video games, motherfucker : games I played in the other half of 2010

PART TWO MOTHERFUCKERS! WOO WOOO!

Transfomers War For Cybertron is a game I picked up since I have this genetic disorder that I have to play atleast one not so good game every year.
Despite being a toy collector, I don't have any real fondness for Transformers, Beast Wars yeah, Transformers no.
Really, the reason why I picked this up was since it was the dead of summer and I needed something mindless to chew on until Q4 finally hits.
I don't really reccomend it to anyone, besides maybe hardcore transfags. The game is compitent but very bland shooter with incredibly same-y levels.
The thing that dissapointed me the most is that the Autobot and Decepticon campaigins are identical and there is no real difference betwen any of the characters from ether sides. You get the archtypes of Leader (Optimus, Megatron), the medium-armed guy, the medic and the scout. Also each campagin has one level where you play as flying transformers such as Starscream and Jetfire, but playing as them is forced in those.
But the thing is, the game isn't broken or awfuly designed, it just lacks imagination and actual spirit (kind of like the transformers toyline nowdays).
Also boss battles were horse shit.
6/10

Resonance Of Fate is a JRPG by Tri-Ace, published by SEGA. Now TriAce's last RPG, Star Ocean IV The Last Hope (or something, I forgot) was pretty shitty as I heard. But I picked Resonance Of Fate (AKA End Of Eternity in Japan) and was kind of pleased.
The setting was fairly interesting and kind of reminded me of The Big O (which I just had finished when I picked this up) in a way since it's about an isolated, sophisticated city sheltering people from an apocalyptic wasteland that nobody really knows how it became like that.
But that's about as far as I can tell you about the game's plot since I haven't gotten too far in the game.
But the designs are pretty decent since the people dress like actual people instead of bellends like in anything that Nomura gets his hands on.
The combat system is pretty interesting and reminds me of Valkyria Chronicles with lockon but in a Random encounter form.
If you want to wash your mouth out from the bland taste of FFXIII, I'd say this is the best console JRPG this year.
8/10
Alright, now we're getting serious, motherfuckers. DEAD RISING MOTHERFUCKING NUMBER TWO.
The last game that Keiji Inafune made for Capcom, which was a co-production with Blue Castle Games, makers of the MLB something-something series of baseball games which are supposed to be baller (if you like that sort of thing).
Now I love Capcom, and I know a person who loves it even more. But Capcom's sequels in the past few years were good, but not as good as their predecessors (see RE5, DMC4), and their outsourcement has resulted in some collosal failures (see Bionic Commando 2009 and Lost Planet 2), so Capcom is kind of degrading (see Keiji Inafune's statements), but DR2 and SFIV are evidence that not all hope is lost.
I didn't play Dead Rising 1 since I don't own an Xbox 360, and I didn't play the Wii version since I didn't want to catch poliosyphilis (a disease made by terrorist scientists, combining syphilis and poliomelytis).
Now, Dead Rising is an interesting experience, since it combined two of the otherwise most hated game elements of escort quests and time limits (missing only forced stealth and underwater for a tetrafecta of terrible), but it's implemented in a way that you begrudingly accept since it's a part of the construction that makes the game what it is, and without it there would be no point. Don't expect to be able to beat this game before atleast before a few resets when you get to level 20. Don't expect to be able to beat every sidequest AND the plot, ether.
As a dicking around simulator, it's fantastic, it feels just like Dawn Of The Dead, where you can go around do things in a mall you couldn't do every day, and find various interesting ways to murder zombies.
New to the table, there's the combination mechanic where you can combine two items in to weapons of death. There's obvious ones, like Bat + Nails or Bowie Knife + Broomstick, but there's also some creative ones, like Supersoaker + Gasoline, and some that only the most nerdiest would imagine, like Gem + Flashlight (which makes a lightsabre).
However, a lot of these weapons require scavenging, which takes time, which you don't have. Nailbats and other really common, yet effective combos will be your bread and butter for mowing down zombies, and if you're lucky, some sort of uncommon weapon you can stumble upon.
Also something that bounces between shit tier and WHOA SHIT would be the psychos. The psychos are living people who have went peanutbannanashitsandwich crazy and decided to kill both the living and the dead. My favorite psycho would be the one clearly based off of Chris Chan. I was like ''woah shit it can't be.... can it? OH MY GOD IT IS. ERNESTO, CHECK THIS MOTHERFUCKER GODDAMN! IT'S FREAKIN' CHRIS CHAN!''
''BRO, I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS AWESOME OR NOT! IT'S FUCKING EMOSAWA! (not a japanese word, but awesome spelled backwards, which means awesome, but at the same time not, invented by me).''
But the bullshit part about the psychos fights is that they're not the least bit fun. There is no strategy or tactic to defeating them. Instead you better just stock up on healing items, stock up on things to bludgeon them with and just tank them. Jesus fuck it's like a boss battle from the NES era or what being a tank in WoW is like, in my opinion.
So yeah, Dead Rising 2... There's a lot to love and a lot to hate. I suggest you pick it up, but I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get it. The game is very Japanese with it's design philosophies.
Also the game has co-op, but it's jump in jump out and the host is the only one having actual progress, the other player is also Chuck Greene but only gets money and exp. But you know what? I like it. For a game that's meant for dicking around, that's perfect. It's a lot like Saint's Row 2 co-op, which I think is groovypants, but not a miracle of game design.
I give it a 9/10 but you have to put it in perspective.

Casltevania Lords Of Shadow is a reboot by Mercury Steam.
Now take my perspective. I'm a Castlevania fan since Symphony Of The Night and I love Castleroids. So I awaited Lords Of Shadow with some fear, since it's not my cup of tea since it follows God Of War, which you might picked up on that I'm not really a huge fan of.
But judging this by it's own merits, it's actually a great action game. Not very original, but still a somewhat epic quest.
But it doesn't have that much actual familiarity or similarity in tone with other Castlevanias. Castlevania started out ever since the NES as a tribute to monster movies and the horror genre. in fact, the first game's credits have the entire development team credited under campy aliases referencing actual horror icons.
So my biggest complaint is the fact how the game takes everything very seriously, which is something I can't do with Castlevania. Altough it's kind of neat to hear Sir Patrick Stewart narrating everything dramaticly, I just flashback to Oblivion and am reminded why I don't like the more generic western fantasty fiction that much ether. Castlevania has always been a campy joke mixed with my favorite kind of 2D gameplay.
The lore of Castlevania is a joke, but the failure is that they fail to see it as such.
If you want a good god of war-like game with a pretty long duration then get it, but if you're a Castlevania fan, chances are you'll hate it.
Naruto Shipuuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is an anime game based off of the second part of Naruto, the manga all 12 year olds think is amazing. Now, I have a special place in my heart for Naruto, and I played the first Ultimate Ninja Storm, which I think was the best anime-based game this generation up until UNS2.
A thing I don't know I like about this game more than I liked in the first one would be the world. UNS had a completely open recreation of Konoha (the village/city that Naruto and his friends live in), and it was great because it had great freedom, letting you scale the highest buildings and it was just fun to dick around the rooftops. It was no inFamous or Assassin's Creed, but it was still very nice.
In UNS2, you see much more of the world of Naruto, taking you through several locales outside of Konoha, like The Land Of Wind where Gaara lives, several of Orochimaru's lairs and Amegakure, where the base of operations of Pain and the Akatsuki is located, which is groovy, but the world is mostly just barren corrdors with some collectables and you don't have the same freedom to your movements as the first game in the overworld.
The actual fighting is a lot like the first game, but it's not a rehash, since every returning character has new moves to reflect on their abilities at that point in the series (and original ones for characters with a not so wide list of known moves, like Asuma) and new models to show how they've changed (there are exceptions, like Kakashi and the other jounin, Jiraya, Tsunade and Orochimaru, and members of the Akatsuki present in the previous game).
But the gameplay is still pretty much a button masher, but hey, this is a game you're supposed to drink to and say things like ''hey, remember when Rock Lee fought Gaara?'' or ''remember when Naruto was good?'', not play competetively (something people on Gamefaqs fail to undestand).
The highlights of the game would be the chapter end boss battles against (mostly) the members of the Akatsuki, and these boss battles are standard fights by themselves but feature quick time event sequences that are in my opinion, some of the best QTE I've ever seen, and makes God Of War eat a dick. These sequences do much more justice to the fights than Studio Perriot could ever do with the anime.
The game covers from the beginning of Shipuuden to Naruto defeating Pain, and also has a small epilogue about Sasuke encountering Killer Bee.
This game was the game that reignited my love for Naruto and it's seriously one of the best anime-based games I've ever played, since they tried to make more than just another anime cash in, while still trying to keep it accessable to it's stupid core audience.
Now I'm really interested in CyberConnect2's next game, Asura's Wrath, which makes me think they secretly love me and want to tailor make a game that fits my tastes. (look up Asura's Wrath on youtube and you will have your mind and jaw scattered across the floor).
Also the story mode is pretty robust, clocking in at 30 hours to beat, and still having other things to do. If you want to buy DBZ Raging Blast 2 instead, I will call you a retard and remove your penis.
8.5/10
Vanquish. Okay so you might have read my other post on Vanquish but to be honest I was sleep deprived and slightly drunk when I wrote it. So let's try again.
Shinji Mikami's Vanquish is in my opnion the best single player experience I've had this year. More so, I think this game genuinely made me better at video games. It improved my reactions, aim and coordination. Most importantly, I beat this game in two sittings, which might be a record for me.
Now granted, the game is 6 hours long, which might be a dealbreaker for some people since they want a money to time exchange smaller than 10 dollars per hour (in which case, you should get the aformentioned Naruto or Castlevania). i wish this game was longer, but I also think that the 6 hours I spent were fantastic and I should probably play again.
So I dunno, I'm pretty sure I probably won't convince bros low on money to get it for a price above 20 quid, but for that price I really say you should play it, since it is fantastic. I mean, none of you bitch about the shortness of DLC, so...
The game's climax isn't as good as the rest of the game, though... but I dunno. I really want people to play it.
8.5/10, would be more if it was longer.
Fist Of The North Star Ken's Rage is a Dynasty Warriors spinoff by Koei Tecmo. It takes the cult classic manga and adapts it to an action game. And it's actually a pretty good match, altough Koei Tecmo isn't really a good developer by any means, and this game isn't really ether.
The game is a faithful adaptation of the manga and takes you across the stories of the more important Fist Of The North Star characters, in most cases up until their deaths.
Altough I wished they had incorporated some of the more expanded Hokuto No Ken universe. such as the Gaiden mangas about the other characters. It would have been pretty cool if Raoh had a story mode based off of his Gaiden, which is the most prominent piece of Fist Of The North Star's expanded universe, after Fist Of The Blue Sky, which is a whole other story.
The game isn't good, but it's not broken. I just played it since I'm a fan of the series and it was kind of cool seing a Fist Of The North Star game at this day and age outside of Japan, altough I'd personally prefer a PSN port of the fighter made by Arc System Works.
I don't really reccomend it to anyone, but it's not horrible.
6.8/10
Call of Duty Black Ops is the latest installment in the cash cow franchise by Activision. I bought it mostly since my cousin was coming over and I was pretty sure he wouldn't be interested in playing most of the games I have since he's a filthy uncultured swine.
But I also bought it since I wanted to play some Blops mutli. Now, whenever I buy a multiplayer game, I'll always look for the one with the largest community, so this one automatically became much more favored against Bad Company 2 and Medal Of Honor (lol). I'd prefer Halo Reach to this but sadly no Xbox 360.
I watched my cousin play the single player and I thought it was alright. I should probably finish it some day.
But really, the only reason why I'm weary about CoD is since it's money goes to Bobby Kotick, knows jack shit about actual games and development and only cares about maximum profit disregarding actual artistic value. (eat a dick, mark)
8/10
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (or Ass is Red Bro Hood, or AssBro) is the direct sequel to my 2009 game of the year, Assassin's Creed 2. Now, Assassin's Creed 2 blew away every single expectation I had about it and I fell in love with it. When I heard they're doing a direct sequel, as opposed to Mark, I was positive, since I was happy that I could find out what happens next to my dear friend Ezio.
And the game is even better than AC2. You have the gigantic city-state of Rome where you can jump around rooftops as much as you like. You have new gadgets made by Leonardo to fiddle with. You have more nigs to stab. You have more ways to stab nigs. There's even more variety and imagination in the missions and mission types. You can recruit subordinates who you can summon at any time to help you stab nigs. There's just so much stuff. Goddamn.
And in this case it's just as much Desmond's story as it is Ezio's.
I haven't beaten the game yet, but I damn sure will.
But I really do think the next game should not feature Ezio, atleast not prominently, since after this his story is truly over.
10/10
Gran Turismo 5 is the last game on my list, altough we still haven't touched up upon the DL games.
So I was anticipating GT5 pretty hard. Am I dissapointed? Meh.
Game is wast and expansive, but also very Japanese in terms of design philosophy (and driving games are where I don't want Japanese-ness). There are too many menus, and they could have been easly optimized and min-maxed in to a lot less button presses.
But the driving aspect itself isn't all too bad.
So the driving aspect itself is really good, but the game around it is not great. This is certainly not a bad game, but even more certainly not the titanic supergame to end all driving games.
Right now I think of Kazunori Yamauchi in the same way that I think of Peter Molyneux.
8/10, but dissapointing.

So these are all the disc based PS3 games I played this, year, I might also do another post on the downloadable games I played.