Is this enough to be worth the $59.99 cost of the game. With the first HALO  debuting almost eight years ago and each sequel building on the success of the last one has ODST run out of gas or is it enough to keep loyal fans satisfied and new fans feeling justified in paying the price. With  the success of the xBox coming from the HALO series and Bungie severing ties with Microsoft, there where high expectations in the gaming community for ODST. For the record I really enjoyed playing the original Halo and Halo 2in campaign mode. The storyline was great the missions where challenging and fun. The sound tracks are amazing and are a perfect accompaniment to each scene and mission.

I never really played alot of the online games and I still am not a huge fan of them. I simply don’t have the skills to play against the player encountered online but in campaign mode I can keep at it till I succeed. I enjoy the campaign mode on ODST and still find it challenging. I have not played online in the firefight but have watched my sons play and it seems like a lot of team work and fun but not much different in what I have seen them play in other online HALO adventures. So is HALO 3 ODST worth the $59.00? For me the answer is yes. The new campaign mode is better than alot of other games that I spent $59 bucks on and my HALO 3 disk has so many scratches on it that’s it nice to have a new disk. So what do you think let me know and go to Gamer Rated.com and rate HALO 3 ODST.

COD Modern Warfare Limited Edition Console

Okay we all heard about the new COD Modern Warfare Limited Edition Console available right? Well I missed that one but i just went into GameStop to buy the new DIRT 2 and noticed the COD-MW2 clock counting down the days to what could be or at least is anticipated as being the largest game release in history. During the purchase process  the game sales clerk asked me if  I had reserve the new COD-MW2 console. I asked him more about it and he began telling me that its a limited edition with a 250G hard drive, custom graphics and 2 “black” wireless controller’s plus the new COD-MW2 game.

Well I thought for a moment…Do I need a new 360? No. Do I need a wireless controller? No. Is my current hard drive full? No. Do I need a headset? No. Do I have the new COD-Modern Warfare 2 reserved for $59.99? No. Well than that’s an easy decision. Sure I’ll take one! I didn’t even know the price but that didn’t matter to me. COD-4 is the only game Iplay online almost everyday for a few hours. Its my few hours to just veg out and play army, like every little boy does growing up- except I’m 48! He than told me about the Night vision goggles that i could have pre ordered but it was to late i missed out. But i am getting the console and all the goodies that come with it. The sales clerk said I might even shoot better using it. You know he just might be right. So what do you think is it worth it? If you add it all up seperately it is. An Elite 360 is $299 plus 2 wireless controllers at $49 and the game at 59 your looking at a total of $456, so I think $399 is a deal – right?

To many of us this Golden Age of Gaming has long gone but a thanks to the efforts of CA Extreme they have been able to bring many of these great games back and they are in their 13th year of having a show to celebrate the golden age oggaming. I have been to the show and let me just say if you ever played coin-operated games back in the day, you owe it to yourself and kids to return to the glory days of gaming. There are great classics with plenty of rare games that you won’t see anywhere else and best of all you can leave your quarters at home because all these games are on free play. There are many tournaments going on during this two day celebration of coin-operated games. More on the tournaments coming soon.

Recent gaming blogs have been ranting about this new $4000 dollar gaming console and how awesome it is. USA Today’s Game Hunter Blog gives it plenty of attention and tries and draws some obscure comparisons to the Xbox 360 and PS3. Marc Saltzman, who wrote the article, unfortunately is misinformed. If Saltzman and the other game blogs ranting about the JVL Encore system being the most expensive console than they are sorely wrong. To start the JVL Encore is a coin-operated counter top game. Here is a big give away – it has coin slots.

What’s that you say you charge your friends to play? Sorry I forgot today’s economy is tough and even friends are now targets for potential paying customers in your home. The JVL Encore was designed as an “arcade game” in fact they are actually called “counter-top games” just like the ones in most bars around the country. They have card games, strategy games video poker and photo hunt style games. They in no way shape or form are even trying to compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms. The JVL Encore is targeted at revenue generating businesses and for home owners that want to add a novelty type “arcade game” to their home game room.

It also read that it was available at Amazon.com exclusively. Wrong! You can purchase them at many different game room retailers and cheaper than at amazon.com. About that concept of charging your customers, well there is a “free play” option on the unit so you can let your closest friends play for free and acquaintances have to pay. If you really want a unique gaming experience than you need to play a multi-arcade game. There aren’t 120 games and it doesn’t cost $4K either yet it’s what made help make gaming popular and led the way to what we have today. I have played on this game personally and totally enjoyed it. Yes I am older and grew up playing these types of games and blew many quarters every week going to the arcade. My kids have grown up around gaming and they have all the different consoles but they still enjoy playing Ms.Pacman and other arcade classics (60 in total) that are on the system. It only costs $2600 so you still come out cheaper and you will own a piece of arcade gaming history.

Trash talking is part of the game just like it is in any other game/sport. Football, soccer, baseball and many others all have rules of sportsmanship and that goes for the bystanders watching. Imagine little Johnny at the end of the ball game going “2,4,6,8 – who do we appreciate? TIGERS” and going over and shake the opponents hand in a game well played. Now Johnny goes home, in his room grabs a baloney sandwich and some Ore’s and a glass of milk. Sits on his bed turns on his 360 and plugs his headphones in. After his first loss in COD4 and Peter has just “t-bagged” him after a kill, Johnny is swearing up a storm like a veteran sailor just on leave. Mom calls from downstairs “Johnny is everything alright?” Johnny yells “yeah mom” and continues to his foe” yeah you fuck’in suck dude” “that’s bullshit, I shot you in the head man you should have died” “your a fuck’in cheater! “Mod – controller.” If you don’t think this happens just go on Xbox live a listen. You will be amazed both in what you see and what you hear. So what could the solution be for this epidemic? Xbox Live does have icons on the tool bar to report abusive language or cheaters but what happens after you file a compliant? I have done it several times on my own kids and they have done it to their brothers when they get mad at each other, just fabricating stuff up to get them in trouble. But I have never been contact by anyone from Xbox Live nor have my kids gotten any response, so where does this compliant go?

Just as we have evolved in other competitive sports to try and tame down the on/off the field antics so we should try online. I read several years ago that the average age of a gamer was 29 years old. Which I figured was accurate because a lot of gamers like me graduated from the Golden Age of gaming in the ’80’s and ’90’s. Now that I think about it back than we did a lot of trash talking to each other but it was kept in check because we said it face to face. I also remember seeing one or two arcade game screens get the worst of it from a gamer after a bad game. We used to play Asteroids and Defender for beers down at Bernie’s Hillside Lounge. We also gambled with each other to see who would win or get the highest score. The ’80’s and ’90’s where great years for gamers and only wish that every gamer could have experienced it. Yes gaming has come a long way from Ms.Pacman and Space Invaders but I’m not sure it’s all been for the good. But as long as there are guys and their games there will always be trash talking – now it just starts earlier as does everything else in life.

Despite COD 4 being almost the perfect shooter game ever made it had some flaws. I can only hope that when Infinity Ward created COD-MW2 that it looked into making some adjustments. I think the biggest flaw in COD4 is the “Kill Cam”. You play hours and hours as a sniper wearing a carefully crafted gillie suit sneaking behind the enemy or on a hill top, perfecting the art of being a sniper and you pull the trigger with a perfect head shot from across the map, only to have the ‘kill cam’ give you up. Now if you’re like me and I hate snipers, I will set out on my own mission and go to where the “kill cams” vantage point gave him up and either pistol him in the back of the head or knife as he lays on his belly hoping to avoid detection. Yes, i know what your saying “if you don’t like it play hard core team death match.” I would  but again I’m not a sniper and there are usually more players playing regular “team death match” than any other format.  Bottom Line – Kill Cam has to go!

I know I said that I hate snipers when in fact that’s all I used to do playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2. It didn’t have a kill cam but it did have silent sniper rifles. There was nothing better than being on Quarry and wedged behind some rocks picking players off as they walked by never knowing where the shot came from. Despite not having a kill cam or gillie suit the other players would still find me and kill me so the argument that you need a kill cam to progress the game is without merit. This brings me to another flaw in COD4 that should have been addressed in COD-MW. Silent snipers, now having a silent sniper, gillie suit and no kill cam, sniping would be bliss. I would probably go back to being a sniper and a lot of the players would go back to calling me all sorts of names online as I pinged them in the head from across the map.  Why no silent snipers?

Player rewards points also know as “XP” points should have some real benefit to the player other than unlocking new weapons and perks. How about for snipers after 100 head shots you still get XP points but you can use them to improve your accuracy. This could be done with any weapon. As in real life the more you shoot your weapon the better you get at it so why not allow players to perfect their chosen weapons and increase their accuracy with it. It could be applied on a sliding scale upwards where at 200 head shots your accuracy went up five percent and at 400 another five percent. This could be applied to all weapons and perks. I have played with players who don’t know how to throw a grenade and players who are deadly with grenades. If you accumulate so many kills with grenades your accuracy and range should improve. Not a great deal but enough so that your not that “random frag” guy.

Lastly I would say that it would be great to allow the players to choose the map they want to play. This was a great player perk in Ghost Recon 2. You could play any map you wanted and avoid the ones you didn’t. I love to play “Creek” on COD4 yet almost without fail everyone votes it off. Why, I really don’t know its a great map and offers every player and team a challenge. If you want to snipe its great to shoot across the gully from the cliffs. Or snipe from the top of the roof at players as the charge up the hill or walk the “ridge of death” as I like to refer to it. But it also has a tunnel and in that tunnel is where the battle is one and lost. You kind fine me in there waiting for unsuspecting players to try and make it through. Or I will be charging through the tunnel on a mission to kill a roof sniper who just splattered my head against the rocks. Either way for players to control the map choice would be a nice feature.

While I am writing this article I can’t help but think about my experiences playing Tom Clancy’s: Ghost Recon 2 which at the time I thought was an awesome game, also with its flaws, but still a great game. The sequel Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 I felt was never really as good as Ghost Recon 2. Which i can only hope that the sequel to COD4 will live up to the standard we expect from Infinity Ward. Its a great franchise that i hope will continue for years to come.

We are also needing additional editorial writers that would like to submit and participate in building Game Buzzard into a “gamers site.” I have also looked into becoming a “beta” test site for developers to have gamers play and comment on their games before they are launched to the public. So if you are interested in this potential dream job contact us through email.

I look forward to writing weekly posts on articles that i come across and information as it comes out from the gaming industry.

I came across this article that i found really interesting to see where Nintendo originated from. I am always fascinated with companies and what got them to where they are today. I had no idea Nintendo started out as a card company that is over 119 years old or that the name NINTENO means ” Leave Luck to Heaven”.

1889 – A card game business specialising in stylish Hanafuda (flora) cards is set up by Fusajiro Yamauchi under the name of Nintendo Koppai. The business struggles until the yakuza decide to adopt the cards for their high-stakes gambling. The yakuza would demand a new pack at the start of every game and would look to Yamauchi to supply them.

Trivia – The name Nintendo is said to mean ‘leave luck to heaven’.

1907 – Nintendo Koppai partners with Japan Tobacco & Salt Corporation and becomes the first domestic Japanese supplier of Western-style playing cards.

1927 – Hiroshi Yamauchi is born in the town of Kyoto, Japan.

1929 – Fusajiro Yamauchi retires, leaving control of the business to his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda (aka Yamauchi).

1932 – Hiroshi’s father walks out on his mother and Hiroshi is sent to live with his grandparents, Tei and Sekiryo Yamauchi.

1933 – The stop-motion classic King Kong is released in cinemas by Universal Studios.

1933 – Sekiryo Yamauchi establishes a joint partnership company named Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.

1947 – Not long after the Second World War, Sekiryo sets up a distribution company named Marufuku Co Ltd to distribute Nintendo’s Western-style playing cards.

1949 – Owing to ill health, Sekiryo retires and leaves the company to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. Hiroshi renames the company Nintendo Playing Cards Co.

1952 – Hiroshi decides to expand his business and move it to a newer premises in Kyoto, Japan. He would also begin streamlining his manufacturing plants.

1952 – Shigeru Miyamoto is born in the small town of Sonebe, outside of Kyoto in Japan.

Trivia – Nintendo was the first card manufacturer in Japan to lacquer its playing cards.

1953 – Yamauchi strikes a deal with Walt Disney that allows Nintendo to produce playing cards featuring popular Disney characters.

1963 – After raising more capital on the stock market, Yamauchi tries new ventures. Some of the least successful include instant rice, burlesque ‘love hotels’ and a taxi company. However, Nintendo’s toy division begins to show promise when one of its employees, Gunpei Yokoi, creates the Ultra Hand and it proves
a huge success.

1970 – Nintendo continues to grow within the toy market. Its next big hit is The Beam Gun: an early variation of a light-gun game co-developed by Sharp and developed by Masayuki Uemura.

Trivia – The Beam Gun made Nintendo the first company in Japan to use electronic components inside toys for children.

1973 – Nintendo adapts its Beam Gun idea into electronic Laser Skeet Shooting ranges and instals them into bowling alleys across the country.

1974 – The Beam Gun technology is used again in the arcade game Wild Gunman (which would eventually be ported to the NES and later made famous in the movie Back To The Future Part II).

Trivia – According to the screenwriter Bob Gale, on his commentary for the Back To The Future Part II DVD, the Wild Gunman arcade cab that appears in the movie was especially built for the film.

1975 – Shigeru Miyamoto graduates from the Kanazawa College
of Art with a degree in Industrial Design.

1975 – Yamauchi-san negotiates a deal with Magnavox that allows Nintendo to manufacture and sell the Odyssey (the first home videogame console) in Japan.

1977 – Nintendo launches its first home videogame system: the Colour TV Game 6. It contains six variations of Pong and is later succeeded by the Colour TV Game 15. The machines are only released in Japan.

1978 – Nintendo releases the arcade games Computer Othello and Block Fever.

1979 – In a bid to capitalise on the success and popularity of Space Invaders, Nintendo releases its space shooter Radar Scope in arcades across Japan.

1979 – Yamauchi Hiroshi interviews Shigeru Miyamoto for a job as junior staff artist at Nintendo, and Miyamoto gets the job.

1980 – Nintendo of America Inc is established to oversee the distribution of arcade games for Nintendo in North America. Minoru Arakawa becomes president of Nintendo of America and proves a driving force behind its success in the US.

Trivia – The Game & Watch was the first LCD game to contain a microprocessor.

1980 – Gunpei Yokoi develops the first LCD handheld game for Nintendo: the Game & Watch. The first game released on the system is the juggling game, Ball.

1980 – Radar Scope fails to attract interest in the US. Miyamoto and Gunpei are asked to create a game that US arcade operators could install into Radar Scope cabs. Nintendo is confident that it will secure the videogame rights for the Popeye cartoon so it’s suggested that the pair develop a game around the characters.

1980 – The Popeye licence falls through, but an unperturbed Miyamotoswitches the characters for his own creations: Jump Man would replace Popeye; Lady/Pauline, Olive Oyl; and Donkey Kong, Bluto.

1981 – Donkey Kong is released in North America and earns Nintendo $180 million in its first year and $100 million in its second.

Trivia – Donkey Kong is the first videogame to ever have an attract screen – Donkey Kong is seen grabbing Pauline and carrying her to the top of the stage.

1982 – Nintendo vs Universal
Donkey Kong’s success caught the eye of Universal Studios, which felt the character was a direct infringement of its film King Kong. Nintendo was taken to court by the studio, but the judge ruled in Nintendo’s favour after it was brought to light that in a previous court case Universal fought to prove that the character of King Kong was within the pubic domain so it could make its movie. Nintendo was awarded $1.8 million from Universal.

1983 – Nintendo releases the Famicom (Family Computer) in Japan priced at 54,800 yen. Designed by Masayuki Uemura, it is released with 20 software titles, including a home port of Donkey Kong. The machine was originally beige and maroon and its game cartridges had to be slotted in through the top.

1985 – Yamauchi decides to rejig the internal structure of Nintendo and split its internal development teams into four groups: R&D1, R&D2, R&D3 and R&D4.

1985 – The Famicom is released in the US and Europe as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). Selling for $300, it would sell 60 million units worldwide. Trivia – To stop the NES from playing unlicensed software – anything without Nintendo’s Seal of Quality badge – Nintendo fitted each machine with the 10NES lockout system, much to the annoyance of many developers of the time.

Famicom/NES
In the box
CPU: Ricoh Custom 8-Bit
6502 NMOS (Negative Channel Metal Oxide Semiconductor)
CPU Speed: 1.79MHz
RAM: 16Kbit (2Kbyte)
Resolution: 256 x 240
Colours: 52
Maximum Sprite Size: 8 x 16 Pixels
Maximum Sprites : 64 Sprites
Maximum Colours Displayed At Once: 16
Sound: 5 Channel Mono PSG

1986 – The Legend Of Zelda is released in Japan and is the first game to make use of the FDS (Famicom Disc System), a disc add-on for the machine that used rewritable discs to allow saving in games.

Inspired by a love for exploring, Miyamoto’s intention for The Legend Of Zelda was always to create a ‘virtual garden’, a game the player could nurture and watch blossom gradually. Similar in his approach to Super Mario Bros, Miyamoto would also look to outmode the notion of high-score chasing and replace it with the idea of completion and finishing the game.

Playing the role of Link, it was left to the player to explore an ‘open world’ that gave little direction. Despite some initial concerns by Miyamoto soon after the game’s release – he feared that this new style of gameplay could alienate some people – The Legend Of Zelda would prove a huge success and go on to become arguably Nintendo’s most well-loved creation.

Trivia – The Legend Of Zelda was a launch title for the NES in North America. It came encased in special gold cartridges containing an internal battery to facilitate save games – the first game cartridge to offer this.

1987 – Nintendo vs Blockbuster Entertainment
When Nintendo discovered that Blockbuster was renting out NES games to its customers, it would threaten the rental giant with legal action. The case was eventually settled out of court, but when it later transpired that Blockbuster was also supplying its customers with photocopied instruction manuals, the companies would again clash in the courts, and Blockbuster would later agree to supply its own instruction cards with rental games.

1989 – Tengen Inc vs Nintendo
In 1989, Tengen (an arm of Atari) would drag Nintendo into the courts on the grounds it felt the company was conducting monopolistic business practises – essentially using bully-boy tactics to dominate the market. Nintendo would later repay the favour by taking Tengen to court over the latter’s NES version of Tetris (which Nintendo had just won the licence for). Nintendo won the case and Tengen was forced to pull all copies of the game from shop shelves.

1989 – Nintendo releases the Power Glove. The accessory is designed by Mattel and, similar to the WiiRemote, allows players to recreate hand movements on screen using motion sensors attached to televisions.

1989 – The Wizard movie is released in the US. Starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater and Beau Bridges, it chronicles the story of a young boy with a talent for videogames who enters a Nintendo tournament in Florida. Nintendo uses it as a vehicle to promote the NES and unveil Super Mario Bros 3 in the West.

1989 – Nintendo launches its most successful console of all time: the Game Boy. Thanks to its impressive battery life, and it being packed with Tetris, it would go on to dominate the handheld market.

Game Boy
In the box
CPU: Z80 8-bit CMOS
CPU Speed: 4.19MHz
RAM: 64 Kbit (8Kbyte)
Resolution: 160 x 144
Pixels
Colours: n/a
Maximum Sprite Size: 8 x 16 Pixels
Maximum Sprites: 40 Sprites
Maximum Colours Displayed at Once: n/a
Sound: 4 Channel

1990 – Trailing behind in the home console market because of the development of the Game Boy and a reluctance to stop software support for the NES, Nintendo releases the Super Famicom in Japan. Developed and designed by Masayuki Uemura, such is the wave of anticipation that leads up to the machine’s launch, the console would sell out in just three days.

1991 – After a collaboration with Sony to help develop a CD add-on for the SNES turns sour, Nintendo decides to partner with Sony’s rivals, Philips Electronics NV. Nintendo grants the company permission to use Mario and Zelda in a series of games for the Philips CD-i console, and in exchange Philips agrees to work on a CD add-on for the SNES. But the add-on is later dropped.

1991 – The Super Famicom is released in the US as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).
1993- Gunpei Yokoi and his R&D1 team begin researching Virtual Reality technology.

SNES
In the box
CPU: 65c816 (16-bit)
CPU Speed: 2.68–3.58MHz
RAM: 1Mbit (128Kbyte)
Resolution: 512 x 448 Pixels
Colours: 32,768
Maximum Sprite Size: 64 x 64 Pixels
Maximum Sprites: 128 Sprites
Maximum Colours Displayed at Once: 256
Sound: 8-bit Sony SPC700

Trivia – Star Fox, released in the US in 1993, was the first 3D polygon game to ever appear on a home console. It made use of the cartridge’s Super FX chip to create 3D effects. The chip and game were developed in the UK, by Argonaut Software.

1995 – Nintendo partners with Satellite Digital Audio Broadcasting Co to release the Satelleview-X (BS) in Japan. Comparable to The Virtual Console, it’s a modem add-on for the SNES that allows gamers to listen to music, watch television shows and play games by tuning into a service called ST GIGA.

1995 – Nintendo releases the Virtual Boy in Japan. With its cumbersome looks, high asking price and lack of software support by other developers, sales for the machine prove slow and the project would eventually be considered a flop
by Nintendo.

1996 – The Virtual Boy is released in the America. It never finds a release in Australia.

Trivia – Only 22 games were ever released for the Virtual Boy, most by Nintendo. It’s reputed that the machine was always intended to ship in a different – less bulky – form but was rushed out of production by an impatient Nintendo which wanted to focus its time and efforts on the N64.

1996 – Nintendo releases Pokémon Red and Green for the Game Boy in Japan.

1996 – The N64 is released in Japan alongside the first ‘true’ 3D platform game: Mario 64.

N64
In the box
CPU: NEC VR4300
CPU Speed: 93.75 MHz
GPU: SGI 62.5 MHz 64-bit RCP
RAM: 4.5MB
Resolution: 640 x 480 Pixels
Colours: 16.8 million (palette), 32,000 (on-screen at once)
Sound: Handled by
the CPU

1996 – Following the failure of the Virtual Boy, Gunpei Yokoi resigns from Nintendo and establishes his own company: Koto Laboratory. The latter collaborates with Bandai to create the WonderSwan console.

1997 – Gunpei Yoko is killed in a tragic car accident at the age of 56.

1998 – Nintendo launches the Game Boy Color. It’s released with two new hardware add-ons: the Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer.

1999 – Bandai releases the WonderSwan in Japan.

Trivia – The Game Boy Color game Kirby Tilt N Tumble was released in Japan in 2000. It was the first game to make use of ‘motion sensor technology’ as it allowed the player to control the movements of Kirby by simply tilting the Game Boy.

2000 – Nintendo decides to move its headquarters to the Minami ward of Kyoto.

2001 – Nintendo launches the Game Boy Advance (GBA) worldwide and the Nintendo GameCube in Japan and the US.

2002 – Hiroshi Yamauchi steps down as president of Nintendo. His successor is Satoru Iwata, marking the first time that the presidency would leave the hands of the Yamauchi family.

2003 – Nintendo establishes The Tokyo Software Designing Department in Tokyo, Japan.

2004 – Nintendo launches the DS, a two-screen handheld that uses touch-screen and Wi-Fi technology.

2005 – Nintendo rejigs the structure of its R&D departments. All internal development is now produced under the Nintendo EAD banner.

2006 – Nintendo releases the Wii. It’s the first games console to be specifically built around motion-sensor technology. It’s also the first Nintendo console to offer internet access and downloadable content through the Virtual Console service.

Wii
In the box
CPU: IBM Broadway 729MHz
Internal Storage: 512MB Flash Memory
GPU: ATI Hollywood
Optical Disc Drive: 8cm GameCube/12cm Wii
Resolution: Up to 480p
12cm Disc Capacity: 4.7GB (single) /
8.5GB (dual)

This article originally published in Ultimate Nintendo Magazine