Daily Loaf

Saying Borderlands is my favorite combination of first person shooter and role-playing game is like saying Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are my favorite mass market peanut butter and chocolate candy – sure there’s not a lot of competition, but damn they’re both really good.

Set on the a sci-fi western/post apocalyptic planet called Pandora, Borderlands puts you behind the gun sights of one of four different mercenaries trying to find an ancient alien Vault and the presumed techno-treasures sealed therein. Each character has a different specialty: Roland the soldier, Lilith the elementalist siren, Mordecai the hunter, and Brick the berserker. Each has unique skill trees giving them special powers that define a large part of how they play. For example, the siren can turn invisible for short periods of time, the hunter has a helpful and deadly hawk companion, the soldier can deploy auto-turrets, and the berserker can pound people to a pulp with his bare hands. All the characters and the world they inhabit are rendered in a striking, almost painterly style that gives Borderlands a look that helps it stand out among virtual worlds.

One thing all these characters have in common, the unifying force that ties all of Borderlands together into a giant, violent, explosive ball of fun is the panoply of guns. There are pistols, revolvers, SMGs, assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, grenades, and even alien weaponry. Within each category weapons vary by damage, elemental effects, clip size, rate of fire, accuracy, and other special features. Although the some characters specialize in some weapons, all of them are useful and most characters routinely run around with at least one or two of each type. Enemies and monsters drop guns when you kill them, boxes scattered around the landscape hold guns, vending machines sell guns, piles of trash have guns in them. The game advertises “Bazillions of Guns!” and they ain’t lying. The constant quest for new weapons, something just a little better or a lot different or both drives you to keep playing, to keep shooting, to keep exploring It’s every bit as addictive as it’s meant to be. Read the rest of this entry »

Is Nathan Drake the best video game character of this console generation? I think he must be. Part Lara Croft and part Han Solo, the star of the Uncharted series for Playstion 3 brims over with goofy, roguish charm and is just the right amount of both badass and smarty-pants. Voice-acted to perfection by Nolan North (who you might remember from every other game in the world), Drake never grows tiresome, holding players’ interests from opening cut-scene to the make-you-want-to-smile/cry final lines of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Add in the equally alluring and well-acted characters of Elena, Chloe, and Sully combined with action and graphics worthy of a mega-budget movie, and you get one of the best games of the year.

Uncharted 2 is most definitely going for that blockbuster movie experience. In an age where open worlds and non-linear stories get all the glory, it seems almost quaint that Uncharted 2’s game play and story unfold along a very strict course. It has a complex story about Marco Polo’s lost fleet in Borneo and an ancient treasure hidden in the Himalayas to tell, and there’s no time for open world dilly dallying with side quests. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got mixed feelings writing this review, and not just because it means I have to figure out how to use umlauts. No, those mixed feelings are more primal, more basic than that – they are the painful discomfort associated with having something not live up to your expectations. And my expectations for Brütal Legend were as high as they get. Lead designer Tim Schafer made Psychonauts, my favorite game of the last console generation.

He’s been a consistently innovative, funny, and entertaining game developer with a unique sense of style. He always pushes the limits, always tries to give us something we haven’t seen before, and he does all those things with this game too. I firmly believe that reviewers should do everything they can to ignore their own expectations. Each game deserves to be taken on its own terms, judged according to what’s actually there, not what I wanted to be there. Judged on its own, Brütal Legend has all those Schafer hallmarks: an evocative, unique setting, a smart-yet-ridiculous sense of humor, and well-written, engaging characters. It’s also only kinda fun. Read the rest of this entry »

Video games allow us to simulate amazing feats and experience what it’s like to possess superhuman abilities, or to put it another way – to act like superheroes. Even games like Halo or Call of Duty owe as much to the super-heroic experience as they do to modern warfare. In real life, you can’t just shrug off a burst a machine gun fire by hiding behind a rock for five seconds. That’s a bona fide, Wolverine-style super power. It’s off then that there have been so many bad superhero games over the years. But we’re in a new golden age of such games, and if you read my Batman: Arkham Asylum review then you know it’s possible to make a superhero game that perfectly captures that comic book experience. Batman focused all its efforts on simulating one particular hero. The new Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 takes the opposite approach, offering a whole comic book universe of heroes to choose from in an attempt to recreate the world of Marvel Comics in one giant epic tale.

Ultimate Alliance’s story is drawn straight from two recent cross-over events in Marvel Comics – the Secret War and The Civil War. The Civil War in particular strove to achieve some really interesting political and social relevance with the legal and moral issues facing superheroes mirroring real world debates about freedom vs. security in the age of terror. With Marvel’s heroes split into two camps – Pro-Government led by Iron-Man and Pro-Freedom led by Captain America – the high drama of brother against brother that only comes from a civil war played out in dark, dramatic fashion across the pages of dozens of different comic book titles. This game offers a pretty close (but not by any means exact) version of that story, leaving it to the players as to which side they will support. And of course since it’s a video game, you can always go back and play it again from the other side. Read the rest of this entry »

I can’t think of another game that combines the utterly familiar with the intricately unique as well as The Beatles: Rock Band. The Fab Four’s music transcends fame, and everyone knows it (whether from growing up with it, discovering it as classic rock in their youth or hearing it in commercials). The game play is straight forward, Rock Band/Guitar Hero rhythm game stuff, modified only enough to make it more accessible and fun for new players. The resulting product may never be repeated. With it’s dedication to historical detail, its treasure trove of behind the scenes pictures and rare footage and its stunning visuals, this game celebrates The Beatles with every pixel. What other band’s story offers such a journey? What other band’s music has had such impact? What other band deserves such a great game?

The game’s Story Mode offers a glossy, cartoonish, and utterly engaging overview of The Beatles’ storied career. Divided into chronological stages representing different performance venues and recording sessions, The Beatles: Rock Band gives players all the highlights and none of the controversy. As musical history unfolds on screen in rhythm to your button presses and strum-bar clacks, it’s hard to imagine someone not coming away impressed or even moved by the Beatles’ evolution as both pop culture icons and rock and roll musicians. With each stage, the Beatle avatars change, from suit-wearing teen idol youngsters to bearded 60’s icons. The early sections feature the band in famous performance venues like the dingy Cavern where they got their start or Shea Stadium where they played for tens of thousands. Afterwards they move into a series of Abbey Road studio sessions, and players are treated to trippy, dream-like interpretations of songs like Yellow Submarine and I Am the Walrus. Of course it all comes to an end on the roof of Apple Corps. (A video preview of the game after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

The best game I’ve played all year.

Go buy it now.

There have been a lot of super hero games (I myself helped make one), and there have been even more games based on licensed properties. Most of them have been bad, disappointing, or insulting in some combination. Batman Arkham Asylum is great, totally satisfying, and utterly true to the source material. It is, quite simple, the best super hero game ever made.

No, it’s not perfect. There are a few, rare false notes and some brief, needlessly frustrating sequences but fade into smoke in the face of a game that really does make you feel like you’re playing Batman. Others have called it a Batman Sim or even a Batman RPG, and they aren’t wrong – Arkham Asylum not only offers some leveling-up mechanics and upgrades – but what we really mean when we say that is that the game captures the essence of Batman. He’s sneaky. He’s a detective. He’s bad ass in a fight. He’s fearless. As you play him you become all those things as well, and the only thing that sucks is that it has to end.

Arkahm Asylum is the mental institution where Gotham City houses its criminally insane super criminals. Its rusty, dark cells and brooding Gothic architecture set the scene for a classic confrontation between Batman and his arch-nemesis, The Joker. The game opens with Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t have any reason to think 99% of the developers who programmed, designed or otherwise helped create the new X-Box Live Arcade game Shadow Complex hate gay people. I’m assuming they don’t. But I do know that one man associated closely with the game is a talented writer and outspoken anti-gay advocate named Orson Scott Card, a man whose books I used to love and whose fevered anti-gay rhetoric I utterly despise. Shadow Complex is set within a fictional near-future America that is the setting for Card’s novel Empire. That novel is also published in conjunction with Chair, the developers of the game. Chair previously worked with Card on the game Advent Rising and their Web site state plans for future projects based on his work. Card himself has done interviews promoting Shadow Complex. I lay all this out in advance because I want to make clear that Card is firmly connected to this game, albeit at an inspirational rather than hands-on level (as far as I can tell).

The game itself is really a ton of fun. Read the rest of this entry »

‘Tis the season to be killing Nazis in alternate history epics, or at least in my life it is. First there was the history-bending, tense-monologue laden glory of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Now there’s Wolfenstein, one of the oldest game franchises around and the mirror image of Tarantino’s talky WWII pic.

Here we have action, action, action, as befits the latest iteration of the first 3-D first-person shooter. There’s a similar story too – a tale of a Jewish American soldier fighting behind Nazi lines, only instead of fancy-pants allegories about the power of film, Wolfenstein offers occult powers, particle cannons, and monsters from other dimensions. That’s the beauty of our modern media marketplace – Nazi-killing options are more diverse than ever.

The new version of Wolfenstein has flown a little under the radar. Read the rest of this entry »

Back before it was the Wii, Nintendo had code-named its new console The Revolution, and when the best selling console of this generation did come out a few years back, its motion controlled game play was indeed revolutionary. Like so many revolutions, it didn’t quite live up to its original promise.

Take the original Wii Sports, which came bundled with the system and offered a whole new experience – tennis, golf, baseball, bowling, and boxing that all felt somewhat, or even a lot like the real thing. You couldn’t help but smile a big, delighted grin the first time you tried it. But then came almost everything else for the damn Wii. Shovels full of middling to poor games, just a few bright gems (mostly from Nintendo) trying to shine from the towering dung heap of third-party cash-ins and motion-gimmick nonsense. My Wii, like that of many gamers, sat lonely and empty and un-played.

But those big, goofy grins are back baby! Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a long time since I had a game experience more mixed than Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. There’s lots to like, some things to hate, a fair amount that’s on the border, and even something I hated and then came to like. Playing this game was like riding an emotional roller coaster as I went from mildly interested to mildly annoyed and back again. Okay, maybe not really a roller coaster so much as a see-saw in the kiddie playground, but you get my point. There are some thrills to be had, but also some jarring landings.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the prequel to a game I never played, nor do you need to have played it. It’s a perfectly competent first-person shooter set in the Old West, full of two-fisted six-gun action and horse riding and even a lasso or two. You play alternately as Tom and Ray, defending your car repair business from angry public radio listeners who haven’t received their tote bags yet. Or rather, Thomas and Ray, two nasty Confederate soldiers who abandon their posts to try and save their farm from the evil Sherman as he marches through Georgia. That doesn’t work out too well, and the brothers end up fleeing to the wilds of the West, their preacher little brother William in tow. There they hear tell of lost Aztec gold, both fall in love with the same Mexican seductress, fight various tribes of Indians, and have their pasts come back to haunt them. There’s a lot of shooting. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember 1989? Remember the disappointment? How exciting the mere prospect was, the idea that we’d get more of that magical, hilarious madness. Another two hours worth of memorable quotes – what would replace “When someone asks you if you’re a God, you say yes!” or “Listen; Do you smell something?”

But then we got Ghostbusters 2 in all it’s lifeless, tepid, walking Statue of Liberty forgettableness. Who would want another sequel after that mess? And how could we get it two decades after the fact? Of course you’ve guessed the answer – Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which really is the sequel I’ve been waiting for.

All the original busters are back, Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson playing digital, young versions of their now aged and expanded selves. Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis are even credited as writers of the game, and I can believe it. The story has the same sensibilities as the original movie, the same over the top mythology and paranormal gobbledygook, and I found it a lot more interesting and entertaining than the Ghostbusters 2 plot. Of course it’s spread out over 7 hours of game play, but that works fine. It’s the transition to digital actors and recorded voice overs that’s less satisfying.

More review and video after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to feel guilty when people don’t even bother to move out of the way of your tank when it’s about to run them over. That’s good, because Prototype is a game that clearly doesn’t want you to be thinking too much about innocent bystanders, especially if doing so would get in the way of tearing the hell out of anything and everything around you. Still, even I felt a twinge of discomfort while going for the achievement points for running over 500 people with a single tank. In retrospect, this actually works within the convoluted framework of Prototype’s story, but at the time it was just one more way of causing mayhem. Prototype’s all about the mayhem.

You play as Alex, a scientist who always wears a hoodie for some unexplained reason, and who has been infected by a virus that’s quickly turning him into a monster/superhero. And of course you have amnesia. So you’ve got to find out who did this to you while Manhattan dissolves into a chaos of nasty soldiers and even nastier infected who’re constantly attacking each other and you. You get to tear your way through both sides in a blood filled, high speed romp up and down the length of the city as you unlock the secrets of your recent past and search for who’s responsible. If the story sounds typical and uninspired, that’s because it is – amnesia, virus, shadowy government agency, trust no one, and did I mention amnesia? Blah, blah, blah. We’ve seen it all before. Protoype’s setting and story don’t break any new ground and are almost throwaway.

But it’s not the why’s and therefore’s that draw you into Prototype – it’s what you do. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m clearly not the target audience for this game. I’ve never seen the cartoon Totally Spies; I’m not a pre-teen girl, and nothing with a mini-game called “Let’s Talk about Clothes” was ever created with me in mind. But having said all of that, I feel I’m still qualified to judge whether or not a game is good based on its intrinsic merits. Is it well made, does it work well, is the fundamental game play fun or interesting – in short, does it achieve what it’s trying to accomplish?

Unless Totally Spies! Totally Party is trying to engender a hatred for video games among young women, then this game is a total failure.

The premise of the show Totally Spies seems like a solid kid-show premise: Three roommates who move into an apartment above a top secret spy agency and are thus recruited to become spies themselves. Their ensuing adventures involve fighting wacky villains, dressing up in different fun outfits, and using nifty spy gadgets like jet packs. There is a lot here to make a game out of, plenty of exciting elements where you could capture whatever it is about the show that it’s fans enjoy.

Or, instead, you could make it into a virtual board game with 35 of the most inane mini-games ever created for the Nintendo Wii (and there’s a lot of competition).

More review and video below the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

I have certain weak points – topics that just get me interested and excited without hearing more than a few words. Armed revolution against The Man is one of those. I’m a sucker for tales of bold freedom fighters living underground and facing incredible odds as they try to tear down the system. Red Faction Guerrilla not only delivers a great smash the state simulator, it also gives you a great smash EVERYTHING simulator. Indeed, on reflection, the game’s central plot of freeing Mars from the tyranny of Earth is just fine but not thrilling, but the fact that very single building is destructible ii exciting, chain-reaction inducing, Mars-shaking ways, is what makes this game a ton of fun.

You’re just a working guy, come to Mars to make your way as a miner, but when the bastard Earth Defense Forces kill your brother because he’s part of the revolutionary Red Faction, it’s time to take up your sledge hammer and fight the man. The game is an open-world, third-person actioner, with Mars divided up into six different districts. Each district offers core missions that you have to complete in order to liberate the zone, but it also has a host of side missions that lower the EDF’s control. There’s nice variety in these side missions – driving around manning a turret for an insane revolutionary, freeing captured prisoners, intercepting EDF convoys, participating in Red Faction raids, stealing cars, and of course blowing up buildings. Most people will not enjoy all of these equally, but Red Faction’s OK with that – you never have to do all the side missions, and if there’s a type you don’t enjoy you can easily ignore them completely. In fact, you could ignore them all and just go around blowing up buildings and doing the core missions if you wanted to. I admire that level of freedom in a game like this.

More review and video below the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the time I like my fighting games fast, furious, and full of fireballs (like, say, Street Fighter 4). But when it comes to watching fights, I’ve lost some interest in the artfully choreographed wire work of kung fu flicks. These days I prefer my bloodsport to be less Bloodsport and more Mixed Martial Arts. I’ve been watching UFC fights since the first, dreadful, ridiculous pay per few events in the 90’s. The sport has come a long way for me since then, ruining my interest in boxing, wrestling, and even martial arts movies along the way. While a dull UFC fight can be as yawn inducing as Steven Seagal’s latest flick, a great, exciting, balls to the wall UFC is as exciting as exciting gets. In THQ’s new video game version of UFC, almost every fight is that exciting.

With its combination of punches, kicks, grappling, and joint locks, MMA is a complicated sport, and I was wary about how the game would be able to capture that kind of diversity, but UFC: Undisputed rises to the challenge, offering a complicated but intuitive game that matches the sport its emulating. Through combinations of button presses and analog stick movements, you can punch and kick with either leg at three different heights and with three different modifiers. When you’re in close your fighter throws knees and elbows. You can grapple the neck in a clinch or shoot for the legs for a take down. Once on the ground, button pressing and swings of the right analog stick make your fighter scramble for better position, rain down blows, or try and submit the opponent with a joint lock. All of this wears away at your fighter’s stamina, so it’s wise to take short breathers and pick your shots rather than just flail away.

So yeah, the game’s complicated. Or, if you prefer, it’s deep. (Video clip below the jump.)

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That’s two weeks in a row where I’ve spent a significant portion of my free time exploring a city that has recently suffered from a massive explosion. Last week it was Bionic Commando, and I was just the guy to traverse the urban wasteland because I had a bionic arm. This week, it’s inFamous, and I’m just the guy to explore the city because I’m the one who set off the bomb. Plus, it gave me super powers.

InFamous is a super-hero game, or a super-villain  game, depending on your personal preference. You play as Cole, a bike messenger who sets off a bomb that screws up Empire City and gives you the power to control electricity. Why did you set off the bomb? You have no idea, but given the cadres of villains, FBI agents and shadowy figures who immediately start pulling your strings, maybe you were set up. The only way to find out for sure is to explore Empire City open world, Grand Theft Auto-style, do a bunch of missions and shoot lightning at anything that gets in your way. And when you’ve done all that then yes, inFamous delivers a satisfying conclusion to a solid story full of twists and turns, but really it’s all about the lightning powers that get you from here to there.

Well, lightning and parkour. Because Cole can scale buildings like a monkey, leap with ease from ledge to wire to light post, and generally navigate the city via sidewalk or rooftop with equal ease.

Read on for more info and video below the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

A little nostalgia can buy you a lot of leeway. The new version of Capcom’s Bionic Commando is the perfect example – it’s a sequel to a much beloved classic from 1988. But things have changed since that glorious 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System days, and characters with names like “Rad Spencer” and “Super Joe” don’t quite cut it anymore. Nor does the name “Bionic Commando,” for that matter. But this sequel is a completer update – from the 8-bit side scroller to full-on 3D, open-world (kinda) third-person shooter. It’s an update in every way, but it keeps that most important element of the original: You play a guy with a bionic arm that can shoot out Inspector Gadget style and let you swing from things like Spider-Man. As long as it gets that right, the game is more than halfway there.

Read the rest of the review, with video, after the jump:

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I normally don’t like trashing games because of gameplay length. I think if a game is fun and well-made and sucks you in, it almost doesn’t matter how long it takes to play it through. I love my scores of hours spent on Fallout 3, but I also love the condensed fun of a well-constructed shooter or action game like Call of Duty (not a perfect analogy, as Call of Duty has all that great multi-player action, but I would have bought Call of Duty 4 just for that single player campaign; it was that good).  So I’m no short game hater. But Terminator Salvation? Come the hell on! This isn’t a game, that is 1/3rd of a game. That is DLC. This is a demo.

This isn’t a game … This is a demo.

The game is a prequel to the new movie, which still makes it a sequel to the older movies and the TV show. You play as a young adult John Conner, who hasn’t yet taken on leadership in the Resistance against Skynet. I kind of thought the whole point was that John Conner would start the Resistance, but whatever, fine. In this game you’re just one of the guys, out in the wilds of post Judgement Day Los Angeles, blowing up robots. When you get a distress call from some fellow Resistance fighters, your commanding officer won’t risk the lives of the many to save a stranded and doomed few. But you’re John Conner damnit, and you’ll leave no human life behind to those machines. The rest of the game is about traversing Terminator-controlled L.A. and saving those stranded but apparently well-ensconced soldiers from certain mechanized doom.

(Gameplay video after the jump)

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You should never grocery shop when you’re hungry or review a game when you’ve just quit after dying at the same spot twenty times in a row.

I just ate a sandwich, but I’m not going shopping. I also just boiled away most of my affection for Velvet Assassin in a frustration-infused prolonged session of being shot again and again and again by Nazis while wearing a nightie. And for the first time in the game, there wasn’t any morphine to take the edge off.

OK, let’s back up. Velvet Assassin is a third-person stealth-based action game. Set during World War II, the game sets you up as a sexy British assassin named Violette who infiltrates German-occupied territory to kill Nazi jerks and blow people up. It’s actually based on a real British secret operative, Violette Szabo, which is pretty cool.

This is a hard-core stealth game, which means if you get spotted by the fascists, they’re probably going to kill you within seconds. Luckily for you, the world of Velvet Assassin is filled with shadows and dark corners, giving you plenty of places to creep along and get right up behind someone for that silent, bloody close-in dagger work. Drag the body into the shadows before the others notice, and you can keep your cover. You get guns too — mostly a silenced pistol, but later shotguns, sniper rifles, and a sub-machine gun at the end. These of course attract a lot of attention, and while it’s easy to gun down enemies, it’s easy for them to return the favor, so it’s vital to make good use of cover.

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Here’s a sentence you don’t see very often: “The video game is better than the movie.”
Most of the time movie-based games are rush jobs, made to cash in on whatever success the movie might have at the box office. They have a low shelf-life and even lower expectations among gamers. Most of the time, they’re a safe bet to avoid. But what about when the movie’s really bad (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine)? Will the game be that much worse, or will it manage to overcome its nasty origins and work as a good game all on its own?
In this case, it’s absolutely clear that it’s the movie pulling the game down, and not the other way around. I can say with some confidence that the vast majority of the problems I had with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the game) are directly related to story and plot elements they were saddled with from the film. Whenever the game developers had freedom or pushed boundaries, the game excelled.

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There’s a place for experiences like the one Ninja Blade has to offer. It’s the kind of thing you can really only do with a video game these days: surf a missile into a zombie helicopter, fight a giant lightning bolt spitting crab in a subway tunnel, run down the side of a skyscraper while chopping giant bats in half with a sward that’s as big as you are. Hit the X Button not to die. Ninja Blade gives you all that, and a lot more that’s pretty similar. But is it worth the price of entry? Maybe not, but it’s definitely worth watching the video trailer below. Read the rest of this entry »

I think everyone can agree that the best thing about being a mob boss is that you get to boss people around. It’s right there in the title, “mob boss.” Because you’re feared and/or respected, tough guys do what you say, even if that means blowing up some building, shaking down some store owner, or taking out some troublesome made man from a rival family. It’s good to be boss. Normally no fan of movie to game adaptations, I never looked at the first Godfather game from a couple years back. When this new one came around last week though, and I heard it was kind of like Sims Mafia Don, I thought that sounded like something for me. I like telling people what to do. I love the Godfather films. Perfect!

OK, so it’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but it is a solid, fun game. Read the rest of this entry »

April has been the month of Vin Diesel in America. Who would have thought such a thing would ever come to pass in our lifetimes, but here it is. Many have apparently gone out an seen Fast And Furious, an aggressively mediocre, overly-digitized, woodenly-acted action movie that somehow made $120 million in just two weeks. I’m personally responsible for $5 of that, I’m sorry to say, but I couldn’t help myself. Vin Diesel’s gravely monotone had hypnotized me after hours of playing that other Vin Diesel release of April, Wheelman.

Wheelman is sort of Grand Theft Auto Lite. You’re in a big city (Barcelona in this case), and you can pretty much steal any car you see, drive around in it, and run things over while shooting people. There’s a story going on, and it’s pretty inscrutable, derivative and uninteresting. You’re Milo, a wheelman who’s looking for work driving for various Barcelona criminal types, all part of your bigger effort to infiltrate them and, well, you know, do something. I don’t know what. The story’s a mess, and everyone has thick accents that make them hard to understand. Of course even with subtitles it’s not easy to figure out what’s going on. It also clearly doesn’t matter.

Bad dudes give you missions to do bad things. You get guns, and sometimes you run around shooting people and most of the time you drive around hitting and occasionally shooting people. Read the rest of this entry »

Much like opera, professional wrestling works for me in an abstract and nostalgic way more than up close and in person. I used to go to opera a lot actually. I used to watch wrestling every week, too. Now I mostly play video games it seems. And while I like an occasional aria, I love the fact that opera is out there and appreciate its rich cultural heritage. I don’t think I would actually like watching wrestling any more – Ultimate Fighting has stolen it’s place in my heart – and wrestling games have gotten more and more complex. It’s great in theory that men take steroids and shave their chests and slam each other around for a few hours a week, but I can’t be bothered to take it in. All of which explains why WWE Legends of Wrestlemania is the perfect wrestling game for me.

Legends is all about the nostalgia. It allows you to re-live key, dramatic match-ups from the first decade and a half of Wresltmanias, spanning the golden age of 80s and 90s wrestling. Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ric Flair, and scores of others – even Dusty Rhodes, the American Dream! – all make appearances in the game.

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First of all, let’s get the big question out of the way first: Is Resident Evil 5 a racist videogame? Not really. It’s just racially insensitive and culturally clumsy. More on that in a bit. The second big question: Is Resident Evil 5 a good game? Yes it is, depending on how you play it, except for the parts that suck.

Capcom had a daunting challenge to follow up the almost universally adored and acclaimed Resident Evil 4, a fun, cool, strange, challenging game that re-wrote a lot of the rules of the standard survival horror series and was almost the only reason to buy a Nintendo Gamecube. Resident Evil 5 tries to build on that success, and it definitely feels like a successor. It controls much the same way, has some enemies that carry over from the last game and has just as nonsensical a plot. It’s also shorter, more streamlined and maybe more racist (again, more on that in a bit).

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New release Madworld for the Nintendo Wii: It’s Sin City meets The Running Man meets Escape From New York. What more do you need to know? Well, you should probably know it’s actually just kind of mediocre and occasionally dull, more like The Spirit meets The 6th Day meets Escape From L.A.

Anyway, Madworld is a blood-soaked, profanity-laden, super stylish action game for everybody’s favorite family-friendly game console.

Before I got my hands on it, I hadn’t turned on my Wii in months — not since Wii Fit came out, and that exercise program only lasted a week or so. As many have lamented, no one’s really making much in the way of hard core or cool games for the Wii these days – it’s mostly just shovel ware for kids with the occasional gem from Nintendo. The cool games that do come out on Wii, like Rock Band, have better versions on the more powerful consoles, so why buy them? But developers are starting to expand their horizons, and Sega brings us this bloody romp that’ll have you flipping your wrists to cut dudes in half with a chain saw, ram sign posts through their skulls and slam them into spikes over and over again.

Madworld has mad style. It’s all black and white, comic-book-style art — very reminiscent of Sin City. This style serves double duty – adding real visual flair and interest to the game while at the same time hiding the Wii’s lesser graphical prowess. The only color is red (well, a little yellow too), and almost all of that red is blood. And there’s lots and lots of blood. Read the rest of this entry »