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P.Reviews: Street Fighter IV and Tekkoshocon VII
Street Fighter IV
Developer: Capcom USA
Publisher: Capcom
System: Xbox 360 (untouched), Playstation 3 (reviewed), PC (soon), Arcade (untouched)
Rated T for Teen, includes Alcohol Reference, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence
Publisher: Capcom
System: Xbox 360 (untouched), Playstation 3 (reviewed), PC (soon), Arcade (untouched)
Rated T for Teen, includes Alcohol Reference, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence
For more information regarding the ESRB, visit www.esrb.org
"Straight Uppercut The Mounds That Brought You That Love Again."
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This Weekend: Tekkoshocon VII, Pittsburgh PA.
http://www.tekkoshocon.com
Will you be there?
I'm getting predictable. In a bad way.
So yeah, as my cousin so lightly put it, I haven't updated with a new show. In reality, there was a live stream of Street Fighter IV up, but with 2 viewers total, it's hard to say when that might be reattempted. Possibly if I EVER get the SFIV Tourney FightSticks that I preordered, then there will be another shot at it.
Why there hasn't been a audio show: Last 5 weeks, I've either been in training for management coverage or actually DOING the management coverage. That coverage is over now, so I'm back to part-time until the summer. Also known as back to regular hours and having days off where I'm not slacking off.
The trip to Pittsburgh and Tekkoshocon VII is merely two weeks away. I'm getting excited, as it's my first trip to another country (albeit the United States) and my first trip to a con (at least if you don't count me accidently stumbling upon...<< MORE >>
Why there hasn't been a audio show: Last 5 weeks, I've either been in training for management coverage or actually DOING the management coverage. That coverage is over now, so I'm back to part-time until the summer. Also known as back to regular hours and having days off where I'm not slacking off.
The trip to Pittsburgh and Tekkoshocon VII is merely two weeks away. I'm getting excited, as it's my first trip to another country (albeit the United States) and my first trip to a con (at least if you don't count me accidently stumbling upon...<< MORE >>
Yes, there's an episode coming soon!
I'm typing up the draft of what I want to talk about as this gets posted on the site here. The show will be recorded on Tuesday. There's a reason for that, which will be explained later. If anyone wants to take part in the episode, drop me a line on Skype, the account ID is ponza.report (That's ponza, then a period, then report).
Also, this week, possibly Wednesday or Thursday night, there'll be a live stream of the East Coast launch of Street Fighter IV (assuming my area gets it by then). I'm going to try to set up the Ustream in a bigger area, as my desk is getting cluttered to show off the new console setup. It's either that, or I'll have to do some cleaning. Not fun.
I'm not going to slack off this time, honest.
Ponza's Hands On - Halo Wars, Killzone 2, Auditorium
Relatively new to the blog will be a hands-on series, especially for new releases that I will be reviewing, or demos that are now available via console stores. This week, I've got my hands on 3 different games, so I thought I'd mash my thoughts about each one into one post.
Let's start with Halo Wars. The demo just hit Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Set 20 years before the first Halo game, you set foot on Harvest during the last missions on the planet. The UNSC Marines are in a power struggle with the Covenant for key battlefields. Unfortunately, you've got some cleaning up to do. This time around, things aren't like you're used to: Halo Wars is a real-time strategy, much like Age of Empires and Warcraft. Using very simple controls, you build attached structures and towers around your base to fortify and make units. Resources are shipped in, and troops are limited, but you can make more to an extent. Missions are scored based on completion of objectives and side-objectives. Basically, for an RTS, it's very simple. Selecting units is all A-button stuff, while attacking is with X, and secondary attacks are with Y. Some examples of secondary attacks are, say you've got some grunts in front of your Warthog. Press Y while selecting the Warthog to get grunts all up in yo grill! Satisfaction guaranteed. Just don't ram buildings, that'll deplete some of your Warthog's health for sure. Halo Wars looks promising, I don't have it on preorder, but you never know, you might see a P.Review soon.
Next up is the incredibly short Killzone 2 demo. Killzone is an FPS with some very wicked visuals, possibly the best I've seen ever on a console game. Not a whole lot of gunplay in the demo, but plenty of things to cheer about. The lighting effects are stunning, and I can't stress that enough. Blood splats on the screen when you get shot, and there's even some co-op interaction, like when you reach the elevator, you can press circle to have a teammate prop you up onto the ledge, then you reach down and help him up, usually with a cheeky joke tied in. (For my 2 run-throughs, I was told not to mess up his hair, and not to drop him this time.) For a short, really hyped demo, it's partly worth the praise. The action is intense, but the AI for your side is pretty decent. Lots of ammo around too. Too bad on the shortness of it all.
Lastly, head here for a good game to try: www.playauditorium.com It's an upstart game that a lot of people are excited for, as it may be coming to iPhone. For now though, it's on PC, and it's fantastic once you get your head around it. As well, there's music that you can listen to afterwards, if you buy the full version. There's 15 acts in the whole thing, and lots of puzzle fun using the pieces each level gives you. I'm having a blast with it, whenever I can get a chance to play it that is.
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Let's start with Halo Wars. The demo just hit Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Set 20 years before the first Halo game, you set foot on Harvest during the last missions on the planet. The UNSC Marines are in a power struggle with the Covenant for key battlefields. Unfortunately, you've got some cleaning up to do. This time around, things aren't like you're used to: Halo Wars is a real-time strategy, much like Age of Empires and Warcraft. Using very simple controls, you build attached structures and towers around your base to fortify and make units. Resources are shipped in, and troops are limited, but you can make more to an extent. Missions are scored based on completion of objectives and side-objectives. Basically, for an RTS, it's very simple. Selecting units is all A-button stuff, while attacking is with X, and secondary attacks are with Y. Some examples of secondary attacks are, say you've got some grunts in front of your Warthog. Press Y while selecting the Warthog to get grunts all up in yo grill! Satisfaction guaranteed. Just don't ram buildings, that'll deplete some of your Warthog's health for sure. Halo Wars looks promising, I don't have it on preorder, but you never know, you might see a P.Review soon.
Next up is the incredibly short Killzone 2 demo. Killzone is an FPS with some very wicked visuals, possibly the best I've seen ever on a console game. Not a whole lot of gunplay in the demo, but plenty of things to cheer about. The lighting effects are stunning, and I can't stress that enough. Blood splats on the screen when you get shot, and there's even some co-op interaction, like when you reach the elevator, you can press circle to have a teammate prop you up onto the ledge, then you reach down and help him up, usually with a cheeky joke tied in. (For my 2 run-throughs, I was told not to mess up his hair, and not to drop him this time.) For a short, really hyped demo, it's partly worth the praise. The action is intense, but the AI for your side is pretty decent. Lots of ammo around too. Too bad on the shortness of it all.
Lastly, head here for a good game to try: www.playauditorium.com It's an upstart game that a lot of people are excited for, as it may be coming to iPhone. For now though, it's on PC, and it's fantastic once you get your head around it. As well, there's music that you can listen to afterwards, if you buy the full version. There's 15 acts in the whole thing, and lots of puzzle fun using the pieces each level gives you. I'm having a blast with it, whenever I can get a chance to play it that is.
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P.Review - Skate 2
Skate 2
Developer: EA Vancouver - Black Box
Publisher: Electronic Arts
System: Xbox 360 (reviewed), Playstation 3 (demo reviewed)
Rated T for Teen, includes Alcohol Reference, Language, Mild Violence and Suggestive Themes.
Publisher: Electronic Arts
System: Xbox 360 (reviewed), Playstation 3 (demo reviewed)
Rated T for Teen, includes Alcohol Reference, Language, Mild Violence and Suggestive Themes.
Things have changed, but one thing remains the same: You're the dude of New San Van.
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Must... Find... Traffic
Alright, seriously, going to start working on that Episode 5.<< MORE >>
P.Review - Gears of War 2
Gears of War 2
Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
System: Xbox 360 (Exclusive franchise)
Rated M for Mature
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
System: Xbox 360 (Exclusive franchise)
Rated M for Mature
Bigger, Better, and More Badass.
Unfortunately, I'd have to agree, on many levels. I did say unfortunately, didn't I? I'll explain as things progress. This is my first review of 2009. I thought I'd start it off with the 2nd most hyped title in the Xbox 360 lineup from last year. Gears of War is a franchise strictly created to push the power of the Xbox 360, and the egotistical might of Epic Games as a developer. While the Unreal engine is at work giving great visuals and stunning graphics in long doses, it's certainly not the engine that needs work. The game itself needs work.
Let's start on the positive here: Gears 2 has this awesome new mode called Horde mode. It's phenomenal, a true testiment to the way online gaming should be treated. You and four friends, that's 5 players, can get together online and defend a map from 50 waves of Locust enemies. Teamwork is demanded, and the difficulty increases as the waves rank up. Ammunition is somewhat limited, and a different array of guns come to you as do the Locust horde. Strategy, toughness, and comradery are the ways of this mode, and saving your friends from near death is definitely a help. Any map can be used, so it's definitely a thrill, and can help you learn the locales of multiplayer.
If you wanted to play the multiplayer, that is.
Everything that is awesome about Horde is scrapped in multiplayer due to an extreme amount of glitches and bugs. Attacking through walls, lag issues, matchmaking woes that have been patched, only to suffer more, the list goes on. A game "so awesome" that problems rise up everywhere in a hurry. There are many people who abuse those glitches too, making the experience not a laughing matter, it's more sad than anything.
The campaign levels in this iteration of Gears are also kind of sad. The first game was all about co-operation and tactical movement. This second game is all about railshooters (seriously?) and vehicle driving. The main problem with railshooter levels is if you don't know what to shoot, you'll become frustrated. I became frustrated rather early. Word to the wise: if you make a shooter, and you have a turret level, don't make the levels to chance. If I'm firing a turret, and it overheats when I need it most, I have to start the level over. Especially annoying considering I played most of those levels by myself. There's absolutely nothing wrong with working these levels into the story, it's just difficult to play unless you have friends there with you for the campaign there. The vehicle levels are plenty, with a couple of shockers in the story, but really, it feels like half the game relies on driving or shooting guns while being driven. I thought Gears was a tactical shooter? Odd.
The gunplay is as always top notch. You feel good hitting that active reload perfect enough times to get the achievement. There's satisifaction when shooting a foe in the head with a sniper rifle, or catching a larger enemy with a Torque Bow round. Blood splatters the screen when you chainsaw someone else in half, and the ass-kicking you're leaving on the battlefield is evident. The boss battles are alright, and keep you moving, but are forgettable. Finishing the game was a chore and a half for me, but I found comfort right away with the things I unlocked after completing campaign.
Gears of War 2 is a bloody mess, figuratively and literally. The story you know gets turned upside-down, around, and right back where you expected. It's just a shame that all of the problems with matchmaking and online play keep appearing, which is a sign of terrible quality assurance. With the recession around, skimping on QA for a high-profit franchise like Gears of War is only going to turn off the fans. As a result, this game only deserves the following score from me: RENT.
Rest in Peace: Electronic Gaming Monthly
Earlier today, Ziff Davis Publishing sold 1up Network to UGO Entertainment, and closed the print magazine "Electronic Gaming Monthly". Over 30 editors, video game reviewers and others lost their jobs, while holding the highest standard of presumably unbiased, ethical video game reviewing and news reporting.
Let me empathize: EGM will be missed.
Normally, this would be considered, and has almost immediately been considered, the death of print media for video games. I beg to differ in a lot of ways. I love the print media, and I have bought many EGM issues off the newsstand. (I also used to subscribe to Racer Magazine, for my racing news, but found that it was easier just to get the issues I wanted, rather than the biased crap I was regularly reading...) EGM started really dying when Dan "Shoe" Hsu left the magazine. I'll talk about that later... no wait, I'll discuss it now.
Editorial integrity in the video game market is ridiculous. It's utmost impossible to maintain, unless you have a sound mind of journalism. Seeking the truth is what journalism is all about. Dan Hsu did just that, and still does for his own site I'm sure, Sorethumbsblog.com. Dan has always questioned other magazines and their integrity over the advertising money they receive from publishers. For realistic purposes, no amount of money should change how terrible your game is, as if it does, that's corruption of journalist integrity. Calling out other print magazines for this is potentially hearsay, though, but having the balls to talk about it is something else. Later in his career, Shoe called out Peter Moore, while the 360 was "winning the war" so to speak, on the hardware issues that Microsoft's console still has today.
I'm not saying that editors have balls any more, but what I'm saying is if I was a publisher, I'd want this guy on my print mag or website. He asks the questions that the people want asked. He's like the Larry King of video game journalism (maybe that's a bad reference). When he left EGM, that dealt a huge blow to the popularity of the magazine as a whole, and turned the empathesis away from the print magazine itself, and more towards online journalism and blogging, much like the battle between the entertainment networks are having right now for your bandwidth.
Personally, I kept reading (and buying!) EGM after Shoe's departure. The magazine went to letter scores (which I hate with a passion, because I hate review scores, and totally prefer a buy-rent-garbage structure) and flourished with awesome developer interviews and interesting event coverage. James Mielke had, forgive the pun, a big Shoe to fill. Now that I think of puns, he also had big pants to fill. During the Gamespot-Kane and Lynch incident, which led to the wrongful firing of Jeff Gerstmann, EGM seemed to be in open arms of anyone willing to leave Gamespot for EGM. That was all Shoe's doing, praising good journalism in the wake of bad corporate decisions. It seems that EGM was doomed from that point going forward, when the economy began to worsen. (It actually did, in December 2007, when the recession truly began. Shoe left in April '08.)
Perhaps I'm just a really casual gamer when it comes to certain things, but when it comes to print mags, it's all I've really truly come to trust for my news. The internet just doesn't make it the same, but it's mostly opinionated. I'll miss EGM for the good times, for the Halo stuff, for the epic lulz near the back of every issue, and the letters to the editors that make for very entertaining poking and chiding at some silly readers.
So, without Ziff Davis getting my money any more, there's still Future and IDG, right? 
Let's see here, we've got... OXM and Nintendo Power! Oh... and alright! GamePro! Sweet! We'll have to move the EGM issues into a safe place, once I finish scouring that December issue for Watchmen details, even though that movie isn't coming out....
Let's see here, we've got... OXM and Nintendo Power! Oh... and alright! GamePro! Sweet! We'll have to move the EGM issues into a safe place, once I finish scouring that December issue for Watchmen details, even though that movie isn't coming out.... I digress. Rest in Peace, Electronic Gaming Monthly. Good luck to those who lost their jobs, I hope you find something a hell of a lot more stable... just not with Ziff Davis.
- Ponza
P.S.: I'm sure SoreThumbsBlog will get bigger shortly. 
Getting caught up to speed
Ponza is now definitely back. I've had some wacky holiday weekends in my years, but none as weird as this year. I have survived, thankfully, and I'm ready to dish out the details on what I'm doing in the future. The past is definitely behind me.
I'm on track for some reviews, most written, but as of today, I am no longer 360-less. Before Christmas, my Xbox 360 Elite met with the long thought forgotten "Three Red Quadrants" and had to be shipped to Ontario. Almost a month later, it's back to me. This brings up a necessity of mine to do my first video review of a game I've been wanting to do forever: Fable 2. I think it will be timely, too, since the Knothole Glade DLC is coming soon, and my real life name is actually in the game: Gordon! I'm apparently an inventor with a submarine. Fun.
So, let's look at the review list here:
- Fable II
- Gears of War 2 (Now reviewed here)
- Fallout 3
- Little Big Planet
- Rock Band 2
- Kirby Super Star Ultra
- NHL 09 (for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, the first of the console battles)
- Tritton Technology's AXPRO 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound Gaming Headset (with reviews related to both the 360 and PS3 end of the gaming aspect, including DVD and Blu-ray playback)
If there's any games I'm missing, I'll probably get to them later, or even just talk about them in Episode 5 of the show. (That's right, I haven't forgotten I have a VIDEO or AUDIO Podcast, ugh, so out of the loop.)
I can officially confirm an appearance in the United States in April. I have airline tickets to Pittsburgh purchased, and this will be my first trip outside the country of Canada. A lot of people are shocked that I went through with it, but now that I'm more prepared to make the trip, I think it'll be easier to accept. Half of the costume I'll be wearing for a day down at Tekko is complete. The other half isn't, and I've been putting things off way too long. Now that my 360 is back, I think I'll get more restless, thus screwing my prep time even more, so I really, really, really need to work on these things that keep getting put off. I'm going to go start some of those right now.
For those wondering, I do have a proper camera now, and the Fable II review will be done in First-Person, so it should be cool. I'm excited for the idea of it. I hope by this week an audio podcast will be out, and I can start making calls on Skype to prepare for it.
Stay tuned!