Its-a Comin'!

Alrighty then.  So, I've gotten off of my tuchas and started the Mass Effect review.  No word of a lie.  It is in progress.  I swear.  Next up will be another review coming...not sure if I'll give the treatment to Metal Gear Solid 4, Hunter The Recking: Wayward or if it will be something else entirely.  Maybe I'll do Darkstar One?  We'll see. 

Then after that I will - I promise - get onto finishing No More Heroes so that I can review it.

I swear on Buster's ashes.

Yeah. Right. About that.

Right, I just more or less ripped the design of Metal Gear Solid 4 a new one and haven't reviewed Mass Effect yet.

Okay, here's why:  The rippage of MGS4 was a blitzkrieg on crappy story telling (and seemingly unfocused).  This is because I can't give the game a fair review due to my biases against the style of storytelling...and the unnecessary amount of it.  I do not care for soap operas.  No, this is not a disclaimer; I may write an actual review of MGS 4.  You can like it or not.  But I think it's about time I lay my biases bare, because I will call out stupid components/mechanics of games when I see them.

And, just so you all know, I was finally able to grab a PS2 with FF X and XII.  Not expecting to necessarily enjoy X a lot, but XII looks extremely promising (and is the first FF I've been looking forward to since VII...and that was quite a disappointment to me).  I alos got Hunter The Reckoning: Wayward, so the trilogy is now complete.  Plus a few other goodies, including NOLF.  Don't know how the gameplay will turn out, but the dialogue's right out of Black Adder and Fawlty Towers, so at least the humour looks promising.

Being that I'm finding a little more time to do things in, I will hopefully have the ME review up in the coming weeks.  Need to beat the game again...I've kind of forgotten most of it other than that the series rips off Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space series (although the two sidestories have so far been better than the main trilogy).

Anyway, keep safe and see you all soon.

Big Update - Aug. 5th, 2011

Hey everyone, as the title suggest, this update is frickin' huge.

First things first:  the Beyond Good & Evil review is finally up.  It has been finished since the beginning of the month, but because of a major glitch that erased most of the reviews, I had to painstakingly restore the page review by review.  Now I really wish I had a newer computer.

Anyway, as the sign of the incompetent man-whore, Baldrick, says, GET IT HERE

Also, I didn't have time to brag about this, but I met Carrie Fisher (aka Princess frickin' Leia for the people who know Star Wars but not the real people that play the fictional characters) when I went to see her show "Wishful Drinking".  If you haven't seen it on HBO, TMN, whatever, you have to.  It's very, very funny.  Better yet, see it live and get front-row seating; she interacts with the audience, it's very cool and much better than the HBO representation.

There's a book, too.  To be honest, I haven't read any of Ms. Fisher's books, but at least one - Postcards From The Edge - has been made into a movie. 

So, what does this have to do with gaming?  Well...it's autograph #2.  And not on Lego Star Wars, but one of my favourite Star Wars games - and games in general - on the XBox, Star Wars: Battlefront II.  And she personalised it :D  I was also hoping to get my Star Wars Trilogy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back autographed, but to no avail.  Meh.  Well...not really "meh", it would have been cool, but she has better things to do than sign a million and a half things that everyone hands her.

So, here's the personalised autograph:

It's a crappy pic I know, so I'll tell ya what it says:  "For Nate.  Carrie Fisher". 

Next up, new review poll.  The title has changed, it's going to be based on the voting and writing time periods.  But the product is still the same, so there.

So, the List is almost done, then after that, a new editorial about game length and then if nothing else, the Metal Gear NES review.

So, until the next posting, take care, play some games and don't play in the street.  Unless you're playing street hockey.  If so, watch our for the braindead ex; the last thing the world needs is another dented up classic car.

Update, June 28th, 2011

Hi everyone!  Been awhile since an update.  I must admit, I got lost in Fallout: New Vegas.  Again. 

At any rate, the review for Doom, the last game that you guys voted for (well, one of you did and it won the tie-breaker) is completed.

Also, you will notice that you have to log in to Blogger to comment.  No worries, if you don't have a Blogger account, they're free. 

Back onto the reason for this update:  The Doom review.  It can be found here.

While my review may come across as biased (and it is, I hold Doom with the highest level of esteem because few games have ever raised the bar so high), my perspective is also different because I've made a few mods for the game as well, and I briefly mention that in the review.

If you've never played the game, you really should.  It's cheap, there's a crapload of quality user-made stuff for it and the multiplayer, as simple as it is, is frickin' amazing.

And of course, the source mods make what is old new again.

The ones I recommend are EDGE and ZDoom, and they're very easy to set up.  Pretty much, you dump it into the directory where your main game file is (a .wad, or WADfile) and then run the executable for the source mod.

The only source mod I would recommend you stay away from is Doom 95, aka WinDoom (it's the one that comes with Doom: Collector's Edition).  Mouse support is broken and I've had some major stability issues.

On that note, have a good weekend, everyone.  In case I don't add anything until later next month, happy Canada Day (July 1st) to my fellow Canucks and happy Independence Day (July 4th) to my neighbours to the south.

Bionic Commando Review Is Up

Hey guys,

The Bionic Commando (2009) review is up!  You can catch it here.

Enjoy!

New Review

Hey guys,

The Serious Sam 2 re-review is now finished.  Catch it here!

Next review that I'll be working on will be Bionic Commando for the XBox 360.  So, finally something a little modern, eh?

I'm also considering doctoring up all of my older reviews, including placing screenshots and anchors on the page for easier navigation.  What do you think, would you guys like to see that?  Maybe I'll even edit some of them, too, bring them up to the same quality as the new ones?  What would you guys think of that?

By the way, don't forget to vote on the next game to be reviewed.  A word to the wise, ignore Snake's Revenge.  It's guaranteed to be reviewed in a new type of review concept that I will be planning, called Series Reviews.  These will focus on games in a series, although not an entire series.  For instance, I'm planning on doing one for Ninja Gaiden on the XBox and XBox 360.  This will exclude Ninja Gaiden Black, Ninja Gaiden Sigma and Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma.  It will also be excluding the NES and arcade versions, as well as console ports of the arcade game.

The Series Review is an article, so it will not have its own page, but instead will show up on the main page.

If my own reviews are an indication of anything, these will be just as deep, so expect lengthy articles when these guys hit.

Update - May 11th, 2011

Hi everyone,

I think it's about time for an update.  This week has been pretty interesting.  I've been helping Russell Carey, the owner of The Real Life Gamer, edit his works.  Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. 

On top of that, I had to postpone the Winback reviewing first because my memory card fried and then I had to by a new N64 controller because the stick sensitivity was too reduced to play past this one point.  I got the new controller yesterday, and I got past the part I needed to with bells on.  First try at it.  Now I'm more than half-way through and I've killed 4 of the bosses so far. I think.  Meh.

I'm also about half-way through Serious Sam 2, so hopefully I'll even have a review up for it, too.

I'll be putting together another editorial soon, and I may be involved in a podcast about violence and gaming (as well as other media) with Russell and one other.  I guess I'll just have to see if I can find a mic. 

So, stay tuned, lots ahead.  And keep your controller in-hand.

Update May 15, 2011

Hey everyone,

As you all know, the next review that I'm putting up is Winback: Covert Operations for the Nintendo 64.  No, I'm not posting to remark on delays.  In fact, I'm almost done writing the review, so expect it up by Tuesday, if not before.

I'll also be putting together a new editorial on the topic of video games as an art form, and I'm hoping that Russell over at The Real Life Gamer and I can get that podcast on media censorship done soon.  When it's done, it'll be available over at his webpage.

Keep your eyes peeled and controllers in-hand.

Review Poll Results

Hey guys, I hope you've been having a great weekend!  The review poll closed last night, and I had to resort to a coin toss between Diablo and Winback: Covert Operations.  The result is...Winback is the winner.

Winback: Covert Operations was originally released for the Nintendo 64 by Koei, and would later be re-released for the PS2.  The review will be based on the N64 version.  It's a stealth-action game that's somewhat similar to Metal Gear Solid in that it's a 3D stealth-action game.  The similarities pretty much end there.  However, it was as close to a 3rd-person stealth game as one would get on the N64 other than Mission Impossible.  There is also a sequel, subtitled Project Poseidon for the PS2 and XBox.  Both titles are published by Koei the first was designed by Omega Force, the team behind the (in)famous Warriors franchise as well as Crimson Sea.  The other was designed by Cavia, Inc. who has developed titles based off of many anime series such as Naruto, Dragonball Z and even Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex. 

Omega Force is still developing Warriors games, the latest being Dynasty Warriors 7 with Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 under way.

Cavia went under in 2010 after finishing the development of the critically panned Nier which they developed for publisher Sqaure Enix.  They were absorbed into AQ.

Winback was fairly well received for both the N64 and PS2 versions by most major reviewers.  The sequel was not.

Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth Review Is Up!!

Here I am, at the end of the month.  I have finished Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth and its review.  It can be found on the new Thrown Controllers review page, found here.  Or you could just click the tab at the top of the page, but I'd rather save you the time.

This new page is the one that I will be posting all new reviews to, especially since the review template that I created is exclusively for Thrown Controllers.  It will not be used in any of my other endeavours.  The page simply labeled "Reviews" is, now and forever, only an archive.

Review In Progress

I've started writing the Call of the Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth review.  I finished it on the 360 and I'm about 85% of the way through it on the XBox.

Expect the review to be up in a few days.  It's about 1/3 done, and I hope to start editing tomorrow.  I will post as soon as it's done and link you all to it.

Call of Cthulu Update

I have finished the game on the 360.  Luckily, the issues I was previously dealing with were cured with a simple cache purge.  I'm now migrating it to the XBox so that I can do a proper comparison of the emulation against the real deal.

As far as the game goes...it's definitely longer than five hours if you've never played it before.  Much.  I'll let you all know when I've finished the XBox playthrough and started writing the review.

Delays

For any of you who have read the comments on the previous post, I mentioned that I'm having trouble reviewing Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

The reason for this is because I chose to test it out on the XBox 360 first to see how well it was emulated (being that Morrowind and both Halo titles are an absolute wash).  Because of a glitch in the game engine, I'm stuck on a puzzle indefinitely about half to two thirds of the way through the game.

I'm going to test this out again tonight by starting with a cache wipe and reinstalling the emulator.  If it still fails, I'll be moving over to the XBox and counting the emulation as a wash.  This will not affect the score as I know for a fact that the game is playable beyond this point.  On my first playthrough about 5 years ago, I got about 90% of the way through the game.  You'll find out why I stopped when you read the review.

If the emulation is found to be faulty, I'll be taking a break from the game until next week because I'm itching to play something that isn't a first-person shooter.

Review Template Ready To Rock and Roll

Okay, so I'll be starting Call of Cthulu a little sooner than anticipated.  I made my review template today; it only took about 10 minutes.  No joke.

That said, I've also been mulling over how I'll be dealing with tie-breakers if any of the future review polls end in a tie.

So far, I've come up with this solution:  Dice roll or coin toss, depending on how many or few.  To help with this, I've got a dice set for Dungeons and Dragons that should help things along.

I mean, its either that or I do a short poll to follow up.  What do you guys think?

Blog News

Originally, this was a post about my amateur reviews being posted to the Reviews page.  To be honest, I'm not sure if that's newsworthy.  However, what might be is that I'm ready to write another review, but I'd like to give you, my readers, the opportunity to pick it. 

You can find the poll on the right-hand side, just below my Followers, and I've listed a few titles across different platforms for you to pick from.

The deadline is March 31st at 11:59 PM.