Game Review// TETRIS DS

Gameplay - 5/5

Tetris DS features the same old classic mode that we all have grown to love, as well as 6 other modes to play around with, and an online multiplayer mode. We all know how addicting Tetris can be, and this one is no exception! 

Sound - 5/5

Tetris DS features music and sound effects from some of your favourite Nintendo franchises such as Super Mario Bros., Metroid, Zelda, and many more. They are cleverly inputed as well, like when you finish a four row combo in Quest mode you will hear the classic Zelda jingle of when Link finds treasure.

Graphics - 5/5

The graphics in TETRIS DS feature a retro flare as well. If you are playing the Classic Mode will see the graphics of Super Mario Bros., or if you are in Mission Mode you will see visuals from Metroid.

Replay Value - 5/5

With a tons new modes to play you will be coming back to this one for a while.

SCORE: 100%

Final Word

Tetis has always been a fun game, and the DS version is no exception. With ton's of new modes to master, and retro music from some of Nintendo's best franchises, you will definately enjoy this one.

Game Demo// Space Siege Now Available

From the makers of the PC game Dungeon Siege, comes a new demo for their upcoming game Space Siege. Which really means that instead of it taking place in a medieval fantasy hack & slash type world, it will take place in the deep regions of space. Here is the link to the download, I will have an update when I try it out myself.

Game Review// Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X

Story - 4/5

The story starts us off with Mega Man getting a radio communication telling us that there are robots vandalizing a major highway, and you are to investigate the matter. Once you reach the end of the level, you lose to a duel with a robot named Vile, and your buddy Z comes to your aid. Then Z tells you that you aren't powerful enough to face Vile yet, and that he will meet you at Sigma's Fortress. This is all being voice acted by the way. The story isn't too bad actually. Not amazing, not too corny.

Graphics - 3/5
The graphics for this game are done in 3D, but you will be looking at them in the 3.5D perspective. They are done really well, but there are some still jaggies to be found since it is 3D. There is some slowdown if there is a lot of objects on the screen, but it doesn't make the game unplayable. Personally I prefer the old 2D form. It looked smoother, and much more artistic.

Sound - 5/5

If you enjoyed Mega Man X's sound track for the Super Nintendo, you will love the music in this game. The music is as catchy as ever, and has been fully remastered!

Gameplay 4.6/5

If you are familiar with Mega Man X for the Snes, you will have no trouble jumping in, and kicking some Sigma @$$! There are 3 difficulties to choose from once you boot up the game. I picked normal mode, because I didn't beat the original Mega Man X for the Snes, not until recently at least... The game is fairly simple. Its a side scrolling platformer where you run, and shoot. You can also charge up your shot, and you can know when its charged by hearing X scream a certain way. There are upgrades to be found through out the levels, like health/power upgrades and the dash, which really comes in handy when you need to dodge an enemy quickly, and also helps you get to secret areas. After beating each the boss at the end of a stage, you will be rewarded with a new weapon that again can help you gain access to secret areas or items. These weapons can run out of energy, but you can earn power capsules to replenish your power meter. The health upgrades serve as a potion would in an RPG, except they are capsules and you are only allowed 4. You can also save your progress at anytime, and it will remember your upgrades, bosses defeated, but your life amount will be reset to 2.

AVERAGE: 83%

Final Word

Its a great game, but it is rather short. You should definitely give it a try if you haven't played the original for the Snes, or even if you want some nostalgia. This is a good rental, or a great buy if you can find it for a good price!

Game Review// Grand Theft Auto 4

Probably the biggest franchise name in gaming that is not Mario or The Sims. The ever so controversial Grand Theft Auto comes out with their newest work for this generation of gaming hardware. Although this game is not really the fourth one in the series, they decided to go with this most likely as a way of showing the franchise growing to the next level.

Long gone are the cartoony styles of the previous games and no more odd shaped polygon created people walking around the city.

They may be long gone but the humor my friends is here to stay.

The hype for this game has been raging on like an old man standing in the complaint line at your Wal-Mart. Years of promises and screenshots were leaving many fans wishing they could fast forward time so they could hold this game in their hands now. But of course now the wait is over and what are we left with? Well that depends on how you see the game. Some say that this game is the greatest thing to happen to humanity since sliced bread! Others say that this is just the same old *#$% and can't be bothered wasting any more time on it. And then there are the people like me. Who although enjoy the game very much. They are left somewhat wanting more, something innovative, and not feeling a bit like the game was not on par with all the hype.

The first thing I notice during the opening cinematic of course were the graphics. I was impressed by how good the game looked for a console and how cinematic the intro movie felt due to the camera angles and the opening credits.

Graphics aside the accuracy of some key points of real NeW York City is quite realistic. From Time Square to the Statue of Liberty, although done in their own Rockstar way. The physics were also noteworthy as light impact with people had different reactions of pedestrians putting their hands on the hood of the car to keep themselves from losing balance. My one annoyance with this game environment wise is that you can knock over as many lampposts as you want but for some strange reason very small and skinny trees have the strength  of a freaking concrete wall. No matter how hard you hit them and by all logical reasons that those trees should break in half, there is no way to shatter them, sending you flying out of your car into oncoming traffic!

The shooting is very a la Gears of War style in this one, a radical change from previous iterations of the game. Having a shoot over the shoulder camera view and being able to take cover turns a somewhat mediocre shooting mechanic from previous GTAs into a somewhat more bearable experience. Shooting from your car is the most painful guessing game of where the center of your reticule is. That sometimes i wish this game would burn for making it so hard to shoot from a vehicle. Saints Row had this one right as it was always pretty straightforward where you were gonna be shooting before you pulled the trigger while driving. Also this doesn't help the fact that GTA4 has some of the worst cars for turning that I have seen in a long time. Combine the driving and the shooting and your in for a long queue of headaches.

Overrall this is a very good game and I totally recommend picking one up. It doesn't matter for what system really if you have both unless if you care about Downloadable Content for the 360 which as of this post we still know nothing of. But if you own just one well get it for that one. It might not be completely a big step forward compared to GTA: San Andreas but it shows enough improvement for a long time of enjoyment.

Games// Check out this fan-made Sonic level! O_o

Here's something for you Sonic fans! ... even though there are probably none left thanks to the catastrophe that is Sonic Next Gen!

This is a demonstration of a fan made Sonic engine. Its surprisingly fast, and even looks fun to play! Sega take some notes, or hire this guy! There is definitely potential here!

If you want to try this out for yourself, you can download it here.

Internet Mini-Series// Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

While you were bored waiting for the WGA’s strike to end back in November of last year, Joss Whedon saw an opportunity to try out a little experiment of his own. Yes, the man who brought you Firefly, and the more so popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer decided to call upon his 'mad' connections and put together a low budget internet exclusive mini series event! And so, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was born!

For one week, and one week only, the three acts were released in a scheduled sequence. At the stroke of midnight on July 20^th, they faded into the darkness, disappearing from the realm of cyberspace forever!! But fear not, those of you who are smacking themselves for missing out on the online event of the eternit- no.. FOREVER-NITY. The mini-series is still available for download at iTunes, but as punishment has a small fee. There has also been speculation of a DVD release with behind the scenes special features, if you’re willing to wait it out.

So what is this amazing thing that I speak of but avoid to describe in detail?! Well I'll tell you what it is. Take two parts Neil Patrick Harris, one part Nathan Fillion, a dash of Felicia Day, add a sprinkle of melodies that will permanently etch themselves into your brain.. and Tada! You get a love sick super villian that's just trying to get recognized by the ELE (Evil League of Evil), find time to talk to the girl of his dreams, and avoid run-ins with his egotistical arch-nemesis, Capitan Hammer.

Overall, Totally worth checking out. Even if you are dirt poor and have to find a low quality rip on youtube or something. Personally though, 6 bucks is a small price to pay for SUPER AWESOMETOWN.

Watch the Trailer

Tech Review// Digital Video Essentials [Blu-ray](2008)

What is it?

Digital Video Essentials is a tutorial with test patterns and tools to help you calibrate your HDTV. For those of you who don't know what calibrating is; calibrating is setting your video/audio to look or sound like it is intended to. Manufacturer's ship their set with settings that are as bright and vibrant as possible to stand out to the customer. These settings look great on a show room floor where the lights are bright, and the room is large; but at home our lights tend be to dimmer, and our rooms a smaller size. That is why these settings wont look too good. You will be missing picture detail, or getting details that should not be there, colors will be over-saturated, and there will often be a grainy look. On top of that, these settings will deplete your TVs life-span at a faster rate.

What does it come with?

DVI comes with the blu-ray case, instruction manual, and a piece of paper with blue, green, and red gel sheets

How to use it.

I used DVI to calibrate my HDTV for use with my PS3 blu-ray player. You can go to a voice tutorial with patterns or you can go straight to the 1080p, or 720p patterns if you know what your doing. I used the tutorial because I wasn't too sure on my calibrating skills, and I was right! There was a lot to be learned. DVI explains how to adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and over-scan. It didn't discuss the tint function; which is odd, but you can easily look it up on online, and use DVI's 1080p color test pattern with the color gels. There are also advanced patterns that don't have explanations, but again if you look online you should be able to find out how to use them.

The sound calibration is again done with a voice tutorial, and is pretty straight forward. It basically shows you what your volume/treble/bass for each speaker should be set to, and where the best place is for your speakers, according to your room size.

Final Word

Overall I was satisfied with the results of DVI. The tutorials are very helpful, and they did not rush through the explanations. There is also history tidbits like why sharpness was incorporated in the older CRT TVs, and other interesting facts to be found.

So if you do not want to spend $200+ on a professional calibrator, DVI is a great option if you want a beautiful accurate picture that will not decrease your TVs life-span; and with the price of $25, you cant go wrong.

SCORE: 4.3/5

Most Powerful Doom Mod: Rick-rolls To Death!

When The Classics Kick Some Ass

The great thing about Computer games is the ability to modify the original content. If your skilled enough you can make just about anything depending on what engine your using.

Doom: One of PC's Classic Shooters

Games// E3 08: The Good Stuff

So we all know that E3 08 was pretty much a complete disaster, but there were some valuables left amongst the rubble!

Microsoft

• Banjo Kazooie for XBLA!
• Bungie has 3 new games in the works.
• Final Fantasy 13 trailer being ported to Xbox 360!
• Gear of War 2 trailer shown. Campaign gameplay demonstrated as well.
• Left for Dead shown for Xbox 360/Windows Games.
• Installs on 360 hard drive just like the Ps3!
• New 60 gig version to replace 20 gig in August!
• more Fable 2 game-play shown.

Sony

• God of War 3 CGI Trailer shown.
• LittleBigPlanet trailer.
• Resistance 2 trailer.
• Killzone 2 trailer.
• DC Universe Online announced with trailer! Exclusive to Playstation 3!
• MAG(Massive Action Game) announced, exclusive for the Playstation 3!

Nintendo

• Wii Music gameplay demonstrated.
  
• Wii Sports 2: Resort announced!
  
• Mario and Zelda team working hard on a new game for the Wii!

Multiplatform Games

• Fallout 3 trailer released, and gameplay demonstrated at Microsoft's conference.
• Sonic Unleashed day/night levels were shown.
• Far Cry 2 gameplay shown.
• Spider-man: Web of Shadows air combat demonstrated.
• Resident Evil 5 online co-op shown at Microsoft's conference.
  
• 2 levels were shown for the new Mega Man 9 coming out for PSN, XBLA, and Wiiware!
  

Game Review// Final Fantasy III (DS)

Final Fantasy titles have been thru so many versions and iterations that sometimes its hard to know which ones are new ones or which ones are remakes. Another confusion is over the numberings of the versions. Final Fantasy II is actually really Final Fantasy IV. But thats another story for another time. Final Fantasy III is a remake of a game that only came out in Japan, and is being seen here in North America for the first time on the Nintendo DS.

Story
The narrative of FF games have always been pretty simple. This one is no exception, just take four kids magically linked together to find the powerful crystals that will prevent from total catastrophe from occurring.


Gameplay
I Enjoyed this one quite a bit. After all this time of me being out of Japanese RPGs, I found this one to be pretty pleasing. The controls are very standard to what other FF games have. You can use the stylus to move your character or navigate the menu. The difficulty on this game is actually quite high. Which is surprising seeing as it's a DS game but also quite refreshing that there is no hand holding being done around the game.


Music & Sound
I don't know if it's because this is on DS or because they are trying to stay true to the Japanese version. But I find that the music in this game is actually quite plain and somewhat low quality.
Simple tunes, some catchy some annoying, nothing close to being as good to something as say Earthbound. The sound effects in this game are quite solid with no technical glitches that I have encountered.


Graphics
The graphical update may not please some of the more hardcore fans, what with a lot of things having been aesthetically changed. But to everyone else, it will not be much of a problem if any. The game does look good for a Nintendo DS 3D game so I give em props for that. Although if zoomed in too much, the polygons do start becoming quite jaggy and ugly. Overall this is a pretty game.



Final Word
This game is kinda long for it to be a renter. But if you get bored easily of JRPGs then you should get enough with just renting this one. A fair buy if you can find it for around 30$ or less.

Game Review// Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360)

Story

The game starts us off with the typical "hot" jumbo size breasted damsel, looking for Ryu Hyabusa at Muramasa's shop. She is then about to be ambushed when Ryu shows up to save the day, but she still ends up being captured by the enemy. Yeah, the story isn't the game's strong point. Basically the enemy is very mysterious, and you will have to put the puzzle pieces together to understand some of it. It's not that it is hard to follow, but it will leave you to use to your imagination to fill in the piece's of the puzzle. It's basically the end of the world at the second stage in the game, but there is also more evil to come, and it is up to you to foil the mysterious Black Spider Clan's plan!

Graphics
The graphics in Ninja Gaiden 2 are beautiful, a lot better than Sigma for the Playstation 3, and of course better than Black for the Xbox. The game runs at 60fps most of the time but it can slow down if there are a lot of things happening on the screen. There is one point it the game where you are fighting literally hundreds of enemies in a stairwell where the game slowed down to about 3fps; The slowdown doesn't really put a huge damper on the game, sometimes it can actually help you because enemies attack so fast. This game is not for the weak of heart. There is a lot of blood, and I mean a lot! It really makes hacking up those enemies such a better experience! Environment's are very well detailed, and rich with color, and artistry unlike most next gen games, but some areas of the game can look a bit polygonal. Character model's also look great.

Sound
The music for this game is meant to cater to western culture. Heavy guitar riffs accompanied by strings using power chords. There are some oriental jingles to be heard, but the music is meant mainly to please the western audience. The sound effects are in place as well.

Gameplay
This game is not for the casual gamer! :) Even on the easiest difficulty.*Note - This is easier than the easiest difficulty(Ninja Dog Mode)on Ninja Gaiden Black and Sigma* you will get your butt kicked unless you are putting your brains on the platter here! But fear not! There is the ever so popular health regen system to ease the pain! You will have many weapons to choose from to dismember your foes, and many ways to do so! There are a few straight forward puzzles to be found. Some of the boss battles can be tricky, or very cheap. The gameplay is solid, and fun none the less.

Re-playability
There are harder difficulties that will reward you if beaten. You can also compete on the leader boards, and as always, there are achievements!

Rent or Buy
This is definitely a buy! If you are the type that likes to conquer games on the hardest difficulty; ha ha! Good luck! No, but seriously. This game is fun. You can come back to it month' s later, and still get enjoyment out of it because the game is just fun. You are a ninja tank with the deadliest looking weapons, and a huge arsenal of moves. You will not regret picking this one up!

SCORE: 4.4/5

THQ Joins forces with Gametap!

THQ the publisher of games such as Company of Heroes and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has recently entered into an agreement to have their games up in the Gametap Library. Which I find pretty cool seeing as a subscription to Gametap is only 9.99 per month. So what does this mean for us gamers? Well all it means is that for 10 bucks a month you can now play THQ PC games along with hundreds of other titles. Sure its not all good news for everyone. Take Steam for example I wonder if Gametap continues to get more games will Steam seem like a less viable option for purchasing games? Ah Only time will tell I guess, but for now this is good news all around.

Movies// Wall-E

Wall-E

It's a shame seeing how all newly released children's movies is all done in CG animation... Well thats not necessarily true, if you want new hand drawn 2D cartoons, disney still releases them but only straight to DVD.  Anyways Back to the topic. 

I must say that this is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Most movies seem to be either remakes of old movies (Batman Dark Knight). Remakes of new Movies (Incredible Hulk). Reviving old franchises (Indiana Jones) or from other media's Intellectual properties like video games (Prince of Persia) or comic books (Wanted). And all of these sadly are never quite to the standards of the original.

So its surprising to see Disney and PIXAR create such a moving and entertaining movie with a strong message about our environment and way of life. I was blown away at how they managed to tell this story with little to no dialogue and instead using the world around Wall-E to tell the audience about what happened and what is currently going on. Of course once the humans start talking to much it loses some of what was so awesome in the first half of the movie.

If you go see a CG movie lately thats made for kids, sure kids have fun but the rest of us are either bored out of our minds or just don't give a crap. PIXAR has come up again with a good story to keep adults from wishing the movie would just end and enough of the funnies for the lil chillens (no not a spelling mistake, embarrassing yes i know)

If there is one movie you should go see this summer this should be one of them. The quality of the CG is amazing, the story is intriguing and PIXAR is great on the little details of their animation. And just like any PIXAR movie i do plan on owning this title once its out on Blu-Ray... Yes I know; I'm a PIXAR Fanboy..

Final Word? Go See Wall-E!