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February 10, 2010

Review – No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

No More Heroes 2
Margaret waits patiently on the rooftops of Santa Destroy, another female sniper, distinguished by her Gothic Lolita attire and the player’s knowledge that her song is enough to kill. Charging toward her like a bull causes her to fire bullets on cue, which are either blocked at the expense of blade energy or dodged.

When I can get in close enough for the kill, the action is a mash of hack and slash that lands like sloppy kisses to push her back, save for that precise and precious moment where our blades lock and I fall off the edge of the couch from the force of spinning the WiiMote.

During every fight I’ll end up standing on the couch before the end, consistently overcompensating the actions needed as my health drops lower and I run out of pizza slices. I’m earnestly sweating after nearly every encounter as if my life were on the line over this stripped down story of revenge. It doesn’t really matter if the story seems straightforward though, because it’s much more about the player than the adventures of Travis Touchdown this time around.

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February 2, 2010

The Comment That Nearly Killed Me…

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 5:20 pm

Metroid
I wouldn’t have thought that a post about a teaser site would get me so fired up, but Nick Rumas’ 4cr post about Other M had the ability to stop me dead in the water, and not because he is more optimistic about changes to the Metroid series – if we all thought the same life would be far too bland to go on living.

Rather it was this particular comment attached to the post that stuck me like a needle –

It reminds me of the Metroid Manga, which was fairly good, This game is conveying emotion, which is a great thing I feel, for this game will bring the series to new places, by mixing a great story in with great action. They are just trying to give this series depth, rather than a regular old sci-fi shooter. when you think about it, your still going to be shooting giant space pirates and collecting new upgrades, but this time around I’ll feel the anger and pain of loss, suffering that they’ve caused, and really get enjoyment from killing space pirates and whatnot

Now it’ll seem like I’m singling this comment out to simply pick on it, but I believe it’s an incredibly important talking point that needs some examination. Neither is it my intention to tell you how you should feel about potential changes to the Metroid series via a game we know very little about.

Rather, the inference of where depth emerges from in this comment touches directly on whether the medium of gaming is one we as gamers actively engage with, because without that level of active engagement we’re merely pressing buttons to watch longer movies.

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January 24, 2010

Review – The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 11:11 am

The Sky Crawlers
For all the noise I’ve attempted to make about The Sky Crawlers’ arrival on North American shelves, the game surrenders itself to a level of obscurity not only by nature of its genre, but because it is a quiet and subtle title.

In an attempt at taking an early stance against undue hype, I’ll stress that neither my interest in the game nor my time with it has revealed a religious experience. Rather, the game leaves an impression as subtle as its arrival and presentation – something small and nagging to chew on after the flight is over.

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January 17, 2010

Beautifying Your Copy of The Sky Crawlers

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:08 pm

The Sky Crawlers
While it’s unfortunate that studios have to replace covers for Japanese games with severely bland and more descriptive imagery to suit the market here, I do understand the motivation. The Sky Crawlers‘ North American box art conveys the idea of “Hi, I’m a game about planes on the Wii” immediately enough.

The bright side about XSEED is that they anticipated what a snob I am about such details and did something other publishers have occasionally done, but many more could stand to do more often.

Having traveled to the center of hell and battled fiendish register monkeys, I will now demonstrate first hand how easy it is to beautify a copy of The Sky Crawlers in two quick and easy steps, after the break.

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January 11, 2010

Review – Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 8:56 pm

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
It’s been nearly ten years since Silent Hill 2 set the bar for the series, largely owing to the work of Takayoshi Sato, who soon after vanished over the Western horizon leaving a faint scent of J.D. Salinger on the air. The game’s presentation and treatment of a psychologically driven narrative has cast a shadow of expectation over every subsequent release, causing a fair amount of confusion concerning the best direction the series might take.

While there has been some experimentation and deviations from the formula, recent entries in the series have suffered trying to meet those expectations, as much a victim of the legacy as any game that becomes a prisoner of previous accomplishments.

So I very nearly let Shattered Memories pass me by, assuming there was nothing a re-imagining of the original Silent Hill could offer, particularly on the Wii.

But since I’ve been forced to reconsider my stance and find myself suggesting the game is one of the most important releases of 2009, we should probably have a chat about it.

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December 24, 2009

Sin and Punishment: Successor to the Earth

Refresh Rate 01
Sin and Punishment: Successor to the Earth
Runtime – 7:52
Developer – Treasure
Publisher – Nintendo
System – Nintendo 64 / Virtual Console
Released – November 21, 2000 / October 1, 2007

*Text transcript available after the break

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December 14, 2009

New Super Mario Bros. Wii – The Jerk Factor

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:18 am

The Jerk Factor

Like most fragile and mentally fragmented individuals, I’ve developed a few strange rules to regulate my life and make for interesting conversations over the years. I don’t eat seafood because fish have sex in the water, I buy fattening treats and leave them unopened to bother others, and I refuse to play a Super Mario Bros. game when fellow gamers are in the same area.

That last point should be a golden rule of thumb, because if you’ve grown up playing from the earliest block busting beginnings through to the Yoshi riding bliss, you are a Mario expert. It doesn’t matter if you agree with that generalization or not. The truth is that there may be no other series as personal to those that grew up playing it as side-scrolling Mario titles. As a result, turning any of these games on while surrounded by other gamers is inviting backseat gaming and controller grabbing as everyone in the room feels more capable than whoever is in control.

This touches on the frustration of the series throughout my childhood, the dreaded two-player option that forced me to watch someone else play while my fingers itched for a turn and I tried to not act excited when the other player died.

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