Nice.

This game has been consuming all of my free time. Thus, not as many posts as usual. Most heinous, indeed. I will hopefully be posting a review of it before the end of the year.

In other news, I can’t wait to pick up Limbo. LET’S GO, PAYCHECK.

An eBay user, who is either the most delusional person on the internet or an utter genius, is selling his “prized-possession,” a used Nintendo Entertainment System with 42 games and accessories, for $35,000. The reason for the ridiculously exuberant price: He really needs the money. He even has the bills and the credit report to prove it. Here’s an excerpt from his listing:

“I am down on my luck need to pay bills living pay check to pay check. this is my price possession the only thing I can say I own 100%. to some a nes system could mean nothing but to me its priceless. I hate to part with it but i need the money. You might say what a ridiculous price but thats how hard it is for me to part with it. I have 100% feedback. whoever buys it can verify that I really need the money. I can show you my bills and credit report to verify it and I will give proof that the bills got paid. I would like to personally hand over the nes bundle system over to the winner and personally thank him/her if possible. God bless.”

At least the shipping is free…

I don’t really want to get into how wrong I think this guy’s approach to problem solving is. I just wanted to show you that people like this really exist. In all seriousness, if someone buys this thing (and I have a horrible feeling that someone will), I have a used Super Nintendo and a working Earthbound cartridge that will be really hard for me to part with for any less than $50,000.

(eBay listing via GoNintendo)

My three dream jobs, in no particular order:

1. Respected musician
2. Video game journalist
3. World Warrior of Street Fighter

This video, posted by Richard Li on 1up, really makes me want to take number #3 more seriously:

The fighting game community is one of the tightest, most vibrant, and most community-centric groups of gamers around. This video, I believe, captures the emotion of their biggest event of the year so exquisitely. It really makes me want to pick up a Tournament Edition Fightstick and start training for EVO 2011.

I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life… it’s my destiny.

My personal favorite EVO 2010 moments, in no particular order:

1. Scumbag throws his stick after getting his ass handed to him by Juicebox. The best part, Scumbag was in the middle of a taunt. Video here

2. Justin Wong (Rufus), one of the top players in the game, gets knocked out of the tournament before reaching the Top 8 by Gamerbee (Adon). The best part: Justin calls Adon a trash character before the match. Video Here

3. Diago, The Beast, wins it all again. The best part: Watching Diago’s Ryu. As a Ryu player myself, watching this guy play is flapping magic. Second best part: Listening to Adam Sessler act like he knows jack-shit about Street Fighter. Video Here

(Video at the top via Capcom Unity)

I FINALLY HAVE MY CHANCE!

In an attempt to sell more video games to people who don’t read video game blogs all day (idiots…), Kmart will begin using excerpts from community-written reviews to place alongside their games.

How do you get your lovely gamer prose on the esteemed shelves of Kmart, you ask? Firstly, you must be a member of the MyKmart Club for Gentlemen. Then, you are to construct a helpful, unique, and well-written review intended for gamers and non-gamers alike (mostly non-gamers, because the real bad dudes don’t trust you). So people whose creativity and writing chops max out at, “DUDE THIS GAME IS FLAPPING SICK!” need not apply. Oh well, too bad for me.

A good example lies in the photo at the top (click to expand) of this post. It’s a review of Red Dead Redemption written by Josh. What do you mean, you don’t know who Josh is?

More details within the MyKmart link below.

(MyKmart via The Consumerist)

In honor of my new favorite faerie sidekick, Stella (pictured above) from Dragon Quest IX: Sentinals of The Starry Skies, all further instances of the EF word will be replaced with the word “flap.” This decision will also keep the site more family friendly. If Stella can say things like, “What the flap is going on!?” or “Big flapping deal!” and still be rated E (for everyone!) than so can I.

ALSO:

Expect lots of reviews from games released this year to start popping up! More writing = more practice, so I might as well try to keep things semi-current.

AlSO TWICE:

If you are a like-minded (or not) gamer who has stumbled upon this blog and would like to write for gameESC because you can actually write (unlike some people here), send me an email at jimmy [at] gameesc [dot] com or leave a comment below. I’d like some flapping help, please. I’ll be posting more info later in the “about” page on what I feel the main focus of this blog is, but a quick run-down would be: Personal, funny, honest, writing about games and gamer culture. Reviews are cool, too.

So hit me up, dawg.

Yesterday, I picked up Dragon Quest IX: Sentinals of The Starry Skies and it is, in fact, my first Dragon Quest game. So far, it’s been great. I especially love the battles. Being able to set tactics for my party means a lot less jamming on the “A” button, which in turn, makes me a very happy person.

My only gripe, as of yet, is how the game makes me feel so guilty for killing some of the monsters in the first area of the game. Because I’m new to the Dragon Quest series, I’m new to the enemies. So when I’m forced to kill an adorable gumdrop, I’m caught a little off guard.

Why do I have to beat this thing over the head with a sword? It’s a blue smiley face! Why is it attacking me!?

Then there’s the Teeny Sanguinis, flying hamster-looking things that are described in the beast log as a, “cow skin-colored little devils who only chase after travelers because they want to play.” So if the game is already aware of this, why is it telling me to impale them with spears and light them on fire with magic?

The creature that leaves me feeling the most guilty after the thing forces me to destroy it is the Cruelcumber, pictured at the top of this post. Yes, it is a semi-retarded vegetable armed with spear. What makes murdering a cucumber with obvious mental disabilities all the more despicable? The insensitive bastards at Level 5 decided to give him his own death animation. Every time the Cruelcumber’s health is knocked down to zero, the poor guy falls on his back and its spear falls through his mouth and out the back of his head. That’s some fucked-up shit.

I THOUGHT THIS GAME WAS RATED E FOR EVERYONE.

So how do I do it? How to I play though a game that condones retarded vegetable murder? Easy, I’m terrified of them. In Dragon Quest IX, you play as an angel of sorts who is tasked with watching over mortals. The game starts with you and your mentor hanging out in the mortal world, watching an old man and his granddaughter walk down a road towards their town. Suddenly, a Cruelcumber and his Slime lackeys come rolling up. I remember laughing out loud and thinking to myself, “What, is the cucumber with the spear and the blue smiley face going to kill them?” That’s when the horror crept in. Even right now, I can’t think of a more terrifying situation.

Just something to think about.

I found these images of Dragon Quest IX monsters at Creative Uncut. The murderous Cruelcumber was taken from my nightmares.

Jim Sterling of Destructoid wishes they would stop trying so hard. David Jaffee, creator of Twisted Metal and God of War, seems to want them to go away all together. Roger Ebert calls them pathetic. And a whole mess of us adore them and the impact that they have on our beloved medium.

Obviously, I’m talking about art games; video games that (most times) sacrifice elements like “gameplay” or “fun” in order to convey a message (whether obvious or hidden underneath a layer of pixels) or simply just to make you think. While I personally believe that there are titles sitting on the shelves of your local game store, surrounded by the plethora of mindless shooters and sports games, that are wholly deserving of the term “art,” it’s the aforementioned kind that usually receive the classification “art game.” They’re a hot topic amongst game writers and developers, and this brilliant indie game is a result of everyone’s discussion.

The developers, Peanut Gallery, call it a “zen relaxation game that celebrates the simple beauty of the natural world.” Sure. Please go play this game. If you care about the “games as art” debate, you’ll really get a kick out of this. You can download the game or play it in your browser over here:

http://peanutgallerygames.com/blog/games/pond/

While you’re there, poke around the site and check out the game Spectre!

(Spotted while lurking on Anthony Burch’s Twitter.)

Today, after a three-week intersession, I resumed my summer semester at a school that I am attending in New York City. Almost every day of my vacation was spent playing either playing Chrono Trigger on my new DSi or Left 4 Dead 2 until four in the morning because I’m hard like that. The return to getting up at 6:00 AM was jarring, to say the least*. I’m tired. I’m cranky. I despise the world and all that inhabit it. Who would have known that all I needed to get out of this funk was a Flash game, in which I’m able to toss a bicycle-riding father with a child in tow off of a steep hill to watch them explode in a most glorious fashion?

Happy Wheels, created by Jim Bonacci of Brooklyn, New York, is a simple game about getting from points A to B. The game gives you a selection of four characters (An old man in a jet-powered wheelchair, a business man on a Segway, a fat lady in motorized scooter, or my personal favorite, the father and son) and has you guide them through deadly courses filled with wrecking balls, spikes, and explosives. The object of the game is to keep your character alive until you reach the end of the track, but once you make your first mistake you’ll quickly realize that there’s really not much fun in playing it safe. Just watch this video by YouTube user, lookatme123:

In case you haven’t realized, this my be the greatest game ever. What’s even more enticing is that the game contains a level editor in which you can build your own devious, death courses. Truth: If Sackboy dismembered like Segway Guy, I would have totally played LittleBigPlanet for more than two hours. Check out Mr. Bonacci’s site, Total Jerkface, wherein Happy Wheels dwells.

http://totaljerkface.com

*(Protip: Guile’s Theme is best alarm clock in the world. Wake up feeling like a bad ass)

I’m going to digress for a moment:

If there’s one thing that could completely turn me off from a multiplayer shooter, it’s the amount of bullets it takes to kill somebody. Example: In Uncharted 2, why the hell does it take an entire clip of bullets from an assault riffle the take down an old man in a t-shirt? Yes, I understand that Uncharted 2 isn’t trying to be some realistic military-shooter. But when I get behind someone on the enemy team and start spraying bullets into their back, only to have them turn around AS I’M SHOOTING THEM and blow me away with one shotgun blast, I do not like your multiplayer game. No thank you. My friend, who was playing the game with me at the time, told me that I needed to shoot them in the head. Fuck you. No I don’t. That dude is wearing a button-up t-shirt.

We’re going to need more bullets

Now I’m not saying that I feel this way about all games that require you to expel a boatload of bullets into your enemies. In games like Halo or Gears of War it makes perfect sense. In those games you play as elite future soldiers equipped with very heavy-looking armor. While neither of those games are strangers to a one-shot kill, it’s still understandable that it will take numerous bullets to take one of these guys down.

Blacklight: Tango Down is also a futuristic game featuring futuristic future soldiers. These guys have armor that looks strikingly similar to the ODSTs in the Halo universe. They can jump fairly high, fall from decent heights without taking damage, as well as run pretty quickly. They even have high-tech helmets that allow them to see enemies, friendlies, and environmental objects through walls. But god-forbid an enemy trooper just so much as looks at you the wrong way, you will die. During my first round of Team Deathmatch, I wasn’t even aware that I was being shot at until I saw my heavily armored character fly across the screen like 1200 Microsoft points being pissed into the wind. What’s the point of the high-tech gear if you would die just as quickly if you were bare-assed? Why not be bare-assed? Why not have 16 players fighting each other wearing only their HRV (Hyper-Reality Visor) helmets with their junk flopping in the air like the shower fight from the movie Eastern Promises? It would give new meaning to “tea-bagging” your victims, that’s for sure.

Poor guy…

If your character can be disposed of in a blink of an eye, there must be some pretty intense weaponry in this game, right? Eh. Standard military-shooter fare. You’ve got your pistols, SMGs, LMGs, assault riffles, sniper riffles, and shotguns. They all shoot bullets, not lasers. Honestly, the only “weapon” in this game that are truly futuristic are the special grenades. The digi-grenade is similar to a smoke grenade, except instead of smoke it releases reality-distorting pixels. It’s definitely quite cool to see for the first time, but eventually you’ll realize that it’s completely useless. You can’t see into the pixel -explosion and you can’t see out of it. It doesn’t really work as cover because most of the maps are simply a series of corridors, you will just as soon get caught on wall than make your way to safety. The EMP grenade is a different story, because any every enemy in the blast radius will get receive a temporary “blue screen of death” in their HRVs, leaving them open for you to blow upon. The drawbacks to the grenades is that they are shockingly inaccurate and they bounce off of objects like they were made out of rubber. You would not believe how many times I’ve thrown a frag grenade only to have it bounce off of a stair and propel directly into my face.

Now what is cool, all of the guns are customizable. Parts, such as scopes, stocks and magazines, can switched, swapped fine-tuned to your liking. You can also change the camouflage of your weapon as well as add little key chain-like trinkets that effect your character’s overall stats. These pieces are rewarded to you as you gain experience and rank up, but sadly the upgrades are not weapon specific. So let’s say you use nothing but assault riffles; you may not see an upgrade for your favorite weapon class for quite some time but you’ll get plenty of parts for the sniper riffle, which happens to be the only primary weapon that doesn’t seem to decimate anyone in a heartbeat.

If you have an SDTV, get a different game.

My main problem with this game is that I have to constantly stop myself from forgiving its numerous mistakes because of its price point and delivery platform. This is a $15 dollar download-only multiplayer game, AKA, budget-shooter. So it’s OK that this game has one incredibly annoying song that plays in every menu and loading screen in the game. It’s not a problem that the woman who gives Blacklight information throughout the Black-Ops co-op campaign sounds like she recorded her lines the very second she awoke from a heavy night of drinking because hey, it worked for Michael Ironside in Splinter Cell: Conviction. It’s cool that half the time that I search for a match the game tells me SEARCH SUCCEEDED while nothing happens for five minutes. And really, I didn’t expect them to include an easier way for me to play with my friends beside entering a lobby and frantically scream, “JOIN NOW BEFORE THE MATCH FILLS UP! HURRY! SHIT, IT’S FILLED!” Also, why would I even want to see how many experience points I have? Who cares about what those three bars under my weapon stats mean? Why would I even complain about the enemy AI in Black-Ops mode either stares at me and does nothing or kills me god-like accuracy while I’m in cover? What do mean, you want to know why there’s crazy Order people called “The Infected” that come charging at you will giant steel poles? This game’s only $15, man. You should be grateful that they even gave you a 4-player co-op mode in addition to it’s 7 game modes and 12 maps for that price!

BUT I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU:

I can name two games, that you can get for dirt cheap on Steam, that I’ve invested hundreds of hours of my life into playing on one map and in one game mode: Counterstrike: Source and Team Fortress 2.

In closing:

What Blacklight: Tango Down does have going for it is a really great, sci-fi atmosphere and a vast amount of customization and ultimately, personalization. Multiplayer games that allow to pick everything from my character’s color to stock of my SMG are the kind of games I wish there were more of. The HRV is another welcome and necessary addition seeing as everybody who plays this game wants to camp outside your spawn point. The HRV levels the playing field and keeps the action moving.

What Blacklight: Tango Down has against it: A silly name and generic game. Another thing that people used to the reward system in games like Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, in this game you actually have to kill things to level up. No points are given to you for running or fixing tanks. There is no fixing. It’s kill or be killed.  This is the future, dawg. Get real.

This is the enemy camping your spawn point.

While I don’t think the game is total waste of $15 dollars, there’s certainly better ways to spend it. If you’re looking for a great downloadable shooter for your Xbox 360 or PS3, pick up Battlefield 1943. If you’re a PC gamer, skip this altogether. Here’s hoping that developer Zombie fixes some of the salvageable problems, because with a few gameplay play adjustments and some interface fixes, we could be looking at a much better game. The setting is there, the world is intriguing but in its current state, this game is simply average.

5/10

This game was reviewed on the XBox 360