Thursday, January 29, 2009

Stress Relief

Now I'm in a slipknot mood again. I feel like reviewing something bad. But if I reviewed something bad that I expected to be bad, that would be zetta dull, so I think I'll review something I expected to like instead.

Now, what would I want to like that I would hate? The album Strictly Diesel, by Spineshank. Now, I have a long history with Spineshank, which is why I just downloaded this album a month ago even though it came out in 1998. The first Spineshank song I ever heard was Consumed (Obsessive Compulsive), which I absolutely positively liked, but pretty much everything else Spineshank had no appeal to me. Why? because back then, I was a metalcorist, not a metalhead. Which didn't make sense to 98% of you. In short, not all of the members of Spineshank liked Spineshank's sound during the writing of Self-Destructive pattern, so they band members kept getting into fights and vocalist Jonny Santos left to form a metalcore band named Silent Civilian, so back when I thought metalcore was the greatest thing ever, Silent Civilian was my favorite band. But then, I became much less outgoing, which is apparently a character trait of metalheads. Once I realized that this change in musical taste had occurred, I decided to give Spineshank another go. The Height of Callousness was such a zetta good album that I spit on Raam for being a factoring hectopascal passing up an opportunity to buy it for a mere $5.

And then I decided to buy Strictly Diesel. Spineshank's first album, I didn't see how the peoples behind The Height of Callousness could make a bad album. The answer is because they had no idea what they should sound like at the time and ended up like the Beatles if they were metal. Don't believe me? They covered While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Now, I'm a big fan of Santos' singing, so I have no idea how he managed to be so crappy in Strictly Diesel. He hardly sounds like he's singing; I'd describe it more of as humming while talking and muttering to yourself than actual singing. Don't get me wrong, when he's actual being loud and out there, he sounds good, but still not nearly as good as he did on his other albums.

Which pretty much sums up the entire album. The better songs sound a bit like the Spineshank I know, and the other songs sound like the previously mentioned Beatles-metal. The guitar riffs aren't much to speak of, although Spineshank fanboys won;t mind speaking about them when they sound more like that actually good band. Let's be honest; Spineshank was trying to find their sound here. Why anyone decided to publish this experimental album is beyond me.

I was about to, at the very least, commend the lyrics, but then I remembered that this album has the worst lyrics of all three Spineshank albums. The lyrics are certainly above average, but see if I care! At least they didn't say, "Come eat some chemicals with me," a single time. Also, their cover of While my Guitar Gently weeps is the best song on the album.

Overall? This album is garbage! CRUNCH! I'll add it to the heap! And then pour diesel on the heap! And throw a lit match at it! And Laugh! Maniacally! And then I'll listen to New Disease and Smothered and Synthetic and Consumed and every Spineshank song not on Strictly Diesel! Because Strictly Diesel sucks! Beyond normal suck! If you see it in the store, pretend you didn't, because Spineshank cannot write an album this bad, so the mere fact that you saw it is proof that you're crazy. This is obviously an attempt by aliens to convince us that Spineshank is a bad band for some sinister reason. Bad! Bad! Bad!

But yes, still better than Fallout Boy.

Not really, at least Fallout Boy has This Ain't a Scene.

CD REVIEW, DR. ACULA



hello faithfull readers. well i was talking to this one guy who reads our blog and he said i should try my hand at review music (not quite in those words). so the other day sho and i were hanging out around hot topic and he pointed out a band called dr. acula. we laughed at how utterly stupid the name was, but later that night i looked them up on itunes, and i was impressed. so its REVIEW TIME. THIS WEEK ITS...




now it took me a wile to figure out its a joke title, dr. acula minus the. you figure it out...................... ITS DRACULA OK!? besides that, they only have one cd out, entitled "below me" but the wierdness actually starts with the names of the songs, monster blood, go eat worms, say cheese and die....... well if you could not also guess the songs are named after goosebump books, a popular childrens series writen by R.L stein. that out of the way, the music is pretty cool. i happen to like a wide range of music, rock, punk, folk, metal and even some rap. dr. acula is safley labled under black metal (according to itunes) but does not take its self to seriously, no black make up or thrashing hair, no this is more of a mosh-pit style metal. I myself HATE songs about some whinney bitch who cant understand why women dont like their robert smith doll. but i do like screamo punk/metal bands who know how rediculous they sound. for example, HORSE the band, an indie punk group who uses nintendo music to add to thier songs, writes about mega man, mario, and the powerglove (its so bad) and even have some funny lyrics, like from there song "face the bear" " dont feed the bear or the bear will feed on you!"......epics!


now for most people, black metal is not your thing. but if your into bands like the haunted, pig destroyer and underoath and just need something to fuel your beer fueled rage, its prettey damn sick.


so i give it a some what generous 8.5 calling all creeps out of 10.


and thy judgement is: listen to some of there songs on youtube and decide for yourself if its for you. than try buying one song of itunes and see what you think.


till next time. and " party your f***ing earlobes off!" yeah those are the lyrics. maybe their next cd will be better.




still better than fallout boy.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

SILENT HILL HOMECOMMING REVIEW (and its not a game agame about going to prom. thats scary enough)

yes, well as we all know bioshock is ZETTA (?) cool, its just a blatent clone of system shock 2. which would totally be a rip-off if the same guy, ken lavine, did not make both of them. which brings me to my next point, can you sue yourself? i tried it and lost. were was i going with this? oh yes its REVIEW TIME!!!!!!. this week its....

and its pretty hella (thats my zetta) scary. im talking linsey loham/skellator scary, but pretty damn stupid. silent hill 3 was my favorite because you have no clue whats going on. it just throws you into the action and says "hey, you figure it out". its told real well and the charecters are so deep, a well would have a hard time figureing them out. also it scared the piss out of me. that said, silent hill 1 was cool, 2 was excellent, 3 my favorite, there is no 4 ( since the real 4 was awful and wasent even a silent hill game ) and now 5. the controlles are good, the graphics are, meh, but heres the real problem, it does not fell like a silent hill game. it feels like some sub. plot horror movie with the silent hill name slapped on. oh well its kind of well written, but somwhat disturbing, and not in a scary way. in silent hill 1-4, i mean 1-3 the scariness came from the characters one personal psyche, for instance in SH 3 the dog enamys repressented the protagonists fear of dogs, now, what i can collect, the main characters little brother has double D breasts, a split up face, a bad lung and is a banana. its like the developers just wanted to make a scary game and just happend to have the silent hill licence. a lot of people complained about the female side character in it but honestly, you had a female side kick in SH2 and you were a girl in SH3, and may i remind you of ashley williams of RE4. i f-ing hated her. but what really is on the flip side of cool is the elements they took from the movie (a.k.a the wall paper thing).

thats not good game design, thats b*******. sorry movie games piss me off. especially when they use crap from the movie in a game.so is it good? yes. i have only beat it once but i thought it was pretty good for an american horror game (not counting dead space) i just wished they had used the licence better. but its atmospheric to keep you entertained until i can get my game published called " the adventures of whiney prick and linsey loham" aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhh!

so i here by give it 8 huge breasted nurses with messed up faces out of 10.

and thy judgment is:.....RENT IT

so long readers, im just going to keep hiding under my bed so linsey loham will not find and eat me.

Would you kindly read this blog post?

I will enjoy being Sheva as much as I enjoyed being Zoey in left 4 dead, so not at all. But I probably won't have much choice anyways, which I find to be zetta depressing. Way to ruin my mood! Normally, I wake up in a Slipknot mood, but today, I woke up in a Three Days Grace mood. In other words, I was zetta happy. Although a Slipknot mood doesn't include being zetta depressed, so I'd call this more of a Paramore mood. And it's all your fault.

But regardless, my Three Days Grace mood made me decide to review something awesome, but since I haven't come across anything awesome recently, I'll just have to do classic review. Classic as in 2007, but I'd call this game an instant classic by necessity of its great reviews; they were better than Halo 3's reviews. So why is Halo 3 still more popular? Zetta fail, you tasteless tetrahedra!
Bioshock was the first game I ever played that grew on me. The title screen was boring, but after watching the opening cinematic, I was already in love. Before I knew the joys of a villain who says zetta a lot of times, Andrew Ryan was the most zetta epic villain I had ever witnessed. And if he's not your style, the other villains will provide plenty of awesome to the story. The overall atmosphere is the greatest I have ever seen in a video game, making the play both scared and curious of the city of Rapture. The writing itself is so good that you'll be saying "kindly" instead of "please" for three months cause that's how long it'll take you to get fed up with everyone making fun of you for talking like that.

While the atmosphere is great, the gameplay wasn't left out of the developer's minds. In addition to standard first person shooter, mechanics, the player also gets plasmids that give Bioshock some RPG elements. Some plasmids are passive effects, although they still have an impact on the combat, while others have to be activated. The ones that do have to be activated are quite innovative. The plasmids allow to make use of the environment, whether that means electrocuting the water your opponent's stand in or lighting the spilled oil on fire. You also get a plasmid that allows you to swarm your opponents with bees, something I consider to be the best power up EVER!

Bioshock also has a multitude of small adjustments to the traditional first person shooter formula that work quite well. Using your research camera to gain an edge against certain enemies adds to the ROG-like character progression, and the different ammo types add in some extra strategy to the mix. Upgrading weapons is a good concept, but I didn't like that their were enough upgrade stations to get every upgrade. It also throws off the weapon balance quite a bit when my shotgun can shoot as fast as my pistol, than you very much.

But not everything about Bioshock is good. The vita chambers, which resurrect you at no penalty whenever you die, ensure that the game isn't challenging in the least. The developers also seemed to forget that the game had two halves. The storyline pretty much falls short after you visit Andrew Ryan's office, with a considerable drop in the quality of the dialogue up until the ending. The gameplay also drops at a certain point by even further removing any semblance of difficulty. In the beginning of the game, I would go: "I'm low on ammo, but I have a lot of eve tonics, so I'll use a few extra plasmids in the next encounter." In the second half of the game, I would go: "I can't carry anymore shotgun ammo, so I better use the shotgun." I liked not having very many resources to use, but the developers threw that all away. It's not that the game gets repetitive; I still had just as much zetta fun with the earlier levels on my second playthrough as i did on my first playthrough. The second half of the game simply isn't as zetta awesome as the first half.

Even worse, as you sl0wly unlock slots for your plasmids, you probably won't feel like all 24 slots are being used. Furthermore, I pretty much managed to use my wrench for everyone encounter simply because the passive plasmids made it that powerful through a little bit of thoughtful character building. Sure, it's still a fun game using my wrench all too often, but i feel that, just by adding more content, 2k Games could've made Bioshock more than the best game ever.

Overall? Buy this game! Incompletes will be destroyed! Despite the boringish second half, Bioshock is still the best game I ever played. You can light enemies on fire and shoot heat seaking missiles at them. It's funner than Halo 3. Andrew Ryan is the main villain. Give me one reason not to like it. You could say difficulty, but vita chambers can be turned off, which makes the game harder than Contra. So, you see, Bioshock has appeal to everyone but the moderates.

Monday, January 26, 2009

you's just in time for da firework show. BOOM!


hello peoples (and people who know who Adam Gontier is) (And if you don't look him up on wikipedia -Sho) i have downloaded and played the demo for resident evil 5. all in under 4 minutes. yeah, its pretty damned short for the most anticepated game of 2009. but i digress, it had a warning at the beginning warning us about the gore blood and worst of all bugs (which i did not encounter many of) but at least they had the manners to thank us for playing. I heart capcom. for the most part it was good. the controlles are very good, the graphics are amazingtastic (i made that word up) and the side character, sheva, is really well written. now for the bad parts, the game developers must have taken a trip to diverse land. diverse land were children of all colour come to hold hands in a rainbow of unicorn crap and friendship. but sadley diverse land was nuked by reality world, thier rivals. in short your killing zombies of all colours, but soon they will all be the same colour, red. from blood. and its annoying. also it does not feel like a horror game, its an action game, with zombies. so all in all in all (?) it was good, not scary, but good. i have not played co-op yet, but im sure sho will enjoy being sheva.




















my grammer teacher is terrible by the way. or its just me.


the scars... they hurt

Well, some of us would rather feel like we're the GM in some sort of game that you play after you die to see whether or not you're worthy of ascending to a higher plane than feel like we're in the zombie apocalypse. Also, Valve can't be the one true god because it's run by more than one person, so ha! I win! Adam Gontier is the one true god! Moving on...

Attention all yoctograms! System of a down is not breaking up, they're just going on hiatus while the members all start different projects. Now that I've said that, it's X 2 review the Scars on Broadway album, titled Scars on Broadway. I don't think it's wrong for bands to name their first album after their band, Adam Gontier did the exact same thing. But that's exactly it; it's not original anymore.

So, as hinted at by the title of this post, I had some zetta deep scars after listening to this album. They all came from exactly one source: The lyrics. They zetta suck. Their's really no other way to put it. I took Chemicals off my iPod because I could not tolerate its lyrics. The sad thing is, Chemicals was actually one of the better songs on this album. If Daron had just gone, "la la la la la la" instead of saying, "Come eat some chemicals with me," it would've been tolerable. But whenever Daron starts talking about drugs, I cringe in fear of the zetta fail that is his lyrics. Most of the other lyrics aren't as bad, but the first few times you hear some of these songs... I don't expect the lyrics of every song to be this good, but they could've tried a little harder. Considering the band is made of more than one member, I find it hard to believe that the band members were rehearsing and NONE OF THEM said, "These lyrics kinda sorta totally completely suck." I suppose you could argue that System of a Down didn't have the best lyrics ever, but it somewhat fits with Serj's high-pitched voice. Which brings me to my next point.

I've always wondered how hard it is for a guitarist to match his sound with that of the singer, and Scars on Broadway answered loud and clear. The answer is, "It's very hard, Sho, especially when you're singer's voice is as high-pitched as Serj's voice is." You can tell that Scars on Broadway has the same guitarist as System of a Down, for Daron sticks to his guitar style, but, at the same time, he's using a different sound while in Scars on Broadway. Scars on Broadway sounds less punk than System of a Down did; every note seems to fall in line perfectly rather than creating a barrage of notes that amounts to something cool.

If I were to guess, I'd say that this is an off album for Scars on Broadway. It may seem like madness to say that about a band with only one album, but listen to They Say and then listen to the rest of the album! I've always held the opinion that a band's hit singles are a better sign of their talent than their albums, so it is my opinion that their future albums will be better. It is, after all, a new band, so who knows what kind of trouble they've gotta sort out? Desite this, the album still has singles beyond They Say that are more than worth the money. World Long Gone and Serious are good enough songs that the album definetely is not a waste of $10.

Overall? Its zetta okay! It would've been zetta good if the lyrics didn't zetta suck, but I'm not some factoring hectopascal who gives an album five stars for being average, kinda like all the tasteless tetrahedra who review albums on iTunes. I suppose if you have a more flexible sense of humor than me, you'll find the lyrics on this album to be humorous, in which case you'd have to be zetta crazy to pass this album up, but otherwise, approach this album with caution. Still haven't downloaded that one album by your seventh favorite band? Get that instead.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

i eet cho brainz

first of all left 4 dead is quite excellent compared to overated shooters like bioshock, resistance and barbies horse adventure. mainly because it actullaly makes you feel like your in a zombie film. most notably 28 days later. and second of all, i want someone, anyone, to name me a first person shooter that actually imerses you into a zombie holocaust. (not counting dead rising or the crap fest known as land of the dead). the flaws sho pointed out are nearly triveal, in real life zombies dont pick up guns and shoot, no they sworm and use there power in numbers. and. yes i do admit the weapon selection sucks, but valve (the one true god) have said they will release new downloadeble content for more characters, new weapons, new enemy type and a new capture the flag. so no its not perfect, but its not trying to be. and sho has no room to talk because he could not even beat it on the 2nd hardest setting. you want a real crap game, lets talk rise of the argonauts.


p.s: i dont think those three games i listed are stupid and overated, barbies horse adventure was kinda fun

I really need to review more bad games

Only reviewing good games would be zetta dull!I present to thee the first negative review... a review of left 4 dead!

Some of you are probably outraged by that statement, seeing as left 4 dead has gotten good reviews. Well, I've got some news for you! Attention all tasteless tetrahedra! Left 4 dead sucks! Just look at that title! When I first saw it, my first thought was, "Were the first three left for dead games good?" But this is the first left 4 dead game! They put a number in the title of the first game! They're trying to mislead you about whether or not this is the first game in the series, just like how they're trying to mislead you about whether or not this is a good game by mind controlling the reviewers, which is no surprise since it's for the conformist box 360!

The point of left 4 dead was to make co-op much more interesting than it is in other games. I already had my doubts about the quality of the game at that time, but I decided to let Raam talk me into playing it anyways. Why? Because it's by valve, the zetta esteemed creators of portal. If they can make a game as well-crafted as portal, then they should be able to make good co-op.

Valve was on the right track. Many enemies have the ability to pin you or strangle you, and only your allies can do anything about it. So you'd think that this would lead to fun co-op, but it doesn't. In short, left 4 dead suffers from the most severe case of bioshock syndrome* I have ever seen. If insomniac games had worked with valve on left 4 dead, we might've had a pretty zetta good game here, but we don't. The weapon selection is dull, the enemy types are repetitive (unless you've been living in the doom era for the past three years), and despite the game's claims to be varied, it simply isn't. As the previously hinted at resistance 2 has shown us, good co-op will never suffer from bioshock syndrome.* As it is, pretty much everyone will pick up a med pack when they see one, the lack of any prolific differences between weapons means everyone will have the same role in combat, and the lack of variety in enemies means that's okay.

The saddest part is that the game gives you enough variety to show you what it could've been if it added in more content. When you or an ally gets pinned by an enemy, or when a boomer sicks the horde on you, that's at least slightly entertaining. But when that's not happening, everything falls short of average. Because of this, the higher difficulties do make the game funner, but not by enough for me to care.

Overall? It zetta sucks! Don't buy it! I hear the expansion pack will add more content, so Raam will probably talk me into seeing if that saves the game, but seriously, it sucks! If you want good co-op, go play resistance 2, or even resistanceL fall of man, that had pretty good co-op. Don't waste moneyz on left 4 dead. You only like it because the reviewers have used their voodoo conformism magic on you! Resist it! Resist it, you hectopascal!

*When a game is a good idea but is held back by an overall lack of content.

first post

Hey interweb. Say, have any of you played that new game super Mario bros? That game is to pwnz all. And that game pong, amazingly off the chain. Expect to hear more from me seeing as I have a life like a nintendo fanboy has a copy of halo. As in I don't have one.*








*a life or a copy of halo

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Rock Band 2 versus Guitar Hero: World Tour

Well, as someone who owns both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour, I figure I may tell those of you who didn't see World Tour at the store for $10 more than a guitar controller WITH a said guitar controller. I recommend looking at the track lists carefully first, but their are still some reasons beyond which game has your favorite songs to choose one over the other.

The pitfall I made on the track lists was to choose quantity over quality; hence why I said to look at the track lists carefully instead of recklessly or some other antonym of carefully. In my opinion, World Tour has a handful of zetta great songs while Rock Band 2 has a collection of zetta okay songs. I've heard some people say that Rock Band 2 has the better track list because it has more, but their's really more to it than that.

After comparing the two guitar controllers, the World Tour controller felt much smoother than the Rock Band 2 controller, but that may be because I started my music game adventures with the Guitar Hero 3 controller, which is pretty similar to the controller from World Tour. The slider bar, while hard to use at first, was quite fun, even if I could do better just using the normal frets. If you're looking to challenge yourself because through the fire and the flames stopped being hard on expert, getting used to the slider bar should occupy you until you realize you now have three instruments.

I didn't get a chance to try out the World Tour drums (I'll probably make a post on that later), but the Rock Band fill system is inconvenient enough that World Tour's solution is enough for me to say they're better. My main complaint with the fill system are that I would often wait until it was just the green note to play, hit just one note, and activate star power but still loose my score multiplier. Madness, I tell you! Factoring zetta madness! Its probably a glitch, but something so zetta heinous shouldn't be put in a sequel to a commercially successful game. Furthermore, I like choosing when I go into star power.overdrive, and I don't want notes devoured so I can have that choice taken away from me.

The singing on World Tour was a bit iffy. Even on easy mode, the game was very unforgiving and didn't tolerate mistakes. I'm not the best singer in the world, but I'd like to think I can play on easy mode without failing out as soon as physically possible because the game mistoook me for Frank Sinatra. The game said I had to hit the microphone to activate star power, so I did... 17 times. I'm not a fan of Rock Band 2's overdrive system for singing, but at least it functions properly.

As far as co-op goes, World Tour wins the day. In Rock Band 2, if someone's doing bad, you can activate overdrive. If you're playing guitar, otherwise you have to wait for the game to let you do that. And if you don't everyone fails out. But in World Tour, you all share the same meter. Activating star power is now more accessible for everyone but singers (see above), so saving the entire band is now more feasible. You all share the same star power meter, so you have star power much more often.

I'm going to talk briefly about World Tour's studio mode: Factoring useless! Okay, never mind, this isn't going to be brief. The few songs I've downloaded aren't very good, and it's not because of the musicians behind the songs, but the studio mode just sucks that much. While someone level editors suffer from being too complex, World Tour suffers from the exact opposite. Oh, sure, you'll have some trouble learning the basics, but after that, everything's fine. Except the studio mode isn't powerful enough for you to do anything. Try recreating some of the songs you saw in the gamer. I dare you. It's zetta impossible! Seriously, what the factor? This thing is so digity I can't believe my complaint was that it convinces peoiple they are more talented than they are really are prior to the game's release. Just pick up a real guitar, at least you can switch though chords and individual notes freely. Plus, its pretty much impossible to make a song in real time, as the game demands the kind of precision it doesn't in the actual game! This was most obvious on drums, when it was common to do two or more notes at once.

Overall, I had more fun with World Tour, but, as I said before, look at the track lists first. You should also consider your personal interests; World Tour is better for hardcore gamers, while Rock Band 2 is better for casual gamers. Don't rush to a decision, their's multiple factors to coonsider.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

WMD-Words of mass diffusion

Congrats to Obama, you finally got inaugurated! My only question is, if Bush is out of office, can I still pronounce "nuclear" "nukular"? Cause if I can't, I have no idea how the factor I'm going to break that habit. Well, even if I can't, it was fun parodying your speaking abilities, dubya. And now we've actually got a good president, so their probably won't be anything to make fun of. Zetta boring! And you could say, "What about flag pins?" And I'd say, "Their is only so far I will go with my insults. The boundaries are determined by logic and morality." Seriously, leave Obama alone about such frivolous things.

So yeah, that's basically it.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

more crappy sequels

Resistance: Fall of Man is definitely one of my top ten favorite video games ever. The game is so zetta awesome that it alone makes me wonder why I'm the only person on this planet with a ps3. It combined innovative weapons with innovative enemies and somewhat innovative gameplay to create a truly epic experience. The only flaws I can think of are in the level design, so if insomniac games just made a new campaign with even more zetta cool weapons, I'd have been happy.

But no one ever listens to me or my friends who liked resistance: fall of man, or the reviewers, and, as such, resistance 2 suffers from unnecessary changes that detract from the fun of the game. Now, I don't mean to say all the changes are bad. The changes to the co-op are good, although I would've preferred that they keep the traditional co-op alongside their new class-based co-op. But the single player campaign falls short of my expectations.

I don't mean to sound like a fanboy who complains whenever the developers change the gameplay, but insomniac games really should've left the gameplay alone. Yeah, I support trying new things, and that's why the gameplay ticks me off. Every gameplay change in resistance 2 is present in basically every first person shooter on the market. I'm not going to complain as much about the level design changes, as they are trying new things there, even if they aren't fun.

The game started off on a strong note by giving me the magnum, a pistol with bullets that act as remote-detonated mines. I knew insomniac games was good at making innovative weapons after I saw the auger, but a pistol that shoots remote-detonated mines? I'm afraid my head will asplode from the sheer zetta awesomeness!

But my head didn't asplode, and it was actually a bad thing. Why? the reason my head didn't asplode was because I soon discovered that the disturbing facts I read on wikipedia are true. I now regenerate my whole health instead of just a fourth of it at a time and I can only carry two weapons. Now, these zetta awful gameplay changes are present in a lot of other fps games, so I should probably explain why I'm against them, especially in the context of resistance 2.

Why is it bad that you can only carry two weapons? Because part of the fun of resistance: fall of man is trying to figure out the best possible way to get past an encounter. This generally means experimenting and strategizing with your various weapons. Now, the best solution is given away because its the only solution since its the only weapon you have. Furthermore, if the weapons are so zetta cool that using them makes the game zetta funner, it's really stupid and obnoxious to take the weapons away from me. Perhaps this is good for multiplayer, but I don't like multiplayer. And besides, if the developers want to be serious about both, then they should compromise and adjust the difficulty for the different modes.

As for fractional health regeneration, that was one of my favorite parts of resistance: fall of man. Previously, all first person shooters would make a survival element where you could only restore health through health packs, which is good for single player, or your health would regenerate, which is good for skill-based multiplayer. Resistance: fall of man left multiplayer alone, but the change to single player helped. Now, their was finally a combination of survival and skill. I don't see why a developer would get rid of such an ingenious feature, especially if they're going to add in more serious bosses that would complement this feature.

Which brings me to the next point: the bosses. The only thing I would actually call a boss in resistance: fall of man is the goliath. Everything else, from angels to titans, appeared more than once, often with help. In resistance 2, bosses are now a more formal thing. You face each boss once, and they are mostly alone, although it makes sense when they are not alone. If you asked me, it was a poor choice to shackle the bosses to a single encounter. Facing the bosses when they're not alone was a high point of resistance: fall of man. However, the bosses were pretty much designed so that they couldn't be fought while with help, which is where they zetta fail. The only fun boss was the marauder, and that would not have been out of place in resistance: fall of man. I've heard some reviewers talk about the spectacle of the boss, and I won't argue with them, I will simply point out that the bosses fail as gameplay elements. What am I saying? I'd buy a resistance 2 actions movie for the bosses, but I wouldn't buy a resistance 2 game for the bosses. Most of them involve doing basic things that make doom like the most sophisticated shooter on the market. For instance, at one point, a boss would pick me up, temporarily taking control from me. When I had control, the boss's head took up about 80% of the screen, and I was now tasked with shooting the boss with the LAARK. To make this even easier, your gun starts pointed at the boss's head. Zetta easy. Too zetta easy.

And then I go to the point of atmosphere. Resistance: fall of man was atmospheric enough that its atmosphere could be made worse by a half-baked sequel. First off, the graphics. I don't think the quality of the graphics is important, but the style is. If you ask me: "Which had better graphics, contra 3 or contra 4?" I will say, "Neither." because they both had the same style. Look, Insomniac games, I know you made spyro, but this is a different game. Hire a different artist. It probably isn't the same artist, but you couldn't tell from the graphics. Even the interior of the evil chimera spaceships look brighter and happier, like I'm supposed to want to live there or something.

Then the storyline. In resistance: fall of man, I didn't know why the chimera wanted to kill the humans. Why did they? They must just be bloodthirsty evil creatures. Here's a neat tip for those of you writing video game storylines: if your backstory is lame and cliche, don't share it. Leave it a mystery so it can add to the atmosphere. Did you know that the chimera are bloodthirsty misanthropes who want to become a super race? I cried. I really did. And that villain daedalus- What the factor? He's an angel with a human's head on top; he looks kinda silly.

However, the co-op was zetta awesome. Their are three different classes with different roles that make for some pretty fun times. My favorite class was a medic, so resistance 2 also gets props for making ME want to be a healer, a role I usually avoid.

Overall? It's zetta good! Okay single player combined with great co-op averages out to zetta good. I suppose if you're obsessed with halo, you'll probably like it more than me, and I hear the multiplayer's pretty good, but how would I know? If you've got some friends and want someone to play with instead of against, I recommend buying resistance 2 just for the co-op, but if not, you won't regret buying it just for the single player campaign. Besides, the co-op's fine online, so you won't be left out.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Sonny 2 is not so zetta sunny

Before I played the original Sonny, if you asked me: "Is it possible for a flash game to be zetta great?', I would've said, "No, flash games can be no better than zetta good." But, not only is sonny the second best rpg I have ever played, it is zetta great. However, sonny had some problems, and also some strengths that Krin could've done a better job of capitalizing on. Sure, its a low budget flash game, but if they're going to make a sequel, they better change the game to fix at least one of these problems.

The first big problem with sonny was that, while the bosses were zetta fun, someone playing through the game twice would be disapointed to find out that their stats weren't a big barrier in using the same tactic to defeat the same boss as a different class. This wasn't a big letdown; sonny was still fun as each class. Still, when Krin announced that their would now be three classes with three different skill trees, I was zetta excited.

And it probably wouldn't have been a big deal if Krin had stopped then. But he didn't. the bosses, which, as previously mentioned, were zetta fun, were very infrequent. Krin changed that so now pretty much every encounter is now a boss, even if it isn't officialy declared as one. The storyline is now much more involved, with more cutscenes and a lot more dialogue. Sometimes, I don't know what to think of the dialogue. When I meet a zombie named shunny and my team mates remark about how it looks like me, I can tell they're trying to be funny, but when Veradux gets a knife in the face and says (quite comically), "AARGH! MY FACE!" I can't tell if Krin's trying to be funny or not.

But that's not where sonny 2 falls short. Basically, all the small details come together in a train wreck that is completely unacceptable. In the description, Krin apologizes for the wait. Do you know why he needs to apologize? Because the wait wasn't worth it! Three times as many skills was probably too ambitious for Krin to handle; some skills seem like minor variations of each other that serve the same purpose in combat. Skill balance is just... let's just say that it doesn't exist. Class balance is also a nightmare, and how much level grinding you do is dependant upon your class.

The level design also suffered from too much ambition. Its like Krin thought of 5-10 sets of skills that would go well together, then spread them apart into several different enemies. Ironically, the enemies still suffer from a small dose of repetition.

Some small things also got on my nerves. Heroic mode now has a timer, removing the strategy on the difficulty where it's most important. Managing items is a hassle, especially once you've got a party of three. I did like that you can now change your allies' (expanded) AI settings in the middle of combat, but the timer in heroic mode makes this hard to do. At least now I'm not just standing still if I die before my allies, but Krin made it a bit inconvenient to command the battle if this happens.

Overall? Its Zetta average! If you played sonny until you got bored, you should definitely play sonny 2. If you have no idea what sonny is and you're afraid of nostalgia ruining its sequel for you, that would be another good reason to play it. If you didn't like sonny one, which makes you a tasteless tetrahedra, you shouldn't play it, but you're the only group I can think of that wouldn't like it. Sonny 2 isn't a bad game, but it's also not a good game.