The website equivalent to this Hemi powered BBQ, I have found a true gem.  I may be 5 Months behind the times as the 2008 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) named this one of the Top Four Websites Worth A Visit. Nevertheless, I must aid in getting the word out on the coolest website in the “toys for boys” category (not to be confused with the toys for girls category - but hey, this is a PG website).

The official coolest website is:

Retrevo: Consumer Electronics Reviews, Product Manuals, Guides & Deals

What is it? Well first of all, it is not a video game related website. But seriously, what self respecting gamer doesn’t want a phat big screen TV, sick digital camera, hot mp3 player, <insert latest word for cool here> surround sound system.

I won’t go in to too much detail because I’ll let you goof around on the website on your own, but I will highlight a few key points.

Basically the site exists for the reason just as it says. “Matching people with Electronics”.  Whatever you want, they will find for you - and to a completely new level.

Here’s a walkthrough:

1. Type in “TV” in the search bar
2. Click on “What to Expect” to get a preview of the different categories
3. Click on “Personalize my choices”
4. Select what you want, for this example I’m looking at high end from LG, Samsung, Sony and Sharp
5. Select features, for this ex. I used “1080p, LCD, 52″, etc”
6. SHOW ME THE MONEY… er, products

Now what do you have? You have the sorted list of the best TVs that meet your requirements. I can assure you that this is an accurate list for both TVs, and the search I did for SLRs.

But here is the best part. Why take their word for it? Click on User Reviews. Now you can see the breakdown of every major review website and all of their reviews. This includes Best Buy, Amazon, etc. But way again, you don’t give a damn about user reviews, what do they know? Then you sir should click on Expert Reviews and read everything from AVSForum, Tom’s Hardware, and everything else from under the sun. These rankings are balanced to find out what’s hot and what’s not.

Run a few of your own searches and see what you can get!

Well its been slightly over a week since Age of Conan has come out and first things first - we already have some 80s. No not me, or really anyone I know. I have seen them though. Our guild is ranging up to level 50 in the first week. I am level 30 after a limited play time, and this is my first week review.

First things first. Funcom has succeded in the most successful MMORPG launch that I have had the pleasure to take part in. There have no doubt been issues, but nothing major or ground breaking. The game runs well. There hasn’t been any worthwhile server downtime. People are not getting dropped, oh and the game actually plays well without any hampering bugs.

My only complaint was that it took me 2 evenings to get the game to work. Mind you this was a rarity, my issue was barely mentioned on the official tech support boards. I tried 50 different things and finally I get to play.

Launch praise aside, what else can I say? This game is straight up fun. It is entertaining, the PVE “grind” is barely that. You progress at a solid pace and your character develops at just the right speed. You aren’t overloaded with 100 spells in 5 minutes, and you wont ever play a full night and not get anything new.

PVE is handled similar to WoW in that you go to a town, pick up 15 quests, then go out and do them. The main difference? No thottbot, because the game highlights on your map what region you need to be in to complete the quest. Sometimes its a simple X where the boss mob is located, and other times its a section of the zone that is highlighted. Either way, it keeps the player in the game without having to constantly switch back and forth or research how to play.

There are most certainly some imbalancing issues, but from what I’ve seen there is nothing major. Another point for funcom. I will admit that my Ranger is very strong, but it doesn’t mean I don’t die or that people can’t get away from me. People will complain that I have a combo that does about 80% of most people’s life. My response? It takes 10 seconds to get off, if you are standing there for 10 seconds trying to fight me you deserve to get hit by it. For the DOTA players, compare to being hit by KOTL’s nuke. Bottom line? You’re an idiot.

The combat system both works well, and keeps you busy while fighting. As pointed out the earlier comments of wrist breaker are incorrect. The swinging of the mouse was replaced by directional key presses. How is works is that when you use and ability it will not simply fire off. You must first make a few attacks in a certain order. If you succeed then your ability will work. Imagine if you were playing WoW, and to fire a.. uh… fireball, you had to first hit fireball, and then hit Wand Upper Left Attack, Wand Upper Right Attack. You would see your mage attack with the want in the upper left, then attack with the want in the upper right, then toss out a fireball. If you hit Wand upper left and wand overhead, the fireball would fizzle out.

On the other side, you have defense, which similarly can also be used to block in certain directions. I envision this to making end game pve tanking quite difficult. You can load up blocks in certain areas that prevents a lot of the damage, or you can even it out around all of your body. Obviously loading up on one side will leave you defenseless on another side. You can change all of this on the fly.

I have heard that there is lacking content for the 40s, we will see when I get there.

Other than that, this game is solid and has great potential for end game PVP. Currently on the PVP server, there is not that much ganking. I have yet to experience the GY camping that people were scared about. I’ve also only truly been ganked two or three times. All in all, I can’t wait to hit up the true PVP in this game. It is going to be a blast.

Well it certainly is a typical month of spring in May - very wet. Because of rain? No… because of all of the uh, leaked, screenshots. Corny? Yes.

Nevertheless, in the past 48 hours we have been treated to severe thunderstorm of screenshots for some upcoming games. No better time than to cover a little bit of information on each one of them.

(for the slow ones in the bunch, click on the damn titles to see the screenshots or videos)

1. Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise

Almost straight on queue, it has been about 48 hours since I said to my significant other, “I should really get Viva Pinata back out again, it was a great game and I don’t feel I completely got everything out of it that I could have” (not to mention I’m missing a considerable amount of achievements from the game). Now I’m treated to screenshots to the upcoming sequel due out on 360 later this year.

If you have missed Viva Pinata the first time around it is a very fun, cute, and quite funny gardening sim. Before you furiously spin your mousewheel - it goes much further than simple gardening. The goal of the game is to attract various species of Pinatas to your garden such as monkey pinatas, horse pinatas, hummingbird pinantas and more. I can’t express the child-like joy that you will feel when you start attracting the fun pinatas and mating them.

One doesn’t need much info on Viva Pinata 2 to know that it will be a classic. Can’t wait.

2. Banjo Kazooie 3

Banjo is a pretty platformer from Rare (Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Battletoads, Goldeneye, etc) also due out later this year. As far as I know, Banjo 3 came as a bit of surprise, as I had not heard anything about it at all - although I may be wrong about this.

The purpose of the new Banjo game is to run around in the various levels collecting up to 1600 different car pieces and building vehicles. It is however still a platformer, and not a racing game. Nevertheless, Banjo games have been classic in the past (despite me not playing them), and I will definitely give this one a go.

3. Too Human

Maybe I saved the best for last - or maybe I talked about it first. Either way, what does Too Human have going for it? Well for number one, it is Canadian. What more do you need seriously?

Made by Silicon Knights, developers of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Too Human has been in development since what I’m now learning is 1999 as it was originally planned for Playstation 1. It is an Action-RPG that has been compared to Diablo, but to me seems to look closer to Mass Effect - only with a lot more action and a lot less talking. There are various character classes as well as skill trees to train out on your characters.

I don’t want to say too much because I haven’t fully done my research on the game - but I will as the time comes near. Too Human is due out in August.

Just when you think there’s nothing to look forward too, it seems a nice amount of screenshots show up. MS also mentioned a sequel to Scene It showing up later this year too. I’m personally getting excited for EndWar despite knowing almost nothing about it. Oh and if you haven’t seen it already, I suppose I’ll leave you with the recently released gameplay video of Gears of War 2. Looks solid.

I’m fully aware this game came out 7 months ago. However, are you aware that it took me until this week to get a copy? No, you aren’t.

NBA 2K has been a staple in the Basketball series for any true fan, and a leader over the major competitor NBA Live for quite some time now. With everything it had going for itself, it would be nearly impossible to mess it up. Thankfully, 2K Sports are not masters of the impossible and we are presented with another excellent addition to an already solid series.

It is not often that reviews start with a complaint. But I don’t live by the rules so I write my reviews however the hell I want. I have one complaint about this game - and it is the same complaint I’ve had about previous versions of the game. I think I grew up playing a style of basketball that is not compatible with your present day NBA games. This is one game that I can pretty much say that I suck at. Is that really a complaint? Maybe not. But it is frustrating. True the only way that I will get better is to play it over and over. But it is hard to dedicate solid playtime to a game when you have GTA IV next to it and Age of Conan on the near horizon. I will be casual with it and hope to master the game by the time 2K9 rolls around.

Speaking of 2K9, any predictions on the cover athlete? I’m feeling Dwight Howard.

Back to 2K8. This game’s major contribution to me sucking is the fact of just how damn realistic it is. I’m totally unfamiliar with basketball plays. All I know is to drive the paint in hopes of drawing a double team and finding the open man on the outside for the free shot. I also know if you hit that open man and he isn’t a shooter you rotate around the outside with passes until you get the shot you need. This game is just like the real NBA. If you try to throw up a shot and you aren’t open, you better be Kobe or King James or else you ain’t hitting it. Strong defense keeps you at bay and you really need to work the floor and set screens to get the open shot you want. This also brings quite a challenge to newcomers - one which I welcome.

Luckily the game also has an auto play calling feature which is excellent. If you have the ball with your PG, a small circle will flash on the floor. Standing in that circle will have the computer pick a play. It then draws out the play on the floor allowing you to follow arrows and make passes to complete the play. This is great for learning playbooks. After I get the hang of the plays I’ll be ready to call my own plays that are appropriate to the team I’m playing against and my personal preferences.

What I’m getting at is that NBA 2K8 brings a deep strategic level to the sport. One more akin to the Football worlds. No more smashing and banging with massive dunks - at least not on the surface.

Game modes are important to a lot of people so I will cover them briefly. The critically acclaimed “Association” mode makes it’s return essentially being a glorified franchise mode from other games. Monitor draft picks, meet goals set by your board of directors, plan training camps, and manage salaries. I’ve always been extremely intrigued by these modes but I’ve never played one. I can’t bring myself to work the micromanagement necessary to be successful. Not only that but I would get really upset when my team started to suck and I was in the rebuilding phase. Is that really fun for some people that are in to the franchise modes?

NBA Blacktop is one of the new features to 2K8. Blacktop brings a Dunk Competition, 3 Point Competition, and other All-Star like stuff such as the Rookie vs. Softmore games. I have yet to fully grasp the dunk competition. It involves spinning combinations on the right stick while timing other things to string together incredible dunks. You can use props, self pass, the works. All in all, its a pretty neat little addition.

Other standards round in the game modes such as Season, Playoffs, Single Game, and all the Multiplayer features you would expect from a 2K sports game.

Final words? NBA 2K8 is another excellent basketball SIMULATOR (note the word simulator, not an arcade slam dunk bonanza) that brings a level of depth that is both fun and challenging. Signature moves return from last years game (real player shot animations and motions for every name brand player in the NBA) to just make this game truly excellent for any NBA fan. If you are getting interested in the Playoffs like I am, you owe it to yourself to give this one a solid shot.

First I would like to point out that many of the reviews you see on the net are total bull****. Gamespy for example, responsibly posted reviews on the day of beta release yet posted said reviews 8 hours before the servers were even ready to play on. The cookie cut reviews offer what I consider a rather hopeful perspective on a game that sits only two weeks from release. 

The open beta only allows one to reach level 13, which could be likened to playing until level 10 on WoW - almost meaningless when it comes to understanding a class. One can reach level 13 easily in a few hours, though I did notice a ‘EXP Bonus’ icon on my experience bar that had a subscript number on it for the amount of kills or quests it would give me extra experience for. I didn’t do all the calculations but its safe to say a normal person would easily be able to reach 20 within two days time with average playing time of 3-4 hours a day. Please note that level 20 is the cap for the ‘early access’ 3-day bonus you get if you pay an extra 5 bucks, so if you consider yourself a normal player (hardcore players can probably get all 12 classes to 20) then consider this fact before buying early access.

As for the classes themselves, I do not want to bash or praise any particular class simply because it would be rather foolish of anyone to expect class balance at this level. That said, I found my guardian able to solo everything till the cap but to be weaker than my ranger, and the priest class having much more difficulty at these levels for soloing - expect to group. A monkey at level 6, with [Boss] next to his name, killed me 4 times in a row as I desperately attempted to slay him. I moved on. The casters are interested but sadly it seems spellweaving is being modified so you no longer have a chance to kill yourself and go to hell, I was looking forward to that. 

So far the world is not as open as I would have hoped for it to be, but it is more open than any tutorial area I have ever played in. From 1-20 it seems that players have the option to play single or multiplayer simply by changing the ‘time of day’. Night time is solo play and day time is solo play with other players running around lagging you. The only other differences are the quests offered. During the night one does his ‘destiny’ quest which pretty much gets you into the story. For any of you that have ever played any of the Longest Journey games, you will find the dialogue to be similar and quite fulfilling - though I did find that the game takes no consideration to the gender you play with. During one quest where I save a woman who has just been attacked by ‘brutes’ and tied up, she offers herself ‘later’ to both my male guardian and female priest. Funcom is all for equal opportunity it seems. Overall though the quests are nothing super special so do not come in expecting The Longest Journey, its an MMO! 

To graphics. The graphics are VERY good, there is no doubt that all you computer buffs will find even your amazing rigs pushed to the limit with this game. As for the “play Oblivion you should be able to play this”, its a bit more complicated than that. I play Oblivion fine on my computer with near max settings but found myself going against a wall when logging into AoC. First off, those with graphics cards from ATI will find that no matter how many hundreds you have paid you will still go from 60 to 1 fps for no reason - consistently. Apparently it has to do with the card’s method of horizontal texturing. I happen to have an ATI, I fixed this problem by mainly aiming my camera downward as I moved so I was staring at my avatar’s bald head. Funcom understands and will hopefully fix this soon. If you have Nvidia, you are lucky because the game was literally made for you. The graphics options are rather plentiful but I did run across a lot of terms that even I was not familiar with. DEVs did mention that the beta version did not have the Cheetah Engine implemented, which should help lower end rigs. Mainly (for everyone), do not expect a smooth start when you first log in - here are common problems and fixes.  

-Game only shows up with a black screen and sound. Fix: start in windows mode and change settings back to what you want in game, this should fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again.

-Stuck on a quest for whatever reason. Fix: log out and wait a while, I had to wait a day before being able to go back to a reset quest position. (Report that you are stuck on a quest spot and explain the situation, if it is a known problem a GM will fix it. Or the system is so amazing that it does it for you, who knows). 

-A NPC is talking to you but you cannot see what s/he is saying or offer any responses. Fix: walk away and come back and try and talk again.

-You are banned for jokingly saying in global chat that you are selling gold. Fix: None, do not do this!! No Joke, I saw two people banned so far. 

Quick Overview:

Pro:

-The graphics ARE nice, very beautiful landscapes and I must say I have never seen more realistic water reflections and animation as I swim through it. 

-Fun combat that has great depth even at low levels, leaves me only imagining what all there is to do at level 80. 

-Graphic glitches so that even though you have clothes on with female characters, going underwater exposes everything. 

-Nice patching program and rapid response allows for quick fixes and fast installs. The level of performance of the game increased by at least 50 percent over the past few days as a direct result of the patches implemented. 

-PvP is great fun even at this level. Knock-backs are my new best friend. 

-Stealth is pretty interesting, lighting has a lot to do with it. Materials that make noise as you walk over it has a chance of exposing you.

-One can climb

Con:

-ATI users, poor support. 

-Horrible communication between developers and gamers so far. Example, 8 minutes before server start time they announced that there would be a last minute patch that lasted 8 hours to implement. Also the “e-mail that will be sent shortly” to explain the situation came 3 hours later with more bad news. 

-Security overlook. Links to accounts led to a http port rather than https even though the https port existed. This caused several dozen accounts to be stolen due to keylogger software on the client side. Probably still player’s problem but still a preventable situation. 

-Bug after bug after bug. Its expected, but 2 weeks from release?

-Didn’t see the mounted combat

-Rangers ‘manual’ aim is more like ‘kinda-like manual aim’ and have only slight improvements on range. 

-May be stealth but it seems that out of no where NPCs spawn and kill you when you least expect it. 

-Random disconnects exists.

If you are a perfectionist spoiled over what took Blizzard and Mythic years to ‘fix’, I strongly recommend NOT getting the game until at least a week after release. Funcom has dedicated DEVs but it will be a little while before the game hammers down all these glitches. Otherwise, the servers handle well under pressure and overall one will still be able to play - though expect frustrations and downtimes. I will one day get this game but I am far from excited about it. It is fun, but it will be awhile before it becomes a good game. 

I’ll be the first to admit that the world of MMO’s has been remarkably dry for quite some time now. I’ve found myself going back to games like WoW and Shadowbane, and I have even spent some time considering reactivating EQ2 or EVE to pass the time. With Warhammer being delayed again (and rightfully so from what I understand) we’re left with only one true game on the horizon - Age of Conan. A game who’s NDA was just lifted a few days ago.

Surprisingly, it has been brought to my attention that most people dont seem to be aware of the nature and quality of this game due out two weeks. Fear not unknowledgeable one, I am here to take care of you. Call me Mr. Motivation, and prepare to get excited.

If you are reading this you more than likely played Dark Age of Camelot with me. If you did, you are probably still waiting for a game that might live up to that style of play that got you addicted to MMO’s in the first place. You may be crossing your fingers waiting out Warhammer, but my friend might I suggest that Age of Conan is the game you have been waiting for.

PVP Breakdown

Age of Conan is the first game that I remember since Lineage 2 that is built around end game PVP. Of course 95% of us never experienced end game PVP in Lineage 2, Age of Conan can fix that - and without the retardation of 20 /day leveling curves. PVP in AoC takes the following forms:

1. Mordred-style FFA PVP outside of guild and groups
2. End game open field PVP - email style
3. Large Scale PVP Objective based combat including Siege Warfare
4. Drunken Brawling where you battle it out over a bottle of beer with your dearest friends*
5. PVP Minigames, better known as Battlegrounds including CTF and Team Deathmatch

*I have a hard time considering Drunken Brawling as PVP, more of a fun way to pass the time, but nevertheless it technically qualifies!

AoC is also the first game that I remember in recent years that has a full PVP advancement system including PVP levels (think realm ranks) with experience and stat points to spend on new pvp achievements and rank improvements. Finally a game that rewards you for PVP’n with something to further customize your character that isn’t a piece of armor that everyone else is using.

Combat System

The other major unique drawing factor that will get you excited about AoC is the unique and new combat system unlike any other MMO, but probably most closely resembling that of DAOC. The combat system combines two special features:

1. The Combo system

The combo system allows you to chain together specific attacks that have both openers and closers that can be situational or positional. As you continue to chain together attacks you have a chance to do a fatality, which is a finishing move that is gruesome and bloody - not to mention brings along added buffs/bonuses of some sort to your character.

2. The Wrist Breaker

Phrase coined by me, proper usage of class abilities will involve an “FPS-like” skillset. Specific motions with the mouse will determine what times of attacks are being used, i.e. swinging the mouse from top right to bottom left will perform a similar attack. This will also apply to spellcasters in the form of “spellweaving”. More info on this will emerge as time goes on.

Class Overview

4 bases, 3 classes per, totalling 12 classes. Each class has a WoW-like feat tree, also known as a talent tree for our Blizzard fanbois, to further customize themself (not to mention the PVP ranks to bring another level of customization).

Here is a link to the feat builder:
http://goonheim.com/goonheim/feats/view/guardian

You have your standard 3 melees, 3 rogues, 3 healers, 3 mages. I don’t think there is too much worth mentioning in this category other than one of the rogues happens to be a Berzerker… wow.

Feel free to look more in to the first 20 levels of the skill trees over at TenTonHammer:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/30805

Not much more to report right now other than the summary of cool and excitement factors:

1. Centralized around PVP for leveling and end game
2. Bloody, messy, gory, cool graphics
3. Full PVP ranking and level achievement system
4. Unique player-skill based combat
5. Available to play in 2 weeks

Pick it up.

Some people have asked what took me so long to cover anything Grand Theft Auto IV related. Where’s the Top 10 Reasons to buy GTA? Where’s the GTA Preview? Haven’t you all gotten enough GTA preview buzz from just about every other website known to man?

Nevertheless, its time is now. I have had 2 nights to overwhelm myself with The Sims: GTA Edition and I’m ready to write. Let first say that Grand Theft Auto 2 was my favourite one in the series until Vice City showed up, and none of the others have really been that spectacular. This however does not imply that I wasn’t looking forward to Grand Theft Auto IV.

After a minor disappointment and not illegally receiving a copy on the Monday, I got the chance to sit down on Tuesday and play for pretty much all night. What are my initial impressions? Fun, funny, entertaining, deep, great game. What are some words that don’t initially come to mind? Spectacular, mind-blowing, best game we’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, it is an excellent game with loads of detail. But is this the greatest thing since the Canada Day Umbrella Hat? Probably not.

I won’t bore anyone with “The game starts out with…” or “You can even do…” because that has pretty much been covered in every write-up or review for the last 12 months on any website. I will however cover a few things that have stood out to me.

Mini-Games: One of the items that I have been reading great things about are the sheer amount of mini-games (although usually not referred to as mini-games). These include the ability to find and date women, go play pool, play darts, watch a show and many more. I have to say these are neat/cool/fun/insert mad lib here. Its fun to call up my cousin and take him to the strip club no doubt. But on the other hand, I find it slightly annoying that as I progress and make

more and more “friends”, I’m constantly being pestered and asked to go hang out. Is it a good thing that I just feel bad because I’m turning them down over and over because the game is “so realistic”. Or is it just an annoying thing that I’m trying to play the game how I want to play it and I’m being harassed. I haven’t actually checked to see if turning them down affects my likability in their eyes but regardless… how about I call you when I want to hang out. Leave me alone.

Police: The best part about this game so far is how easy going the cops are. I can run red lights, speed, and get in to minor fender benders without worrying about catching the attention of the clone-like policemen. They’ll still get upset when I run someone over, steal a car, or get in to a serious accident - but that is expected. I’m glad I don’t have to be overly careful while just trying to play a game.

Television & Internet: Possibly one of the coolest and less talked about areas of GTAIV. You can literally sit down and watch TV instead of playing the game. Funny shows about American right-wing extremists, cartoons, stand-up comedy specials and even hilarious satirical news broadcasts. Fun and entertaining. I don’t know how much total content there is, but I’ve watched for maybe 90 minutes so far and haven’t had a repeat that wasn’t a commercial. Internet is similarly entertaining for the sole reason that there is no spyware. I finally opened a Viagra email and was able to satisfy my burning inner desire to see what their website looks like without the fear of trojans and PC slowdown. If you didn’t read already, you can also just spend time surfing the Internet 1995 style.

Accurate level of realism in strip clubs: Similar to my most recent experience in a strip club, one stripper lead me to believe that she was in fact going to hang out with me later in the evening - for a price. After the dance ended I spent around the same amount of time trying to walk in to the stripper mashing LB trying to somehow get her number in to my cell phone as I did in real life actually TRYING to call that lying bitch.

What I really wanted to cover was the Multiplayer. Sure its been covered time and time again, but I think its time for my opinion. The best part about this multiplayer is that it is the perfect counterpart to the single player. It gives you a quick 1-2 punch of fast paced short lived action. In other words, its a blast to play for short periods of time. I like to play a good few hours in the single player campaign then mix in a little MP at the end.

Multiplayer begins with you and your friends in a lobby-like area of Liberty City. You have a helicopter, some boats, a motorbike, some cars, and all the guns you want. While you and your friends decide what you play, you can get in one of those cars with a friend and go run a drive-by on your unsuspecting victim friend who just joined the lobby. Or maybe they deserve an AK-47 in the mouth.

After you’re ready you can join one of about 15 different modes. So far I’ve most enjoyed the Cops N Crooks game. In this game I was the leader on our team of 4 criminals. I could see all of the cops on the radar - as well as all of the escape routes, but unfortunately no one else on my team could see either. It was pretty exciting to pack all 4 of us in to an SUV in a mad dash attempt to reach our escape point. All the meanwhile me shouting “SERIOUSLY THEY ARE RIGHT BEHIND US… THEY ARE GAINING IM NOT EVEN JOKING” while the rest of my crew is yelling (mostly because we didn’t know who could see who on the radar) “WTF I CAN’T SEE ANYONE, I’M SHOOTING BLINDLY”. It was chaos, in a good way.

We also did a race, which just as what I read, turned out to be a lot more fun than I was expecting. Machine guns out the driver side window as I round the corner while watching my friends head explode in red as his face plasters forward in to the horn of his car and he skids off in to a lamp post was a blast.

Tested a few other modes such as multiplayer co-op, car jack city, and team deathmatch which were all pretty fun. The major issue with multiplayer is that it is the worst culprit of screaming 14 year old boys yelling OWNED BITCH OWNED SERIOUSLY WTF PWNED.

I will also add that the primary negative that I see for the multiplayer is that it seems like it would get old fast. This applies to both consecutive hours played in 1 night, as well as overall level of boredom.

All in all I think the game is well deserving of all of it’s praise. Unsure of if it deserves the 100% 10/10 reviews that seem to be running rampant - but it is worthy of a 90-95% in my books. I just hope I can play it out before Age of Conan comes out later this month or else I’ll be extremely overwhelmed.

There isn’t too much new for everyone - but there are 2 handy features that were MIA before.

#1. Tags. Posts have “tags” such as xbox 360, rock band, etc. You can click on them in the right sidebar to see a summary of all posts that have those tags.

#2. Multiple pages. Pages have been capped to 5 posts per page (no more 700 posts on the front page). Click on older entries at the end of the 5th post to keep reading back.

#3. Footer Bar. I put in a nice footer bar that summarizes recent posts, recent comments, and top comments for easier navigation

#4. Gravatars. Gravatars are singular avatars that are attached to your email. If you go to www.gravatar.com you can simply type in your email and upload an avatar. Now anytime you are browsing a site that supports gravatars, you will automatically implement your gravatar. Iceman from Mega Man 1 is the default. If you want to change it, register on gravatar.com, it literally takes 15 seconds.

If you are some super blogger and you have suggestions on other handy features to include, please let me know. In the meantime, let’s get this back in business.

Expect to see a new perspective giving reviews, previews and general opinions on the ongoing and upcoming MMOs.

First of all, I know many of you have your eyes on Age of Conan and with the drop of the NDA on May 1st you should expect to see a preview on this site on the latest version of one of the most anticipated games of the year. Age of Conan is probably one of the largest games I’ve ever had to download on my laptop. Weighing in at 13 gigs, the beast of the game will require about 30 gigs of free space to download and install. Thanks to the change of engines, the system requirements are now much kinder and a general rule seems to be if you can run Oblivion you can run AoC at least at minimum settings (I will put this to the test on May 1st).

If you want to test the game yourself or cannot wait for the release on May 20th, then you should head down to FilePlanet for your own key. Basically you have to create an account, subscribe (the minimum option is $15.99 for a three month block), and pray to get your key. Funcom has given Fileplanet a *limited* 50,000 keys to distribute over the weekend and into the end of April. Beware that paying does not mean you will get a key. Here is a little trick that I used:

1) Bookmark

2) Ready all the information you would need to fill out the subscription page (make sure you are also registered with the site)

3) Continually check the bookmark until you see they have keys. A normal page will have a table with the status; you will not see this table when keys are available.

4) Make your account as fast as possible and proceed to checkout and obtaining your key/download link. I notice most keys are delivered in the morning, roughly 10 EST for me. They ran out in about 10-15 minutes. Also note that the game is huge and it will probably take you two full days to download it (avg. speed 150 KB/sec)

Check us out on May 1st for a view of beta!

Thanks,

Pepper

I must say that I do love a good crossover game. I also must say that X-Men vs. Street Fighter was maybe one of the coolest sub-genre starting games of all time. I finally, must also say that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is probably in the top 3 of all time fighting games for me.

While we’re on that subject, Mortal Kombat (probably most specifically MK2) as a series will round out at number 2, with the Street Fighter series (either Alpha 3 or SF3:3 here) taking top spot. Being such a MK fan, I never discount a new Mortal Kombat game. Ok fine, I usually don’t discount a Mortal Kombat game.

I truly don’t know what to make of this. It is an odd concept to initially grasp (although I don’t know how its any different than Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter). Maybe MVSSF was easier to grasp due to the fact that Marvel Super Heroes was already a game on its own. Nevertheless, oddly I will be looking forward to this game. I’m excited to see the list of characters, and look forward to seeing some fatalities from Batman and Superman.

What do other people think? (pretty sure I’m wasting my time asking that since we all know that even if you read, you don’t comment… yes… I’m talking to you)

Oh yeah, and here’s the trailer:

With the re-launch of Shadowbane right around the corner, people have been talking with me about the possibility of playing – and with that comes the request for a “Mark Patte” post about how to prepare. Gee, it must be nice to have other people thinking for you and making all of your decisions. I wonder what that is like?

Anyhow… let’s begin by making a quick checklist of things to download, or things to have open while planning your character:

1. http://chronicle.ubi.com/ The official website, and strangely enough one of the best resources for game information. Be sure to start downloading the client if you haven’t already. You can plan and mess around until this Thursday, March 20^th. Just remember your character will be wiped come the re-launch
2. http://www.mordkessel.com/wiki/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
   This is the only other really good website I could find for SB. It is arguably better than the official website, while the information is the same, it is in an easy to follow minimalistic wiki setup
3. http://www.epeon.net/charbuilder This character builder is supposed to be the best. Too bad the website seems to no longer exist. I am listing it in case it returns with this re-launch.
4. http://www.mordkessel.com/wiki/mediawiki/index.php?title=Character_Creator sadly, this is your best option. It is overwhelming and confusing. It is an excel spreadsheet that the owner set up I guess for himself. It is primarily set up for use as a bard, but it still functions for any class (despite their skills not being listed). It is highly recommended for the INITIAL CREATION PHASE, which is probably most crucial. It works properly for all classes in this stage, and I highly recommend you read up on some ideas for your class and implement them here to test it out. That is assuming you subscribe to the max/min logic that I do when planning a character.
5. http://ubbforums.ubi.com/ubbthreads.php?Cat=&C=4
   Official Shadowbane forums. I suggest you begin with the “New-Player Guide” section. There are only guides for about 40% of the classes, but there are enough to start to understand how to plan. After you read up on the classes themselves on the wiki, you might want to browse the official forum for your class. This is how I came to the conclusion on how I wanted to build my character.

“OK, I did all that… now what?”

Well now it is time to open up your spreadsheet and start planning. For those that are in the dark, I will again give you a step by step process on how I believe you should plan your character. But first, let me give a little background to how your character actually exists.

In Shadowbane, you character is built on 10 different runes. Every decision you make consumes one of the rune slots. Essentially, your character is not just a Priest, for example, but in fact a combination of all 10 runes, Priest being only 1 of those runes. Each one of the following decisions will define your character, and consume a rune slot:

• Race, Base Class (Healer, Rogue, Fighter, Mage), Profession (Priest, Druid, Berserker, etc), Starting Runes, Disciplines or Stat Runes (more on the last three later)

Now that you understand how your character is made, let’s have a look at what I feel is the best order for planning your character

1. Choose a Profession

I highly recommend you begin by browsing and choosing a profession. This will control about 70% of how your character operates. You’ll quickly notice there are about 9000 different classes. There are some unique ones, and some standard ones. It would help to have SOME type of idea on what you want to play.

1. Choose a Base Class

Unlike any other game you’ve probably played. Just because you say “I’m going to be an Assassin” does not necessarily define to someone else what you are playing. Take Assassin as a perfect example. You can be a Rogue Assassin – which will play closer to a traditional-sensed killer including stealth and dual wielding of daggers. Alternatively, you could be a Mage Assassin. These classes retain the stealth of the Assassin, but rather than creep up and stab someone in the face, they creep around and start fireballing and lightning bolting. Both are Assassins, but they are completely different. Have a look around, not all base classes are available to each Profession.

1. Pick your Race

Surprisingly, this could again drastically affect how your character plays. Just like in other games, when you create your class in Shadowbane you have starter points to add to stats like dex or con, or you can use them to buy upgrades. The first upgrade you’ll buy will be your race. Humans do not cost any points, but everyone else does. Why you ask? Well race choice in this will give access to completely new spell lines, or give you inherent abilities not available to other races. Example? Picking a Nephilim or an Aracoix will allow your character to fly (because they have wings…duh). Picking a Vampire will mean that your character does not have Mana (for spells) or Stamina (for abilities) whatsoever. Instead, Vampires consume their own health when using abilities. They also get access to special lifetap and lifedrain runes to keep themselves up.

It is also important to mention that picking Human is not a bad thing. While Humans do not excel in any stat, nor do they get access to any special abilities, they are awarded 1 extra train per level (11, rather than 10). This means any human end game will have a larger sum of training points that they can assign to their abilities. More on training abilities later.

1. Pick your Starting Runes

The last step for creating a character is what Starting Runes you want to purchase. First things first, you should subtract 5 points from all 5 stats, which will give you an additional 25 stat points. Every stat has a top end cap based on your race. You will not lose anything by starting the game with 35 INT instead of 40. Your end game cap (which is quite low) will easily be reached halfway through the game - and it will not be lowered due to you starting with less stats. Basically no one is going to need to max all their stats, you will most likely only need to max 2, maybe 3. Refunding these points will give you more access to starting runes.

These runes are going to make big changes to your character. They will increase your max stats, increase your current stats, adjust regen rates, and even give you access to entire new weapon styles (i.e. a mage can take a rune that grants access to the use of a crossbow, should he wish to build that way). There are a lot of these. My best recommendation is to read up on what ones are best. Any rune that costs 12 starting points is generally accepted as really good. I haven’t seen any builds using the 2-3 point costing runes. So far the most common ones I’ve seen (keeping in mind I haven’t explored any fighters) are Brilliant Mind, Hearty As An Ox, Healthy, Precise, Wizard’s Apprentice, Raised By XXX.

Once you have made these four decisions, you are well on your way to finishing your character. The other decisions that you have to make wont come until end game.

As a brief overview I will cover the other types of Runes for you to get.

1. Disciplines

Disciplines are absolutely great. Throughout the world there are mobs scattered that carry these runes. Each rune is essentially access to an entire new tree of shared abilities. Anyone with that rune can use them. Do not get confused in to thinking that this is a class you will eventually become, (i.e. Human Mage Bard Archer – archer being the discipline). In fact, you can take as many disciplines as you have remaining slots for runes. If you wish you can take no starting runes, and no stat runes, therefore leaving you space to take up to 7 different disciplines.

Here are some examples of Disciplines:

• Traveller: Allows the user access to use the world teleporters – essentially giving anyone with Traveller to teleport both themselves and their party all over the world
• Archer: Grants access to all the archery weapon skills and awards 10 training points to each one
• Rat Catcher: Summon a pet, gives a weapon enchant, and gives 2 castable debuffs that prevent health recovery and mana recovery
• Summoner: Summon a variety of pets
• Berserker: Gives aoe melee damage, a stamina recovery buff, and “personal rage”

All in all, there are about 30 different ones that can all fine tune how your character plays.

1. End Game Stat Runes

Each of the 5 stats has runes that you can purchase that will increase your max cap. They range from 5 to 40 in increments of 5. As I understand it, you can take a 40 (Godly) rune to one stat, and a secondary one of 30. Some people have mentioned getting 2 godly runes, I’m unsure of how that works. You can also alternatively go with 2x 35 runes rather than a 40 and a 30. They are straightforward, and obviously necessary for end game.

I guess the last thing I should mention briefly is how training works in this. Every level you are awarded 10 training points (11 for humans). These training points will be how you spec your character. I neglected to mention that despite the fact that you are now a Vampire Mage Assassin with Huntsman, Traveller and Belgosch disciplines, you also only have limited training points. So again your buddy with the same class could be completely different. It is all about finding the proper support for your build. Each player will have access to different spell lines (think Elds getting Light, Mana, or Void – or Paladins getting Holy, Protection, or Ret for you WoW players). First you must train points in to the line itself. Having the correct amount of trains in a particular skill line will give only access to train a spell. You must then spend more training points in that skill itself. Essentially you are training each skill twice, once for the line, and once for the actual skill. Skills cap out at 40 trains for most, some at 20, and a few only require 1 train. This can be found when reading about your discipline and profession.

All in all, this should give enough information to start planning. Later in the week I’ll see about putting together some more generic info to Shadowbane about how end game works, PVP, guilds, etc.

Before I go, if anyone wants to see my plan for a character, it will be as follows:

Human Mage Bard, Con focus, Int secondary. Disciplines are Rat Catcher for anti-heal debuff, RuneCaster for single target heal, Commander for group stun break, and Archer for use of a bow. My goal as the bard is to be a full support character with both buffs and debuffs, but also to have shitty ranged damage that I can use for additional CC (Bow attacks have snares and anti-fly debuffs on some).

Counting down the top 10 reasons you should already have Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 pre-ordered.

10. Rainbow Six Label

If by some miracle of modern science you have yet to play a Rainbow Six game, there is no better time to start. Dating back to the original Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy has consistently given us a realistic first person shooter. The older games involved much strategy and planning over blueprints of a mission, but more recently the planning has been removed. This is the type of first person shooter where you get shot once and you are dead. It makes Multiplayer hard, and very intense.

9. Realistic Weapons

This might not be an initial draw, but one of the things that Tom Clancy games are good for are having true and realistic weapons. Rainbow Six is known for depicting true recoil, reload times, rate of fire, accuracy, stopping power, and even the sounds of the weapons. Every single gun is unique from another gun. This is somewhat more common nowadays - but you can expect it to always be top notch in R6.

8. Bullet Penetration

Mentioned briefly already, one of the new things that come in to play in Vegas 2 is bullet penetration. This is not a new feature to games, but it is one that has been heavily tweaked. Before, the stopping power of the gun would be measured versus the level of body armor your target was wearing - and that was it. Now they have introduced formulas for almost anything in the game. Cinder Blocks, Wood Fences, even Slot Machines all have their own values. In simpleton terms? If you have a big enough gun, you can shoot through anything - including your buddies face.

7. Cover System

This was both a blessing and a curse in the previous game. Vegas implemented a similar cover system to that found in Gears of War and Killzone (I think…). Basically, you can lock yourself up against the wall, planter, safe, or whatever you please and hide. This was great as it added a new sense of realism to the games. What was the curse you ask? Well the camera angle it gave you in the cover system allowed you to exploit it and see basically EVERYTHING around you, while remaining 100% invisible to anyone coming towards you. You could even aim from the cover system, 1 button you instantly appear and head shot someone. This system has promised to have been revamped in order to not make it so unfair on your unsuspecting victims. I have yet to see it in action but I imagine it will have pieces of your gun sticking out or something that lets people know you are there. We shall see how this has changed.

Either way, if left unchanged, the game is still great. You learn quickly where to find your opponents.

6. Co-op Single Player

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t play Vegas 1 past the 2nd or 3rd mission - and why would you? The game was made for shooting people in the head! Devs this time around wanted people to experience the single player campaign and thus put a fair amount of work in to it. Players can now play seamlessly with their friends by having them join or leave a game already in progress without hindering to the primary player. Basically when you see me playing, one button and you immediately take over my AI partner. When you are ready to go you simply exit and I don’t even notice a difference. Well thats not true, I’ll notice when I have my AI back - because you suck!

5. Equipment Configuration

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 has a similar inventory system to what we have seen in Call of Duty 4. You have a limited amount of slots and a big pile of fun gadgets. You can take remote control C4, laser trip mines, and even various types of radar jammers. Probably more interestingly are the heart rate monitors. Pull out this doohickey and you can now see all the enemies on the radar - but you can’t shoot your gun. Alternatively you might want to stick a motion detector on the wall and then your radar will light up when it goes off with who it is and where they are. Remember though, if you take these gadgets, that means no grenades, or no flashbangs, or whatever.

4. New Multiplayer Modes

As if this game wasn’t packed already with enough multiplayer modes - now we have more! The first new mode is one that is surprising as to why it has taken so long to show up. This is your classic counterstrike bomb planting map. One team of O, one team of D, and 2 bomb sites to cover. Hope you’ve been practicing Dust 2.

Next up is an interesting variation on the Team VIP ruleset found in a few games. Each team gets 1 VIP. Each team also gets infinite respawns. Object? Get your VIP to the extraction zone found on the other side of the map. That’s right, both teams have their own VIP and their own extraction point to get to. What makes it interesting? A few things. First of all, each VIP can see the other team’s VIP. Next, if you kill the VIP, that team loses their ability to respawn. Finally, if the VIP kills you - you can no longer respawn. Should be interesting.

Finally, there is a capture and hold type map. What could you possible want to capture and hold? Well three satellite uplink stations of course! Oh and if you want to help your buddy phone home, you also need to hold all 3 stations for a total of 30 seconds. Sounds hectic.

3. CoD4 Experience System/Combined with Vegas XP system
Vegas borrows from the current king of FPS in their XP system. This should be a gimme for extending the life of this game. You are going to have to kill people with certain guns, and in certain ways in order to unlock all the toys and guns. Not only that, but it also carries the entire XP system from Vegas 1 to unlock visual upgrades to your character. Sorry if you were upset before when someone with pink camo pants, a wife beater, and night vision goggles killed you. The avatar customization is back once again.

2. Superb Level Design

This has really been the trademark for me in why R6 continues to be awesome. The level designs have never been anything but amazing. In fact some of the best levels I ever remember playing come from R6. Coming back to Vegas 2 include a few classic levels as well as a bunch of new ones. Get ready for some more casino slot machine blasting action, as well as a new level that should be quite fun - The Villa. R6 has always known how to create excellent house maps, and this should be another one. Expect most to be small as Vegas thrives on Close-Quartered Combat rather than rolling landscapes with sniper standoffs.

1. (drum roll?) Strong Multiplayer

I’ve mentioned it in just about every point thus far. What makes all R6 games excellent are their vast amount of excellent multiplayer maps and modes. You can play a Counterstrike style where if you die you are out until the end of the round, or you can play a match with respawns. You can play shotgun battles, or you can play VIP. You can play standard FFA Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch. The modes go on and on and on - as will your fun. While I don’t want to spend 90 minutes here selling you on the multiplayer, just take my word on it - it is a blast.

I have been looking forward to this game for about 5 months now and I highly recommend that if you don’t buy it (which you should) that you at least invest some cash in to renting it. You will surely not be disappointed.

It might not be the prettiest game, but it certainly was a fun one. Shadowbane launches on March 25, 2008, launched on March 25, 2003, launched, and is being re-launched on March 25, both 2003 and 2008. That’s right. We are rapidly approaching the 5 year anniversary for a classic MMORPG. Well it might not be classic to everyone, but it is for some.

A couple years back, Ubisoft announced that they would no longer be charging for the purchase of, or the play of their MMORPG Shadowbane. I almost considered playing again. Part of my turn off for not playing stems from how the game plays itself. The game is a PVP focussed game that centres around capturing and holding cities. Cities that are created by the guilds.

I should also take this opportunity to mention that I haven’t played this game in 5 years, so my information could no longer be correct.

What made Shadowbane fun for me, was a simple fact - which may or may not still be in the game. I played an AoE caster. Shadowbane was the only game I’ve ever played where AoE hurts both friend and foe. That meant that if I wasn’t careful when playing my Fury, I could blast apart my own group. It involved a lot of strategy, and carried a lot of reward.

The other draw to this game for me originally was that every character was unique. This again probably has been cookie cuttered to high hell and back again by now - but back then you had limited points to spend on your spells (not to mention a large variety of classes). That meant that I was playing, as I said, and AoE caster (the Fury). I never came across other furies that were built for AoE. Some went for single target dmg, while some built for DoTs. It was varied. To complicate things, in order to train the top tiers, you had to be part of a top guild that could afford the top trainers for their cities. It was a very complex system, that also was quite fun.

There were other things you needed to do to finish your character too which I won’t go too much in to.

Your end game was simple. Massive guild vs guild warfare. I truly wonder if this is how the game actually matured.

This brings us back to the relaunch. Why should you be interested? Well for one, it’s free. But more importantly, with the relaunch comes a complete server wipedown. There are no established guilds to grief camp your XP spots. All the original pre-made cities will be around. It’s all back to square one.

I think this is a great opportunity for anyone that felt they missed the boat on SB (afaik not many people played it). Some hated it, some loved it, and some just never got a chance to.. uh.. give it a chance.

Personally I’m going to see about giving this another go. I don’t expect anything hardcore to come from it - but I do hope I end up with a character that I can mess around with when I’m bored.

Anyone else interested in giving this a go?

10. Splinter Cell: Conviction

Why buy? Good old Sam Fisher returns, but on the other side of the law! Fugitive on the run puts a new twist on the popular gameplay. You can also say goodbye to the stealth suit - replaced with a scruffy Jack Bauer look.

Why pass? Good old Sam Fisher returns…. for the 5th? 6th? or is the the 7th time. Lets hope cracking police officers in the face is more entertaining than cracked the 9 billionth terrorist in the face.

9. Vegas 2

Why buy? Rainbow Six Vegas is one of the best FPS to come out in a while. More recently Call of Duty 4 has taken the throne as THE FPS. New multiplayer modes, incorporated multi-tier XP system (like CoD4), classic Rainbow Six MP Maps, New MP Maps, revamped cover system to remove abuse and a flesh out co-op online campaign could be the fresh new taste to give the boot to the current champ.

Why pass? Campers abusing the “revamped” cover system giving you no chance whatsoever at being competitive.

8. Warhammer Online

Why buy? Anyone who thinks that there is a better PVP MMORPG to DAOC needs a slap across the mouth. Warhammer Online builds on that formula to give you an MMO that is built around PVP. Warhammer expects to pick up all the players that have been in limbo for the last 5 years playing WoW on and off and getting really bored with their pvp system.

Why pass? Constant delays to “get it right”… will they? It will be hard to mess up with this formula, but its been done before. Also, can a game stand up to the monster that is WoW - especially with no real end-game PVE?

7. Age of Conan

Why buy? Because you are sick of WoW and this game is another PVP oriented MMO built from the ground up to rely on decapitations and limb tearing realm vs realm combat. But why instead of Warhammer? For two games that are turning out very similar, AoC seems to be more mysterious and with prettier graphics. Oh and not to mention I love cutting off peoples arms and heads.

Why pass? Funcom? Did anyone play Anarchy Online?

6. Fallout 3

Why buy? Fallout may have been the best turn based action/strategy/rpg game of all time (sorry X-Com fans, I don’t care if it was around first… and sorry Jagged Alliance fans, but you are mentally retarded). After about 10 years of being MIA its time for it to come back. On top of that, its being developed by our good friends at Bethesda (think Oblivion and Morrowind) and promises to be quite epic.

Why pass? Unsure of why this is called Fallout. It is a first person RPG. It really should be called The Elder Scrolls 5: Fallout. Fans of the Fallout series should be (and are) quite outraged - but Bethesda doesn’t seem to care. Nonetheless, if you can get passed the point that we may never see another great Turn-based Strategy/Action/RPG, and try this new one, you should be impressed.

5. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Why buy? Three intense new Physics engines combined with a game where you play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice and literally explode everything in your path? Can you get any better? Oh and those three physics engines. The first one deals with the matter that composes everything on the screen. Glass shatters better, wood splinters, and you actually die in real life when your character dies. The second allows for hundreds of characters to be animated on screen at once. Where else can you blast 250 stormtroopers simultaneously in to another dimension? Finally, and most interestingly “Euphoria” brings a new level of self-preservation to the AI of the game. People will scramble instinctively to try to stay alive. Watch them grab on to bars and hold on for dear life, use their arms to cover their face, and do anything possible to prevent being catapulted into the sky by your awesomeness.

Why pass? Because long drawn out single player campaigns bore you, despite them having amazing graphics and a sure fire win storyline.

4. Spore

Why buy? Because this game has been in development for about 8 years, so you at LEAST owe them that. If that isn’t enough, Spore is defined as SimEverything. SimSingleCelledOrganism right through to SimSpaceship Exploration Finding New Single Celled Organisms On New Planets. Keep your eyes peeled for the character generator being released eventually. Apparently they are populating the game with creatures that you create. I got dibs on the one eyed one horned flying purple people eater.

Why pass? Only reason I can think of is that you are still pissed off at Maxis for working 100 hours on an epic Sim City only to have a tornado ravage your creation while you were on the can.

3. Tom Clancy’s EndWar

Why buy? This game hasn’t shown up on many top tens, and to be honest I’m actually leaning towards putting it higher. In summary it is an RTS exclusive to consoles. I know, I was scared at first too. First of all, RTS is stale. Second of all, where is my god damn mouse. Then I heard its fully voice activated. Hmm… could work? Then I read its accurate. Now I’m interested. 3 sides including your standard single player campaign and multiplayer modes, but a new MMO mode as well. An ongoing EndWar that you can join or leave at any time, with all EndWar players joining in for ultimate destruction. I’m interested…

Why pass? You have Laryngitis.

2. Grand Theft Auto 4

Why buy? Strippers, guns, Russians and crime- all without STDs or criminal consequence. If you need to be sold on this game then it might be time to take your 5th attempt on suicide. Fingers crossed for you this time…

Why pass? You succeeded on your 4th attempt.

1. Fable 2

Why buy? I know I know… Fable 2 you say? Let me explain. If you haven’t done your time in actually looking at Fable 2 then you might be in for a good surprise. Fable 2 is everything that Fable 1 claimed to be (and tried to be) but came up short. In more detail, Fable is supposed to be the ultimate open ended adventure. Do what you what, live how you want, beat the game how you want. Unfortunately, Fable 1 was more like 3 games, all with a direct path. Be the good guy, the bad guy, or flip flop. Ohhhhhhhh I grow horns if I’m Evil! Fascinating - for 30 seconds. Fable 2 really is panning out to be the ultimate adventure. Every character, city, and mission all work to have a life of their own. If you burn down a city and come back 10 years later, there might be an encampment there, or maybe there will be nothing. If you trade a lot with a city, it will grow. If you terrorize a city they will run and hide when you come in. People remember you and have feelings for you. More interestingly, there is multiplayer. You can bring in a lackey and what they do in your world stays permanent. Careful who you invite in. One situation had a dev kill another devs wife. Bastards…

Why pass? You are blind deaf and dumb and therefore would experience nothing from this except the controller vibration. Come to think of it, that might offer a joy for the blind deaf and dumb that they could enjoy.

Ye Olde Honourable Mentions: Ghostbusters might snag my number 10 spot depending on how Conviction pans out. This is an epic style game being written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd. Bring on Ray Parker Jr and I’m pole-vaulting it to number 5. Also worth mentioning are The Agency (which I left out because I doubt we’ll see it in 08) which is a James Bond MMORPG, Halo Wars brings Halo to RTS, Far Cry 2 should be epic (but will it be any good), Too Human is Canadian made, and originally a PS1 title (yes its been in the making longer than Duke Nukem Forever), Ninja Gaiden 2 might sell a few more people that are behind the times on the 360, Street Fighter “is this even out this year” 4, Borderlands combines Gears of War with Auto Assault, and finally the mysterious Alan Wake finally comes to light in a Max Payne style looking game.

All in all, we’re in for a good year ladies.

Lost Odyssey may finally be the JRPG that us JRPG fans have been looking for - that is Japanese RPG for the slow ones. I guess it wasn’t really until more recently that what to me has always been just simply RPG, got re-coined to JRPG. Probably due to the flood of “rpg” games like Oblivion, Morrowind, Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and whatever else you consider to be an RPG showing up in the last 10 years.

JRPGs are the likes of Final Fantasy 7, Wild Arms, Phantasy Star 4 (Not PSO/PSU), Chrono Trigger, Suikoden - you know, the good stuff! To some, JRPGs are repetitive annoying games where you take 2 steps in the world, then are forced to mash X in a slow paced battle that ends unchallengingly in your favour. To others, JRPGs are epic storylines that involve you in character development and storyline to a degree that could shed more tears than the day you learned that Star Trek: The Next Generation would be airing its final episode. Then to people like me, they are just fun.

It has been a long long while since I recall playing a worthy JRPG (For those interested my 3 favs are 1-3, Phantasy Star 4, Wild Arms, Suikoden 1). I have tested the waters with Blue Dragon for the 360, Wild Arms 3 for PS2, Final Fantasy 10 for PS2, and probably the best thus far, Eternal Sonata for 360. Briefly, Eternal Sonata was amazing, but I only put in 10 hours, it got too easy and repetitive. I’m going to give it a second short eventually.

Lost Odyssey is what we’ve (I’ve) been waiting for. Developed by Mistwalker, a new studio headed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series. The 2nd game from Mistwalker in the past year, the first one Blue Dragon, was designed to mimic the Dragon Quest series - something I was never in to. Lost Odyssey is made as a Final Fantasy clone.

Great JRPGs for me require multiple components:

1. Intriguing Storyline
2. Interesting and Entertaining Characters
3. Fun and/or Challenging Gameplay
4. Good Music

All elements are present.

Intriguing Storyline

Well you already know about the Final Fantasy creator having his hand in the honey pot for this one. Well so did an award winning Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu. Together you get this story:

You are Kaim - an immortal that has lost his memory. All Kaim knows is that he has been wandering the planet as a mercenary for an eternity. Are there other Immortals or is Kaim the only one. As you work to discover who you are, your current military boss has sent you on a mission - discover what has happened at Grand Staff, a man made location that has been created to harvest a newly discovered magical essence (or simply magic in plain terms).

Interwoven in to the normal gameplay, are quite fantastic FMV sequences that tell a large portion of the story. I believe I read somewhere that there are over 12 hours of FMV in this.

Even more interesting are the unthoughtfully named “Thousand Years of Dreams”. How do Immortals suffering from Amnesia get back their memory? Through dreams of course… duh. These may very well be the most interesting and rewarding sections of Lost Odyssey. Rather than tell them through FMV or character interaction, each memory is a short story of text, told to specifically chosen music and background images. There are a ton of these dreams in the game, most of which are fantastically amazing. These are extremely creative and combined with well-composed music. I highly recommend you do not ruin these stories by reading their textual descriptions somewhere online. They can only really be experienced in order by playing through the game.

Interesting and Entertaining Characters

One word. Jansen. More words, an alcoholic womanizer combined with comic relief. Jansen keeps most interactions light hearted and funny. Besides him, you have your solemn lead character that continues to grow interesting as the game develops, as well as a party of unique characters to follow you around. My only complaint in this section is that the antagonist seems quite bland. Usually these games have massive evil entities with devious plans that span across thousands of years. This guy seems quite ordinary. It is entirely possible that he is just a figurehead frontman for the true evilness, I am about 30 hours in to the game and I have yet to find out otherwise.

Fun and/or Challenging Gameplay

Gameplay is standard for the JRPG without too much deviation - which to me is a good thing. You select your attacks before the round starts, then it plays out. Too keep it interesting is a ring system. As you kill monsters you gain crafting materials which can craft rings. Rings will change your melee attacks to include additional properties such as damage to mechanicals or higher crit chance. When using a ring you must time a mini-game to line up two rings on the screen. The closer you get to lining them up, the better your ring will perform. It is not the lining up the rings that is intriguing, but collecting and using the right rings for the right situations.

This game is also quite challenging. Without going in to too much detail, be prepared to take multiple attempts on bosses as early as the very first boss. Better plan yourself out properly!

Good Music

What can I say… I downloaded the soundtrack (legally of course…)

Overall Conclusions

If you like JRPGs like Final Fantasy, you absolutely cannot go wrong with Lost Odyssey. Ive heard the game is around 50 hours, but I’ve also seen people nearing the 60 hour mark before putting it down. It spans across 4 discs so it is sure to keep you interested for a good amount of time. The story continues to get better and better, and the characters and gameplay keep it exciting. I can’t wait to finish up this game, I just hope I can find the time before Rainbow Six Vegas 2 comes out in 2 weeks!

Rating score for the TLDR’ers - first watch the videos above for entertainment, then read 9/10

Well I must say. I was pretty active for a while and then I realized that only 2-3 people were reading it and I thought - who cares I have all the time in the world.

Then I lost all the time in the world as I finally got a job. As time went on - the messages slowly started coming in…. Why no more posts on Peppercorn Nation? Hey - haven’t updated in a while huh? YOU STILL ALIVE???

As I got pestered - I responded with hey, only 2-3 people were reading it. Then I realized well… it seems a lot more than 2-3 were reading, and if I get juuuuust one more - I’ll return!

Voila! All thank yous can be forwarded directly to Kwong.

So a quick update on me before I get back in to the swing of things. I am working a real man’s job now, 8:30 - 5:00, so my game time is limited. Nonetheless, I have still found my way in to playing a decent amount of WoW, Burnout Paradise, Devil May Cry 4, and most recently Lost Odyssey. I will update people on these games, and more in the near future.

I can’t promise any more daily entries, but I can promise a couple a week.

Here’s an important tidbit of information. The Model T Ford was the most influential automobile. While we’re at it, The Wright Brothers made the most influential aircraft, Alexander Graham Bell made the most influential Telephone, and Pong was the most influential video game - wait where’s Pong on this list? Oh… it’s not.

IGN’s list ranks in as follows (with important key commentary by me in between):

10. Space Invaders

I honestly can’t criticize this choice too much. I mean, it did cause a coin shortage in Japan. While this might not have made my list, it probably should have. Space Invaders was the first game to spawn high scores. I guess MLG, WoW Ladders, and CAL all owe something to the spawning of Video Game competition from a vertical line shooting up the screen plowing in to a mix mash of rather large square pixels.

9. Ultima

Well hmm, the questionable choices begin. I know Ultima has a lil cult following, but I almost get the impression that someone just went and slammed the first RPG they remember on to the page. IGN claims that Ultima was a direct influence on Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate and well pretty much any RPG you like apparently has to thank Ultima. Final Fantasy 7 should be the most obvious choice in the RPG category, if you chose to go that route.

Final Fantasy 7 revolutionized the RPG genre. People will look back on FF7 to this day and still talk about how it was the best game RPG they’ve played. It was a basis for people to create games in the future, and brought tons of new players to a genre they may not have tried. Of course Final Fantasy 7 wasn’t a game out of the blue, and it was based on other elements. But no game had a bigger impact on the RPG market than FF7 - not Ultima.

Either way, I haven’t begun to get angry about this list yet. You could technically argue for one or the other.

8. Karate Champ

Karate Champ? WTF? Hey don’t get me wrong, I pumped a few quarters in to this odd game (there were no buttons, only two joysticks!). I had a little fun kicking in some face. Most influential? I have to see what IGN said about it…

Before Street Fighter was declared the ruler of fighting games, it spent some time training with Karate Champ. Technos’ martial arts cabinet established and popularized the one-on-one fighting game with a side perspective.While not the first game to utilize this scenario, it was the first to become popular and likely the first to be seen in the U.S. The two combatants sport white and red gis — the same worn by Street Fighter’s Ryu and Ken.

I get it. Fighting Games. This is the first one. Apparently that makes it the most influential. There is no way that Karate Champ had more influence over the video game industry than Street Fighter 2. There is also no way that Capcom created Ken and Ryu based on the 2 idiots in Karate Champ.

7. Tetris

Ok now I’m really starting to see a trend here. Someone came along and wrote down on the genres of Video Games, and then wrote down the first one. How long until we see Doom on this list? No wait… Wolfenstein 3d - it’s got to be soon.

Truthfully how can you argue with Tetris. It spawned 9 thousand sequels, and 9 hundred thousand near clones. I can’t tell you many times I’ve explained a puzzle game to someone and have them say “Oh, so it’s like Tetris?”.

6. Super Mario Brothers

Wolfenstein 3d? What was I thinking. Super Mario 1 should have been what I was thinking about. Super Mario 3? Pshhh, what is that. Mario 1 is the true influential game.

People bought NES’s for Mario 1. Mario 1 is considered one of the greatest games of all time right. Or no wait, was that Mario 3. Oh yeah it was Mario 3.

I think the people at IGN are confusing inventing and creating with influence. Just because it was first, doesn’t mean it was the most influential. Now let’s see whats up next.

5. Wolfenstein 3d

Damn I’m good! This wasn’t even on the first page! I actually predicted it - not because I thought it was more influential than Doom 2, or Half-Life… but because it was first. What about Maze War, or 3d Monster Maze? Weren’t those essentially the same game but came out first? Uh oh, no one tell the content editor at IGN.

What could possibly be next? Hmm.. it must be either Ultima Online or maybe Warcraft.

4. Dune 2

Oh damn I forgot about Dune 2. I would never make it as a writer for IGN. Imagine how silly I would look if I picked Warcraft as being more influential than Dune 2. I mean common, Dune 2 came out in 1992 while Warcraft came out in 1994. Man… I would never be able to live that down in the office! I would be a mockery!

Ultima Online are you next?

3. Super Mario 64

Hmmm. This has caught me off guard - partly because it wasn’t the first platform game, but more so because it might actually be a good choice. Something is wrong here, this list is looking somewhat proper.

2. Ultima Online? No… Half-Life

Now I’m really confused. I mentioned this earlier as a great choice and now it’s on the list. Half-Life was the most influential FPS of all time no question. The entire mod community spawned from this game. One could argue that map editors for Doom were truly the beginning - and they would be right. But were talking influence remember? Not inventors.

Number 1 has to be Ultima Online. I mean, I know its an inventor of the genre, but it was completely revolutionary. A game you have to pay monthly for? But why? A game that brought thousand of players together? I mean common, it spawned Lineage 2 and WoW, the most popular games of all time? You couldn’t just ignore this can you?

1. Grand Theft Auto III

Well I guess you can ignore it. GTA3 isn’t a bad choice by any means. But where is Ultima Online? Maybe since they put Ultima they figured that it covered all the games that followed it. I mean it’s not like they put in Mario 2, Mario 3, Super Mario World, Mario 64 - oh wait. What the…

Well I supposed I could overlook GTA3 because it basically spawned the most controversy ever. It drew attention to violence in video games, it made it a hot topic, lawsuits, lawyers, politics - and on top of that it’s a very cool game!

Let’s see what they have to say:

Not many games can claim to have spawned entire genres, buzzwords, and cultural phenomena. Grand Theft Auto III threw gamers into the sandbox and gave them the keys to a living city.

Never before had we felt so much freedom in a game world. We could work our way through the non-linear story — or not. The game offered an unprecedented amount of side-missions, mini-games, and free play opportunities.

Many other “sandbox” games followed in the wake of GTAIII: Saint’s Row, Crackdown, True Crime, and Scarface, to name just a few. The driving aspects led to titles like The Getaway series and The Simpson’s Hit and Run. The term “GTA clone” is commonly used to describe the many titles that copy GTAIII’s open-ended gameplay and criminal scenario.

Apparently it is the most influential game because you can walk around and bust into any car you want. I don’t know if this is the exact reasoning behind why I would call it influential. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Now for the real list. The only list that matters. The 10 most influential games in Peppercorn Nation.

11. Lethal Enforcers (because I truly can’t figure out how to cut it, but I have 11 and it needs to stay)
10. Space Invaders
9. Warcraft
8. Street Fighter 2
7. Half-Life
6. Tetris
5. Final Fantasy 7
4. Super Mario Brothers 3
3. Dance Dance Revolution
2. Ultima Online
1. Grand Theft Auto 3 - for totally different reasons than IGN’s choice

Honourable mentions go out to Pac-Man for the Atari and E.T. for the Atari. Who ever said influential games had to be positive? These games showed devs what not to do. Pong should also be mentioned just being the first one… oh well.

Read the IGN story here.

Also if you haven’t seen them already, I’m also including the first two trailers. Personally, I’m liking the 2nd trailer most so far.

Trailer 3: Move up, Ladies

Trailer 2: Special Someone

Trailer 1: Debut

In continuation from yesterday’s story about the recent firing of Jeff Gerstmann by Gamespot over a bad review, I am examining the most blatant act of game racism I have seen in the last year.

Back when I was playing Sega Dreamcast with the other 7 owners in the world, Sega Sports put out their own game to compete with Madden - NFL 2K. At the time I thought “Oh great, another crappy sports ripoff that no one will play”. I still do not know why I gave it a try. Perhaps there was no Madden on Dreamcast. Either way, I ended up buying a copy and I was immediately impressed. The game in essence was just another football game, but there was something about it that impressed me. I was instantly sold on the 2K franchise over the EA Sports counterpart.

It took a few years for the game to catch on, but to this day some people will still call NFL 2K5 the best football game to ever be created. Electronics Arts is not a big evil corporate monster for nothing, they realized that they were quickly losing market share to this new competitor. Great news for the consumer, as EA will be forced to make a superior product now thanks to the competition right? Wrong. Instead of improving their product, they bought the rights to the NFL so no other game company can make a football game except for them. I was so pissed off - as were many others.

Last spring I saw the light at the end of the tunnel (and no I hadn’t just eaten a whole box of Krispy Kreme donuts). This was a light of hope. 2K Sports was finally making another football game! But wow, was the EA License over already? I did some investigating to find out that while 2K sports was putting out a football game, it was lacking the NFL license. They had independently contracted players no longer in the NFL to make a classic football game. Truthfully I was a little disappointed, but I still had high hopes.

There was not a lot of hype for All Pro Football outside of the real fans of the series, and in fact most people knew nothing about this game, the history, or why it existed. To many APF2K8 was just some rip-off boring uninteresting football game and to many more it would remain that way - thanks review industry.

Releasing a full month after APF, Madden had probably the largest advertising campaign and launch budget I have ever seen from the Video Game Industry. They had NFL Superstars at a midnight release in time square. Anything related to football would have the Madden 08 tag on it as well as the Xbox 360. Madden stories were being released in integrals preparing up to launch time generating a lot of hype. People were genuinely excited and APF fell by the wayside.

For me, there are 2 distinct types of sports games that are fun. First is a realistic sports sim game that I can play and think “WOW, this is just like the real sport”. Second, is the high scoring, hard hitting, extreme arcade sports games like NBA Jam or the newly revamped NBA Homecourt (from the NBA Street Series). Both styles have a place, as do the occasional game that doesn’t fit in to either category.

Football games generally fall in to the first category. Sure there is NFL Blitz, and sure these games can be fun from time to time. But football is a game deep with strategy - and so should reflect the video games. In real football if you do a weak side blitz with maybe 2 people, and the quarterback sees it coming and dumps a quick screen to a rolling out running back on the same side - the defense is in trouble. With the defenders from that side blitzing, the running back can usually pull out a quick 10 yards or more. In real football if you play a dime defense or a 4-3 man defense every single down, the offense is going to start picking you apart. In real football if you do a strong toss from I formation or a deep out pass from shotgun every single time - once again, you will get picked apart. This is the type of football that All-Pro Football tried to capture.

All-Pro Football makes you try to play football properly. You cannot run the same play over and over, just as you cannot succeed with a pass defense against the run. Play-calling is important in APF - but perhaps even more important is your overall strategy. 2K sports forces you to create a team to play with - there are no pre-made teams of legends. In this game you can pick 2 Gold players (Elway, Montana, Walter Payton), 3 silver players (Cunningham, Maynard, Bart Starr), and 6 bronze players (Bernie Kosar, and many many more). You have to strategically plan your team. If you want to lean on a passing game, you better select some receivers, qb, and maybe one or two offensive linemen - otherwise you’ll see Marino bouncing passes off receivers faces and then getting sacked. If you want to play defense, don’t expect your 1 gold corner to be the saving grace of your team - the offense just wont throw in his direction. You need a full out gameplan, and there just simply aren’t enough legends to make your team overly diverse.

This forces certain team matchups to perform well in some situations, but not others - which is a good thing. How many NFL teams do you know that win against any opponent (and shut your mouth about the Patriots, thats not common). There will always be one style of offense that counters another style of defense. Look how the Colts took down the amazing Bears defense in last years Superbowl. All-Pro Football does this to perfection. I went with a linebacker heavy defense running a 3-4 with 4 legend LBs. This was great for short game offenses. Unfortunately, anyone running 4WR sets with deep balls would just walk right over my defense as I was faced with a decision. I could continue with my 3-4 defense and force my LBs to cover WRs in the deepgame, or have to take them off the field and play nickel or dime defense - benching my legends. Either way you cut it, I would lose one of those games.

Another excellent thing that APF has is the amazing online section found in all 2K games. Without going in to too much detail, there is just a huge depth for tournaments, online seasons, stat tracking, and other features that are not found in EA Sports games. Joining a draft season where everyone is building unique teams of legends is some of the most fun I’ve had in an online game in a while - and you don’t have to deal with every single team running with Earl Campbell in the backfield!

These are the types of decisions and realistic football mechanics that are found in APF. It ends up with a much more rewarding gameplay experience. It is simply hands down the best and most realistic football game around. However, it also has some shortfalls. The graphics are sub-par to Madden - as are the overall offline game modes (it only has Season mode, Quick Play). I understand that this is a killer for some fans of the Dynasty or Franchise style modes of NCAA and Madden - we will deal with that later.

So what does the insanely over-hyped Madden 08 offer us? First of all, it has amazing presentation. The non gameplay graphics are very pretty, as are the general surroundings and sounds. It has the NFL license (its always fun to play your favourite team!). It has great depth to the single player mode.

Wow Peppercorn, Madden is pretty, has more game modes, and has my favourite NFL team… why the hell would I want some graphically inferior game that has players from before I was born? I’m buying Madden!!!

Oops, did I forget to mention that Madden’s gameplay is absolutely horrible? It is somewhere in between the arcade antics of Blitz, and the realism that is APF - essentially leaving it in limbo, with no real place to call home. The character animations in Madden are terrible, especially watching the QB move in the pocket. Have you ever played a game that feels so over-animated you feel like you are losing control of your character? That is what you will find in Madden. Slight motions, or contact with other players will send your character into pre-made extended motions that might look pretty, but end up with you losing responsiveness to your player. On some occasions I felt like I was simply playing Dragon’s Lair in the 80s. If you don’t know this reference, and you were born before 1990, you should probably just end your life now.

The bottom line is that while APF comes up short in the presentation category, it comes up huge in the gameplay. Madden is essentially the exact opposite. If that is the case, the games should have similar and comparable ratings. Any fan of true NFL gameplay should gravitate towards APF, while people looking for a pretty game with Franchise mode should be playing Madden.

My personal opinion? Gameplay wins over anything. In my reviews, I consider Gameplay to account for about 2/3’s of the games review. Anything else is just filler. The best looking game that plays like crap - is crap. If that is the case, All-Pro Football should have a higher review over Madden. Of course other people might equate gameplay as an even contributor to graphics, sound, presentation, and so on.

Let’s have a look at the reviews that Gamespot gave these two games. Keep in mind that EA is a major player in the Video Game Industry, and that Gamespot runs huge advertising campaigns for the EA Sports games just before they are released. All-Pro Football was barely known.

Madden 08: 8.5/10
The Good:

• The new “weapons” feature is a terrific addition
• A complex but fully manageable control scheme
• Much deeper franchise mode with owner mode features
• Excellent animations
• Much more challenging game than last year.

The Bad:

• Fumbles pop up more than they ought to
• Audio design is lackluster
• Still no significant additions to the online play.

First of all lets look at the Good section. The weapons feature that they are discussing is a great feature. But guess what? It was already in All-Pro Football. This feature is a way to separate 2 top tier’d players from one another by giving them special abilities. Everyone knows that Dan Marino and John Elway played the same position completely differently. These games separate them making Marino perform better in the pocket, and Elway being a better scrambler. Being a weapon also makes you stand out from a regular player and perform better. Hmmm… sounds amazingly similar to Gold vs Silver vs Bronze vs Nonamers.

Excellent animations. Yes they are - and I said they are excellent. But why no mention about how these animations cause you to essentially lose character responsiveness?

Much more challenging than last year. Ok fine, this is a genuine good thing - but still, the game is not even close to the level of challenge of APF. You still do not have to be strategic in your playcalling and picking the wrong plays will not burn you like they do in APF.

The bad specifically mentions a poor online play. What a game killer for something of this sort. Sports are naturally competitive and put you against other people. Should your game excel in this area? Apparently it should only excel in single player offline modes. For such a major fault, why is this game still rated an 8.5.

Also, Gamespot using a medal system in that they award medals for aspects of the game that stand out - for either being good or bad. Let’s take a look at the medals for this game.

Great Sequel. Huh? Great Sequel? Why? Because the graphics got spiffed up? Or because the game handles like a piece of junk. Maybe they accidentally meant to give it the medal for the same game as last year - with little improvement. Who knows.

Outstanding Gameplay. Wow… this one is completely unacceptable. The gameplay is the major fault in Madden. It looks like a cartoon. What game were they playing?

Sharp Control. Again… wow. A major contributor to the horrid gameplay is the equally as horrid controls.

Now a quick look at APF 2K8:

7.5/10 - 2K football returns with solid gameplay and a new focus on classic players, though the roster isn’t the only aspect of the game that feels old.

They were nice enough to give it 2 medals in the good category. Great Sound Effects and Strong Multiplayer. Thanks Gamespot.

The bad? Blatant in game advertising - just like in the real NFL. Actually the blatant advertising they are talking about seems to be when you put together a huge drive and the announcer says “and now the Stride Ridiculously Long Lasting Drive brought to you by Stride Gum” at which point they break down your drive play by play - which is actually pretty cool! So what if they mentioned some product. Big deal.

Disappointing. I’m sorry Gamespot, what was disappointing about this game? The fact that it had the best and most realistic football gameplay in years? Or the fact that it was better than the game that paid you a ton of money to advertise their products for them.

Stripped (Ever feel like you’re playing a half finished game?). So they are missing a Franchise mode. Fine, dock some marks. But why this award was given to APF and NOT given to Hellgate London is another massive article on its own. There is nothing half finished about APF. They again delivered the best gameplay in a football game. Id rather have every single aspect of APF removed from the, keeping the gameplay intact, than having extra modes, mini-games, and other bells and whistles.

Anyway. Noone here is claiming that APF deserves a 10/10, and Madden should be a 5/10. I do however believe that the Gamespot reviews should be swapped. If anything, they both should meet in the middle at an 8/10. Madden received endless praise for how great it was, and all I keep hearing is how disappointing APF is. Again, I play the games for the gameplay, and there is no questions that APF has superior gameplay to Madden.

If you need to see the comparison for yourself, have a look at this video. Yes - it is not Madden vs. APF. It is however NCAA vs APF, the EA Sports college game that came out at the exact same time. Both games NCAA and Madden are very comparable. Have a look and tell me what YOU think about the gameplay…