#3 – Robotrek :

Now I’m sure many of you have not played this game, it was one of my favorite RPGs on the SNES (Final Fantasy 2, 7th saga and Super Mario RPG not included because well everything pales in comparison to those) by ENIX. It was this whacky game where you played a boy genius (much akin to Dexter’s Lab) who ends up building these little combat-robots to help fight off a band of evil crooks who are attempting to use science to do criminal things.

The real problem here is it gets a Disney style ending. Everything works out PERFECTLY for everyone. Bad guys are defeated, they manage to escape the exploding core just in time and the reporter gets her ’scoop’, your friends are like “man you are awesome.” the ghosts of your damn ancestors are even like “WTG DOOD.” Seriously.

SCIENCE!

#2 – Actraiser :

Yes much like when I discussed Adventures of Lolo in the last HDE – this is a solid solid game, one that I have wasted countless hours on having an awesome time with it. However it still has an incredibly retarded ending considering how much fun that game was. You were an awesome deity who built cities in a dumbed-down city building game while doing SHUMP-esque combat, then had serious platforming/action levels that were both frustrating and challenging at various points. I know there were a few times I seriously contemplated quitting fighting the last boss of Death Heim and getting destroyed over and over and over. Then? Your reward?

Your little angel cohort shows you all the cities you’ve built and saved over the time with a random little blurb about the citizens of each place, “There was a citizen in fillmore who could tell the future, he totally predicted this.” Wow, awesome, the citizens I’ve had little to no interaction with on an individual basis this whole game suddenly have personalities! Fantastic! Then he gives you a rant about how maybe people are happier when they don’t need “The Master” (you) to guide them and maybe are better off forgetting all about you.

THE END. what

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THE SHIT I’VE GONE THRUOGH FOR YOU JERKS?

#1 – Revolution X :

It was a terrible game to begin with, despite having some of the most laughable concepts in a video game, ever. Seriously. You launch CD’s to fight the NEW ORDER establishment which is KEEPING THE ROCKING TO A MINIMUM lead by a giant cyborg gorilla wearing a biker suit with a pair of uzi’s who rides around on a flying rocket chair. Yeah you read that right. So I’m just gonna let you see. This is your ending. You get told (via text, no dialogue, no pictures) that you stopped the new order and will forever be the hero of the revolution.

Then:

Aerosmith – Dude looks like a lady? More like Game looks like a piece of crap.

yeah Aerosmith shows up and rocks out to Dude looks like a lady, in all of it’s 16bit glory. If you managed to get 100% collection, you get to go BACKSTAGE and see them rock out in a sliding montage of credits. Also it’s not even a full video, it’s animated .gifs of them swaying back and forth. C’mon, really?

Alright alright, I’ll stop, deep breath, it’s okay. Phew, glad that’s over.

Next time we’ll stay with the 16bit era and I’ll discuss some genesis endings that you should definitely avoid. Also – I know I’ll probably get some crap about the whole Robotrek thing, because that’s a typical-ish ending that RPG’s like to use in general. If you want to know the full details, e-mail me and I’ll give you the full scoop on why it’s a Highly Disappointing Ending.

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Keep up to date with games I’m checking out, import or otherwise and learn about whats new.

Co-ordination and or timing – and mini-games.

Now I don’t know about you, but back in my day, we were lazy. Our ‘party’ games so to speak were the likes of Madden, Tecmo Bowl, NBA JAM, Blitz, You Don’t Know Jack, Pong and such. (Shh I’m leaving Track N Field out of this one.)

What I mean by this, is they were relatively sedentary games, learn a few button clicks, maybe a little bit of choice quick finger movements, but that was really it. We had buttons dedicated to juke around an opponent, or to dribble between their legs. Long gone are these games and their lazy ire for the lazy video game playing nerd. Now we have the six-axis to flick our controller in various directions to help angle his shot, a guitar with a gyro in it to detect when we are swishing our instrument into the air to ‘rock out’ harder, or a wii-mote to swish around in a graceful ark to do make a hook at a guy’s jaw.

Interactivity makes the game better I’m told. I thought it was pretty interactive when I pushed left and Little mac dodged to the left to enable me to dodge Mike Tyson’s (or Mr. Dream for those more politically correct or for our younger crowd) deathly uppercut and come back in with a few quick jabs of my own.

So then there are the Wii’s waggle games. Little co-ordination of timing, but lots of flipping your nun-chucks around in a pattern to achieve the goal of various mini events. Great concept, problem is the motions rarely seem to actually give a shit about what you’re doing, more that you’re just moving. I’ve played Mario Party 8 and when it told me to swish the wii-mote around in a circle to paddle a boat, simply just swinging it around in whatever direction I wanted worked just as well. I found that all kind of disappointing, as a system and series of games that tried to be the front man for the whole life-like motion concept – it felt rather half-assed.

I hear there’s an attachment coming out eventually that will actually make the wii-mote’s motion more life-like and less sporadic. I’m on the edge of my seat. (/sarcasm)

But then came Dokapon – It’s Mario Party without the mini-games with the addition of an adorably charming RPG in the mix. Yes! Finally! A game I can play with friends and don’t have to worry about scratching up my touch-screen when we’re spazzing out to flick soccer balls in a goal, or something equally as obnoxious.

What I mean is – You have a Kingdom (coincidentally Dokapon Kingdom on the Wii,) ruled by a silly little king who has a daughter. He wants to marry his daughter off to the bravest adventurer in the land – so here come you and some friends (or AI, up to 4 players/AI max.) There are 8 classes to chose from that all have their own stat-gains and abilities and carrying loads or spells available. At it’s core it actually has a pretty acceptable RPG. There are shops to upgrade your gear, monsters to kill to gain experience and get gold. Minimalistic PVP, quests and boss monsters.

Charmingly cartoony graphics give this game a unique feel compared to the seriousness of most current RPG’s

All the players move around on a giant game board map similar to Mario Party’s, with a ‘rolling’ system to move your spaces each turn. Items that enable you to move a specific amount of spaces, or get additional rolls. Spells can be cast against one another to screw with each other’s progress or hamper your health before a big fight.

Generally whoever is richest at the end of the allotted amount of time (Or all the quests have been finished) is the winner.  There are a few quests along the way to help you earn more money (One quest has you retrieving an elixir to cure a town’s poisoned well, another has you rescuing the King’s daughter who wandered off on her own to go on a shopping spree) and rescuing towns from evil monsters adds to your net worth and earns you tax-revenue.

All in all it plays like a Mario Party, but it’s adorable and doesn’t have aggravating mini-games that newcomers would have no idea how to play – thus making it easy for anyone to jump in and play.

Oh, right I knew I forgot something – 4player Wireless one-card support. One of my favorite features about this game is that nobody else needs to have it to play. You can stream it out to 3 of your friends and then can join you for a dumbed-down version of the game (8 weeks long, starting zone and about 12 towns only.) But its nice to see multi-player games that still support this feature on the DS (and just solid multi player games in general) – one of the main reasons I got one in the first place.

Follow me now on twitter – http://twitter.com/TheReverendLei

Keep up to date with games I’m checking out, import or otherwise and learn about whats new.

One thing I am beginning to get bent out of shape over is the kind of legacy I will leave. My entire childhood and most of what I would now call my adulthood has been spent with the vidya. For better or worse, my past is tied to the vidya. One of the big apprehensions I have about one day not playing video games is the fact that I will, in essence, be killing off what has been a large part of both my history and identity.

At the same time however, because our childhoods were electronic, they can be effectively captured in our various forms of modern media storage. With the advent of emulators, all of the games of your childhood, regardless of when you were born, become available. While this is very comforting, it is also very frightening. It seems scary to me that the exact experience can be immediately transferred to someone else. Perhaps this is why I have been putting more emphasis on the tactile aspect of my childhood.

Check your garage, or closets, or attics. This is usually the final resting place of your long forgotten game consoles. You might find a gem, but due to lack of maintenance and proper storage, most of them are probably so choked with dust that they are inoperable. All of mine were in a big box in the living room. Due to my new fears of losing my identity and past, I made a trip to Wal-Mart and purchased a sturdy Sterlite container. To my delight, my Super Nintendo, PSX and Game Gear all managed to fit along with the rest of my games (be they cartridge or CD) as well as the various controllers and cables required to operate them.

While my Atari and Nintendo have been long gone, it is nice to know that my SNES and PSX are still fully functional. I cannot begin to describe the glee I experienced when i not only found out that the PSX still worked, but that i managed to locate all 4 discs to final fantasy 8, as well as Breath of Fire 3. The fact that these games are burned actually helps me to find the memories that i was seeking to per—. Back in the day, we didn’t have a lot of money. The only way we could afford games was if they were rented and then burned. Of course, this now makes me realize why I put so much emphasis on purchasing games for full price.

My ps2 is sitting faithfully beside my ps3, and my Gameboy is tucked away in a box full of pokemon memorabilia. I sincerely doubt the Gameboy will ever join the box gang, while the ps2 is destined to be moved in there when the time comes to vacate the premises. All of this originated at 2:00am, unable to asleep, so afraid I would lose what i consider something integral to my identity. Now that everything is safe (or as safe as it can be) I am afforded a peace of mind that I’ve never known before. The chances of me actually breaking out the old consoles is pretty slim. It may happen, you never know. But the knowledge that they are there, operational, complete, gives me a physical link to a past predominantly ethereal.

I don’t ever want to not like video games. If that time comes, so be it. I’d say the main reason why so many people
accept their dislike of video games is because there are so few ways to objectively look back on them and acknowledge the happiness and joy they brought. You have a photo album, perhaps in the same attic, closet or garage, full of your smiling face no matter where you are. Mexico, your backyard, a soccer game, wherever. Surely you wouldn’t be smiling if you weren’t happy, right? The only way I can ever imagine my happiness being proven is in the save of Final Fantasy 7 with 99:99 time played, or the Pokemon Red with all 151 (including Mew, fuck yeah game genie) or the fact that mentioning a game like Final Fight garners a “hell yes that was a good game” from your mouth. Those are really the only hard testaments to a past full of fun that you can’t remember ever happening, because you were predominantly alone, enjoying those games as the days and months tick by in a childhood you can never experience again.

In what can only be construed as a final irony, i happened to walk by the pinball machine we have in the upstairs of my house. It was given to me as a gift on my first birthday by a father that I can assure you is no longer part of my life (unless you count my lifestyle as a dichotomy to his, in which i can assure you he is there in full force). Here is a relic, still working, that ties me to my past in a way that is both uncomfortable and familiar, like video gaming. When was the last time I played? I couldn’t say. However, wherever i head off to make permanent residence in the future, you can bet your life on the fact that it will be coming with me, along with my boxes full of games, console and memories. Things that I will one day hope to pass off to my own children. I can only imagine that like those smiling pictures, I am intending to pass these off to them so that they can experience the happiness that I once did, the happiness I hope never leaves.

If we look at some of the biggest first person shooters of last year, games like Call of Duty 5 and Farcry 2. While they both feature death match, they have a much larger popularity in in team death match and other team based game modes. Other games from last year, like Gears of War 2, Army of Two, and Left 4 Dead don’t even have it as an option. If we look back into the year before, we had Team Fortress 2, Call of duty 4, and Halo 3. Two of witch are still big in on-line gaming, and of them, Team Fortress 2 is strictly team based. Now the fact that there might be a trend is great, but what does it mean?

On the most basic level, it means gamers like working with other people more, and from there, I can come up with two ideas for what this trend could signify, one interesting and the other, more likely. The first being that gamers like working together more because it is more rewarding, and fosters more of a community. Many people I know enjoy fragging their friends, but they say it’s so much more satisfying when you and your friend save the day together. I second this opinion whole heartedly. Team fortress 2 is one of my favorite games because of the times when I’m forced to work with my team mates to progress. Team matches also reward people who play together more often as they work more and more cohesively as a team, and since your friends are not on all the time, you start to make connections with other gamers as you work together, and a solid community is formed. This community then adds to the staying power of a game, which would hopefully lead to gaming companies spending more time on games that have already been released, to keep the community at that game instead of moving to a new one.

The second more likely option, is that gamers like team play more because their allies make great meat shields. As my friend said, “I love team play because I can have some idiot run out, take all the sniper fire, and let me get the kill.” In death match, you’re running blind most of the time, there usually isn’t a mini map to help you find the fighting, the only hints are dropped weapons and the sound of combat. Then, when you find it, it’s quickly resolved, and if you’re lucky enough to survive, the whole cycle repeats again. Also, if you’re especially unlucky, in death match you can spawn in combat, essentially doubling your respawn time from your last death as you catch a glimpse of a rocket hitting your face. Many find this style of play tiring, as certain elements boil down to luck. You either spawned close to the shot gun or you didn’t. Many gamers detest games that have a large luck based portion of it. Thus, they turn to team play, where a team usually provides a safe spawn area, consistent information about the location of the enemy(with either their voices or their corpses) and a chance for some one else to take your bullet. Most of the luck is removed, and you can still be the one man mowing machine you where in deathmatch, for most, there is no downside, unless you planned on any idea of teamwork.

Death match is on the decline, there is no doubt about it, it is one of the least popular modes in the games that do have it, and there has been a move toward co-operative play only games. The only question left is where gamers will go with it. Does it portend a move toward a more mature community based association of gamers? Or is it a way for players to try stacking the odds in their favor, splintering the community even more? Either way, the free for all is on it’s last legs.

Since Counter-Strike, the so called “Leet” gamers are getting more and more common, but are they really worth their title? Is this elitist attitude towards games good? With the increase of online multiplayer games, it is fairly common that someone would get addicted to a game, and wouldn’t stop playing it until they’ve mastered it.

Some of these gamers are going to think they are superior to others just because they have a higher Gamerscore or PSN level, these guys can only play with another “Elite”. A lot of “Elite” gamers are that way because they place way too much importance and status on unimportant things. Getting 1000 achievement points or a platinum trophy can be quite an accomplishment, but it doesn’t grant you a special status or something noteworthy.

Just because you’re a level 52 and I’m only a 43 doesn’t mean you have more skill than me on that game, you’re probably on a higher level because you spent more time grinding. Even if you’re better than me, this is a just a game, not a dependency, there’s always going to be someone better.

Which is the mistake some people make. We can get  motivated to get trophies or achievements, or level up characters, and that’s fine. You can take games seriously and get into competitive gaming, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun at the same time. It’s a game, we are playing it with set goals. There is a tendency for people to become overly serious in playing and lose sight of the game itself. This is the case in everything that can be competitive, from sports to tabletop roleplaying.

Remember, there are idiots on both sides- there are people who say that competitive gamers should just play the game. Both Casuals and Hardcores have their space, but they want to destroy each other, like the Ps3 vs 360 vs Wii war that’s going on.

So, both sides are wrong, instead of playing the games for fun and achievements, they keep focusing on only one and forgetting the other. They also love to say why their side is right, i think we should just play video games for both achievements and fun, we should also stop trying to be superior to others. It’s just a game, play it your way, but don’t mess with the others, is it that hard?

Specifically, I need some help from you guys. Here’s my idea: If any of you have accounts on any big gaming forums, it would be incredibly awesome of you to make a post about this site on Wednesday of this week. I know it’s shameless for me to ask, but I really think it’ll give us the boost we need. Yes, even from these guys:

Since payments are still on hold, it obviously won’t work too well to promote the site based solely on getting people to write. Therefore, if you decide to do this, I’d like you to just pick your favorite article, post it, and ask what others think about it. That, or just post a link to the main site and say something along the lines of “lol, a community-driven blog. This will never work.” Something like that.

Anyway, if anybody decides to do this, I’ll be eternally grateful.

In my opinion Need for Speed games have always been about fun. The thrill of a cop chase or a final NOS boost across the finish line rarely fails to deliver a hardy amount of satisfaction and enjoyment. Perhaps it’s the rubber-band AI that keeps me on the edge of my seat, or the customization that can occupy me for hours. Although one thing is for sure, NFS seems to have aged a whole lot recently, and developed a nasty case of arthritis and schizophrenia.  

In 2002 I welcomed the shiny new NFS: Hot pursuit 2 into my life, although delivering a somewhat satisfactory experience I certainly wasn’t complaining. That same year saw the release of the hit street racing, car tuning popular movie The Fast and the Furious. EA having just released their sixth NFS game possibly made the greatest decision ever. They put 1 and 1 together by applying the popular elements of the movie and shoving them straight into their next game, NFS: The Fast and the Furious Underground. This wise move ascended the NFS franchise into what I like to refer to as the Golden Age of modern NFS gaming (2003 – 2005). 

Introducing a mass of “import” cars, performance tuning, body modification and even a god damn story, Underground truly revolutionized the NFS series. EA, the sly dogs they are, caught on and noticed they were actually doing something right. Expanding further on Underground premise, Underground 2 could only been seen as an improvement on the original. Also containing something never before seen in NFS was Free-roaming. Yep that’s right, you could drive to your godamn race, or cruise around for 10 hours if you wanted. Again we saw the bar lifted with Most Wanted. This installation saw the customisation simplified, the reintroduction of muscle and exotics as well as Police chases. Considered the epitome of the Golden Age, Most wanted is viewed by many as the last great Need for Speed. 

EA, swimming in their pool of cash, once again peered out at mainstream pop culture only to catch glimpses of the latest Fast and the Furious instalment, Tokyo Drift. Following previous suit they of course had a crack at copying this movie cash cow with NFS: Carbon. Carbon heavily flaunted its canyon racing mode, where two drivers would duel it out in a drift down the mountain, desperately trying to imitate Tokyo Drift. Although somewhat successful, over the top customization and toned down police chases bought the Golden age to an end, in turn ushering NFS into the Dark Ages. 

Although not a total disaster Carbon did some things right, unlike ProStreet. The removal of free roam as well as police pursuits was a total step backwards which seemingly didn’t feel like a NFS game at all. Undercover… wait, what’s that? I stopped paying attention 2 years ago.

• Undercover was the 12th game in the series
• A new NFS game has been released annually since 1997
• EA  Franchise milking cash whores

These three obvious points have pretty much been the demise of the once loved Need for Speed series. EA apparently sold 5.2 million copies of Undercover over all nine release platforms which include the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Wii, PC, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and mobile phone. Around the time of Carbon’s release, something changed. EA realised they could just re-skin their last game and slap on the NFS logo. This process practically prints money regardless of quality, and they’ve been doing this for oh so long now. Especially with other game franchises acquired from aggressive industry buyouts. 

According to the graph, we can expect the next Need for Speed instalment to be the worst on record. I mean the next four Need for Speed instalments. EA has already announced a Free to play mmo for the PC, a childish themed racer for the Wii, and a hardcore touring car themed racer for inevitably all systems, as well as another unannounced title in the works all set for release this year and all with the Need for Speed logo copy-pasted on. Seems awfully similar  to the direction Battlefield is taking this year ..Yes that’s right, EA’s trend of the year is to release not just one game, but many of the same in slight money-grabbing variations. 

In conclusion I’m sure you didn’t need a reminder of EA’s quality dedication and jew-like behaviour. If only they abolished those silly deadlines for releases, and maybe aimed a little higher. eh.. one can dream. In the end the big guy at the top wants more money, and if he keeps the current trend going, he’ll unfortunately get it. 

Many players do not like hard counters, because they usually don’t require a lot of skill to use. This is only partly true though. When talking about micromanagement, hard counters are usually simple ot use: Click attack button and reap the rewards. Since they have such a big advantage over the unit they’re countering, you usually only need to worry about other units in the vicinity (this is not true for all genres, for example counter characters in fighting games).

However, this does not mean they are skill-less: Instead they provide a new level of depth to the macro game. Will my opponent build unit X? How many will he build? Where will he attack?

As you can see, with hard counters you really have to read your opponent (or scout) well. Otherwise you’ll use a lot of resources and time on building hard counters the enemy might not even use!

Soft counters work the other way around. While they benefit greatly from micromanagement, they’re boring in the macrogame. While hard counters are usually one-trick ponies, soft counters perform well against a variety of units.

This in turn means that you can build them without risk: Even if your opponent never uses unit X, they’re still useful.

An effect of this is that the more soft counters there are in a game, the more generalized armies become: Only a couple of different units are needed to handle most threats. Hard counters, on the other hand, cause players to be more specialized, and have a wider array of units in their army.

Reading this you might think I prefer hard counters. I actually prefer the toolbox-style gameplay with units able to fulfill multiple roles. However, it’s important that a game has a mixture of both hard and soft counters, to give people a choice of how to handle the enemy.

It should also be noted that these comments are definitely not true for all games. For example, while a fighting game may have hard counters, they do not contribute to the game at all, because players cannot switch out in the middle of a game (you can usually switch out in a match). Hard counters do not add any value to the game, because you cannot use them to respond to the enemy while in a game.

Next up is something about Risk vs Reward, an important way to add variety and balance to a game.