Killer Instinct 3? Natal?

I got really excited for Lead Salad until I finished the article.

Batman Arrives

No it's not a new name for the latest Batman movie, i ordered a copy of Batman for the 360 last weekend and it's finally arrived, was hoping to have it for the weekend just pasted but for watever reason it got held up...Anyways i've been eager to get this game since i played the demo and read all the rave reviews...and of course earning Enemy's praise and it came up on offer for £17 so like $28 so i jumped at it.

So let the journey begin, i'll update this post with my thoughts as i make my way thru the game.

ps Borderlands also just came up on offer for the same price...it's going to have to wait tho.

Okami helps a game journalist cope.

A surprisingly touching story about the loss of a game journalists pet dog, Nick, and how his spirit lives on.

Case in Point

Good one...

I wish this were the Swan Song of the Wii, but it's not.

Finally, third party developers that try to make a good game for the Wii (and they don't sell b/c of blockbuster titles like Wii Sports/Fit/Pulse Reader) are throwing in the towel.

Beta Beta Beta

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have the privilege of taking part in a ton of Beta programs. This is not exclusive to video games as I have beta tested out things like Windows Longhorn (Vista), Office 10, Blackberry OS 4.5, Gmail, Google Wave... the list goes on. But, for the purpose of this post: What video game betas have any of you been a part of?

My list:
Uncharted 2
MAG (as of tonight)
Battlefield Bad Company
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Halo 3
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty: World at War
Halo: Reach (next year)

I think I'm missing one but we'll go with this for now.

EA is so hard to hate anymore.

A pretty cool effort by a gaming powerhouse to make gaming available to more people.

Hardly a fanboy, but coming around.

As a PS3 owner now, I feel a little more entitled to rip on it a bit.

However, these little gems are hilarious.  I'm becoming a big fan of this current marketing campaign.  My personal favorite is the Uncharted 2 one.

MW2 but REAL-ish

This weekend I was finally able to give the Bad Company 2 Beta a run through with Skatch and another buddy of ours called Jinx. Holy Balls Batman.... This game is intense. I would normally compare it to the first BC but as I only played the Beta (I have a habit of getting into every available beta, except MAG dangit), that would be an unfair comparison. I'll let Skatch fill you all in on that. The best way I can describe it is a massive-insanely-intense epic that somehow has a gameplay mechanic that feels more "real" and forces you to work as a team or else fail terribly. The level that is included in this beta is set in a desert and is graphically amazing. There is washed-out color filter that gives you the feel of actually being in a blindingly bright desert.
If you have a PS3 I recommend you find yourself a beta key and give it a try.

Just wanting to tell everyone again....

...that Mass Effect IS one of the greatest games I've ever played and IGN agrees with me. They voted it the #1 game on the 360. Two more of my favorites, Oblivion and Fallout 3, made it in the top 5.

Scavenge....

I played 4 rounds of "Scavenge" last night in L4D2 and it was a lot of fun. It's what "Versus" should have been. It's still very fast paced and challenging, but a more to the point and a bare bones match of team vs team.

It can still suck to be the infected b/c of the sheer length of the respawns, 20 second minimum, but I guess that helps keep it more fair. To prevail as the infected is harder b/c you really have to attack as a group. If every zombie goes at it alone they will get blasted by the rest of the team.

The Jockey and Spitter are a great addition to vary up attacks and honestly the Jockey is my new favorite. For one attack I leeched on to a human player then pivoted him around a pillar so that the other team couldn't get at me from behind a wall of fire. It was awesome!

Bottom line is that we need to play L4D2 more. MW2 is outstanding, but lets mix it up with some zombie slaying.

Clothes are great! Not real ones of course, but ones for my Avatar!

Admittedly, I have a problem. I can't stop looking through all of the fake clothes for my avatar and yes...even purchasing said clothes. Amateria is always more than happy to remind me of how quasi handicapped someone would have to be to buy fake clothes/props/themes/gamer pics for the 360, but I can't help it. I love the customization of it and the ever changing looks on my 360. Is it stupid? Yeah. Do I have fun with it? Yeah. I blame Microsoft and RARE for creating transgendered clothing that's free and the fact that you have to actually pay for the decent stuff.

What I really wish I could do is change the "stance" of my avatar. I've been alive for 26 years and I've never once stood like that and it's a sorry representation of my otherwise gansta appearance. I'd easily pay upwards of my life savings to get a "crossed arms position" avatar.

At least the avatar awards look promising.

One week later...

So here we are, one week into Modern Warfare 2.  As a retailer, it's been an incredibly exciting time.  It may sound like I'm romanticizing the situation, but it's a real neat experience to be participating in one of the largest media launches in history.  As a gamer, the experience has been nothing but rewarding - it's fast paced, fun, great looking, and most important in my opinion, familiar.  MW2 is a true COD experience while being something completely new all at the same time.  I don't mean to say that the controls aren't the same (they are), or the multiplayer is all different (it isn't), but the subtle tweaks to the things gamers "knew" in COD4, add a great deal of depth to a familiar experience.

I think my favorite of these "tweaks" is the killstreak bonuses, specifically in how they are earned.  It never made any sense to me in COD4 that someone who was getting killstreaks (read, "playing well") was rewarded with tools that would continue to allow them to get more kills, which in turn, would continue to unlock bigger and better killstreak bonuses.  MW2 has balanced out the equation a bit by not letting kills earned by bonuses count towards your personal streak.  You may have called in a Pave Low that wiped the other team off the board, or controlled an AC130 and truly demonstrated what 'fire from the sky' means, but those ___ number of kills you earned from those bonuses, although contributing to your overall score, will not help you get to that 25 killstreak tactical nuke.  It's a small change, but an excellent thought one.  It still stays true to the COD4 formula by rewarding the well playing players with more points and kills, but it still makes them work for their bigger bonuses the old fashioned way. (camping!)

I'll refrain from talking about specifics in the campaign here.  Although it's likely that most people have finished it already, I don't really want to risk it.  I do applaud the amazing campaign.  It breaks up it's own monotony by adding in stealth, action missions, and "tragedy moments", when they are needed, creating a nice flow and pacing.  I don't think they made lighting strike twice though with those "tragedy moments".  Remember in COD4, when you were playing as the dying soldier crawling out of a helicopter that was just victim to a nuclear bomb?  That 'tragedy moment' hit me real close to home, and still gives me goosebumps when I think about the first time I played it.  MW2 tried to add a lot more of these types of situations, and as a result, I got used to them very quickly.  They impacted me less due to their frequency.  I think they were well placed to tell their story, and weren't used without good reason, but the power that was in the first game's events was missing. No biggie though, just something I observed.

I look incredibly forward to playing this game to death.  It's a great time to be a gamer, kids.  MW2 is here, L4D2 is there for your coop kicks, and if you're feeling a little anti-social, pick up Assassin's Creed 2.  I would put money on seeing a review from 3N3MY on that one later this year. 

Left 4 Dead 2 first impressions

While I will reserve final judgment until I have played all the campaigns, all I can really say right now is that it is lots of fun, and DIFFICULT. Amateria, 3N3MY and I are/were pretty good at the first game (at least I think so) and we got rocked on Normal difficulty last night. I didn't even make it out of the 2nd campaign alive, dying at the hands of a Tank in the finale.

It seems like there's almost NEVER a lull in the action. Zombies seem to constantly be streaming from somewhere, whereas in the first game there would be a huge mob come, you'd pause to wipe them out then waltz through a big section with no resistance. With the addition of new Special zombie types, I think there was almost always one on my screen somewhere.

I'm undecided about melee weapons. They're great to have when you're getting surrounded, but ideally you never want to let enemies that close to you. However, I think based on the above section, it's nice to have them in the game since you WILL get surrounded.

I was a little frustrated playing last night. I think this is due to a combination of new maps and not knowing where to go, bad communication, lacking a 4th human player (oh good one brjahu), and certain people (COUGH...3N3MY) worrying about achievements. Don't take that too harshly. You know I'm all about getting achievements, too, but I just feel like we should try to learn the campaigns and survive them rather than "trying" for achievements when many of them we'll get by simply playing through the 5 campaigns naturally.

Final word.......
It's probably not as good as the first game, but in my opinion, not many games are. I've said for a while that Left 4 Dead is my favorite game to play on XBox Live. It may even be my favorite XBox 360 game, period. At the time, that game was like nothing else I had ever played. Now that the sequel is here, it can't match the initial "WOW, this is awesome" factor, but they've certainly tried. I've only had it for one day, so maybe I will grow to like it more than the first. Who knows?




p.s. I kinda miss being Louis.

Mass Effect 2

So i'm not sure if we're wanting to use this blog as means for posting news, links etc or leave is solely for discussion topics? Thought I'd use this opportunity to ask while i post some links now (for those of you who havent seen them already) to some tasty new Mass Effect 2 footage, which is showing off some new characters and a sweet looking new HUD.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-scientist-mass-effect/58986

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-vanguard-mass-effect/58988

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-illusive-mass-effect/58990

GTtv acutally have a whole episode dedicated to the game, with some interesting interviews with devs, worth checking out also.

Enjoy...roll on January

One of us, one of us...

Ugh.  Another late night of COD and after game blogging.  A little groggy tonight, eh boys?  I'm sure it'll keep getting better as we do.  Besides, I think we've all accidentally dropped a care package out of reach, so it's all downhill from here.

Anyways, to everyone who has been reading or writing comments on the walls, thanks!  It makes this little extra step to expand our gaming conversations a little more worth it.  Feel free to "follow" us on the right hand side of the page, that way we can keep track and tabs on you all.  Down the road a web page would be much more ideal than a blog, and keeping track of how many people we could be looking at would be sweet.

I'm tired now. Good night.

Favorite Game Quotes

The subject line says it all. Please put the quote, game and who said it. Lets keep the Star Fox quotes to a minimum please.

Here's a newer one, but one LeadSalad and I laughed at a lot.

"Huruburos will be released into the atmostphere ensuring complete....global....saturation." ~ Resident Evil 5 ~ Albert Wesker

and an old one...

"Banjos game ends in my tower turn it up I need full power."~ Banjo Kazooie ~ Gruntilda

In Honor of...

In honor of the announcement of a March 9th North American launch date for FFXIII and as a break from all this MW2 talk, I figured this would be a good time to see a Top 5 List of All-Time Favorite RPGs (if you want to get technical one the definition of an RPG, save that for another thread). Below is my list, sorry for all the Zelda games... I blame my mother.


1. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360)
3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
4. The Legend of Zelda (NES)
5: The Illusion of Gaia (SNES)
Honorable Mention: Fallout 3 (360), Mass Effect (360), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GC)


Remember this is your personal Top 5 so feel free to share yours and argue why my list is wrong... bring the pain.


Since we're on the subject, here is the new FFXIII trailer:

There's no hiding from The M$ Ban Hammer.

Amazing! The only people that I think have a good argument FOR the pirated 360s are people overseas that can't get the games or the games are outrageously expensive. For example, my brother lives in Indonesia and the 360 he bought over there from a store actually came pirated ready and the games there cost well over $100 bucks. That 360 broke last year and he currently has a legal American one and when he wants a new game we buy it for him from the states and then ship it to him. It'll be another month till he plays MW2.

http://kotaku.com/5402591/report-xbox-live-bannings-upwards-of-1-million

Bad Company 2

http://g4tv.com/videos/42695/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2-Direct-Feed-Walkthrough/?quality=hd

Well worth a watch, beta coming next week to PS3 and MP demo out on all platforms early next year, looks like a real MW2 competitor. I was a bit fan of the first and luckily had a chance to play this a few weeks ago and plays really nice.