Where Does One Find 'Roids In The Post-Apocalyptic Future?

If you check out my "Now Playing" sidebar, you'll see that this is what I've been busy with as of late. Yes, it's Gears of War 3, which was just released for the Xbox 360 last week. I've been off from work these past several days, so I've had the luxury of getting in some pretty good game time. It's been a while since I've gamed so consistently and thoroughly -- WHEEEE!

The game is, of course, the third in the series. The initial game was my very first title for the 360 when I got one for Christmas back in 2007. It's a third-person action shooter, with team-based squad tactics against horrific alien foes. So it's a cross between sci-fi and horror, with a war backdrop to boot. And I must say, I get a lot of joy out of using my chainsaw bayonet to get up close and rip out some Locust grub guts. Yes, that's right: I said CHAINSAW BAYONET!!!

Thing is, this 3rd game in the saga is supposed to take place some 2 years after the first game when the human race is on its last legs. These guys have been doggedly trying to outrun extinction for a while now, see, but I have to laugh at just how buff they managed to stay in all that time.

It's utterly hilarious to anyone who weight trains and knows a thing or two about muscle building. And I can tell you there is no way in hell these soldiers could maintain that density of muscle mass while constantly in the field and fighting for their lives. Real soldiers come out of years-long conflicts more wiry than buff. So when I play titles like this I have to laugh at the rather adolescent view of male physicality being depicted in these games, especially the war ones.

Muscles like that take constant dedication day-in and day-out in the gym, with careful nutritional intake and supplements thrown into the mix. Running through bombed-out cities and devastated countryside constantly on the run do not a muscle-bound superman make. In such extremes, your body tries to conserve energy and keep one's profile sleek and fast. The soldiers I know--the ones who have seen constant combat--are usually lean and wiry, not puffed-out bulky like in these games. This is the type of build than can maintain energy levels for long periods of time. Plus, I mean the amount of calories one would have to consume each day to support a hulked-out physique -- there aren't nearly enough chickens running around the fictional world of Sera to sustain all that!

Still, silly exaggerations aside, Gears 3 is so far shaping up to be a much better game than its predecessor. Gears 2 left a bad taste in my mouth because it was too much of an all-out frag fest and lite on story. But the final installment in the series brings us back to what I loved so much from the first game--action AND story, blended perfectly.

Sometimes, I love gaming!

FINISH HIM!!!!!

Guess who's coming to dinner in Mortal Kombat land later this year? Why, the God of War himself -- and exclusive to the PlayStation 3, naturally! Check out the reveal footage below. As Scorpion and Sub Zero prepare to throw down, they receive a rather rude interruption. GET OVAR HERE!!!





This seems to be the trend with fighting games lately, for each console to license an exclusive guest fighter from another series specific to the console of choice. It makes sense that Kratos would be an exclusive on the PS3's version of the game, then, since he's easily the most kick-ass anti-hero around this generation. With all the gruesome, graphic blood letting the Ghost of Sparta has been the cause of in those games, methinks he'll be a natural fit among the psychopathic bloodthirsty kombatants of the MK universe. This may just be my first Mortal Kombat game in over a decade. Last time I played one was on the Sega Genesis.

Wow! Memories . . .

And, those of you who know me, let's see if you can recall my favorite fighter from the series. Come on, you can do it. Just write it in the comments section below. Needless to say, I'll be using him almost exclusively this time around. Just you wait and see!

This ninth installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise is slated for release on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles sometime in April. Word on the street right now is that X360 owners will be getting Fulgore, the cyborg fighter from Rare's Killer Instinct series. Although this is an unsubstantiated rumor as of right now, it's one that seems to be gaining A LOT of traction on the message boards today.

I say "meh." Killer Instinct was an okay fighting game on the SNES back in the day . . . but doesn't have nearly the same allure as, say, a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Hell, I'd take Tekken over it any day. Although, okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. The N64 version of KI2 was quite spectacular, to be honest.

Still, Fulgore is no equivalent to Kratos. Sorry X360 fans, PS3 fanboys win this round.

How I Spent My 3-Day Weekend

Let me just get it out of the way:

Mass Effect 2 is OWNING my soul right at this current moment!

I popped the game into my Xbox 360 last Friday, my day off, and have pretty much not seen the light of day since. It's ridiculous good fun, although I really should be working on my novel outline some more. Bah, I'll get to it. I will.

But for now I'm enjoying my second foray into the sci-fi goodness that is this game. I purchased the collector's edition which comes with the game plus extra bonus features disc nestled in a sweet metal tin clamshell case, along with an art book and a code to download this exclusive armor and gun for my character to use in-game.

As with the first, Mass Effect 2 is an action RPG. But this time with more emphasis on the action, it seems. Dialog trees have been truncated severely, so that conversations between you and your team members and NPCs are still meaty and informative, but considerably shorter. And as much as I simply LOVE expository conversations to develop the hefty backstory these games have to offer, I must admit that it is a relief not to spend 15 minutes trying to mine a particular standoffish Asari consort out of valuable information I need. Full conversations now range in the 3 - 5 minute range, with many much shorter than this.

There are a host of other ways this game has been streamlined to highlight more action and less time-wasting activities, but I won't list them all here. Suffice to say that the RPG elements have been dumbed down a lot, but not completely removed. In some ways this is a bonus (no more item management tediousness!), but in others it is bizarre (what, I only have 5 character development stats to allot exp points to?).

As for the game itself, what more can be said? It is a freaking MASTERPIECE! Yes, I've only just started, but DAMN! I was afraid the first one had been some kind of fluke, but nope -- this one pretty much starts off running from where the last one ended, and drops you straight into some high-stakes intrigue. You still control Commander Shepard, a kick-ass human Spectre operative who saved galactic civilization the last time. Except now he has to rebuild a brand new team Dirty Dozen-style to combat an even greater threat to the space-faring races of known space.

The new team members are a cool mix so far. I know it's blasphemous to say, but I'm actually enjoying this bunch better than the last. Although it seems I will be reuniting with a few of my old friends, too. In fact, I already have at least three along for the ride with me, with the promise of maybe 1 or 2 more joining me later. Play the game if you want to know who's back and who's not.

I played through all day Friday, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday, with breaks in-between only to work out, eat, and say some words to the wife the few times she was around (Lisa had to work night-shifts at the hospital this weekend). I'm making good headway, and can't wait to travel to new planets in search of more bad-asses to join my quest.

As always, keep checking my "Now Playing" sidebar on this page at the start of each week to monitor my progress.

P.S. -- And, yes, I am still on track with my writing goals. I think this will be the last weekend I devote completely to gaming. I made the one allowance this time because a game like Mass Effect 2 doesn't come around too often. Also, because I need to beat this before God of War 3 arrives in March. See, finished or not, ME2 will most definitely take a back seat to that game. You just don't KNOW my obsession with the GoW franchise! :)

Irradiated Mess

Just started playing Fallout 3 last night. I've mentioned it here before. It's a cool, post-apocalyptic dystopia RPG taking place two hundred years after a major nuclear war between the United States and China.

To read about my progress through the game, keep checking my "Now Playing" sidebar further down this page on the right. I'll be updating it periodically.

kthnxbye!

As If I Needed Another Reason . . .

IGN *finally* released the full list of their "Best Of" winners for games across all platforms for the year 2008. The grand finale of them all being the "Best Overall Game" of the year award, which went to Fallout 3.

Damn, like as if I needed yet one more reason to start this game -- and FAST!!!

As I mentioned here back in October, Fallout 3 was a game I immediately snatched up when it was released, but then realized I didn't have the time to play it until the new year. What with writerly duties and quick, fun little titles like Gears of War 2 and Prince of Persia taking up all my time, I figured it would be a while before I would jump into such a huge and time-consuming endeavor like Fallout 3.

But now I can no longer ignore its allure. I'm being sucked in to the post-apocalyptic world of Capitol Wasteland (a seriously bombed-out Washington D.C. area), and this time there will be nothing to stand in my way.

Well, except for this story I'm writing right now. But I'm almost done (so far it's quite good), and hopefully by this weekend I shall crank up the ol' Xbox 360 and *FINALLY* get my RPG goodness on! :)

I'll have to be quick, though, as all must come to a grinding stop when Resident Evil 5 comes out in March. I'm pretty sure I'll be barely at the halfway point with Fallout 3 by then, but here's to hoping I can get through RE5 really quick and then return to the apocalypse.

The way things are looking, I might be playing this game off and on for the better part of a year. AIEEEE!!!!

Oh Apocalypse, How I Love Thee!

I don't know what it says about me, but for some reason I just absolutely adore post-apocalyptic sci-fi! I like it in the books I read (A Canticle For Leibowitz; The Dark Tower series), the movies and tv shows I watch (I Am Legend; Jericho), and especially in the games I play (Resident Evil; Gears of War). Especially if there are zombies or mutated beings involved! I'm not much of a fan of horror, but if you throw in just enough good ole fashioned sci-fi apocalyptica into the mix, you've got me sold!

Hence why I immediately snatched up this game, Fallout 3, today. I try to keep ignorant of all the overhyped games that release in a given financial quarter, because I got tired of burning myself out on all the trailers, screencaps, and backstage vids months before the games are even released. So this came as a pleasant surprise when I found out a game dealing with both a post-nuclear fallout society AND mutated beasties with a jonesing need to go splat under heavy-ordinance artillery was coming out today. I mean, HELLO! Where do I sign up?

Fallout 3 is an action RPG game for the PC, Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3. I play all my games on either the 360 or PS3, and I got this one on the former. I don't own a beefed-up enough gaming PC to support these types of games properly.

Anywho, Fallout 3 is about you, the player, who lives in a giant underground bunker metropolis called Vault 101. Because the good ol U.S. of A. ended up on the bad side of the nuclear arms race during the 1950s or 60s, most of society has been blowed up into one big irradiated mess. Told from birth that Vault 101 is your home for pretty much the rest of your life, it comes as a shock one day when you wake up to klaxons blaring and discover that your father has busted out of Dodge and left the vault door open. The Powers That Be are none too pleased about this, and task you with the job of retrieving your pops and dragging him back (for reasons unknown).

Once on the surface, the world is a shocking mess to someone who's been sheltered from the horrors of the nuke war. But you learn quickly that, although 90% of the country has gone to hell literally, there are still enough baddies and monsters running about to make you happy you're packing heat. As well, there are isolated pockets of human survivors trying to rebuild some of what's been lost.

Since this is an action Role Playing Game, you'll have to manage complex rosters of stats along with your gunnin, but I've been told the system in place to do all this is rather intuitive and much fun to finesse. That's a relief. There's nothing I hate more than an RPG that needs an encyclopedia of instructions just to learn how to place one foot in front of the other.

What I'm liking about this game so far is the 1950s feel to it. Just like with last year's excellent Bioshock, I'm in love with the 40s and 50s music to be found on the radio stations in this game. The setting is the future as imagined by the popular culture of the 50s and 60s. It makes for a rather unique level design, I must say. All the locations are gorgeously produced. Hell, just check out this trailer and see for yourself:



I've never played any of the previous Fallout games, but I've read that you don't need to in order to enjoy this current offering. Hooray! Unfortunately I'm not going to have much time to play over the next couple of weeks as I'm busy with writing odds and ends, but sometime around Thanksgiving I shall be ready to get my Mad Max jones on proper!

I'll keep ya'll updated when I do.

I Love This Guy!

Check out this review of Braid, a game recently released for download to the Xbox 360 via its Live! marketplace. These episodes are brought to you by Zero Punctuation, a weekly webisode series done by a chap named Yahtzee -- a cynical, fast-talking Brit who's been relocated to Australia. He always has something entertaining to say about games, but best of all he does so in a breathless, biting sarcastic -- and quite often, foul-mouthed -- manner that is so much fun to listen to.

I've been a fan for almost a year now, and in that time he's ripped apart many an unsuspecting console and/or PC game. Check out the archive over at the host site, The Escapist, and find a game you cherish most. Then be prepared to have your feelings hurt! Mwaa-haaa-ha-ha-ha!!!