gaming info for you guys. The video is from Chris Pirillo, who is kind of like if Colin Farrel had a cousin, who was as geeky and nerdy as Colin Farrel is cool, it's this guy. If you are new to Tower Defense I would recommend watching the video, because it takes you through the eyes of a novice, but if you get annoyed with him like I did, you can watch pure gameplay shtuff here. Chris used to host the Tech TV show "Call for Help" opposite the beautiful and talented Morgan Webb.

Put the joysticks down boys. Don't make me post a picture of Carrot top to calm you down.

BTW the award for FUCKING HOTTEST GIRL EVER that shares a similar hobby as me goes to... Morgan Webb. With Eva Longoria in a close second with wood burning. heh... she totally gets MY wood on fire... ANYWAY, game blog!

So yeah if you tit junkies could wrestle away your interest for a few moments to talk about the game above called Defense Grid by the awesome and hard working folks at Hidden Path Entertainment. I haven't played the game. However, it looks like a really decent polished product of a game genre that really hasn't been approached in anything more complex then warcraft and starcraft mods and flash applications. I admit I played a ton of TDs on WC III. Some of my Favorites were Gem TD, Elemental TD and a variety of the Duke Wintermal TDs.

Anyway, if you were as obsessed as I was and need a new fix, this is probably a good bet, especially at $20, it's very affordable. If you are new to the genre, I would also give it a shot, because the concept behind Tower Defense works because it is essentially a simple concept, which can be expanded upon and grows with the player's understanding of the game's parameters. Tons and tons of replay value if they did this right and it looks like they did. (this post actually took longer then usually because I kept gawking at Morgan, I'm such an idiot.)

You did this to yourself.

Fable 2 opening thoughts

So I was faced with the decision this week of eating for the next two weeks or finally fucking buying a TV and an X-box.

The fact that I am posting here should tell you where that decision went. So anyway, I went to the local Game Stop and said "gimmie gimmie omfg gimmie". Fallout 3 was sold out. After flipping out and killing everyone in the store other then the employees, I was calmed slightly as the scared huddle of employees flung a copy of Fable 2 at me.

So I bought the X-box which also came with Legos Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda "oh goodie". I had those ranked #3 on my list. Not the list of games I wanted, but rather the list of stuff I would use as an unpleasant substitute to toilet paper in a pinch. The #1 and #2 spots being termite infested tree bark and a macaroni picture of Dr. Phil respectively.

So I have been playing Fable 2 a little bit. I haven't finished the game by any means. Instead I am taking my time and enjoying every little intricate detail of the game.
Such as spreading my super impreganatory man seed across the land amongst the fair women of Albion. Also, yes I am being sarcastic when I say fair. There be some ugly bitches in Albion, but they got some nice titties, I'll give them that. "Dammit where is the motor boat expression!?"

So apparently after only one night of passionate ugly bumping, my impressively potent sperm count does it's magic... oh sorry magic doesn't exist in Fable... "imposes it's will" on the helpless ovaries of my beautiful ladies. Boom Baby!!!

So I have taken to sheathing mine mighty sword so as not to go insane from the incessant nagging of the little ones. Another cute new feature of Fable 2 is being able to give nicknames to NPCs. This in and of itself gave me quite a bit of fun, but after naming my wives "cum dumpster, executive slut and ho bag", my creativity waned.

My lovely wife "cum dumpster"

My Character: Having played Fable 1 and really liking the role of ninja-like slow time dude that flips out and kills people, I went along the same path as far as will and looks as I did in the original. Maybe it's because I never got over how badass Shadow from Final Fantasy was. Given the opportunity I couldn't pass it down. (although I could never really get into being a rogue in WoW... hmm go figure). However, dying all my clothes black unlocked the "Goth" achievement, I almost / wrists in celebration.

The shadow knows

However, apparently this "bums out" a lot of the folk in a lot of the towns and for the most part I wouldn't have given a fuck, but I decided to make my first character a good one and I am at least trying to upkeep a good moral standing with the townsfolk, short of boning all their women. So I sprung some cash to get some nice threads, a pony tail and some wicked chops. However, this made me look like Russel Crowe from Master and Commander.

Oi Tugga! Thems looks like they wanna Foight!!!

Although, not in and of itself a bad thing, it wasn't really vibing with my whole ninja hero mystique.

Gameplay: So the new set-up for organizing will spells is pretty awesome I have to admit. The initial confusion I had with setting up the spells in the right spots, I will accredit to my own retardedness. Once you realize that you shouldn't be switching between different spells of the same level during combat, stuff gets a lot easier.

Anyway, If you want to be an awesome ninja badass shadow like myself, here is how to set it up.

Level 1 slow time is essential. The slow time spell has been merged with the assassin rush spell in the first fable, which is a great idea. To use the assassin rush effect of slow time just point your left thumbstick in the direction of the baddy you want to sneak up on and tap b.

Level 2 blades. Good surround spell that you can use to whittle off health of a few or target one person and use the assassin rush to get behind that sorry biotch and slash him in the back while he gets impaled by your spirit blades for a bad ass ninja combo.

level 3 chaos. I usually open with this spell to buy me a little time. Followed by a quick lvl 1 slow time, then blades and then I just start assassin rushing the bastards.

level 4 force push. I just got this, but I figured it would be good if I was just completely fucked. lvl 1 slow time and then charge up this bad boy and you can get yourself out of some sticky situations.

level 5 blades. I haven't actually gotten this yet, but I intended to use it as my big focus KaBoom spell in boss battles.

Stats: Speed>Toughness=Physique>Accuracy.
The ninja spec is all about speed and finesse. You will want to pick up the Roll ability from Dexterous styles to dodge out of the way of enemies and Flourish is nice to dell out some nice damage at the end of a brutal combo.

Weapons- melee weapon -Katana for the speed and + 15 to looking the part
ranged weapon -Pistol for the speed again. You aren't going to need to be sniping people from afar the key is to be in the mindset of "ninja flipping out".

Clothing- Bandit bandana- only the eyes are visible= very ninja.
Moonless Midnight dye- veil the world in shadows= very ninja.

Anyway, those are my opening thoughts for Fable 2. My next character is going to be an evil female sorcerer. Keep tuned!!!

flash games on teh interwebnets part I

////////////////..................................................................
Chances are that you, like me, spend copious amounts of time on the interwebnets. You can watch TV shows, movies and play games. This weeks review is of flash games. Most hardcore gamers would scoff at internet flash games for being marketed towards casual gamers. For the most part this isn't unwarranted a lot of internet games are either too easy and/or simple conceptually or just flat out broken. There are a few gems out there that hit a sweet spot and are just simple enough, but strangely addicting to stimulate even the most hardened gaming veteran.

Part One is devoted to flash game sites that promote TV shows.

First up Adultswim.com

There is a pretty good selection of games and game-types. I didn't have time to play all of them but I will give you a quick run-down of the ones that were worth mentioning.

Amateur Surgeon Act 3

This game mixes a morbidly humorous premise with challenging and interesting gameplay, which can sometimes borderline on frustrating. You are Alan Probe an aspiring surgeon, currently working as a pizza delivery boy. You start a grass-roots clinic in your garage with a pool table as a make-shift operating table (pictured above left) and a surgeon turned homeless person (who you hit with your delivery van in the first level) as your mentor. The game plays like Trauma Center for the wii, but with everyday tools used for surgery. The second level introduces a steep learning curve, which is where I began to feel frustrated. It took a couple of tries to understand exactly what the game wanted me to do. For instance you don't need to staple small wounds and using the lighter for too long can result in burning the patient alive. All in all a great game, which I am going to continue to play after this review is over.

Fairway to Hell

There is no satisfaction quite like taking a five-iron to your neighbors living room, but this comes in pretty close. It's essentially indoor golfing. This game also had me bordered on challenged to completely aggroed. The weird camera angle that you are placed in for every level makes some of these shots completely aggrevating. In the screenshot above right, the shot on the roof had me cussing like a sailor. However, if you can manage to determine the orangish-red hole in one flag from the reddish-orange regular holes you are in for a spectacular domino effect. As if destroying these interiors wasn't fun enough, each hole has an animated surprise such as flying unicorns and man-eating spiderlike sofa robots.

Bible Fight

This has undoubtedly occupied the topic of many a stoned conversation. "Dude, who do you think would win in a fight, Jesus or Moses? I mean, yeah son of god and all, but Moses split the Red Sea, what would Jesus do, make the sea into wine?" If you felt so inclined you can settle these conundrums with Bible Fight. To be honest though, online fighting games alway seem awkward to me. This one is no exception. I tried out all the characters moves just to see the animations and found that basically each character has one good move, which immediately made it not fun anymore. It's funny but no replay value.

Action Genre

You'll notice that of the genre's adult swim listed I haven't reviewed any of the action titles. I tried both gigolo assassin and viva caligulo. However, I got bored with both games before I even got into any of what seemed like the interesting parts in the previews. Maybe I am just impatient, but it didn't seem worth it.

Best of the Bunch

Overall my favorite game of theirs was AMATEUR SURGEON act 3. It immediately grabbed my attention and held it. The morbid humor was definitely to my taste and the cut-scenes were short and to the point, which helped keep the pace. This game is accessible to new and/or casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.

next week... more shite!

REVIEW: Operation Darkness

Alrighty then. What to post. what to post. Might as well put something "of content" in here already. OH! I'll do my specialty, games nobody really knows or cares about maybe because it either sucks/got bad reviews/or wasn't really advertised. Ho hooo. Here's a gem. Yup... Alright, how do those review sites do it now. Where's that easy "condescending voice" button? Guess they didn't make that. Oh well.

Ahh Dubya dubya too (That's WW2 for those that didn't get it). How many games have been made about you. Granted about 80% of them are FPSs of variable quality. Then there's the handful of RTSs which have often been pretty good. Now we got this... game...

Published by Atlus, the whole Japanese anime lawl art theme shouldn't surprised you very much. This being my first review, I'll try to break things down so you can skip to the part that you give a crap about first.

Story-

Basically... You're in WW2. It all takes place in the European theater of war. Far away from Japan. Where this game was made. So you know this is gonna get weird. You play as "Edward"(Default main char name), a front line british soldier in the African campaign. You get wounded, but get a blood transfusion from this captain and you get super powers. SO you join his squad and go and fight the germans with this elite squad that is comprised of unique soldiers with unique abilities that's all unique with a unique bathroom and unique shower curtains. You get the idea. BUT WAIT! What if I told you this squad captain was a werewolf! And you got a blood transfusion from him so you're now part werewolf! No, it's not a spoiler. This happens SUPER EARLY in the game. I was like. WTF. I'm a part werewolf british soldier. Riiight. BUT WAIT! The germans have vampires! And Hitler has some kind of weird devil power crap thing! ZOMFG! Werewolves!? Vampires!? BRITISH!? Yes... It's a bit crazy.


- Gameplay

Ohh gameplay. Let ME tell YOU about the gameplay. For anyone who has ever played a top down tactics type game, this game is one of those. BUT! as with all games, "it's different because... "



Lets start with the BAD things. Ohh everyone loves to look at all the BAD things the game has. First off, the one thing. THE ONLY THING. That you will notice... About the gameplay... IS THE CAMERA SUCKS. Now, here here. We've all played lots of games. And EVERYONE and their mother will ALWAYS bring up issues about "Ohhh this camera sucks, it's blah blah blah I need to take my insulin." I'm usually pretty tolerant about these kinds of things. I've played through many a game with sub-par cameras, i understand how sometimes it can be frustrating. But this game. Takes dumbass cameras to a new level. Number one, the camera is always in rotation around the cursor. Which means, you can zoom all the way in and look all around you character, assuming the character isn't next to any kind of object. In which it will zoom right in and you can count the nose hairs if the model had any. Letter B, there is no camera preset view that lets you get a good top/far distance view of the battlefield. Instead, you have to flick around the right joystick and try to get the damn thing to position way high up and even then it's not a very good view. The best means of determining the distance of enemies is by actually taking the cursor and moving it all the way across the map and seeing what's over there. then you kinda sorta have an idea of maybe how far away the enemy is.



Ok, lets put the whole "camera" thing aside for now. Lets just focus on other aspects that make up this... game. Actual gameplay, that's the "title" of this section right. yeah it is. ALright, so lets pretend you're not struggling with the camera. The game plays like a traditional top down RPG tactics game. Turns are based on individual speed of each unit. So basically, fast guys go first. the go. they run. they shoot. they stand. next person. And that's the majority of the game. targeting in the game is basically choose attack and target enemy. Which is kind of nice that they make the right and left triggers cycle through enemy targets. The problem with attacks is that you are never sure what the range is on your character. Sure the gun information gives you the range. But when the range goes from 3-41 squares. It's kinda friggen hard to determine just how far things are. You tend to just kind of position where it FEELS about right. Then try to shoot them. Of course the farther away they are the lower chance to hit. Granted, you need some brain power to figure out you can't shoot people through obstacles, but if you lack brain power, you shouldn't be playing these kinds of games in the first place.


Now then, lets get into the units of the game. Because these are what makes up the interesting factor. I will admit, tactics games are pretty boring, unless you got some kick ass units. SO, we're in WW2. You got main characters and you got recruited soldiers. There are also male and female units. Females tend to have a higher Hit rate and make better snipers. Your main character sniper is actually this Irish chick with a huge freakin rack. Guess she rests her gun on them. Which makes them a gun rack, OH! I went there. And while i'm at it! (Removed sexist rant about women and concentration). Anyways, main characters also get special abilities while the recruits are basically fodder for missions where you need more units than there are main characters. Also let it be known that if any of the characters dies. HE DEAD. Unless you got the sole main character that has the ability to revive units. BUT WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN HE'S DEAD!? Yeah, you can have main characters die. Usually the defeat conditions are always "If so and so dies you FAIL." Which sucks if they get nuked down without you even getting a chance to defend.

All units are essentially identical. I didn't say they were ABSOLUTELY identical, there are differences. But basically, for almost all of them, you give them gun. They go bang bang. You win. There's a couple weird ones that like those swords and stuff. Units are able to equip almost any weapon you find in the game. Exceptions being things like women can't use bazookas. (removed sexist rant about men shooting big loads)Weapons are all taken from any WW2 weapons library. British sten sub-machine guns, german mauser rifles, Lugers, the works. each char can hold a max of 5(? not sure forgot might be 6) different weapons. Along with the weapons, they also have 5(? or maybe 6, it's the same number as the guns) items. Items are mostly restorative items, also pretty standard WW2 medic supplies(Pain killers, med kits, morphine, bandages). Items are also comprised of ammunition. Ammunition is only used after the first clip in the gun is used up. Ammunition is split into different stacks. As you progress through the game you'll get larger stacks, meaning you don't have to waste healing item space for ammo. Rockets tend to run out the fastest(hell, you only get one shot before reload). All items and equipment add weight to the character. Weight basically restricts movement on the battlefield. This is so you don't give every character a bazooka, Machinegun, sniper rifle, sub-machinegun, and sword all at the same time. I mean... You COULD. But it just won't be practical. Because they wouldn't move anywhere quickly. Yeah.... THINK.


Lastly, units are able to equip 5 different abilities. These abilities level up with the characters in set intervals. They are basically buffs that help you grow the character in the direction you want. For example, if I want a bazooka joe, I'm not going to give him something that helps his sword skills. I can give him abilities like, increased hit chance or chance for double damage. BOOM! Buwahahhaha. Anyways, you get the idea. However, some abilities are absolutely essential to surviving the game. You'd find it near impossible to play the game without these skills. Main case and point, auto-heal. Basically, if your char is gonna die or hits about 5% health, they use any healing item available to heal themselves out of the damage. Problem is, if a character gets picked on, they can be focus fired down and they burn all their healing items and die. Explosives are also massively OP, causing many a one shot to both your characters and enemy characters alike. So basically when you go up against tanks and other explosive wielding enemies, you're gonna see that auto-heal go off constantly.

One gameplay mechanic that I find amusing is the item acquisition mechanics. You do not acquire items after the map is over, nor do you find them lying randomly on the field. Items are mainly procured by LOOTING THE DEAD CORPSES OF YOUR ENEMIES. I dunno, I always thought it was bad luck to take the gun of a dead guy. Cuz I mean, come on. He's dead for a reason. Maybe that gun isn't so lucky... Or functional. But anyway, majority of your weapons and items will be found on dead bodies. Those crazy germans and their top of the line weaponry. Most of the quality weapons are found on the bodies. Also some cheap explosives are here too. You'll sometimes find Panzerfausts which are 1 shot bazookas. Those are great, they're portable and you don't have to worry about their weight. They have healing items and ammo. All sorts of phat lewts. There is a supply depot you gain access to, outside of battles. Combat points are accrued during battles and act as currency in the depot. You can buy british made weapons that are OK at best. Only things worth noting is you can buy a bazooka and the rockets for reloading them. That's about it. Oh you can also buy healing items and ammo. However, you can procure most of those in battle from looting corpses.

Alright, that's enough for gameplay. That's about all the major points I needed to cover.

Graphics and Sound-


Nothing special here. NOTHING. In battle graphics are... Bland. Some ambient effects every now and then. But really, there's nothing that'll hit you over the head and say "BOY THAT LOOKS AWESOME." No no, nothing like that here. I need to note that the busty women models in the game get the DOA boob physics action. It's not noticeable at first. But once you do notice it, you'll always notice it. Heh hehhhh bawwwwww.......


The "cut scene" graphics are anime drawings of the characters in different facial expressions. The drawings are nice. Some women have their proportions designed for different kinds of people. From big jubblies to iron board, they look nice. The characters are voice acted decently. So that way you don't have to read just text. Although at times, I'd rather read the text only. The actors do generic accents depending on where their character is from. Whoop de fricken doo.

Maps are nice and big. But they are forgetable, Cuz you're not paying attention to that. Aside from the, can i shoot him from here factor. The maps might be designed nicely, if it wasn't for the goddamn camera which i said I wasn't going to talk about ever again goddamnit I lose.

Holy Factor-

Alright, this is my first review so nobody knows WTF this is. The Holy factor is basically my personal preference on the game/genre/stuff. This sometimes determines if I like the game or not. It's SUPER RANDOM. I might like the dumbest game for no apparent reason. I might not like the greatest game for whatever dumbass reason.

This game. BIG Holy factor. I have often thought to myself, while fighting with the camera on this game, WHY AM I PLAYING THIS!? Clearly, the game is sub-par. But I keep on playing. I think it is because I haven't played a tactics RPG style game on a console in a while. Might be just a refreshing change of pace from regular RPGs or Shootan gaems or World of "god stop me from playing this damn game" Warcraft. Perhaps the game is actually good and I'm just missing the good points. Or maybe, JUST MAYBE, I'm going insane.

Results -

The game. It's got many glaring bad points. But there's something about it that keeps me playing it. Ass backwards camera, so-so graphics, flat voice acting. But I'm still playing it. Don't ask me why. Perhaps there's some hypnotic message built into the game that makes you keep playing it. Whatever the reason, I think i like it.
RATING: 2/5 (With Holy factor 4/5)

EDIT: Added shnazzy pikuchars