Weathering the Bulletstorm

It would take a game as absurd as Bulletstorm to reawaken my cold dead interest in the fps genre. Though entirely straightforward and absolutely unwavering in its commitment to totally random totally nonsensical engagements with way too many enemies, the game itself is very consistent and entertaining.
For starters, the scenario is ridiculous. Granted, every shooter plot involves one totally ill equipped and outgunned guy surviving all manner of death and destruction as he kills a planetful of increasingly dangerous and well trained soldiers and then some how having trouble murdering the single individual at the heart of it all. Somehow, by adding patentedly ridiculous dialogue and a battleground that's basically a Michael Bay movie in progress, Bulletstorm strikes a tone that speaks directly to that fast car driving, sun glass wearing, action hero we all have deep down.
Pile on top of that the skill shot system, which is the game closest equivalent to complexity, judging your every action. Not only is every element of your killing efficiency judged, your ability to respond to quick time events, and even look at important events in the background is graded too. You can never really afford to ignore those snarky little point pop ups either because without skill points, you'll find yourself with a collection bulletless (and funless) guns.
As much as I hate shooters in general these days, there's really nothing wrong with Bulletstorm. It sticks to its formula without trying to inject puzzles, rpg elements, stealth missions, or some other flow defusing cliche, and with the exception of one or two obnoxious sniping segments (we're supposed to believe a drunk is a better sniper than a robot?) the game never slows down or lets up. Sure, it could be a little longer or a little more ambitious, but at no point did I feel like Storm was too short or more importantly cut short. I could see being upset over a $60 purchase if I had no interest in multiplayer, but people who play shooters and don't expect to play multiplayer are like video game mormons.
I did give "Anarchy" mode a whirl one night, but EA's new online pass gamestop cockblock strategy kept me from really getting involved. In any event, you get a gold star People Can Fly. You single handedly rescued my Bioshock 2 disc from the basement, and put Crysis 2 in my gamefly queue after I'd sworn of FPS' forever.

In other news, MK comes out tomorrow and thats a heap of bad news for Bioshock 2, Alan Wake, Red Dead and every other game lying around my living room hoping to be played. Best Buy strong armed me into buying Portal 2, but I can't see myself playing that unless a co-op buddy is online, then again Portal is amazing. Tough decisions lie ahead.

Speaking of, I jumped on MvC3 yesterday on a whim and HOLY SHIT did I get my ass rocked. I don't know if I'm just that much worse of if the internet went and got that much better, I have no idea how I got that much crappier in such a short time (what, 2 weeks?). We'll see how I stack up in person on Wednesday.

-F.

I cant think of a clever title.

So after playing both WWE All-Stars and WWE Smack-down vs Raw 2011 I needed a break from crappy games and achievement whoring....... Castle Crashers.

This is one of, if not the only game, I spent 1200 M$ points on and didn't regret. I know I missed the sale a few months back, but hey I didn't have the cheddar and buying a point card on a Best Buy credit card @ 26%APR isn't a smart thing to do.

Anyways, back to Castle Crashers. I've only played single player, I feel the need to level up my guys a little before going on line and doing what ever it is you do online with this game. I am in love with the graphics, even though they mostly reek of "flash game" the animation is both well done and fluid. My ONLY gripe so far is the music, its very MIDI-esque and repetitive. The controls are tight and responsive and I cant wait to get my fight stick back from a co-worker and play this shit ARCADE style. Sadly enough Ive only saved 1 princess and only unlocked 1 character (the grey knight). I don't mind the grind when its fun.

Before I forget, Fenix and I are making steady progress through a co-op play through of Dead Rising 2. I'm up over level 20 and suck a lot less. I still have no idea where anything is in the mall, which makes this game pretty realistic, because I don't know my way around the Mall down the street from my house. We're trying to get the "co-op" story achievement (at least I am) and the "Save Bug" is really annoying.

I still have just a ball hair under 18,000 gamerscore to get by the end of the year and I'll be honest I dont think I'm gonna make it. Not from lack of ability, but because Mortal Kombat 9 comes out in 2 weeks and I see myself playing the ever loving shit out of that for a WHILE. MvC3 is already collecting dust :/

Stay frosty,
~M

Big whoop, wanna wrestle about it?

Ugh, the things I do to be a gamerscore whore. After I threw my 10,000th (thats OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!!) jab in Fight Night Round 5 errrr Champion, I Fired up the old SmackDown VS RAWs (2007 and 2008 since I already 1K'ed 2009 and 2010.)

Painful. Thankfully I had all the super shitty achievements done and just had to mop up. I don't even wanna rent/borrow/whatever SmackDown VS Raw 2011 (not just because John Cena Penis is on the cover again either) I'm sure its just as terrible as these. I might just take a day or two break from the whoring and get my ass handed to me in some Marvel VS Capcom 3 Online. I read they are patching it and nerfing the Sentinel.

I only have 1 more achievement I can get in Fight Night without buying an online access code, so that game will never get 1K'ed (my buddy Pat offered me his code, but Im still torn on using it or not)

My turn to quick blitz games:

TMNT (1989 arcade): Still a blast, get it if you have friends and or are as old as me and remember dropping a shit ton of quarters into the arcade machines.

Xmen: Man I used to drop all my spare change into the giant 6 player version of this at Vince's Batting Cages; if I would have saved up my money back then I could have bought this 100 times over. PS I hate "Play this game with 5 other people at the same time" bullshit achievements.

Carcassonne - Prolly the dumbest game I ever got, I'd ask for a refund but Microsoft gave it to me for free...I still think I overpaid.

Pinball FX/FX2 - The free upgrade is awesome, Im waiting for the price of gas to go down so I can afford to buy the Marvel expansion tables. I was a Wolverine mark before you ever heard of Hugh Jackman. That reminds me, I need to DL the expansion for MAU2

~M.

shit, almost forgot; 18043 to go. Im way ahead of pace, so its time to slack and pull it off at the last minute.

Been a while, since I gon' messed things up just like I always do.

Had to look at my gamercard to see what I been up to. Turns out not much. But that must mean I'm being a good parent, right?

Brutal Legend - I don't know what all the genre snowjob complaints were. It takes like 2 minutes to find out this game is not an action game. My first tip? The combat is terrible.

Castlevania HD - Yeah I'm back. Whatever. Overpriced DLC be damned, I like to grind. We'll see if the faq ever gets updated again (hint: it won't!)

Dead Rising 2 - Never has accidentally erasing a save game resulted in more joy. Oh no, I'll have to murder all those zombies again with those custom weapons, what infernal suffering!

Final Fantasy XIII - Guess what? I finally gave up on this turd sandwich. Maybe if I. . ha ha ha no. This game sucks.

Force Unleashed 2 - /sad face

Limbo - Hands down the best damned murder a small child in the dark forest simulator I've ever played.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Whats not to like? Well, okay, there's a lot not to like. But all in all, a solid entry. Unless you like endings. Or music. Or characters that aren't Sentinel or Dante.

Red Dead Redemption - Boy is this game good. Like, really good. Like, paid actual money for it good. Why does Rockstar keep beating gritty urban GTAs into the ground when the formula works so much better every where else. Can you imagine this with space ships and laser sounds? pew pew vroom zwoop!

Scott Pilgrim - Legit beat'm up. Finally took it down. Shame about the online multi though. I know, it had to be out in time for the movie but c'mon, Facebook has proven we don't want to see our friends in person. Don't force your vile social experiment on me Ubisoft.

Super Street Fighter 4 - You know if you take financial and competitive commitment out of the equation, this games not half bad. Then its just that game where you get to rub oil on people and fire them into walls with the power of your thigh muscles.

Up next, bulletstorm is on the way, and I've finally got a reason to return to Rapture. Will mortal kombat ever come out? Am I actually considering not buying Portal 2? All this and more whenever Thom forces me to write on this thing again!

-F.

Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Fight Night Champion.

I like the new name, I kind of like the new mechanics of the game. I'm on the fence about the blatant racism though. I mean when you got called "white bread" in Hitman it was kinda funny. But when all the white guys in prison are tatted up skinheads calling them "crackers" seems a little over the top. Spoiler: The white guys cheat in the prison fights and stomp a mud hole in you after you win the first fight. Fuckin' crackers.

I'll be honest, the story mode is a joke. SPOILERS: I mean the story itself is laughable, but the actual mode can be done in a couple of hours and it's just a string of gimmick fights. Prison fight, amateur fight, untimed spar, don't let the cut on your eye get worse, left hand only,etc,etc I only went through the mode for the easy achievements. And they were easy. Hey, I'm in operation 100k, what did you expect?

Legacy mode is where its at. Start a new boxing career and see what you can do with it. Get XP to build up your boxer skills, play training games to boost your stats, balance all that with rest and promoting yourself all while trying to retire as the Greatest Of All Time(GOAT). My only real complaint with this mode is getting flash KO'ed my Marvin Haggler on the first punch of the fight. Even Glass Joe can take a couple shots to the face (that's what she said) before going down (that's what he said). If you arent into all that , theres the classic Fight Now option, where you can match up boxers from all eras in the "sweet science". If you suck at boxing, just be Lennox Lewis and jab your way to victory.

I couldn't play the online mode, its a used copy and EA doesnt think I should be allowed to play without giving them $10 even though I already pay Micro$haft for the right to do so.

Keep them gloves up kiddos,
~M

PS: 19,813 points to go. Think I'll make it?

And then he ran me over with his pink bike.

Two days in a row? no waiz! yes waiz.

So I had Dead Rising 2 on PS3, and all I could do was play solo, because no one I know has a PS3 and uses it to play games. Thanks to the debbil, aka GameStop I traded Dead Rising 2 PS3 and $20 for Dead Rising 2 on xbox360, hilarity ensued.

This is just a quick pro tip before I get started. If you're playing with someone and you want their weapons and don't wanna play with them anymore, just save. It kicks them out and they drop their gear; way to bug fix capcom! In their defense, its only been what, six months?

At first we tried to keep the story going, but that's just not all that fun. Kill more zombies and make neat weapons, or run across the mall to stop someone from breaking into slot machines? Yeah, that kill 72,000 zombie achievement isn't gonna earn itself. So after about 2 1/2 hours of making knifed boxing gloves and lightsabres (lightsabers?) out of flashlights and gems , numerous zombies felt our wrath! There is a douche-bag on a motorcycle (with chainsaws) that will put a hurtin on ya pretty early in the game. We lucked out and he got stuck in a corner, Fenix took him out after I revived him with a rotten hamburger.......lol. In case you're curious about the title, right before we quit for the night, Fenix ran me over while riding a little girl's pink bike and it was HILAROUS, I couldn't even be mad. I think it was my pink hat and super hero boots that made him want to do it.

I did play a LITTLE Castlevania:Lords of Shadow..... it doesn't rip off god of war like everyone says, it rips off Dante's Inferno...which ripped off God Of War. So far, I like it, but it doesn't feel like Castlevania to me (it feels like the other 2 games I mentioned). Patrick Stewart is awesome as the narrator and the game has some of the most beautiful backgrounds Ive ever seen. I totally peeked at the cheevies...... why does every game maker think we want to scavenger hunt in every game? 50 life gems, 50 light gems, 500 agility orbs.....ooops, wrong game for that last one.

Small update on operation 100k: 20,343 to go. At this pace I'll make it, but I'll need a metric ton of new games.

~M.

Angry Birds is the new Tony Hawk

Seriously. I mean yeah I loved angry birds the first time I played it. And I had a blast playing it casually since then. But now, there's seasonal packs that seem to just be retreading familiar ground. Fling a bird and hope it goes where you wanted it. While I like the new birds with even more convoluted powers; I'd rather them fix the aiming mechanism more (like an angle / strength indicator) then putting the pigs in shamrock hats. Release a level editor and let the talented community show you how to make your own game better. Oh but enough about that.

Marvel Vs Capcom 3. Yes, I am late to the boat on this one and well, I dont really like it as much as 2. Im not just saying that because Im terrible at the game, but it feels very Killer Instinty to me. Like once the combo starts, just stop hitting buttons and watch. I know capcom is going to rape us by releasing characters (hopefully in a more timely fashion then Konami did with Castlevania:HD on live!) but I just feel the roster comes up a little short. Wesker, really?

Damn, Im in a hating mood today...... Hope Lord Of Shadow doesn't disappoint. Hey Fenix, fix the broken gamercard links up there already!


PS Operation 100k before New Years is on!*
20,548 to go.


*unless Microsoft bans my other xbox for no apparent reason, like they did the first


~M