Happy Birthday

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the release of the first Zelda game.  I observed this holiday by throwing a boomerang at any birds that flew into my yard.  I rounded out the day with a Blue Candle-light dinner with a picture of Miyamoto.

There is an absolutely massive amount of Zelda content at 1UP right now... so if you're so inclined, that would be a much less disturbing way for you to celebrate this joyous occasion.  Or... if you haven't checked it out already, The Legend of Neil is a much more nsfw way to celebrate (and hilarious to boot).

Tron Legacy:End Titles (guitar cover)

I know you are all probably sick of my tron legacy obsession, and rightfully so at this point.....but if you would spare me one last outpouring. At least until the BLU RAY drops in april....

My ode to the brilliance that is the "tron legacy" Soundtrack. A guitar cover/melody for the song END TITLES from the tron legacy soundtrack created by DAFT PUNK~ I was inspired to write this guitar piece after Tron Legacy was shafted by the academy awards in both the "best visual effects" and best "score"categories.

Sorry for the dimness on the left portion of the screen, it looks much better in FULL SCREEN(and HD). The room was bright as hell so im not sure what was going on! Just imagine a somber melody emanating from the darkness to soothe the angry hearts of tron fanboys everywhere!Haha...anyways...enjoy~

Have a great one !

Morgan

 

Shining Force Exa and Shining Series Closer

The last Shining game I have played in the series. This game was also in the real-time strategy format like Neo.

The story focuses mainly on two characters that the player will have the opportunity to control: Toma, a brash sword wielder who dreams of being "King of the World," and Cyrille, a mage of sorts whose reasons for searching for the Shining Force are a well kept mystery. Joining the party almost immediately will be the other half of its members, Gadfort, who wants the blade to become the greatest knight in existence, and Maebelle, an elfin archer seeking the blade to save her people. Their story will unfold in a world that is shared by humans, demons, and beasts that is constantly devastated by war. The world is divided into two main kingdoms. The Noswald Empire is home to the human race and the demons rule the southern territory, Fyrlandt.

This game was not as good to me as Neo. It shied away from one of the main reasons I liked the game series: the vast number of characters to choose from. You still had some secondary characters to choose from and use but the selection was lacking to me. However, it was still a solid game and a fun adventure.

One cool little addition that was made from Neo to Exa was the ability to customize the robot castle Geo-Fortress. The higher you had the castle upgraded, the more you were protected from an attack that happened upon Geo-Fortress.

Whether or not you liked these games I chose to and /or will choose to shed some light on in the series, or if you think that there were better games out of the series is irrelevant to these dailies and blogs. I just wanted to show some love for the games I have played in this bravura series. I eventually want to play all 28 installments and see the TV show that they made out of this game series but one step at a time. Whenever I have down time, I promise that I will be playing these games through again to give you all and myself a fresh perspective. I will rate them with what I would have given them at the time versus now (for fun medals so to speak) and I may even delve into the characters I went with through each installment (Shining in the Darkness being the only exception as to me not being able to make that choice). I hope that this project proves as fun and interesting to you as it will for me. I know I love all these games and I will have absolutely no problem blasting through them again. I hope that when you hear my love for these games that it will compel you to at least give one of them a try and see if you can fall head over heels for the series like I have.

Thanks for all who read this,

Shea Buttuh

Bulletstorm shit-storm

Fresh of the heels of the Dead Space ad campaign controversy "you mom hates this" comes bulletstorm. A game fox news is declaring could quite possibly be the "worst game ever made". Sigh !

I was alerted to this story from listener Chris McGugan the other day(via facebook) and i knew instantly this would be a great discussion topic for the crew on a future podcast.(full article here)

Apparently we are starting off 2011 all controversial, as we already have two games making headlines in the media for their edgy over the top mature content. Putting all of the controversy over the content aside, the game itself does look..."intriguing". Although some early reviews indicate such a strong emphasis on "scoring" with your killing style that the game can become quite repetitive. One of my favorite gaming pod casts NOOBTOOB actually referred to the gameplay as "work"....hmmm. It should be interesting to see how the legacy of bulletstorm plays out.

I am not sure why fox news would even make a statement like this. Are they trying to help bulletstrom sell more copies? Its unreal...

have a great one!

morgan

Shining Force: Neo

Shining Force Neo: The first real-time action Shining Force game I played. It was released for the PS2. The story is a loose adapted version of Shining Force 1. Here is a synopsis from Wikipedia:

Thirteen years before the game begins, the world was locked in a war against the Clan of the Moon. Foul monsters known as "Legions" were unleashed by the Clan against their enemies in their bid for domination. However, powerful heroes called Forces soon rose up to lead the charge against them. Aided by Force Frames, ordinary warriors became gifted with a variety of powerful advantages that made them more than what they would have been otherwise. With this, the war against the Clan of the Moon began to turn. The Clan's Dark Castle and the Legions were banished in the end. Victory was achieved, but only at a great cost. Several nations were utterly destroyed and most of the Forces that participated in the final battle had perished.

When the story starts, a young warrior named Max has nearly completed the training that will make him a Force. Journeying home, he hopes to achieve his dream, not realizing that it is only the beginning of an adventure that will take him and his friends across the world to stop the return of evil.

While you can find many companions to accompany you like Shining Force 1 and 2, the amount you can find is less due to the fact that you can only have 2 other companions with you (like Shining in the Darkness).

The only way I knew this game was released was one day I was working at Hastings and I got really bored. I decided on a whim to look up Shining Force in the database to see if there were any other games. To my pleasure and astonishment, I discovered that they released Neo and the re-release of Shining Force for the Game Boy Advance. As you can imagine, I ordered them immediately and bought them with haste. I definitely liked the change up of the combat style and the graphic changes, but it was not quite as endearing to me as the first Shining Force.

Shining Force 2

Sorry I did not post one yesterday, things got a little hectic on my Saturday. Anyways, I will be posting yesterday's post and today's post.

Shining Force 2: The direct sequel to Shining Force 1, but not technically the next game released in the series. The game is much longer than the first, and more free-roaming. There is no chapter system, so the player can return to previously visited parts of the world. There are also two different ways of promoting many characters. This game was released on the Wii Virtual Console in Europe on October 3, 2008 and in North America on October 6, 2008. The game also appears in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The player takes the role of Bowie, the leader of the Shining Force. The first thing the player may notice is that the start of the game has an actual cut scene in order to know the plot and setting. Through the series of cut scenes, basically a greater demon is released which is bent on releasing Zeon, the king of demons. It is your job as Bowie to stop the greater demon.

I spent much less time with this game due to its longevity and difficulty at my younger age. I finally beat it in middle school. I never came back and played it until the release of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection and I ended up falling in love with the second one as well. I would love to beat this game again in the near future.

Shining Force 1

The game that made me fall in love with the series. I could speak of this game for hours and hours if someone was willing to hear ha-ha. It was released in 1992 as a turn-based strategy role-playing game, which differs from its predecessor. The game has been repeatedly re-released: in Sega Smash Pack 2 for the Dreamcast and PC, and Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and as a standalone game for the Wii Virtual Console. Additionally, in 2004 a remake was released for the Game Boy Advance under the title Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon.

You are in a land called Guardiana as the silent character, Max (or whatever you choose to name him). You are set out to prevent Dark Sol from resurrecting the Dark Dragon. Along the way, Max encounters many potential allies for recruitment.

In the Game Boy remake, a second plot line unfolds. You are Narsha, the princess of Runefaust. She has been added in epilogues in the earlier chapters. The 2 plots merge when Narsha’s 2 allies, Zuika and Mawlock, help her reach the Shining Force. Other than the characters and the second plot line, the only differences were the use of cards as a weapon for Mawlock and that when you beat the game, you can increase the difficulty and play through it again. Sorry for the blurriness but that is a picture of some of the many characters you can acquire and use throughout the game.

This game will forever remain my favorite game of all time. I own the hard copy on Genesis, the remake on the Game Boy Advance, and the Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. I make it a point to play and beat this game at least once a year and I will for as long as I can hold a controller, can see and hear, and as long as I am sane.



The Shining series

My love for this series stretches back to when I was a solid 3 years old. Still sucking my thumb and carrying my “blankee” around, I was not an obvious choice for becoming a gamer. I would watch my dad play all these bad ass games on Sega Genesis: Chakan, Phantasy Star, Miracle Warriors, Might and Magic, Rastan, etc. I was so fascinated by the concept of a different world at such a young age. My dad would let me play these games but I did not have good enough hand-eye coordination and the thought processes to do well enough at these games.

By about 5 years old, I started getting good enough to play these games I witnessed my dad playing through my young years. Among all the games, one series outshone them all for me: the Shining series. Some people know what this is from personal experience, some know from the high praises that I always seem to mention during every podcast for these games, and some have absolutely zero idea what I am talking about.

What initially struck me as amazing? Why was I so drawn by these video games? Why am I asking myself questions that you fuckers should be asking me? From what I can remember from recollection, what struck me by these games is the vast selection of unique characters. You have the main character, a hero. You have centaurs, mages, healers, a robot, a dragon, a monk, archers, a wolf man, and so many others. It was so exhilarating picking your own “all-star” team and kicking some enemy ass. There were only about 4 or 5 music tracks for the game, but they were all so epic. I loved every single one of the tracks and to this day, I can still hum them. I am actually humming them now, in case you were wondering which I know you were. Another reason was it was something to do with my dad. I loved spending time with my dad and being a bad ass with him, and one way for me to do that was play and watch Genesis with him. So there is huge nostalgia for me there.

There may be other games that have done strategy-based games better. There may have been games that have done this style way before Shining Force. But I quite frankly don’t give a shit. I fell in love with this series, so you are going to sit tight and hopefully enjoy me selling this vast series of over 25 games (28 to be exact) to you, the SPT listener, sympathizer, wondrous citizen of our community. I am not going to divulge into every single Shining game, but rather the ones I played a lot and had much experience with. I eventually want to get my hands on every game in this series, but that will take much money, much time, and much ambition. I shall preview a game each day, that way you guys don’t get too burnt out on my nerdy love. It gives you guys a little time to do some research and ponder it a small amount. Here we go:

Shining in the Darkness: The game that started it all. It was released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis and re-released August 13, 2007 for the Wii in North America. Playing this game, you would not expect such a vast and historical series to take off. It was not bad by any stretch, but to me, it did not really stick out as an amazing top notch game.

Shining in the Darkness is a dungeon crawling RPG. Nothing too fancy about it, it was quite reminiscent of Dragon Quest and other similar games released around that time. As you explored the enormous dungeon, fights would be at random and turn-based. As the main character, you could also acquire 2 other companions to help you of your task of defeating the evil and treacherous Dark Sol and to rescue the princess and her father who have been abducted. Shining in the Darkness is considered by gaming historians to be a pioneer in Japanese console RPG since a Final Fantasy game was not released until 6 years after Shining in the Darkness.

Guitar Hero BANISHED

We all knew this day would come. None of us wanted to admit it entirely but we knew that sooner than later, this series was going to come to an untimely end. Guitar Hero and Activision have made so many mistakes within these past few years that they were never able to recover; they released 5 games in one year, they changed a perfect formula (from 5 to 6), and they just did not have the accessibility to songs that Rock Band has had. So where did Guitar Hero and Activision go wrong? Hypothetically speaking, where did they go wrong?

This next section will be mainly opinion but based loosely on facts. I think that Guitar Hero went wrong after 3. They started to perfect their formula. They had some AMAZING songs on 3 and the feel of the game was just so natural and exciting. 3 started to push downloads a little more. It seemed all was going great for Guitar Hero. Then Rock Band was announced. Drums? A microphone? Finally, they catered to the whole band! I was unsure of how this would go over. Would it be a passing fad, or would it truly be able to dethrone the Guitar Hero colossus that was ever-growing? The answer was a resounding yes. I think that there was one thing that everyone overlooked on Guitar Hero 3 and continues to overlook: they had lead and rhythm guitar! They had it in 2 as well but it was much more prevalent in 3. For some reason, Rock Band or Guitar Hero never picked that back up. Why?

With the release of Guitar Hero 4, it just felt so unnatural and dark to me. It did not feel like a Guitar Hero anymore. I loved that they added drums and a microphone into it but it did not feel as polished as Rock Band. The singing was a little more confusing and the bass pedals for the Guitar Hero drum set were easily breakable as well as semi-unresponsive. Soon, Rock Band 2 came out and once again dominated the music sales. Guitar Hero 4 added another key element as well: you could make your own songs; something that had not been done before. I gave it a few tries but it was too confusing for me to figure out so I never fully dicked around with it.

I assume at this point that Activision thought that if they upped how many games they released that they would eventually overcome the sales. Soon the armada of Hero games out: GH Metallica, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Band Hero, Guitar Hero 5, and GH Van Halen ALL in one year. Talk about a fucking overload. The results were catastrophic. Each game was $60 which meant paying $300 for songs if you were a huge fan boy.

In reality, Smash Hits was a waste of money entirely. Sure, it was fun to play Through The Fire And Flames on drums until your arms were jell-o and you wanted to sit down and cry, but it was fun only 2 times max. The rest of the songs were either released as DLC for Rock Band or just not good enough to mention a second nod. They did not even include some of their better songs onto this game: Six by All That Remains, Jordan by Buckethead, The Light That Blinds by Shadows Fall, My Curse by Killswitch Engage, Arterial Black by Drist, In the Belly of a Shark by Gallows, and many many many other songs. They only had 48 fucking songs on there. Come on, Activision. What a load of shit. Truly.

GH Metallica was an awesome game for metal heads whether or not you were a Metallica fan. The song arrangement that they had for that game would make any avid metal player giddy with excitement. They also had guest acts that had toured with the band which was a nice reprieve from Metallica overload. You actually learned about Metallica’s history. I think that this was one of the most solid, if not most solid Hero game of the year.

Band Hero was a way for Activision to try to draw in a new audience of gamers that would bring them into an entry level for the Hero games. Not a bad idea, but I think that the idea was poorly executed and their song choice for the game was terrible (though it had a few gems like Believe by The Bravery).

Guitar Hero 5 could have been their rise back to some fame. Activision had executed some really innovative ideas: party play, 4 instruments at once, and the whole album incentive challenges. This game came out looking strong and back on top. However, this game came out about 4 games too late. Rock Band had already been wearing the crown for so long that there was no removing it from the throne. Sadly enough, Guitar Hero 5 never got the credit it was due, and it fell on the back burner.

Activision’s biggest disappointment and probably truly the nail in the coffin was Guitar Hero Van Halen. What a great band to acknowledge with their own game. This band has arguably one of the greatest guitarists of all time and has had 2 of the greatest front men for a band. This game could really have turned out amazing, but alas, it was shit on horribly. No Sammy Hagar songs were present in the game. It was only David Lee Roth. Truly a letdown. On top of that, they used the Guitar Hero 4 engine and not the improved Guitar Hero 5 engine. Why the fuck would you not put the best technology in a game newer than Guitar Hero 5? On top of that, the guest acts made absolutely zero fucking sense. Don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage and Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne on a music game finally, but where in Van Halen’s 40 years of making music have they ever played with any of these guest acts? A side note is why did they not implement some band history into the game like they did with Metallica? Was it because the band was plagued with constant front man changing and bickering with Van Halen? Or was it because Activision got completely fucking lazy by that point and said, “Fuck it. No one cares anymore. Let’s make the consumers suck our cocks as much as we can before we have to pull out?”

I don’t even need to go any further. Go play Rock Band 3 then go play Guitar Hero 6. Tell me which ones actually give a flying fuck about the customer. I am completely ecstatic that Activision cut the cord on this series. They did not even deserve to make any games after 3. I would defend this series left and right even after Rock Band came out. I would always say, “Wait until Guitar Hero 4 comes out. It is going to blow Rock Band out of the fucking water.” Oh believe me, Guitar Hero 4 did some blowing all right. But not the good kind. What is truly a disappointment, however, is the fact that there are a lot of bands that are either signed exclusively to this series or have songs on only the Guitar Hero series (and some bands have songs on both but have not been made available for both). I hope that somehow, Guitar Hero realizes they can make money in one final way and make it possible to transfer the songs that are not available on Rock Band. They would make one last final bit of money before the Guitar Hero series becomes completely obsolete. So I leave the final opinion up to you, my readers. Where did they make the first mistake? Did Guitar Hero ever even have it right? Was Rock Band destined to be the victor or could Activision have implemented some drastic changes that were right for the series and brought it back up to par? I would love to hear your opinions.

As always, stay classy you awesome mother fuckers!

Professor Layton



"It's not the end of the world...but you can see it from here."

So this was quite an exciting surprise for me. According to this interview with the games art director, Dues Ex: Human Revolution will be arriving this year !

I was skimming some articles today and I stumbled across this nifty little Deus Ex:Human Revolution preview from Gamespot. Apparently they were allowed to play a 3 hour demo of Human Revolution and the article includes a fantastic interview with the games art director as well. If you know nothing about this game yet this article/video should be all you need to pique your curiosity. I've included the video at the end of this post as well.

Only time will tell how the gameplay will actually feel, but the style of the game is literally breathtaking. Here is a couple excerpts from the article courtesy of gamespot.com.

So go the early moments of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the highly anticipated sequel to an all-time classic. We're introduced to a troubled world and characters that aren't spared any shelter from its chaos. Jensen is an especially intriguing figure because of the way he's pulled into the heart of the conflict through no choice of his own. To set the stage, Human Revolution takes place in a stylized and not entirely optimistic vision of the year 2027. It's a world where powerful corporations are pioneering biomechanical science at a breakneck pace, producing a fractured population of those eager to upgrade themselves and those deeply disturbed by this technology's effect on humanity. Through the ambient chatter of news reports and whispered uncertainties among side characters, the game establishes an atmosphere of tension and unease early on in the story. To recycle Eidos Montreal's catchy slogan, "It's not the end of the world… but you can see it from here."

Likewise, you don't have to wait long to see what triggers Jensen's metamorphosis. The game begins with our protagonist walking through the hallways and laboratories of Sarif Industries, an augmentations company where Jensen, an ex-SWAT officer, provides private security. Glancing around the research and development labs, you get a good idea of what sort of technology this company is working on when you catch sight of fleeting but thoroughly creepy visuals--a sea of dismembered limbs and people being rebuilt with mechanical attachments. (Though, oddly enough, the most unsettling visual we saw was a guy just running along on a treadmill right next to a pair of robot legs lacking an upper torso matching his pace.) Imagery like this certainly helps to understand the motivations behind the reluctant Jensen we see early on, a guy who's unsure of these augmentations as a way to develop his role within the company. After all, who's all that eager wants to run home and eat steak when you work at the slaughterhouse all day?

We should mention, though, that this is a very pretty slaughterhouse. If you've seen the various screenshots and trailers for Human Revolution, you know that Eidos Montreal is aiming for a very specific look; namely, a gilded cyberpunk landscape rendered in various shades of gold and black. The aesthetic that the CGI trailers established carries over to the game astoundingly well. Even doing something as simple as walking through office hallways, the sense of atmosphere is terrific. The game's art director, Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, calls this a "visual texture" designed to let you know right away which game you're playing.

Below is the video of the interview with the games art director.....I see an uncanny resemblance to a certain protagonist....hmm....

It's all in the hair!!! Hahaha.

Have a great one!

?panda?