There I was, circa 2003 installing a little game called ‘Soldier Of Fortune II’. I’d played the previous version and had hours of fun blasting limbs from as far as I could tell a legion of douchebags in wifebeaters and SS wannabees. The install finished and within the first 15 minutes of playing I was having fun manually chopping pieces of my downed foes skull off in something that Ed Gein would get an erection over. See kids, there was this magic time around when publishers didn’t really have to appease the ratings boards as strictly and things like SOF and even Half Life were just expected to be able to turn your opponents into a bloody mess of giblets with a grenade or in some cases a crowbar.

Now it seems that game developers are more focused on creating overly subversive stories instead on giving the player a little more poignant realism in the form of optional total bodily dismemberment. Yeah sure there are still gibs in UT3 and God Of War has bloody decapitations but all in all after being a gore hound for these earlier games they just strike me as a little weak. Which brings me to my next point:

The all powerful, game stomping, fail-safe line of the A-O rating. Publishers shy away from this because there’s a good chance that their product will be outlawed in several countries as well as shunned by retailers. But if you’ve gotten around to playing Madworld you’ll see the same argument that hack directors make when they want to show their cocks in their terribly pretentious arthouse film. And that is; ‘It’s pornography unless it’s artistic.’ This is why Madhouse ever came about the way it did and on that system. Considering that the Wii is barely above the PS2 in graphics power I have a feeling that this game could have been done far more violently years ago for the aforementioned system. (continue reading…)

As a product of an oddly eclectic Christian upbringing, I’ve encountered quite a bit of radical stuff during my Sunday school classes.  One of the things I’ve always had problems with, however, is the principle of turning the other cheek.

Not that it made  sense to me at the time. For me, not retaliating was the ultimate excuse for being a doormat. Turn the other cheek? Yeah, right. I’d rather do the eye for an eye thingy–even in an MMORPG. (continue reading…)

This gem has just been released in Japan, and aside from the terrible, terrible name, the game is great! If you have a flashcart, you can just grab the Japanese copy because it includes a full english translation (and uncensored cards)!

This is another game in the series of the Yu-Gi-Oh: World Championship series. I own both 2006 and 2008, having gotten all cards on 2008 and having played a lot of 2006. And again, this game is fun, because I love the Yugioh card game. There’s so much variety, and because every release includes a whole bunch of new cards, it’s worth playing them every year. (continue reading…)

The Five Hats of Gaming present…

…the top five games not worth full price

Brought to you by Fedora Man

Well it’s finally March; or rather it has been March for half a month now, whatever. It’s hard keeping track of time when you’re on another planet fighting the living embodiment of anger with nothing but hat based weaponry and your wit; not to mention making love to all the alien women who all suspiciously speak English (call me). In fact it’s nearly impossible to keep track of the time when you’re fighting robots and defending humanity twenty-four hours a day seven days a week (or sometimes eight days a week depending on where I am) so cut me some slack on the issue. But in between throwing my Fedora-rangs (not a rip-off of Batman) and solving super crime in my Fedora Cave I did manage to get down to Gamestop to browse the selection. I was thinking “Damn, I need some new games to play in between sleeping and fighting five dimensional creatures that my mind can’t fully comprehend.” Because honestly, what the hell else am I going to do in my spare time but play games on my super computer?

A horrible thing happened as I browsed the new games list: most of them weren’t worth the displayed price and I’ll be damned if I spend a cent of my billions of dollars if it’s on something overpriced and uninteresting. At first I believed some crime was afoot. Perhaps my non-arch-nemesis (but a nemesis nonetheless) The Emo-inator replaced all the great new games with some games that were released last year and already had at least thirty dollars shaved off the price tag in reality. But I quickly found out he was still in jail after his last big scheme (replacing all the pen ink in my mansion with black eyeliner). So I returned to Gamestop and demanded answers! “Why are these games priced at sixty dollars!” I demanded to know. “There is no way in hell they’re worth that much money!” I grabbed that pimply faced bastard by his collar and pulled him close to my face to show him I was serious. The rest after that was a blur, but I’m pretty sure the police came and I think I was trying to explain my innocence to them while being beaten with their night sticks. I couldn’t do anything since I wasn’t in costume (my fedora) so I just had to take the ass kicking. There is some good news though: I did manage to write down a list of games to bring to the public’s attention before I got sent to jail. Now the list was hastily scrawled on a dollar bill and there’s also a lot of blood on it but I’m pretty sure I can read it so I hope you can appreciate what I’ve done for you in the following list.

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Voice acting in video games was once an enthralling, amazing, almost unheardof thing.  It was pretty awesome to hear ‘VALKYRIE SHOT THE FOOD’ come from a Gameboy’s mono speaker.  Yeah, I saw that shit-eating grin, you remember.

As technology grew though, it became more and more common to have soundbytes of your hero screaming and yelling, and eventually games became fully voiced.  There are ups and downs to such things that I won’t discuss here, ’cause that’s best left to an article dedicated thereto.  Here, I wanna discuss Star Fox.

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Bioshock, now infamous amongst gamers of all seasoning, shook the industry by proving singleplayer gaming was NOT dead. It proved Co-op was not necessary to be interesting, that multiplayer modes were not mandatory in an FPS, and that stupid plot lines and outrageous characters would not feel out of place in a serious tone. For lots of reasons, Bioshock was a great game, but for one, it killed the experience for me. Right now, I’m going to warn you, if you have not played the game, I cannot assure you I won’t spoil it. I’m going to talk as if you have finished it, so spoilers potentially start HERE.====================== (continue reading…)

Capcom has performed Pavlovian conditioning on me with regard to Resident Evil 5.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, Pavlovian or classical conditioning refers to getting someone to act a certain way by introducing a stimulus. This stimulus is paired with something else so that it triggers a certain response that you’re looking for, even when that something else is taken away.

This kind of conditioning was  named after it’s father, behavioral scientist Ivan Pavlov, who got his pet dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. Interestingly enough,that pretty much describes the reaction of some people I know when Capcom announces a new installment in any of their popular franchises.

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Let me begin this article with an introduction not to the game, but to myself. I’ve never played a FE game before. Ever. I’ve played SRPG’s before such as Disgaea, FFTA (and the even more awesome FFTA2) and so on, but I’ve never actually played a Fire Emblem game. This is mainly because I jumped out of the Ninty camp after my Wii collected dust. I have also only completed one mission in this entire game so far, and I have been playing it for 24 hours hit the jump to find out why.

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Quest for Glory, the brainchild series of a couple who I assume were wiccan or something, was published by Sierra as part of their Sierra Adventures line. They’re essentially adventure games with RPG elements.  Or maybe RPGs with adventure game elements, it’s hard to say.

The story begins with the main character, the avatar, the Ego as it were, referred to as Devon Aidendale in the official strategy guide, having just graduated from the famous Adventurer’s Correspondence School for (Fighters/Wizards/Thieves).  He sees a bulletin posted that the town of Spielburg needs a hero ASAP, no experience required.  Looking to become a hero, he sets off on a quest which will eventually send him on a journey all over the world, righting wrongs, slaying beasts, and possibly robbing the houses of some innocent folk.

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I came into Halo Wars with high hopes and dreams of a masterly crafted RTS, and I expected it to be a bit dumbed down because hey it’s a console real time strategy game. There was a lot of stigma attached to Halo Wars for that reason, and for the reason that a lot of people expected it to fail because they believed the Halo audience didn’t have the patience for Halo Wars. Halo Wars didn’t make it out as well as Halo 3 did, of course anyone could predict that. However the question remains.. is it good?

Some people will dismiss it without playing it and those people suck, if you’re going to bash a game, at least try it first. That being said, Halo Wars, believe it or not, is a good game. The missions are interesting, and even challenging, and everything just seems right. Let’s run through some of the strong points.
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