Review: Harvey Birdman

Grade: B
Rental Only!
Time Spent Playing: 2

This is a fun and funny little game that will take about two hours to play through. It's a rental only. Unless you can pick it up for five bucks or something.

As I'm only half of the targeted demographic for this game--someone who likes Harvey Birdman but not someone who has played the Ace Attorney games--my opinion may not be fully qualified. But whatever. If you play it and can't deal that it's a much easier version of Ace Attorney, feel free to send me pictures of you cutting yourself over it.

A higher Call of Duty

So I was looking at a local news website for weather info and saw this banner ad at the top of the page. It linked here.

I can't imagine why they felt the need use a secular game to reach the youth when there are such fantastic and amazing religiously themed video games they could draw upon.

Finally, a game for douchebags by douchebags

It's hard to imagine how this game could be anything other than the best thing ever.

Darkness Is Spreadin'

I've noticed there's a general ennui among the gaming press about the new Alone in the Dark. Perhaps it's a simple case of seeing previews for a game for too long a time--this trailer is actually the first thing I've bothered to check out--but I think this game is promising. Granted, it's hard to discern if gameplay can match the hypnotic effect of the guy's leather jacket but there's plenty to be excited about here. I really like how the inventory screen is just him looking down at his belt and inside his jacket.

I just wish I could figure out why he wastes a bullet to obtain a sword...

Retro Review: Metal Gear Solid 3

Yeah, three years ago isn't retro, but screw it. I've been playing a lot of older games lately and I want to write about them. The first is a treat, because I'm actually going to discuss concepts outside of gaming. Yeah, yeah, I promise I won't--as my friend and confidant Ice Cube surely would--put your butt to sleep.



Grade: B-
Time Spent Playing: 12 hours

Metal Gear Solid 3 tells the tale of a huge pussy with an abandonment complex who infiltrates a Russian military base for reasons only God can comprehend. The story is moronic and self indulgent. The cut scenes are actually pretty good in terms of action and composition. When Hideo Kojima is trying to make you laugh, you do. When he is trying to make you think, your eyes roll. The acting is good and the characters are pretty memorable, despite the ever present philosophical meanderings of a well intentioned 19 year old.

Make that a well intentioned, Japanese 19 year old. There's this hilarious phenomena among the Japanese as a group: complete and utter denial of anything that might have occurred in the years ranging from 1935 to 1945. The Japanese military of that day did horrible, unspeakable things. Thanks to the denial of the past, the typical modern Japanese citizen believes his ancestors were good. This leads to cognitive dissonance. The only way to mend the idea that Imperial Japan wasn't evil is to come to the conclusion that there is no good and evil, just players on opposing sides. What does that have to do with this game? Because this story hinges on the United States and the USSR being morally equivalent. Why is this a laughable notion? Because while America hasn't been perfect, it didn't kill tens of millions of its own citizens through purpose, neglect, and the sheer incompetence of a controlled economy. America didn't imprison people for disagreeing with those that ruled. America didn't subjugate its neighbors. Do I really need to continue?

So, I've gone on and on about the game's story with no mention of what it's like to play. There's a reason: watching cut scenes is what you'll spend most of your time doing. Outside of watching the game's story, you'll either be running from screen to screen--make no mistake, there's very little reason to actually sneak around when you can just haul ass to the next cut scene--or fighting bosses.

As much as you probably presume I hate this game, fighting the bosses is actually pretty great and ultimately redeems this ridiculous, over-hyped game. The bosses make those neurons fire off, signaling your adrenal glands to start pumping. They tickle the brain as you try to solve the mystery of their undoing. Most notable is The End, a sniper with whom you'll spend an hour or more entangled in a deadly match of hide and seek.

So, in the end you have a game with a story that fails on fundamental levels, sneaking gameplay that fails because you needn't bother, and boss fights that are fun and memorable. Can the boss fights be good enough to warrant playing through this game?

Yes.

Review: Mass Effect

Grade: A-
Time Spent Playing: 40 hours


It is every earth man's dream to travel among the stars, killing bug faced aliens and taking blue skinned ladies to bed. Mass Effect lets you do this, but certainly more of the former and less of the latter. Which is disappointing because I would like to see how mankind's discovery of telekinesis and other paranormal powers would affect bedroom antics. But since we're far more comfortable with seeing bodies mutilated than we are with seeing them kissed, I'll just have to be satisfied with blowing those blue skinned ladies to hell.

Mass Effect takes place a few hundred years in the future. Thanks to the discovery of alien technology on Mars, humanity began exploring space and eventually came into contact with the Citadel Council, basically the United Nations of space. The Council commissions uber-agents called Spectres to enforce galactic justice when conventional means fail. As the player, you control the first human Spectre, and your choices will shape humanity's future in the galaxy.

At its core, Mass Effect is story driven RPG. You pick a class, level up, spend points on skills and powers you'd like to develop, and spend a lot of time exploring both uncharted regions of space and busy space ports. A cool addition is that not only can you change your character's gender and appearance to your liking, you can actually pick a personal history for him, which will have repercussions later in the game. For example, as an earth born orphan, you might have run ins with snobby aliens who look down on earth as a blighted world or with members of street gangs you ran with as a youth.

The gameplay twist is that action is handled more like a tactical third person shooter than a traditional, turn based rpg. While there are unseen statistics determining things like how well your character can aim his shotgun--protip: don't use weapons you're not trained with--the feel is action oriented. There is a tactical element introduced in that you can give instructions to team mates, but I found it far more fun to just them let do their own thing. I've seen a lot of criticism about the shooting sequences and I really don't know what these walking vaginas are complaining about. Use cover, use your powers, and remember to heal your team mates and it's really not all that tough. A few of the boss battles might require a few replays but that doesn't seem entirely too much to ask.

As far as story goes, Mass Effect delivers a delicious piece of space opera in which your character hunts down a rogue Spectre named Saren, whose true goals and motivations are revealed with each mission you take. The story is helped by the incredibly detailed and thoughtful universe the team at Bioware has come up with. The aliens in this game all have unique histories, physiologies, and motivations. Every single planet at least has some description of its geology, ecology, and atmosphere. One can only imagine there is a Silmarrion-esque tome kept hidden deep in the BioWare complex.

So what are the problems with this rad game? Well, while the graphics are nice, the textures load slowly enough that often times when you enter a new area or initiate a conversation you're looking at some strange mess of clay sculptures for the first few moments. It doesn't affect gameplay but it is annoying. The menu system is screwed; it's slow and unintuitive. Buying new items is a hassle because you can't just decide to look at a shop's items in like groups, you have to scroll down through a bunch of stuff you don't care about. Also, why can't they just pair human armors with alien armors? The side quests start to feel like chores and offer little variety. Every derelict space ship, every mining camp, every warehouse, looks exactly the same and often share an identical floor plan. Even landing down on barren planets begins to feel like a chore when all you're doing is surveying raw materials and recovering items from crashed probes.

All that said, Mass Effect is great in spite of its flaws. Hopefully, a sequel will address those problems.