Let me paint a picture for you. You and your friend are crouched in a bush in the middle of a wooded area, staring at a piece of meat you placed about 300 feet away. As you are looking a giant fire breathing dragon starts to land in front of the meat. He looks around and doesn’t see anything so he starts to eat the meat. When the dragon is done eating you two start running towards the monster, since the meat you guys placed down was drugged, the monster falls down asleep. You run to one side and set up three bombs, while your friend runs to the other and sets up a pitfall trap. Your friend runs up closer to the dragon and hits him repeatedly with a long sword, waking the dragon up in a confused state as the dragon starts to stand up you light the bombs and run away, and your friend starts placing bombs on the trap. The bombs you have lit explode, knocking the dragon over into the pitfall trap. You run up and set up more bombs as your friend lights his, and you both explode the hell out of this dragon stuck in a trap. He flies out of the trap into the air and slowly starts to land noticing you two are the reason he is in so much pain. As he lands he turns towards your friend and starts to ready a fireball in his mouth to blast at your friend. Before he can exhale it you bring a slice down on the dragons tail that actually cuts it off and the dragon falls to the ground screaming, open wide for attacks from the hunters. This is an actual scenario from one of the games my brother and I were playing. We are total hunters, but we actually call ourselves portable hunters from our transaction from the Playstation 2 to the PSP. If you started playing this game on the Playstation 2 and loved it, its time to play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and if you have never played this game at all, you should start with this version of the game. The game consists of hunting various beast that range from small rapture like creatures, to giant fish with legs that jump out of the water and kick your ass to a crab so big that it looks like one of the creatures from the Stephen King movie The Mist. Once you have killed these monsters you can carve materials off their bodies such as scales, hearts, fins, horns, teeth, claws and so on to make armor and weapons to hunt larger and stronger beasts. To make it though these quests you have to gather materials while you are out hunting to combine and make items in order to survive your encounters with the monsters. Example being you need to collect green herbs and blue mushrooms. If you combine these two items they make a potion and the potion restores a little bit of your health bar when taken This keeps your life up when a monster lands a successful attack on a hunter and the bar needs to be refilled. If you take a potion and combine it with plain old honey you get a mega potion, which restores about double the amount of life as the regular potion did. The possibilities are endless within this system in creating items,weapons, and armor. Every armor can be upgraded with different strength of ores you mine within the maps to make the material harder and harder. Also every weapon can be upgraded to make its attack stronger or turn into a different type of weapon. You can upgrade a regular Iron sword with fire sacs found in a dragons neck in order to add a fire ability to your sword. This makes the sword melt through an ice dragons skin and land successful hit, whereas a regular iron sword couldn’t do before. You also have the ability to make your armor strong against ice, by making it out of ice dragon hide. So next time you go to fight an ice dragon, you can where your armor resistant to ice and make the dragons attacks weaker when they are successfully landed. The game contains at least 500 hours of game play, and that’s only to those who get bored with playing games that long or finally slay every single dragon and are done playing. For a hunting game I think this is one of the best franchises Capcom has ever made. The only lack with the PSP version is you cant just link up with a friend through the internet, you both have to meet up in a room and play together. This makes the interaction a lot more fun since you can talk to each other face to face. Also, if you have PSP-3000 and hooked up to TV's you can see each others screens, but it cuts out a lot of play time with friends, since we all have jobs, curfews or even the old distance problem were friends live in other states or cities. Despite this one suckness factor, the game is probably one of the best games to enjoy this year and well for many years to come.
The Joker
Here is everyone’s favorite super villain. This is one villain that changes with the ages and makes his image appear as the times are. When Cesar Romero came out as the Joker on the Batman television series, people started to say “Oh man, there will never be a joker this awesome” And when Jack Nicholson played the Joker in the 80’s Batman movie people forgot all about the old Joker and dawn the same phrase “never be a better Joker.” Now that we are in the 2000’s and we have the Dark Knight movie out, the Joker has been announced as the best by Heath Ledgers performance of the long loved character. I have come to realize that with the Joker it is more of a feel of that era. In the Romero era people were super clean cut and kept things at a low simmer and this is how the Joker was portrayed as if the man had went crazy, but still had a master plan of what he was going to do. In the 80’s people were all about their clean, yet crazy image and doing everything in abundance and this is exactly how the Nicholson Joker was put out to the public. So Nicholson was the crazy Joker that kept up with his Joker image and found it fun to dress up or upkeep his clown face by reapplying make up when it smudges even just a little. Now in the 2000’s things are a lot more gritty and dark in general and this is exactly how the Ledger Joker was portrayed and “became the best Joker that no one can do better at”, just like the other jokers before him. Ledger portrayed a dark and sinister man with no feelings of others that had gone crazy, applied his make up to his face once and went on threw the movie. As he did his evil deeds his face paint started coming off and he generally got dirtier and wasn’t worried about the filth on his clothes or fixing his smudged makeup. I think this is what makes the Joker character so loved to the public and makes each one that plays the character become the best to that generation. The Joker as an individual is the bad guy, but he toys with the hero with a fun, happy, and deadly way that no one else can provide. When he does this he usually is written to be almost a spokes person for what people like in each era that they create a new Joker in. They seem to give the Joker a new palette and fit into the generation as if he was a leader or a role model for what people feel in actual societies. In the television series the Joker was trying to bring the Batman down so he could run his massively evil empire without a threat from the batman. In the 80’s batman movie the Joker was trying to bring down the dirty politicians and take over since the politicians were basically just like him. He rallied the people of the city and gave them what they really wanted. In the new movie the Joker is just hell bent on destroying a society that was already on the verge of destroying itself. A lot of people feel this way through each era and the Joker it the one villain that actually brings those feeling to the public and says it as loud as possible. People listen and say they feel it, but since it’s with the Joker it is almost as if they can say awesome and still kind of hide or hold back on saying or portraying what they are truly feeling.
Mad World (Wii)
This game is kind of a mix between Super Smash T.V. meets No More Heroes and hosted by the MXC guys, but it is a whole lot cooler. The basis of the game is you are a dude named Jack that has a trusty chainsaw attached to his arm and a cigarette to his mouth. You are trying to become number one player in a game show called Deathwatch. The game show is hosted by a pimp and his “bottom bitch” and the object is to make the most creative kills you can for your viewers, in order to rack up points. The points you collect open up things such as new weapons, Bloodbath challenges and main bosses throughout each stage. Now if you have read this far and thought to yourself “Wow that’s not for my children” then you are right, because this game is defiantly not for your children. Actually Madworld is one of the few M-rated games currently out on the Nintendo WII system.The game itself has a real artistic design, example being Sin City, to the graphics and down to even the violence and gore. Almost everything in the game is black and white, with the exception of blood and lots of it, lots and lots of red blood. The point system in game play is set-up to where the most creative kill gets the most points. Example being if you throw a person into the path of a moving train, you will receive less points then if you stick a couple caution signs through his neck and shove him in a barrel of fire first. The stage kills in this game are classic, such as throwing a person into an open trashcan and the lid falling down to cut the person in half or you can jab them onto a meat hook and leave them hanging there the entire stage. Still stage kills aren’t the only means of death since Jack has a whole slew of finishing moves he can do, half are with his chainsaw. The controls are solid with classic style controls until you get to a finishing move, stage kill, or boss kill. So don’t expect there to be a bunch of crazy, outlandish motion controls you have to do with the Wiimote to play the game. You punch a guy with the A button until he becomes finishing move worthy then you pick one of three combination button pushes between the A and B buttons. This loads you into which fatality you will execute. Then you do the Wiimote action. If you have a chainsaw in the gut, you pull the Wiimote up and it pulls the chainsaw out cutting them from gut to head. When you fight the Frankenstein boss, you attack in a classic style control, then when he is down you run up his back and grab a hold of one of four giant screws in his back. When you have done this you twist the Wiimotes as if you are unscrewing the bolts eventually pulling the bolt out. Once you go through the one player, you unlock bloodbath challenges for two player mode. The two player mode can be kind of dull, if you throw a person who has never played the game in. Yet if you enjoy the bloodbath challenges, game play can be quite a competition by seeing who can get the most kills. Now again I stress this game is not for your kids, in fact the commentators words alone could probably damage your kids innocence. So if you are an adult looking for a not so childish game on a “party game” system, this is the title you should pick up. Sega has hit a homerun with this game and if they continue on this trend, Gamers will be seeing a lot more adult themed games for the Wii. Sega could be the one that brings some edge to Nintendo. That edge that Sega supplied gamers with when they were against Nintendo in the 16-bit console wars.
Ad-hoc Party (PS3)
This little game, or world simulator, for the ps3 deserves a spot in the reviews section, even though there isn't much to review on it. Adhoc party is a world simulator that allows you to play your psp with anyone that is also in the world simulator. This let's friends play there psp games without being in the range the adhoc signal allows on the psp, which is about 20 feet, by connecting through the internet connection on your ps3. Let me explain how it works, first you start adhoc party on your ps3, this will bring up a series of worlds named A-1, B-1, C-1 and so on. Within those worlds you have 64 islands and on those islands is where you can build your rooms. So lets say you are playing MHFU and you want to play with a friend that lives two states away. You would tell them to meet you in World A-1, Island 12. Once you get on the island you use your stick figure avatar to design a room, name it, leave a comment explaining whats going on in the room, build it then your friends and you go into it. Note that if you dont password protect it, other players other than friends can enter the room and try to play, and randoms(players unknown by you) will do this frequently! Now everyone that is in the room can text chat or use a headset to talk and its basically as if you are all in the same room, but in each individuals own living room. You then play your PSP normally as if they were in the room next to you, even getting online with each other like adhoc mode. This allows for games on the psp to have online capibilties, or atleast with the help of the ps3. Adhoc party also supports vita, as I cant say if we can play vita games together(I think vita games are online, not adhoc, still I havent tried so I dont really know), I know you can play downloaded psp games with other psp/vita users.
Excitebike : World Rally (Wii)
This game is four lanes of pure excitement and in fact is one of the few racing games I do enjoy. You are in a motorcycle race against 3 other racers and a million purple racers on four 2d horizontal lanes. The object of this game is to get across the finish line in the set amount of time, usually under two minutes. The road is not paved flat though, there are jumps, bumps, dirt, mud and racers that aren’t so nice, among other things that will try to slow you down. A lot of these simple objects become very hardcore obstacles when you are at top speed, even harder when you are hitting turbo. Still the simple controls and intensity of the simple game is what has been keeping people coming back for generations. To play Excitebike, you turn the Wiimote horizontal like an old school Nintendo controller. You press 2 for gas and 1 for turbo and this sends you forwards on the set lanes. You then simply press up or down to switch between the four different lanes and shake the Wiimote in order to get out of wrecks. Now you tilt the Wii mote to the left or right to do certain things in the game. If you make a giant jump at turbo speed, you need to balance out your bike to land level with the ground. If you are going to land at a slant going downhill, you would want your Wiimote slanted in the same way the land was and if you land it perfectly you get a little help. This makes it as if some rounds you are doing the wave at a football game, when trying to make it through a series of jumps. Turbo is another key feature in this game and without it you will never win S-rank trophies or very many online battles. Now if you just hold down the turbo button your engine will eventually overheat and you will have to shake the Wiimote to get the engine to cool down. There are ways to keep turbo down throughout the entire race though. You can hit set markers placed upon the tracks lanes to cool the engine down or you can cut off a biker and cause him to wreck for the same affect. You can also do things like land on a bikers head after a jump or hit a series of jumps and release the turbo while in the air. In other words you need to learn how to use turbo and use it effectively in this game. All in all I would have to say that Excitebike is one of the coolest remakes to date. It really sticks true to the original formula put in place, while adding an awesome new look. It goes further than just upgraded graphics in this game since Nintendo added a play anyone online (Don’t need friends Wii code) feature and the fun features of the motion control and how it’s applied into the game. Still players can use the classic control style such as you press back on the d-pad to pop a wheelie instead of flick the Wiimote down. All these extra features added to an awesome classic game wrapped up for ten bucks lets us know that Excitebike is a solid remake.
Scribblenauts(Nintendo DS)
Wow this game is crazy awesome! Have you ever been playing a game and said to yourself, man I wish I could make an atomic bomb and blow this entire stage up! Well even if you havent, now you can. Scribblenauts is a game where you are a little boy in a rooster hat holding a wicked notebook. Each stage gives you a task such as help a lumberjack do his job. You open up your handy dandy notebook and write any object down you want and it appears. So you can write axe, chainsaw, jigsaw, or anything else you can think of to help the lumberjack cut down a tree, or you can write down zombie and have a zombie appear and eat you and the lumberjacks brains. Like I said the game is crazy awesome. The concept is simple but the replay value keeps the concept fresh and new. I wanted to replay levels to see how else I could solve them. One level has a cat on a island and in one side of the pond is some ducklings and on the other side of the island is an ugly duckling. You start out on the little island with the cat. The goal is to get the ugly duckling reunited with his family without hurting the cat. Since the cat will eat the duck if it comes onto the island I tried alot of things to distract the cat, such as a ball of yarn or putting the cat in a petcage. None of these worked, so I thought if I just had a jetpack I could jump in the water and grab the duck, then jetpack over the island. So I wrote jetpack it appeared and I put it on and did just that. Another level I tryed to get a life guard to jump off the diving board into a pool for a better part of the day. I put drowning kid in the pool, a bull to hit her in the water, a bully to push her off the board, plus several other things and she would just set there jumping on the board. I got home from work and was showing my girlfriend the level and she said "oh yeah I did that level, I just made a ghost and it scared her and she jumped into the pool." I thought to myself that I tryed to bully her into the pool like a guy would do to another guy, but a girl would scare another girl into the pool, this made the game genius to me. Making something simple quickly become frustrating is easy to do with video games, but making something simple be complicated with enjoyment is a once in a lifetime thing. So rather you solve your problems with guns, zombies or a can of tuna this game is the problem solving game for everyone. Since the game lets anyone solve the problem with any object they think will work.
Assassin's Creed Lineage
I was going to do a review on Assassin’s Creed 2, but I thought to myself that everyone has played it. If they haven’t played the game yet, they have already heard so much about it that there really is no reason to do a review. So then I come across this little gem of a movie, but it’s a very short movie. The movie is called Assassins Creed 2 lineage and it is basically the prequel to the video game. The movie is based around Ezio’s (Main character of the game) father, Giovanni, when he wore the assassin’s suit. The story of the movie doesn’t give anything, such as spoilers away to the game, but it does fill in a lot of details in the game. The movie itself looks amazing, almost as if it’s kind of done like 300 was, but with the same exact graphics from the game, instead of paint or whatever. When you see the movie and see the actor that plays the part in the game, it will make you realize how beautiful the game graphics really are. Giovanni, that fat guy lies about the letter and even the guy at the end that knife’s Giovanni look in the game, exactly like they do in real life, Plus the movie really gives a feel as if you are in the Animus watching Giovanni play out his memories. AC2L is beautiful blend of game graphics and film combined to make something beautiful and original. With such a short amount of time to fill in for this little promotional movie, the crew really packed it full of awesome stuff. It shows off a lot of how the game is going to play through storyline, graphics, fighting and many other things. Example being my girlfriend and I were watching it and seeing buildings we had scaled in the game, being constructed in the movie. We thought it was awesome when he threw money down to distract the guard, because you do this a lot in the game. Hell we even got all excited when we seen Giovanni’s assassin blade break, because we had to get a famous painter to fix it for us in the game and now we know why. All I can say it this little movie left me wanting many more episodes, just like the game left me wanting a crap load of DLC(Down Loadable Content).