Star Trek has come forth in many incarnations, from the original with Shater to the recent movie this last summer. To me there is only one Star Trek, one captain, and one series worty of the title. This of course is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

DS9, is in my opinion, the greatest show ever produced…period. I can watch it any time, anywhere, and with anyone. I have bored my fiance to death over its merits. Avery Brooks changed the way I view African-Americans. That is no joke. Story time…

I grew up in Alabama, not the most progressive place in the world mind you. While racism as it used to be is a forgotten memory, my family still had some old-fashioned tenddencies. I always rejected this but it was DS9 that really cemented my entire view of other races. The view, as it is, that race is only a skin color. It changed me and helped me to make friends of every color and faith under the sun.

DS9 sent Star Trek into the darkness in a lot of ways. The heros where not as shiney or as spotless as any crew of any Enterprise, but they were real!

From Captain Sisko, Dax, and to Bashier the cast was top notch. It took a season or two to really get going but when it hit the high mark in the latter seasons it never stopped. I learned the nature of war, the blindness of those who hate, and to have hope in the better nature of man.

To anyone who may read this who had anything to do with this show…thank you. You made me a better man. All the good I pass on to my students comes from you. Thank you to all the cast and crew.
Thank you so much.

Everyone ready for a trip through the wayback machine? I recently finished the new version of the classic Lucasarts adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island. It is a old school point and click kind of game from the early 90s. The Monkey Island series is renowned as one of the best, if not THE best, series of this type to ever come along. I was not a computer owner at the time they were popular and now, after years of reading about them, I get to see what I have been missing.

Secret is the first in the series and it sets up our main hero, Guybrush Threepwood. Guybrush wants to be pirate more then anything and you have to guide him though mishap after hilarious mishap. The game is filled with lots of humor that still holds up today. This was one of the first game done by Tim Schafer (Brutal Legend, Psychonauts) and it really shows.

What is truely neat about this game is that you can switch between the original graphics, sound, and interface with the updated graphics and ect. ON THE FLY! Its really quite amazing to me. The new graphics are really beautiful and well done. It is quite a bit of fun to check out the old versus the new and I even found myself playing a bit with the old school look just for the nostalgia factor of the time.

Also added is a wonderful hint system to keep you from ever getting stuck or wasting time running back and forth to the internet. It is done in a way that you have to hold down the button so you never accidently hit it and you also have to use it mulitple times to get more indepth hints.

BOTTOM LINE: This game is a classic and is a ton of fun. You will probably only bother to play though it once though but I feel it is worth the price of admission.

Fun fact…Guybrush got his name due to the designers using a placeholder name of “Guy” on his BRUSH  file (Program name) that read Guy.Brush.

Ghostbusters reunites the cast of the movies for what is bacially going to be Ghostbusters 2.5. All of the actors give it a good efforst with Dan Akroyd really standing out. Bill Murry does a pretty good job and while some people have complained about him let me say that I think he did great. He is used to a great deal of improvization with this role so doing it rote from script I think he was great in it.

The gameplay is fun but has some issues. The actual ghost capturing is a blast. Think of it as a sort of fishing in that you must weaken the ghost, latch on, and drag it in. You are the new hire and thus have to test out all the new addons to the proton pack. You basically have the normal stream, a blue shotgun type stream that stuns, the slime from GB2 that frees people from possession, and a supercharge shot. Its a good mix of variety.

The issues start with your teammates. The Ghostbusters are quick to get themselves knocked down and you have to get them up. If you don’t and you go down its game over. Too often your teammates are out in a flash and you spend too much time bringing them back. This is not really a problem until the begining of the museum level. Their the difficulty unexpecteadly ramps up and you have to use tactics that may not seem obvious and actually are counter intuitive like bumrushing the ghosts before they knock out your team.

Bottom Line: Great story, great acting, and only minor issues. This game is short but fun.

So far Ghostbusters has been great. I have some complaints sure but by and large the game is pretty fun.

The one thing I REALLY hate is how you play as some no name character who NEVER TALKS!!! This was stupid. If your going to do that then just let us play as a different one of the main four on every level. There isn’t any customization options either so it does not even work on a YOU ARE IN THE GAME level either. You basically play a nondescript white guy so too bad if your anything other then that. You don’t even get a proper name. It sucks.

The gameplay is fun and yeah I get what some of the reviews say about your teammates being idiots and having to revive them but so far they seem ok. It actually keeps a tally of which of the GBs has been downed and how often. In my game Ray has the fewest downs while Venkman has the most…guess its the showboating.

The Joystiq review criticized the level design but so far I have found nothing wrong with them besides the fact that they are a little too linear. They are still fun though as is capturing ghosts.

This was just my sneak preview of a review. I will do the whole thing up on my blog and on the User Review Section of Talking About Games Forum tomorrow after I give it another play session.

by Van Redd on Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:28 pm

Resident Evil has always been one of my favorite franchises. I was a dedicated Nintendoite for many years until one magic night. My pals had a PlayStation and a copy of Resident Evil. They told me I had to try this out and I wound up picking up at 7:15 p.m. that night. We played that game until 6 a.m. It was the most awesome thing I had experienced at that point. It blew away anything on the N64. I read in EGM (r.i.p) that Resident Evil 2 was coming out soon and it looked glorious. Immediately I began saving $20 a week from my crappy high school grocery job. The day it came out, I went home with a PS1 and a copy of Resident Evil 2. It was the only PlayStation game I owned for two months, and it was the only one I needed.

It has been a lot of years since then and the basics of what make it a great game have changed somewhat. Resident Evil 4 introduced a new way to play and a new type of enemies to face off with. Once again you no longer are being chased by slow T-Virus zombies, though some old “friends” do show up. The main evil after you this time is Las Plagas in nature just like before.

The gameplay is basically the same as Resident Evil 4 for good and for bad. It is a rough adjustment to go from a game like Dead Space with a more liberal control scheme to the stop and pop game play of RE 5. To be honest once you play the game for about an hour you will be fine but it does detract from the immersion. I had a harder time suspending disbelief as at least Issac Clark has the good sense to back up as he shoots at crazy things trying to eat his face off. Chris Redfield fears NO face eating. I go on record with that.

You can tell the main focus of RE 5 was to take the awesome experience of RE4 and share it with a friend. In this regard the game is amazing. Nevis and I have blown though most of the difficulty levels having a great time. The only drawback is that you lose a bit of the tension RE4 had since you are never alone in your fight.

The story is your typical semi-sensical Resident Evil fare, but it serves its purpose and remains true to its internal logic. To long time fans it is nice to finally have closure as this game marks the end of the current canon of RE according to Capcom. Though the world of Resident Evil tends to work pretty well with itself. I love the backstory of a world at siege by Bio-weapons. The acting is fairly well done in this installment much as it was done (mostly being the key word) in RE4. I enjoyed playing Chris and Sheeva but I would have loved a Leon Kennedy cameo somewhere.

To be honest I loved the terrible acting in the first Resident Evil that I feel it needs to be at least a little silly. I would love an unlockable “Jill Sandwich” dialogue option with RE1 inspired lines. One of the Tenku games did this.

Final Word:
A super adventure from beginning to end. This is THE game of the spring and for me the game of the year. It comes with my highest recommendation.

It has been a while since my last review and let me apologize for that. The main reason is that there has not really been much on my plate that I really feel you need a review about. This has changed now that Infamous for the PS3 has graced my desk. Infamous is made by Sucker Punch Studios who are famous for their Sly Cooper series. Infamous is their first foray into the sand box genre and while they do make a few mistakes, overall they made a great game.

I won’t waste your time going into the plot. All I will say is that you play Cole and you are basically Electro from Spider-Man comics only much more competent. Over the game you gain new ways to use your powers. All of the powers are nice and varied however I feel the order you get them in to be somewhat off. The shield power comes somewhat late in the game for instance. Like most sand box games you have a starting area you can’t leave just yet until you make story progress. The game actually takes place on three different islands and you open more of them up as you go.

What it gets right:

There are many well placed mid mission check points. This may seem small but so many other developers should learn to do this. (GTA I am looking your way.)

Great Graphics. The game looks really good for the most part.

Good Controls. Moving around the city is a blast. You can ride the rails or even power lines.

Radar! All of the in game collectibles will show up on your Spidey Sense like radar. It only works on your mini map but for those of us that tore our hair out looking for those Crackdown collectibles you will rejoice.

Fun Side Missions. The game has a lot of fun and varied side missions. You never do the same thing that many times.

What it gets wrong:

Its amazing that you can’t climb a standard chain link fence. I can understand not firing though one…but come on!

Bugs. While few and far between I did find myself land from a hover only to fall though the street into the abyss. It only happened once but I felt it should be mentioned.

Mild Repetitiveness. Most of the game is great but there is a stretch where you are basically running from one power station to the next and it get a little old.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you love superhero/sandbox games then this is really for you. I really loved this game. The plot never really rises above “meh” but the ride is a lot of fun.

by Van Redd on Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:06 pm

The World Warriors have returned! In 3D!

To be honest I was curious if Street Fighter would even still resonate with the modern gaming culture. Fighting game fundamentals have changed a lot since the early nineties and Street Fighter has actually…not…and it works. If you remember pulling off Shadokens and Hurricane Kicks, or if the words TIGER! TIGER! TIGER UPPERCUT! make you seeth with rage then you will feel right home again.

The graphics are an amazing mix of 3D characters on a 2D plane. It really comes off well and has a wonderful painted look to it. The animations flow smoothly and I have found no slowdown while playing offline. Speaking of playing offline, there is a nifty option to let yourself be challenged by online players while you chill out in arcade mode. I LOVE THIS! However beware that this is the default setting so if you want to just get done with unlocking characters then turn it off.

The only real problem with this game is the learning curve. It is STEEP! The game has a training mode but in my opinion it is only useful to people who come from a strong background of Street Fighter lore. It explains nothing about how to do crossups or other skills you will need to take on anyone in a real match. The combo training goes from easy to bat**** insane fairly quickly and unless you decide to drop a large amount of coin on a hard to find arcade stick then you will probably not get anything out of it.

Also, be aware that this game is NOT for everyone. It is built around hardcore competition and the well designed online makes it easy and usually fun. Until you lose all your meaningless battle points on a bad run of matches and curse at the top of your lungs while your significant other thinks your have a conniption fit. The point being is that some of you just won’t like it, so rent first and if you like it purchase after.

Final Word:
Holy **** this game is awesome….both drunk AND sober!

Slicer Man is ready to Slice!

Prototype is that “other” big superhero sandbox game coming out this summer. Actually the term “superhero” really does not apply as your character…Alex Mercer…spends most the game acting like a cold blooded killer. This game shares many similarities to inFAMOUS and how could it not seeing as they are both:

✔ Sandbox Games

✔ Give you the powers of a Spider-Man villain (inFAMOUS = Electro, Prototype = Venom)

✔ Let you transverse the city with amazing speed and fun.

✔ Have sketchy narratives. The narrative in Prototype is really quite a mess.

At least in inFAMOUS you always had a decent idea what was going on and could follow the story. In Prototype things start off as a jumbled mess with ill conceived cutscenes. The game tries very hard to try and make you understand that Alex has lost his memory and blah blah blah. The story really only slightly matters. The only thing that really matters is how the city goes from bad to worse as the game progresses. That part is handled very well as sections of the city are in chaos. However this makes the areas of the city, a city mind you that is under quarantine with zombies and all other sorts of nasties running about, that are clam seem strange. A HUGE part of this game is that Alex HAS to consume people to take their memories. This already kind of kills it for him to be any sort of a hero, which is fine not everyone needs to be a boyscout. In fact this is made impossible as the simple act of jumping off a building and landing will probably kill at least five civilians. The problem though is that even as the city is populated my millions of people…there are only about ten different character models. You will consumer the same character at least half a dozen times but with different names. ALL base commanders look exactly the same. Also seeing as the game is set in New York there seems to be very few black people…and no Asians…even in China Town….weird. When you get right down to it the gameplay rocks in this game. You get to buy lots of cool powers really early on. In fact the training wheels come off early and you get set loose to do as you will very soon. The power all are unique and rock. Using each one has you play in a different way. The hammerfists are uber powerful but slow while the claws are fast and vicious. The whiplash power can hits tons of enemies but is slightly weaker. You get the idea. The side missions are mostly pretty fun, but as you get into the second half of the game tend to get repetitive. ESPECIALLY the Consume missions in which you either inflitrate a base and consume people or you have a limited amount of time to get to contacts. The story, as disjointed as it is, is told in memories you absorb from these contacts. Once the game gets going there is a while that you start to get into the scary government conspiracy about biowarfare. Alex never really takes off as much of a character and his partners his meets are not that interesting either.

BOTTOM LINE: Story is “meh” but the gameplay is there and rocks. Graphics are spotty in places, especially character models. Give it a rent and if you like it add it to your collection.

Alone in the Dark is the latest in a long running series of games dating back to the early 90’s. The original game is the forerunner to the modern survival horror game. Several sequels have been produced for the original Alone in the Dark but none of them have had the same magic as the first one which was loosely based on Lovecraft’s horror.

That brings us to the newest incarnation of the series, Alone in the Dark (2008). This game has set various message boards and You Tube on fire about if it is a good but flawed game, a horrible game, or the best game ever made. Some of the game’s elements, such as driving segments and combat, have come under very harsh scrutiny. The game has also received praise for its unique inventory system and the inventive use of mixing items.

Let’s do the breakdown:

Graphics (8/10)
The game looks good. It is certainly not the best looking game on Xbox 360 right now but it holds its own no matter what anyone else may say. The fire effects alone are worth noting as they both look and ACT fairly realistic. Edward Carnby’s character model has the right look of a haggard man. The rest of the cast is also rendered very well. The game also has some unique effects when it comes to first person mode such as blur and goop effects that get in your eyes. These are neat effects that are not overdone, which consequently keep them neat.

The environments look amazing, especially in the climbing segments when the world seems to be falling apart. There was no slow down at all on any of my playthoughs. Central Park looked absolutely creepy and it pased the “goose bump” test, which is where just running though a game area gives me goosebumps because it is creepy.

Enemies looks suitably horrific but there is a noticeable lack of variety. There are small crawling enemies called Ratz, normal size as well as larger human enemies called Humanz, and scary larger human like Slicer enemies. This is not to mention the sucker bats that play an important role during a part of the game.

Gameplay (7.0/10)

No other game in recent memory has tried to combine so many play elements and overall succeeded like this game has. This is not to say there are no bumps along the road though.

Bad News First: The game can be unwieldy at times when it comes to combat. Once you pick up a weapon you must actually move the right stick to swing it, this is actually a rather neat addition that gives heft to moves. The mechanic staggers though when you are faced with more then one enemy and your item of choice is on fire. Most enemies in the game MUST be killed with fire and will actively avoid you if you have a flaming weapon. This is fine but it is hard to run and swing. Most of the time I used a spray can and lighter combo so it was not that much of an issue.

First person mode is fine except that if you are use to a FPS Shooter then you will miss the ability to move the gun to the center of the screen for better aiming.

The driving controls are ok but feel just a little bit loose, nothing that should give anyone that much trouble though. This is one area of the game that gets far too much criticism.

Good News:

The game incorporates seamless first person to third person modes. You can switch on the fly at any time. Overall the game controls just fine but it takes about thirty minutes to really get use to. Using items to kill enemies is really fun. The inventory system is clever, you basically have stuff stored in your jacket. The game is also set up like a television series DVD. You can skip any single part if it gives you too much trouble. Except for the last chapter you can go to any part of the game at most any time. It also includes a very cool “Previously on” segment that catches you up on cut scenes just like an episode of a TV show.

The game is very puzzle heavy and is definitely a thinking man’s game during many segments. This can be a plus or a minus depending on the type of games you happen to like.

Story (8.5/10)

The story of the game is actually rather well done. You play as Edward Carnby and you wake up in a blurry state not sure of who you are. What follows in a trip into terror as New York begins to fall apart all around you. Friends are dying, monsters are crawling up out of the dark, and it is up to you to find a way to fix it all.

The voice acting is good for the most part but does falter in some scenes though it is never the actors faults. My only complaint is that the story basically just ends.

Replay Value (2.0/10)

Unless you missed some of the very few optional objectives or just want to replay one of your favorite sections then you are mostly out of luck. One play though the game and you pretty much see all there is to see.

At the End of the Day:
8.0 (Not an average)

Alone in the Dark gets a lot more right than it gets wrong. It is a fun and at times unsettling adventure. It has elements of a shooter, an action game, a driving game, and a platform game all rolled into one. The inventory and item combinations are clever and inventive. It is only held back by a few control issues, lack of replay value, and a relatively short playthough time.

by Van Redd

We live in an uncertain world. One uncertainty is ethics. All of the websites, magazines, and podcasts about gaming say they have intergrity and that their reviews should be trusted. The bad news is that many of these places can’t be, at all.

The most notorious recent example has to deal with Gamespot firing Jeff Gershman over his review of Kane and Lynch. They claim he was fired for other reasons but we all know that is bull****. Another even more recent examlpe is Atari trying to bully some smaller review sites into keeping their so-so reviews of Alone in the Dark quiet. They claimed it was because they were breaking a street date on reviews…yet they also admitted that good reviews could go ahead.

The fact of the matter is that gaming is a bussiness. I understand that. Game publishers need to make money to publish more games. However what cannot be allowed is the buying and selling of game reviews and out and out lies to the public.

The movie industry has gone though similar growing pains. We have all heard the stories of movie studios coming up with fake reviewers to give a movie a tag line. They got caught a few years ago so that practice stopped. The problem with video game journalism is the ease at which people can be tempted. Game studios might fly you up to their offices, let you play on their really nice gaming rigs, and even provide you with awesome food and drinks. You would kind of feel bad to give a ****ty review then huh? A game studio can also pressure a magazine by giving them an exclusive only if they guarantee a great review. Another tactic they use is to pull advertising if you give a bad review. Just ask Ubisoft about that one.

The point I am trying to make is to be cautious and be more then willing to rent a game if your concerned about your gaming dollar. Look at your favorite gaming magazine really close and see if their reviews are consistant. I also recommend that you not support Gamespot in anyway.

 

**Now, to be fair, I don’t really know if EGM or Gamepro have any corruption. I was just using their images transposed with that of the Skrulls from Mavel Comics recent Secret Invasion storyline to make a point. That being said though, the recent shake-ups with Dan “Shoe” Hsu leaving EGM make me worry.