Techbug

New posts on techbugtv.com including a hands on with Burnout Paradise, go check it out!

Techbugtv.com

New posts

I've got a couple new posts up on TechBugTV.com go check them out.

Word

I just want to let everyone know that the new layout is up over on TechBugTv so you can expect to me to be posting there regularly. So far I have only posted my Smash Brothers Review I did for mygamer.com on there, so go check that out!

Have a good night/morning,
Dave

Changes happen

Hey everyone I just want to let everyone know about a change thats going on with this blog. I have started working on www.mygamer.com and www.techbugtv.com, so I really don't have time to write posts for them and posts for here. So what this blog is going to become is just a place where I can post whenever I make a post on of the other sites and link to it, so my "fans" can keep track of what I've been writing.

So to start is off I did a preview for "Super Smash Brothers Brawl" on mygamer.com which you can check out here

Techbugtv.com re-opens on the 6th of December, with their new and improved site, so I will start posting on there then.

Rock Band

Just like a real rock band, with Rock Band the game you don't actually play songs. You instead can look forward to:

• Your female lead vocalist spending more time in the hair salon / makeup station than actually on-stage
  
• Fights about which song you're going to play because one of you just isn't "feeling it" right now
  
• Heated debates over doing charity events or corporate events because of money problems (refer to hair salon / makeup station above)
• Standing around "preparing to rock" while other members of your band do other things. This is self perpetuating because you leave and go do something else and then they are waiting for you to come back.
• Drooling over $16,000 instruments that you'll never afford because you aren't actually making any money rocking (see all of the above)
• Doing solo gigs because that's the only way you can "make ends meet"
• Putting up with everybody else in the band beating on your drum kit because it's fun to bang on stuff between sets

Other things you can buy for $14,000

After reading about the God Box, I began to wonder, what else could you buy for $14,000? Well, here you go:

• 1993 Mazda RX7 twin turbo
• 2005 Victory Hammer
• Classic TerZetto Electric Guitar
• Dynacord Cobra Set of Speakers
• LG 71PY1M 71" 1080p plasma monitor

Saving the best for last, eBay always comes through:

Marble Pillar Female Body Sculpture

Ars Technica's "God Box" aka: The only thing that will run Crysis

As my RSS feeds scroll by, I saw a DIY guide from Ars that looked cool. The "God Box" is their supreme configuration, described by them as "for those that just won the lottery".

Quick overview:

• Tyan S5392AR - $391.40

• Two Intel Xeon X5365 - $1,265.86 each [$2,465.86 total]

• Four Crucial 4GB ECC Fully Bufferred DDR2-667 FB-DIMMs - $499 each [$1,996 total]

• Two NVIDIA QuadroFX 4600 - $1,380.14 each [$2,760.28 total]

• Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer - $79.99

• Adaptec 31205 SAS Controller - $638.23

• Fujitsu MAX3147RC 15K 147GB SAS - $287.99

• Four Hitachi Deskstar A7K1000 SATA - $349.99 each [$1,399.96 total]

• DVD±/CD-RW: two Samsung SH-S203B - $31.99 each [$63.98 total]

• Silverstone TJ09 Case - $269

• PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad - $169.99

• APC Smart-UPS 1500VA - $289.99

• Two Dell 3007WFP-HC 30" LCDs - $1,399 each [$2,798 total]

• Logitech Z-5500 Digital - $239

• Logitech MX Revolution - $69.99

• Logitech Cordless MX 5000 - $98.99

Total price: $14,018.65, not including shipping and handling

And they say Mac's are expensive....

Halo 3 gets First DLC

Over at Joystiq they have announced that the first batch of Halo DLC is coming in the form of the "Heroic Map Pack." Here is what Joystiq had to say about the 3 maps:
1. "'Standoff,' a symmetrical valley filled with 'entrenched bases and fields of boulders' and, after about 10 minutes, enormous piles of heavily armored corpses.
2. "'Rat's Nest,' which is described as 'an indoor vehicle paradise,'
3. "'Foundry,' a Forge-friendly sandbox that's ideal for shifting stairways, bridges and tunnels to your twisted heart's delight.

The map packs will sell for 800 Microsoft points (10 dollars) and will be free in the Spring. I can't wait to get some new maps to mess around with, not that the maps in the game are getting old, but I'm always happy to get some new stuff.

Random-ness

My good friend Cheapy D and the crew over at Cheap Ass Gamer have posted your ultimate guide to shopping on black Friday. So I recommend everyone go check out all the shopping goodness over there at Cag. If you're like me, and you work in retail, you’ll probably be too busy to go shopping. If you aren’t, lucky you. You should be out at the stores getting in on some of these deals. Personally, I don't think you can beat Mario Galaxy for 35 dollars, or Guitar Hero 2 for 60 with a guitar, but that's just me. You need a Cag user name and password to access all the deals on the forums, but it’s worth if. There are great deals posted on Cag all the time, and many of them are things you wouldn’t find on your own.

Also, I just want to say how pumped I am for Tuesday when Mass Effect and Rock Band come out. These are two of my most anticipated games this year, and to get them both on the same day is going to be gaming bliss. If anybody out there in blog land wants to get in on some Rock Band fun with Matt and I, my gamer tag is websterRJH.

Last, I just want to say thanks to all the people who visit the blog. It gives me a reason to keep writing stuff. I know this post right here is just kind of me rambling about various topics, but it’s a blog, and technically isn’t that what a blog is for?

Mass Effect: Revelation Review

Alright, let me preface this by saying I have never written a book review before so please forgive me if this is not up to par with other book reviews, but I am going to my best. I'm writing this from the perspective of a gamer that is looking forward to the mass effect game a lot, and wanted to get some more back story on the game before I play it.

The book follows the story of Lieutenant Anderson, who is a member of the Alliance, which is a newly formed member of galactic community. The over all premise of the book is that humanity is looked down upon by the other races in the galactic network and they are trying to gain acceptance in the community. It follows an attack on a major alliance base, and Lieutenant Anderson’s struggle to find out that happened there, and who is responsible for the attack. Along the way he meets Kahlee Sanders, and he makes it his personal business to keep her safe, no matter the cost. He comes in contact with many “people” who want both of them dead, and will stop at nothing to achieve this.

It is written by Drew Karpyshyn, who is lead writer on the mass effect games as well as New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Death Bane: Path of Destruction and many other Sci-Fi novels. His experience in this writing these types of novels shows, because this book kept me sucked in from beginning to end. I never wanted to put it down.

It is nice going to the game with a little more back story about the world. In an immersive game like Mass Effect, where connection to the characters is a major part of the experience, it’s nice to go into it knowing who all of the people are and why I should care about them.

Overall, rather or not you have any intention of playing the Mass Effect game, I highly recommend this book. Even if you are a casual fan of science fiction novels it is worth checking out. It’s an exciting book from start to finish. If you are planning on buying Mass Effect then I don’t just recommend the book, I demand that you go to Amazon.com and buy it now, because it is an amazing book and it will really help immerse you in the world of Mass Effect.

Digg It

Xbox Games Coming to Xbox Live, Not Such Good News

I know this is old news now, but I've been away from the Internet for a little while, and I felt I needed to add my two cents on this topic because it's an interesting one. Microsoft has announced that with the fall dashboard update (coming December 4th) that you will now be able to download full retail verisions of origial Xbox games directly to your hard drive for 1200 points ($15.00). Sounds sweet, right? Well the list of games announced for day one are Fable, Indigo Prophecy, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath Of Cortex, Burnout 3, and, of course, Halo: Combat Evolved. Definitely a good list of games. Well I decided to do a little research to see how much you can buy these games at retail for, to see how sweet of a deal this really is. Turns out, it's not. Here is the breakdown, with a label of rather or not downloading it is a good deal or bad deal:

All prices from Amazon
Fable (original not Lost Chapters): used starting at $8.75 and includes bonus DVD (Bad Deal)
Indigo Prophecy: used starting at $5.64 (Bad Deal)
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge: new for $9.99 used starting at $0.98 (Bad Deal)
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex: used starting at $4.99 (Bad Deal)
Burnout 3: new for $19.99, used starting at $2.86 (Good Deal if you buy new, bad if you get used)
Halo: Combat Evolved: new $9.99, used starting at $5.04 (Bad Deal)

As you can see, with these games having no new features, such as achievements or added online play, it is really not a good deal at all. Especially when buying a hard disk copy has re-sale or trade in value. So speak with your wallet and don't purchase these games.

Digg It!

Revision to Rock Band Preview

In my Rock Band Preview I had made a statement saying that your voice does not come out of the speakers when you sing, however I went back to Best Buy today and played again and my voice did come out of the speakers. I don't know if it was something in the settings that were messed up the first time or what, but it's all set now, and it is awesome to hear your voice coming out of the TV while you rock out. A new complaint I have is that guitar there was broken, so hopefully it was some jerk who was rough on it, and not that the guitar is low quality.

Rumors, Rumors, Rumos

I hate rumors, but yet, I love them, there is nothing like the suspense of not knowing if something you read is true or not. So here is another case of that. On 1up yours this week right at the end of the show my main man Shane was talking about some "Juicy Rumors" he had heard about. He said it was a two part rumor, a top executive, who has been a voice for the company is on the way out, and a first party game you are all looking forward to is being canceled. So what I have done is compiled a list of all unreleased Microsoft games that have been announced and I will let you figure out for yourself which one you think is going to be canceled.

PC
Announced for 2008

* Alan Wake
* Marvel Universe Online

Release Date Unknown

* Microsoft Train Simulator 2
* Combat Flight Simulator 4

Xbox 360
Announced for 2007

* Mass Effect

Announced for 2008

* Alan Wake
* Banjo-Kazooie 3
* Fable 2
* Halo Wars
* Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
* Lost Odyssey
* Marvel Universe Online
* Ninja Gaiden 2 (Co-published with Tecmo)
* Too Human

Release Date Unknown

* Untitled Halo Project

I've got my money on it being Too Human, or maybe Allan Wake. There's also a chance it could be the Marvel MMO, I guess we'll know soon enough. As far as the Exec. who is leaving I think it will probably be J. Allard.

Digg It

A study of numbers: platforms and games

Source: Metacritic.com

Reference Material: Scores.zip

My disclaimer:

This is simply a gamer's analysis of metacritic data and shouldn't be used as actual science in any form.

Originally this started as a way to build a graph to compare the different consoles by numbers of games in each genre. I didn't get that far, but with the data I've already collected there are some interesting things that reveal themselves. The actual data I gathered in the game lists are very interesting, I invite you to download the spreadsheets in either iWork or Office format and have a look.


The first thing that jumped out at me was the shear number of Xbox 360 titles is astonishing. This can be attributed to a couple of things, but I think the primary being the year head start it had in the market.

The second thing I started to notice was that while there were fewer PS3 titles to score, they were scoring higher. I am not going to speculate too much on this one as I didn't actually read or write any of the reviews, but it's interesting when you compare the averages to the competitors.

The fun facts section was something I created as I noticed little oddities. I will be adding more to this as I break these games out by genre. Another thing I'd like to add is "uniqueness" for a game, eg: platform exclusivity vs. ubiquity. If anybody wants to help me with breaking these down by genre, I would love the help.

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Guitar Hero 3 Downloadable Content

Guitar Hero 3’s first batch of downloadable content has been released for download, and unfortunately, they are sticking to that ridiculously overpriced 3 pack of songs system. The packs sell for 6.25 each regardless of system, and there is no pack for the Wii. The only decent thing about it is, at least so far, the packs are all songs by the same artist. For the first pack you get Velvet Revolver “Messages,” “She Builds Quick Machines” and the 2004 Grammy Award winner, “Slither.” Then you get the Foo Fighters with the songs: “The Pretender,” “This Is a Call” and the 2002 Grammy Award winner, “All My Life.” At least you don’t have to deal with buying songs by two artists you don’t like in order get one song by an artist you do like, if you like either of these bands great download away, if not, don’t.
Also, I can not wait to see how Rock Band does their DLC, from what I have heard, they will be doing bundles where if you get all of the songs together you get a discount, but you do have to option of buying one song at a time, which is the way it should be. I may do a full fledged article on downloadable content in the next coming days so I’ll keep my complaining to a minimum here and save some for the article.

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Rockband Preview Number 2

I know Steve already did a preview for Rock Band, but it's my website and I can't allow to Steve to be only one with all the rock god glory, so I'm going to put in my 2 cents:

Come one, come all, welcome to show, gather round, and feast your eyes on the greatest rock spectacle you will ever see, at your local Best Buy?? That's right you can get your Rock Band on, while a bunch of random electronic shoppers look at you and laugh. You don't care though do you? You know you’re having the time of your life rocking your F'in brains out.

So I'll break it down for you all one song at a time. First I played Paranoid, as made famous by Black Sabbath, on drums. I must say it was AWESOME! I loved every second of it. Next I went on to play Nirvana’s In Bloom on drums again, and yet again it was awesome. One thing I should mention about the drums though, at Best Buy they do not have to bass pedal on them, so it seems a lot easier than it is really going to be when you have to use it. It’s basically like adding that fifth fret when you step it up to hard with a guitar.

After that, I passed the drums off to the next comer, and stepped up to guitar for some Dani California, and I'm going to go out and say it here, the guitar is not as good as Guitar Hero’s. The problem I have with the Guitar is that the flipper doesn’t click when you strum, so to me, it doesn’t actually feel like you are strumming. I found myself being unsure rather or not I was strumming, but I think is something I will get used to. Other than that the Guitar is good, I like the feel of the buttons, and the solo parts are fun, although, in the demo at Best Buy they were very sparse.

Lastly, before it was time for me to get out of Best Buy, because people were starting to think we worked there, I decided to try singing, so I did Epic, by Faith No More, and the singing is decent. The last thing I would like to say about vocals is that it is hard, me and my friend, who both can sing fairly well had a hard time with it. Overall, I think singing is the worst aspect of the game.

The last thing I would to mention is they changed the way the notes look on screen look different, they are more like little rectangles, rather than circles.

Overall, I know I said a lot of negative things, but I am not negative towards Rock Band, in fact, playing it made me look forward to it even more. I am counting down the days and hours as I write this. I just feel that with all the hype surrounding Rock Band, I wanted to point out some of the bad things about the game. I have my pre-order in at my local Game Stop, and on the 20th my crew and I will be rocking out like its 1999, or something like that! Now let me leave you with a nice little game play video of the game.



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Japanese Hardware Sales for week of Oct. 29th through Nov 4th

I normally would not post about something as seemingly meaningless as the hardware sales for a week in Japan, but I found this to be very interesting. The Xbox 360 actually outsold the PS3 this past week. For those who are not aware of the Xbox 360 plight in Japan, it basically sells like lead balloons. So for it to outsell the PS3, is shocking, needless to say. Here are the numbers courtesy of Joystiq.

- DS Lite: 78,552
- PSP: 59,714
- Wii: 37,617
- Xbox 360: 17,673
- PS3: 17,434
- PS2: 10,209
- GBA SP: 206
- Gamecube: 155
- Game Boy Micro: 113
- DS Phat: 45
(remember these are JAPANESE numbers)

So there you have, I don't know about the rest of you, but my world is officially spinning off its axis!

THANKS

Alright guys, we have a couple big things in the works for tonight, but real quick before I run out to work, I just want to thank everyone who visits the site, which hit 1000 hits yesterday! Very much appreciated guys and keep coming back everyday for new stuff. Also, also just a reminder that I'm looking for one or two people to write for the site, if you are interested send an email to editor@davesgameblog.com.

Call Of Duty 4 (xbox 360)

The first thing I have to say about this game is.. GO OUT AND BUY IT! Seriously, this game is everything I hoped for, and more. After much contemplation when I got home from the store, I decided to try out the single player first just to make sure I had a good feel for the game. The single player starts off with a training mission, your basic aiming, running obstacle course. Once this is completed, you and your team of British SAS soldiers are dropped onto a cargo ship via helicopter in the middle of a horrendous thunder storm. Right away, I knew this game was going to blow me away. I'll try not to spoil any of the story for you, but I will say that playing this game, I felt like I was watching an award winning movie and was constantly on the edge of my seat. As the player, you switch back and forth between the perspective of a British SAS soldier, and a UNSC Marine. Both perspectives sport their own storyline, but at the same time, intertwine with each other to create a spectacular story worthy of Spielberg.

Depending on the difficulty that you're playing on, the enemy AI is extremely smart; setting up in various formations and constantly trying to flank your position. Smart enemy AI is always great, but what about the friendly AI i.e. your teammates? Your teammates are just as smart, and really do their part in the fighting. At times I felt as if I could just sit back and let my teammates handle the fighting, and at times, they did. You really get the feel that your teammates are there to have each others backs. Playing on the veteran (hardest) setting, I found myself being saved by a teammate countless times. On one occasion, I had been shot and sought shelter in a small room to regain my health, next thing I knew, a grenade flew in the room with me, I wasn't able to react quick enough and prepared myself to start at the last checkpoint. Just as I gave up hope, one of my fellow marines rushed in, grabbed the grenade and threw it back to the enemy, saving my life.

I was able to beat the Single player campaign in one, 5 hour sitting on the medium difficulty. This was a perfect length game for me, it was just enough to satisfy me and not leave me begging for more, but also didn't have me wishing the game would end ASAP. Just remember if you play on the veteran difficulty, expect the game to take around twice as long to finish. Once you have completed the game, you unlock arcade mode which is basically the single player missions over again, but it keeps track of the enemies you have killed via a points system.

So you just completed one of the best campaigns to ever be seen in an FPS game.. what now? MULTIPLAYER OF COURSE! the best aspect of this game. If I could remake this multiplayer system, I would not change a thing. Infinity Ward has always made great multiplayer games, and this one is no different. I find myself having a lot more fun online in this game than I ever did with Halo 3. Your skill is based on a number rank, somewhat like Halo, except your number represents you in every single gametype you play, and is not specific to just the one gametype on the playlist that you play most. Another GREAT thing about the ranking system is that your rank is based on the points you earn during a game, and does not reflect how your team did. This really encourages me to continuously play, even when none of my friends are online to make a solid team. Each kill you get, you receive points for, as well as other various tasks you may accomplish during a game. Leveling up and getting more points also leads to the RPG aspect of this game. As you level, you will find yourself unlocking new guns, camo, attachments, and perks. Perks are a new feature which are basically special tasks that you can assign to your character to help you on the battlefield. There are only a limited amount of perks that you can assign to yourself, so choose wisely according to your style of play.

There are a total of 16 maps in the multiplayer, and I can't think of one that I do not like. All of the maps were well put together and are perfect for playing the various types of games to be found in matchmaking. The playlist provided by Infinity Ward is beefed up and will accommodate any ones preferences to gametypes. You will never go into a game wishing that you could back out, because in this game, you get exactly what you asked for, especially with the ability to veto maps if majority votes in that favor. I'm not going to go into much detail with the different game modes because there is nothing new here that you haven't seen before. There is the basic Team Death Match, Free for all, Search and Destroy (CS style of game), Capture the Flag, and so on. During an online game, you are rewarded for getting certain amounts of kills without dying.
3 consecutive kills = UAV (radar)
5 consecutive kills = Air Strike on position of your choice
7 consecutive kills = Helicopter (flies around wreaking havoc on your enemies)

I HIGHLY recommend this game to anyone that owns a 360 and enjoys First Person Shooters. Even if you just picked up your copy of Halo 3, put it down for 2 minutes and give this game a try, I guarantee you'll forget that a new Halo game just came out, and you'll find yourself continuously picking this game when trying to choose what game you feel like playing.

I'm going to give this game a 9.8 / 10

On rockband multi-platform...

Rockband at the local Best Buy

I guess my rant about Guitar Hero III really made an impression and Dave invited me to contribute some more.

I dropped into my local best buy for something entirely unrelated, and there it stood. The iconic Rock Band display in all of it's multi-instrumented glory. For those of you who don't have a Best Buy or haven't been to one lately, I've included some photos.

First impressions:

The first thing I did was pick up the new Fender Strat laying on the floor, selected a random song and cranked it to Expert. I failed the song in about 5 seconds due to the fact that the little plastic flipper either was broken or fatally flawed to the point where a Guitar Hero veteran couldn't use it. Either way, I was very disappointed. I am hoping it was just a broken demo unit and not the final product. The inset fret buttons seemed like they would take some getting used to but nothing that would spoil the experience. As a proud owner of a real Strat, I have to say at first glance the similarities are striking.

I put down the guitar and picked up the drumsticks. The drum set is a throwback to the 80's synth machines. It's futuristic in a Michael J. Fox / Doc Brown kind of way. Again, I picked a random song and cranked it to Expert just to see what it would throw at me. I was pleasantly surprised with the viceral feel of banging on the playschool drumset. There were a few times I was having so much fun that I forgot I was at a store altogether. The complexity of the demo songs was easier than I expected, having never played the drums in my life. I didn't really expect to get percentages in the 80's and 90's my first time playing the highest difficulty. I found it was much more about being consistent than about being able to do fancy things. Perhaps this is more like real drums? I wouldn't know.

I have heard stories of people playing in the store and rocking ad-hoc multi-player with other customers. This was the exact opposite of my experience because I was there at a bit of an odd time. There weren't really any other customers around and the ones there didn't seem to care too much about my plastic banging ability. I think it would have been a lot cooler having some co-op action, maybe even with the Best Buy staff. I will probably go back at a busy hour for a video game band audition.

looking for some people

Hey, what's up everyone out there in blog land, I'm back again for the second time. I come to you all today asking for help. I'm looking for a couple of gamers out there who would be interested in writing for the site. Keep in mind that since this site makes no money it is a non paying position. Obviously I am looking for someone with decent writing skills and who is creative, but most importantly I am looking for someone who is dedicated and will to post at least every other day. If you are interested please email me at editor@davesgameblog.com and send me something you have written and we'll add you as a poster. You may see 5 people listed as posters on the side of the site but really there is two, a couple of my friends asked me to make them posters but never posted and probably never will. So again, if you are dedicated and willing to do some posting on the site drop me an email and I will get you set up.

Casual Games

Wii Sports, Mario Party, Rayman Raving Rabids, are these games, and games like them, going to lead the downfall of the hardcore game, or just bring new people into our growing video game market. This is a much debated topic among gamers as many of us fear that with the Wii, and it's onslaught of casual games, the hardcore may be forgotten. Casual games are selling by the absolute truckload. There really in no right or wrong answer, except that only time will tell. However that doesn't mean I can't go into a little more detail and try to figure out what I think is going to happen.

The first big issue here is obviously, money. Developers and publishers are businesses, and they are in the video game business to make money. So, keeping that in mind it is hard for publishers to not get into the casual game market. When you look at the Wii, which is the number one selling console month after month, and you see the type of games coming out for the Wii, it's impossible to deny that casual games are a money maker. The question is, are hardcore games also a money maker? Well the answer is simple, yes, of course they are. Look at exhibit A, a small game you all may have heard of called Halo 3, which sold 3.3 million units in its first week and gave Microsoft games their first profitable quarter since the release of Halo 2. So yes, hardcore games can be very profitable.

However, in my opinion, there is one key factor that will make casual games a little more profitable than hardcore games, and that is the cost to make them versus how many sell. While yes, Halo 3 did sell 3.3 million copies in a week, how many millions did it cost to make to Halo 3? Than look at a game like Wii play, which looks like it could have easily been made in flash by some high school kid for a project. That game has been in the top 10 in sales every month since it came out, and it probably cost about the same to make as you spent on dinner this evening. As a publisher is must be hard to turn down that kind of easy money.

With a lesser investment comes less risk. So let's say you are EA, and you are thinking about the new game you want to publish. You see Halo and the huge success it had, and you see Mario Party 8 and the success it has. You know the market is split with a lot of alpha moms out there and a lot of hardcore gamers out there. What game do you try to mirror, the cheap one that may make a killing, or the expensive one that may make a killing? I can't answer that question, because I don't work for a bug game company, but it makes you think. If that cheap casual game fails, it's not going to be a big deal, but if a multi-million dollar blockbuster hardcore game fails, its going to hurt the bank a lot more.

In spite of this though, I don't think hardcore games will be forgotten. I think developers enjoy making hardcore games. Could you picture Kojima making Metal Gear Bowling or something to that extent? I think not, as long as the hardcore gamers speak with their wallets and keep buying hardcore games, developers and publishers will keep making them.

Casual games, while cheap to make, still don't have the long lasting appeal of hardcore games. Publishers can not put all of there eggs into one basket with because right now we do not know if this whole Wii Soccer mom thing is going to be a fad or if it is for real. We know from years and years of experience that the hardcore gamers aren't going anywhere. If there is a good games to play the hardcore kids will be at the stores on release day buying them up, and publishers know this, they like it, and they will continue to make games for these people. So never fear, I am confident that we will be playing our Halos and Metal Gears for years to come!

And I'm going to leave with a game that blurs the line between casual and hardcore, Guitar Hero 3, and a ridiculous video of it at that!

Call Of Duty 4.. Today?

November 5th, 2005, the day I've been waiting for. Why is today so important you may ask? Well it's because Call Of Duty 4 is being released.. or so i thought. I am very confused to when the actual release date is now. Some sites including Gamespot, and Gamestop are reporting the release as November 5th, while other sites are claiming the 6th. Putting my confusion to the side for a moment, i would like to make sure that i get the word out about this game. Anyone that knows me, knows how much i love halo, so hopefully my good faith in this game will change the way you've been looking at console shooters. When i compared the halo 3 beta to the cod 4 beta, i had a lot of trouble making up my mind of which game i had more fun playing. Giving it more thought, i realized that Call of Duty 4 is taking my pick for favorite console shooter so far this year. Now i know these are strong words, especially considering that the game isn't even out yet, but that just goes to show how much faith in this game. I know that COD4 has no chance in beating halo in sales, but i feel confident that whoever picks up this game in the coming days, will really find it a more enjoyable experience than halo 3.
I am going to contact Gamestop first thing in the morning and confirm the release date, and I'll update this post with the definite answer.
Expect a review of this game sometime this week, and until then, enjoy this video....

Guitar Rape III

DISCLAIMER: This post was NOT written by Dave or Camden it was written by Dave's Stepbrother and therefor the views expressed in this post are not necessarily the views of Dave or Camden.



Guitar Rape III
By Steven Fusco

I love Guitar Hero. I have played every Harmonix game and beat them all on the hardest difficulties. I have finished Guitar Hero II on Expert, not once but TWICE; first Playstation 2 and then again on Xbox 360. I just picked up Neversoft’s Guitar Hero III the other day and within 24 hours finished it on Hard, now I’m working through Expert which will take some time just like it always has. I am not bragging about this. I’m fucking ashamed of it, and you should be too. Every revision that is released I bend over and let Red Octane fill my ass with that colorful five button plastic phallus. Let’s take a moment to have a look at Exhibit A: the GH3 Tracklist. I’m getting sick of this crap.

It all started with you buying a game and bringing it home and after playing for a while you unlocked special levels or hidden characters while playing it solo. When your friends came over you had an interesting conversation piece or maybe some tips to share. It was a badge of honor proving how much you really loved the game. This mutated into entire levels and sections being locked and quartered off as if they were zombies in quarantine. The next thing was game developers locking the entire game so that if you and friend wanted to play it launch day, you had to first beat the game. One of you had to sit there watching the other play just to unlock things so that you could actually play together. If you didn’t, you only had two cars or three fighters to choose from. Maybe if you were lucky: two racetracks or stages.

Fast-forward to 2007: year of the air guitar. Due to profitable science projects on our wallets we now have Guitar Hero coming out of every orifice in every manifestation. The companion disc? The downloadable content? Extra “bonus material”? You just paid $100 for 4 songs, and unless you work harder or pay more money, you’ll never have any more than that. This has gotten completely out of hand. Guitar Hero III has turned into smut. It’s like a sleazy strip club sucking dollar after dollar out of you, and you are too drunk on the product to care.

This is a call to everyone, myself included. Wake the fuck up! Bitch about this now before it gets worse! Stop lying to yourselves and see this for what it is: robbery. This is no different than someone stealing your wallet while walking down the street because you were too oblivious. We must protect ourselves and each other. We are all still going to buy Rock Band. We need professional help.

(thanks for the post Steve, and if any other readers have any thing they would like to say on the blog feel free to email it to editor@davesgameblog.com and if it's good me or Camden will post it up)

Trailers for big november games

Alright guys, I'm going to make this easy on all your brains tonight, and keep the reading to a minimum for you. On the right side of the site you will notice a fancy new poll for your voting pleasure asking you what game are most anticipating for November of this year. So what I'm going to do for you today is just post up a video of each of the games on poll to help make your decision a little easier. SO without any further delay enjoy:

Call of Duty 4:


Rock Band:


Assassins Creed:


Uncharted:


Ratchet and Clank:


Mass Effect:


Super Mario Galaxy:


Crysis:


Alright guys, so there you go, I hope that helped build up your hype for the game season coming up. Go vote in the poll and make sure your game of choice wins out on the hype meter. If a game you are really hyped for post a comment, you don't have to register to comment, and I'll add a video for the game you want and I'll add it to the poll as well. That's going to do it for me tonight, so good night, good day, or good whatever it is where you live!

Video Game Podcasts

Hello everyone out there on the inter webs and welcome to again to another adventure in the world of Dave's Video Game Blog. I come to you today with a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, and that is video game podcasts. I am a huge fan of podcasts of the video game variety, they help make my relatively long drive to work more bearable, they keep me up to date on everything thats happening in the world of games, and most importantly, they entertain me. So what I have decided to do today is tell you about some of my favorite podcasts out there and why I so adore each one. Keep in mind this is not a top list, so the podcast will be listed in alphabetical order, not in any kind of order of how much I like them.

1up Yours - A great podcast from the big guys over at the 1up network. Host Garnett Lee does a great job of keeping everything structured. Shane Bettenhausen does a great job of being the resident A-hole, while still having valid opinions and always having facts to back up the stuff he says. John Davidson, who doesn't work for 1up anymore, is a great addition to the cast, although lately he has been a little more quite than usual. Mark MacDonald, who wasn't on the show for too long before announcing he is leaving 1up, did a great job of filling the giant shoes left by now Bungie employee Luke Smith. All in all 1up is very entertaining, as well as informative, and in my opinion, is the most well structured podcast on the net.

CagCast - Another gem in the world of video game podcasts. Host Cheapy D from Tokyo, Japan and Wombat out of NYC both do a great job of providing contrast to each other. The show is usually very well organized, and Cheapy and Wombat usually tend to stay on topic. They do like to say "There ya go" a lot, but that's another story for another time. The CagCast features good opinionated takes on the news and happenings in the video game world. For a podcast only featuring 2 guys, whereas, most feature in the area of 4, they do a good job of keeping conversation up and on point. Overall I highly recommend the CagCast, while it might not be an informative as 1up Yours, it is easily as entertaining.

Cag Foreplay - A sort of spin-off the CagCast I guess you could say. Host's Mrs. Shipwreck and Mr. Shipwreck used to write to breakdown of the releases every week and post it on Cheap Ass Gamer, but eventually decided to spin that off into their own podcast. Basically, they talk a little about what they have been playing for the week, then break down EVERY new release, and I mean every one, right down to all the Nintendo Ds pet simulators. Most of the games on here you will not care about, nor will you want to run out and buy them, but it's nice to know they are out there. They also will expose you to some games you may not have heard of before, that might interest you. This is the only podcast of its kind that I know of, and I highly recommend it.

EGM Live - A decent podcast that has gotten a little better recently. It kind of lacks structure as all of their segments are almost separate podcasts in and of themselves. The only part of this podcast I really like is the review crew, which is somewhat similar to Cag Foreplay, in which they take the big new releases and talk about scores they gave them and why they are good or bad. Other than the review crew I'm not a huge fan of EGM Live, but in a podcast crunch when I have exhausted all my favorites, I will listen to it.

GameSpot Presents: The Hotspot - The Hotspot is a very news driven podcast, in that mostly what they do is read a news story, and discuss it. The thing that some people might not like about The Hotspot is that they get off topic a lot, and in most podcasts that would bother me, but The GameSpot guys are so funny that when they go on their tangents it really doesn't matter. For overall pure entertainment, The Hotspot ranks high on my list, and if you sift through all the hilarity, there is a lot of good information too.

IGN Games podcasts - Okay, so I'm going to group all of the IGN podcasts under one subtitle here because there's a bunch. The best one is Game Scoop, which is basically the same as Gamespot's Hotspot, they talk about the news and make a lot of jokes. Then there's Three Red Lights, which is their Xbox 360 podcast, and as you can tell by the name they don't take themselves seriously, but it's still a good show, that will entertain and inform you. Next you have IGN is AFK, which is an irregular podcast in that they don't post them weekly or sometimes even monthly. What they do on AFK is take a specific topic in the world of gaming, and examine and talk about it. It's a good podcast, I just wish they would post it more. Next are the 2 I don't care too much about and that's Podcast Beyond, which is the PS3 podcast, and Wii-k in review which, obviously, is the Wii podcast. Neither of these are particularly good, but if you are a big fan of either console it will keep you informed.

Alright guys, that's gonna do it for me, I do listen to more than just these, but these are the ones I make sure to listen to every week, and these are the podcasts I would recommend to someone who is new to podcasting. Really, if you wanna start out light the three I would recommend are 1up Yours, CagCast and Gamespot Presents: The Hotspot. So get out there ladies and gentlemen and get your podcast on!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Happy Halloween from all of us here at Davesgameblog.com!

I'm sorry to say that we have no tricks, nor any treats for you today, but Bungie does! That's right, today, October 31st from 12:01 a.m - 3:01 a.m. November 1st Bungie will have a new playlist up on halo 3 based on the gametype Infection. Infection is basically a game called zombies in which there are two teams that are greatly unbalanced. One team (the humans) start off with normal attributes and can use any weapon, and the other team (the zombies) usually only have about 1 or 2 people to start off on the team. The zombies usually have no armor, and can only carry around a sword. The object of the game is:
HUMANS: Try to be the last human alive.
ZOMBIES: Turn all the humans into zombies.
To turn a human into a zombie, a zombie must simply kill the human, which automatically switches that human onto the zombies team, and gives them all the zombie attributes.
All of the maps that will be played in the playlist will be customized by the Bungie employees using Forge, to give everything a more Halloween feel, and to better suite the Infection gametype.
This will be a ranked playlist, so you might want to check this out because it'll be a lot easier here to get some of those achievements that you're missing.

If you would like to read the complete article from Bungie, you can do so by clicking HERE

Have fun and be safe!

Guitar Hero 3 Review Xbox 360

Ladies and Gentlemen, are you ready to rock?! Neversoft's Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock hit store shelves yesterday, and I know we have all been rocking out ever since. Guitar Hero 3 brings more of the same in some ways, and innovation in others. Additions such as boss battles and online play bring more to the table then previous installments of the game, while the overall feel of the Guitar Hero game play remains just the way it was, and the way it should be.

Guitar Hero 3 got a small visual upgrade from the other 2 games. The graphics look sharp and higher res than Guitar Hero 2 on the Xbox 360. Visually theres nothing here to write home about, but they get the job done and make the game look pretty enough.

As far as the game play is concerned Neversoft came through big time. I was a little worried when I found out that Harmonix was moving over to do Rock Band and Neversoft (of Tony Hawk fame) would be taking over Guitar Hero. Being that Neversoft had no access to the code from the first two games, and they were building this one from the ground up, I was a little weary. However Neversoft stopped all the naysayers in their tracks, because they actually found a way to improve upon what Harmonix had done. Timing wise things seem solid, most of the songs seem to be just right, but there are a few songs that just feel a little off on Medium. On hard the timing in those songs improves.

A very important feature they added that seems like a no brainier is the counter for your note streak. I found it so strange they just thought of this now, but it is very nice to always know mid song how long your streak is, and how much more you need to get that next achievement.

It feels like they have stepped up the level of difficulty a little bit in this installment. In the songs I played on hard, they felt a lot more challenging then most of the hard songs in Guitar Hero 2. Even on medium there were a few songs that felt a little hard. Depending on how hard-core you are, you may find this difficulty increase a good thing or you may find it frustrating.

The boss battles mixed into the career mode add a nice touch to break things up and keep it fresh. Being able to battle Slash is an awesome thing for sure. Battle mode in multi player also works very well, however, if you choose to play on a difficulty level one lower than your highest ability, I have found that it is very hard to lose, unless your opponent does the same.

Online play was very smooth. I didn't experience much lag, and overall it's really cool to be able to multi player Guitar Hero without having to have a friend over. One thing that is sadly missing from the game is ability to play the Co-op career online. A lot of people do not have 2 Guitars or they may not be able to have friends over to play the Co-op career, and therefor will not be able to experience it.

The song list in Guitar Hero 3 is amazing. It is the best song list of any music game ever, period. Activision got a very diverse list of songs, so no matter what your taste there will be songs in Guitar Hero 3 that suit you. My favorites include Slipknot - Before I forgot, Disturbed - Stricken, Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins and a whole bunch more. The song list is really what it comes down to in any music game, and in the case of Guitar hero 3, the soundtrack delivers. I would like to have seen them add a little bit more hard metal into the game, but I am just happy to see Slipknot there.

The new wireless Gibson Les Paul is awesome. It steps the game up to a new level. It is far more comfortable to hold then the Xplorer for Guitar Hero 2, and on top of that it is wireless for more freedom to rock your brains out! If you are going to spring the 60 bucks for the game only, you might want to reconsider, and get the full package because the new guitar really improves the game play experience.

Overall, Guitar Hero 3 works, and works well. The game play is still as fun and addictive as it ever was. The song list is a face melting mix of any kind of rock you could imagine and everything about this game feels pretty good. Some minor timing issues do exist in some songs but its minor, and the lack of online Co-op career is a little disappointing. In the end, if you like Guitar Hero, or music games in general, you should defiantly check out Guitar Hero 3.

Ear Force X3

If you are a serious gamer, then you are serious about getting the most out of your video games. Most gamers are so worried about the visual aspects of the game and getting the cleanest picture, that they forget about the audio portion. To get the most out of your games, I strongly recommend getting Turtle Beach's Ear Force X3 headphones for the Xbox 360. These headphones are light weight, comftorable and are accompanied by a microphone for chat on Xbox Live. You can check out all of the cool features that these headphones have by visiting the Turtle Beach website. Now, I know you probably think that I am crazy for recommending a set of headphones that value at $100. Well, I searched around the internet and found the cheapest price on amazon, selling for just $85. To visit Amazon, you can click the link on the top of the page. I highly recommend these headphones, and they help to completely immerse you into the games that you are playing. If you're serious about gaming, I wouldn't let the price tag stop you from getting the best Xbox 360 headphones / mic out there.

Hello From Rochester

Hello everyone, welcome back to the old blog. I'm coming back with another list, this time I'm going to go with my top 5 games of all time, and just to spice things up I'm sitting with 3 of my friends right now who are all gamers, and they are going to throw in their top 5 games of all time as well. Basically we were all sitting here arguing about the top games of all time, and after a lot of bickering and whining I remembered I have this magical website that I can post things on and see what other people think, so vote on the poll and let us know who's list you moth agree with, and/or think is the best. So, without further delay lets start it off.

Wes:
5. Super Mario 64 (N64)
4. Street Fighter 2 (SNES)
3. Super Mario Kart (SNES)
2. Super Smash Brothers Melee (GC)
1. Mega Man X (SNES)

Matt:
5. Snake (Nokia Cell Phone) (yea, he's serious)
4. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (Arcade)
3. DDR: 4th Mix (Arcade)
2. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
1. Battlefield 2 (PC)

Danny
5. Starcraft (PC)
4. Halo: CE
3. Final Fantasy 3 (6 in Japan) (SNES)
2. Super Smash Brothers Melee (GC)
1. Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)

Now for the only list any of you actually care about, mine!
Dave
5. Battlefield 2 (PC)
4. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)
3. Guitar Hero 2 (Xbox 360)
2. God of War 2 (PS2)
1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2)

So there you have it, blood, sweat, tears and many other bodily fluids went into these lists. Hopefully, if you don't agree you at least appreciate how different our tastes are, and how much better mine are then my friends. So go vote on the poll, and let my friends know how right I am!

Late October/November

The end of October and November are looking to be a very promising month for gamers out there with the ridiculous onslaught of games coming out. If you have some deep pockets, then you better be prepared to reach way down in there because there is some incredible games coming our way, so in honor of this I have decided to make a list the top 8 games I am looking forward to, in order starting with number 8. (please keep in mind I don't currently own a PS3, so ps3 games will not be on the list)

8. Timeshift: The stopping time powers are a little prince of Persia, but throwing that into a FPS could be fun, and screen shots of this game I've seen look impressive.

7. Crysis: This game looks beautiful, and from what I've read the game play is incredible, the only thing that worries me, at no fault of the developers, is rather or not my PC can run it.

6. Assassins Creed: Prince of Persia and metal gear combined is the best way to describe this game, and who doesn't love both Metal Gear and Prince of Persia, enough said.

5. Mario Galaxy: Come on its Mario, what's not to love!

4: Call of Duty 4: I played the beta, the multi player is AWESOME. We all know Infinity Ward will bring the intense experience on the single player as well. The only thing thats gonna be a problem for this game is the behemoth known as Halo 3.

3. Guitar Hero 3: I just played the Demo last night and its more of the same... and I wouldn't have it any other way!

2. Mass Effect: I can not wait to have Mass effect suck away countless hours of my life. This game looks AMAZING by any account. I have not read a bad preview of this game, so if you can find one feel free to comment and prove me wrong. Regardless though, buy Mass Effect!

Drum Roll please....






1. Rock Band: Simply take Guitar hero and mash in Drum Mania and Sing Star and you have rock band. Don't let the 170 dollar price tag scare you, I think it will be well worth every penny. Rocking out with your friends online or locally, what more could you ask for to kill all those boring family Christmas parties!

So there you have it, my top 8 games for late October early November. Also if I had a PS3 the games I would defiantly be purchasing for it would be Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, and Unreal Tournament 3.

On a personal aside, I will be out of town for the weekend, so I may not be able to post, but I know Camden will hold it down on the old blog front for me. If i get some time near a computer this weekend I'll try to post something for your viewing pleasure!

Retire the Classics

I was on Gamespot's website today and I saw something that made a shiver go down my spine. Under the number three spot for the day was a new Pacman video game for the Xbox 360. One thing that I really can't stand is seeing all these great classics being re-done and pumped out almost like clockwork for the newer generations of gamers. I remember the first time I saw a new Pacman game being advertised, they were showing off these "cool" new 3d graphics and the ability to move where you want. These new games really ruin the original fun factor of these games, and spit on a time where video games were made soley based on game play instead of having these "cool" 3d graphics. Pacman isn't the only franchise that suffers from this problem, another big title that fits under this description is Sonic. Don't get me wrong, I believe Sonic may be ONE of the best games of all time, but with recent title, Sonic and the Secret Rings, I have lost all hope for this blue hedgehog. Another game that is now starting to bother me is Zelda. It really seems like this title is starting to sell out now that "Link's crossbow training" is being made. All this game involves is using your Wii remote to shoot arrows from Link's new crossbow. I could go on all day with examples like these but I'll cut it short and end it with a message to all these video game companies:
Learn to quit while you're ahead!
Retire your classics or at least stick with what works.




REMINDER!!
The month of November is almost upon us, and that means the release of many of the years most anticipated video games (rock band, cod4, mass effect), so make sure to check back daily for updates, and many promising game reviews.

OMGZORS!!! HUGE NEWS!!!

"Gaming for me is a religion and Haze is the shit!" said Jonathan Davis. "I had to come up with a track that can hit up that kind of rush I get from the game and I think we really rocked it!!"

Yes, that's right people Korn, is going to be making a song "inspired" by the game Haze, called, yup you guessed it, Haze. On Gamespot Presents the Hotspot today they were talking about it and it was hilarious. Basically, Ubisoft was looking for a hip, cool band to help promote the release Haze, and when they couldn't find one, they got Korn. Just remember kids, reading video game blogs is a religion, and Dave's video game blog is the shit!! (please note 2 exclamation points, showing how much the shit this blog actually is)

Seriously though if you are interested in finding out more about Playstation 3 exclusive, first person shooter, check out Gamespot's preview here!

And completely off the topic of Haze, I played the Guitar Hero 3 demo last night and I was impressed. I also saw Guitar Hero 3 at the store I work at, and I want it, NOW! Why they choose to release it on a Sunday when we've had it since Tuesday is beyond me. Patience is a virtue...

Puzzlequest

The game your probably sleeping on, and you most defiantly shouldn't be. It's just bejeweled right? They just took a classic puzzle game and tacked on some RPG elements and called it a game right? Absolutely not, PuzzleQuest, regardless of platform is an incredibly deep game that can keep you entertained for easily 20+ hours, and at only 15 dollars on the XBox live arcade it is in my opinion the first must buy game on the arcade.

What makes this game so good? Everyone loves Bejeweled right? Well, picture bejeweled wrapped in an incredibly deep RPG world. Simply speaking, the idea of the game is to save your people from an evil that is threatening to destroy them, typical RPG fair. Where this game excels is the creative way they have implemented bejeweled as the combat system. Basically, when a battle starts. a bejeweled board spawns on screen. You build up your different colored mana by matching gems of that color. You use the mana you've built up to cast spells that range from just damaging your opponent to destroying rows on the board. Another way in which you can damage your opponent is by matching 3 or more skulls on the board. The amount of damage you do will vary based on the how high your skill is in combat. I don't wanna bore you too much with all the details of exactly how the combat system in the game works, but just know that it works, and it works well. Here's a little video example of a Puzzlequest battle:

The non combat RPG elements of the game also work very well, although they aren't as fun as the actual combat. You basically are looking at a huge map with a bunch of cities where you have to go to receive quests and turn them in. As you progress farther into the game more parts of the map are available to you. You also siege cities, collect runes and have an abundance of side quests to keep you busy, all of this is done with, you guessed it, bejeweled battle.

Overall, besides the overall fun factor of the game, it's the simple overall pick up and play addictive game play that makes this game worth checking out, and now, if you own an Xbox 360 you have no excuse not to at least download the demo and give the game a chance. If you have a girlfriend, this may be just the game the game to get her into gaming, my ex was never a big gamer, but i put Puzzlequest in front of her and she played it for hours! So if you are still reading this, stop, and go play Puzzlequest!

HALO

Halo has really come a long way since its early days in development as an RTS game. The first time anyone gave any real thought towards the game was when Halo CE was released as a launch title for the Microsoft Xbox. I still remember how excited I was the first time me and my friends had our own LAN party. For the most part, people considered this a great multiplayer game, but greatly lacked the ability of online play. If you were one of the people that thought this, you were wrong! Halo CE had the ability of online play through a program called Xbox Connect (XBC). Although not many people knew about this feature, and the abundance of lag sometimes ruined the experience, it did however change the way the game was played. Because of XBC, the competitive spirit of Halo players around the nation slowly began to rise. The introduction of Major League Gaming (MLG) is what really set things off. I remember in those early days, one would have to sometimes bring their own television just to compete. As Halo became more popular in the competitive scene, so did MLG.



The release of Halo 2, was in my opinion, the landmark moment for the series. The ability of online play was introduced via xbox live. I had always assumed i was a great halo player, but my mindset immediately changed when my team had our first scrim against StK. Halo on xbox live is what really set apart the gamers, from the not so skilled 10 year olds, with the vocabulary of a retarted sailor. Though my team suffered an embarrassing loss to StK, it just meant i had to try harder. Halo 2 completely changed with the introduction of the BxR and the DoubleShot. These were basically glitches in the game which gave someone who had mastered these techniques, a huge advantage over their opponent. Halo 2 is what changed the top halo gamers into nothing short of celebrities.



Ah Halo 3! It seems like I've waited ages for you to arrive, and now that you're here, I'm not too pleased. Don't get me wrong, it's still a GREAT game, but it falls short of my expectations. As of right now, I don't see Halo 3 as a great competitive game such as its predecessors, but what it lacks in that department, it makes up for in other ways. This game takes the cake if you're looking to have instant fun with your friends on split screen, or on xbox live. The ability to edit maps (forge mode) has brought a whole new aspect to the game and really compliments the creative minds that are out there playing the game. Forge mode works very well with the ability to share custom gametypes via bungie.net. I recommend the game to anyone whether you're a fan of the past games or not. Halo 3 is a fairly easy game to just pick up and play, and i promise you will have fun.



So out of the Halo trilogy, which one is my favorite?
The answer is simple..
Halo 2, hands down.
I'm sure many people will disagree with me on this, some people saying Halo 2 takes no skill compared to Halo CE, and others saying Halo 3 has more stuff and better graphics. Well if you really think about it, Halo 2 is what brought most people into the game. I find myself even now taking Halo 3 out of my xbox and replacing it with Halo 2. My opinion is subject to change since Halo 3 is still in its early days. Who knows what the future holds for this game?

Rant #1: Skate vs Tony Hawk

For the past 10 years there has been one franchise that had an absolute strangle hold on the skateboard video game genre. What game am i speaking of? You guessed it, Tony hawk. From the day I bought the original Tony Hawk on the PS1 I was hooked. I've always wanted to skateboard but being a hockey player I felt it wasn't worth the risk, so i stayed away from it. So along comes this game where I can live out my dream of skating like the pros from the comfort of my own couch, count me in. Now about 9 years later Tony Hawk games are still being cranked out year after year, and they are still solid for the most part. Every year something new gets added, and it USUALLY does something to make the game better. For the past 9 years this has been fine with me and most of the video game community, a new game every year that's slightly tweaked but still fun to play. In comes a competitor, just another generic Tony Hawk rip off trying to take a little piece of Activision's pie, right? WRONG! Skate is breath of fresh air in this tired old genre that has been built off ridiculous combos and huge airs that no one could ever pull off in real life. My whole reason for getting into Tony Hawk games in the first place was because I wanted to skateboard in real life, and I thought Tony Hawk gave me that experience, but boy oh boy was i wrong.

So lets start off by comparing the games controls. I don't think I need to go into too much detail on here about Tony Hawks Controls since I'm sure that if you have read my rant this far you've played a Tony Hawk game before. I will briefly give an overview of the way Tony hawk works. To perform a trick you hit a button and move the stick in a direction to vary what trick you do when you hit that button. For example, Lets say you want to do a kick flip, all flip tricks would be mapped to lets say X on the controller so you would ollie and hit X and Left to perform your desired trick. Grinds and grabs work in the same manner. In skate, they completely rethought the way a skateboarding game should be played. All your flip tricks are done by moving the right stick in a certain manner. So, for a kick flip you would pull back on the right stick and push it forward and to the left slightly. Since its hard to describe exactly how skate works, why don't I show you. Now i ask you, which one sounds more fluid, more like really skating? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most of you will have said skate.

A major problem I have found with Tony Hawk that I never really felt before skate is the lack of realism. People in real life can't jump off roofs and land on power wires and grind them for 45 minutes while performing trick after trick mid grind. It just doesn't make sense. So EA took a look at this formula that Tony Hawk has and said flush it, we're going to make a skateboard game for skaters, one that really feels like skating. Well, they succeeded, granted the game is not completely realistic. However the fact of the matter is, what game is? In terms of capturing the over feel of skateboarding they have leaped ahead of Tony Hawk by miles. They have actually found a way to take a bunch of buttons and joysticks and make it feel like a little skateboard in your hands.

In terms of overall fun factor, for me, skate. wins. I love feeling like I'm really skateboarding. Its so satisfying to pull of tricks in the skate. that in Tony Hawk would just be commonplace and simple. Something as simple as lining up a nice grind can feel like you accomplished something. However, there may be people out there who would find skate. frustrating and would rather be pulling off crazy combos with the touch of a button, and for them I say stick with Tony Hawk because it works for you. However if you are looking for something a little more satisfying to play i recommend checking out skate.

Overall, in my opinion, without question i give skate. the edge. I'm not alone in my opinion either as Game Rankings has Tony Hawks Proving Grounds with a lower score that skate. THPG is listed at 79.9% average score while skate is at 86.8%. (both scores for the Xbox 360 versions) So, regardless of what game your feel is better, or how loyal you are to Tony Hawk, you NEED to check out skate, at the very least download the demo and give it a shot, because you may find yourself as hooked as you were the first time you played a Tony Hawk!

I would like to take this time to welcome Camden Boyd aka Cam B, former professional Halo 2 player, and my new co-author. He will be posting about halo, and what he feels is the best halo game of all time! Stay tuned right here for that because it promises to be a great read!

Welcome

Hello everyone, and welcome to my video game blog. I have made this blog mostly out of sheer boredom, but also because I love reading and writing about video games. Every week i listen to just about every good video game podcast out there such as 1up Yours, the Cagcast and Gamespot presents the Hot Spot just to name a few. I spend much of my free time playing video games and keeping up on the happenings of the video game world, so I figured why not start a little blog and get some of my thoughts and opinions out there to the world. I will do my best to keep this thing updated on a daily basis with some form of a new artical or a review of a game or something of that nature. So stay tuned and i hope you enjoy the ride!!!!