A bit of an explanation for this one.

A while back, I promised a friend of mine who, at the time, was serving in Iraq and trying not to get shot that I would mention him in a review since he was the only person reading my reviews at that point. Oh how things have changed now that I’m, like, so totally internet famous and all. Anyway, this was me doing just that- and of course I can’t do anything simple so it turned into the defining thread of the review. That was just for the people who had no idea what was going on, which theoretically should have been everyone except him. Still, the review is great… as usual right? I also just realized I haven’t updated my portfolio since I started writing for Ripten…. four months ago. Laziness, thy name is me.

Captain’s log, stardate 2010.33
I have been thrust directly into a world of intrigue and excitement. My life as a space captain began without much warning, as I found myself playing a large part in rescuing a Federation ship from the evil Borg. My reward for these heroics is my very own ship- kind of an odd reward system really, but who am I to judge. After spending a nearly infinite amount of time with the litany of options the Federation has provided me in order to customize everything from my uniform to my haircut to the design of my ship, I am finally ready to begin my journey in the USS Monsieur Rougeur. If these first few hours of action are any indication of what my career will be like, my excitement is palpable.

Let me set the scene for you- the date was 1999. The Euro was brand new, Napster was getting ready to bring music downloading out of the seedy back alleys of IRC, everybody still had jobs, a certain governor of Texas calling himself a “compassionate conservative” wasn’t a laughable statement, and computers were looked down upon with scorn and fear due to the role they were so obviously about to play in ending human civilization. More importantly, it was also the last time Rebellion sprayed their creative acid all over the faces of gamers in the form of an Aliens vs Predator game. I’m conveniently ignoring 2007’s Aliens vs Predator: Requiem for the PSP because it was awful and acknowledging it would make me have to rewrite this intro.

More than a decade later, Rebellion has returned to the table to spray our faces again.

I just realized how awful that sounded, yikes

In order to accurately review a game like Blood Bowl, you have to look at it from two entirely separate perspectives. On one hand is the type of gamer who is intimately familiar with the warm embrace of the Warhammer tabletop games and their subgenera. You remember the days of wielding your 28 mm metal miniatures as if they held the power of Thor’s hammer. The rules already lay dormant in the back of your mind, ready to be awoken and destroy Tokyo by the depth charge that is a Blood Bowl video game. On the other hand, you have the other 90% of gamers who are going to play this and didn’t even have a clue that Blood Bowl was a tabletop game to begin with. That gives developer Cyanide the double edged sword of having to make a game that appeals to a large amount of gamers while staying true to the source material. If they pitch the balance too far from one side to the other they will either have a game inaccessible to new comers, or have to face the ire of a whole lot of people who are hardcore enough that they might have the Living Rulebook tattooed all over their body like they are in a Clive Barker novel.

So roll a d16 and see which one you are…

I’ve been really slacking on posting links to video game stuff lately. I figure at this point 90% of the hits I get are from people who read my stuff on Ripten, so it has gotten kind of redundant. I did get an e-mail asking if I was still writing about video games though, so I guess not everyone who comes here keeps track of the Daily Gavin Updates, so I promise I’ll start being better with links to my stuff in other places.

He heard the noise come closer, the rhythmic pounding of excited footfalls. Feet thudding briskly against the floor with enthusiasm that only children could ever wish to harness.

“Grandpa! Grandpa” they yelled.

“Aye, aye. Calm down children. Your grandpa is too old and slow now to be going anywhere, you can be patient.” He chuckled and tousled the youngest’s hair. “What has gotten into you all to greet a common man like me with such a welcome fit for a king?”

It may not seem that way, but I’m a big fan of simplicity in reviews. My theory is that, unless you are doing something all hip and new-games-journalismy, the review should really let the reader know where its going in that first paragraph. Maybe not in an overly overt way, but the feeling and meter of the review should be known almost immediately.

With that said, Left 4 Dead 2 is like Left 4 Dead but with more stuff and not as good.

So after playing Dragon Age: Origins, I have come to one conclusion…

I would trust BioWare with brain surgery. I don’t think they are capable of making anything that clocks in at less than legendary anymore, let alone actually making a mistake. The BioWare formula is so fantastic, so utterly impossible to not lead to a steep drop off in your real life social interaction, that I’m pretty sure they could do anything they want as long as they can break it down into a heavily micromanaged strategic RPG format.

And I’m pretty sure you can do that with brain surgery now.

Gavin Bard was not available to pen this review as he has been sent on location for an interview of intergalactic proportions. In his stead, FACEOFFGAMES has spared no expense in procuring the writing of a talented video game journalist from the distant alternate future of “a few years from now.” Without any further delay, we present to you Mr. Rockatansky’s review of Borderlands.

After successfully liberating a copy of Risen from the evil cavern of Gamestop, you return to your home. With trembling hands, you open the plastic case and put the disc into your computers DVD-ROM drive.

Your journey begins. But Risen is a game of duality, ying and yang, good and evil. First, before you click install, you must choose the games alignment.

Red Faction: Guerrilla has a plot. The government is evil, it controls and mistreats all the miners on Mars – things happen, whatever.

You can blow up every single damned thing you see. That is what this game is really about. Sure, the plot is weak and the voice acting can get kind of silly at times, and sure the PC version has a couple of performance issues that detract from enjoyment, but they seem entirely patchable. None of this matters. The real plot is in the debris you send flying across the battlefield.

Did I mention you can destroy everything? Everything!

“Stop the presses!”

The young journalist yelled this at the top of his lungs while he came careening into the office, his feet sliding comically and he is forced to regain his balance before he crashes into some of his peers at a stereotypically dense water cooler area.

“You’ve gotta stop the presses!”

Everybody simply looked at eachother, the awkwardness is thick in the air like smoke in a dive bar.

“Uh, man. This is an internet publication. We, uh, don’t have presses” said one of the newest interns. Behind him one of the longer tenured writers let out an audible sigh.

Darkest of Days is flat out offensive. This isn’t on account of the loads of enemies to slaughter; I’m not Native American, I don’t have any German in me, and I think all of my ancestors got out of fighting in the Civil War due to flat feet. No, Darkest of Days is offensive to me as a gamer.

Halo 3: ODST is the best Halo game made so far.

Now, what that actually means and if that is a backhanded compliment is up to some debate. It also depends greatly on the level of your Halo fanboyism. If you are like me and find the overall plot to be kind of goofy and the multiplayer to be underwhelming in the face of so many other, better multiplayer experiences, you are obviously going to have a differing opinion from somebody who constantly wishes a PIN could be three numbers instead of four so theirs could be 117 or owns a Xbox 360 and hasn’t purchased a game since Halo 3 dropped into their lap like Chris Rock in Dogma.

I digress- this year did not disappoint in the pleasant surprise department. Although “pleasant” may not be the best word to describe a fairly traditional revenge drama as blood soaked at this one was. The name of the film in question is WET. I remember seeing a short trailer for WET in this same theater during a double feature of Ms. 45 and Thriller – A Cruel Picture. I mentally tagged it in my head to check it out but it got lost in the shuffle until now.

Ah, anime. The most often maligned, yet entirely enjoyable, form of foreign entertainment available to us on these shores. This is due in part to how insufferable most people who declare themselves “otaku” (weeaboos to the rest of us) actually are, and isn’t an indictment to the artistic capability of the anime in question. With top notch animation, well crafted scores, and generally intricate and thought provoking storylines, anime should be considerably more respected than it is. BlazBlue, given to us as a gift from the gods that provided us with the criminally underrated Guilty Gear series, would be considered amongst the upper echelon of fighting lore if being inspired or related to anime wasn’t so easily maligned thanks to the average American fan of it being borderline socially inept (no offense, of course, but if you don’t consider Naruto a lifestyle choice than this mocking isn’t directed towards you.) Although, on the other side of the spectrum, if you don’t have at least a basic enjoyment of the style, this might not be the game for you.

The iPhone. No piece of technology can claim to be a representation of my generation, if not this entire era, than the iPhone. Regardless of your feelings towards it, I personally don’t prefer it, it would be impossible not to acknowledge how it has been a gamechanger in the world of cell phones. With one swoop of its mighty overrated arms, Apple singlehandedly ushered in the era of the smartphone to groups of people who otherwise may have been slow to take it on. The marketing geniuses that they are, people of all walks of life (and more importantly technical prowess) were lined up from Apple Store to Apple Store when the iPhone was released. For proof of this look no further than yourselves. In my own personal experience, as a tech savvy, apathetic, jaded 20-something starving artist with an awesome beard, I am considered a goto for any issues previous generations may have with their trendiest piece of technology, whether I know about that technology or not. When people who at one point owned Betamax players began asking me how to set up their iPhones, I knew things had changed. It is only a matter of time before every cellphone is a portable assistant and the days of simply passing the time playing a black and green tinged Snake while waiting for your ride outside of basement punk show are long, long gone.

Splosion Man is not just above average, nor is it made justifiable only by its price. It is justifiable by its seemingly simple concept, over the top entertaining gameplay, and volatile (2) sense of whimsy. The story is that your character, either red Splosion Man in single player or other primary color based Splosion Men if you are playing multiplayer, is tasked to break out of the labyrinthine laboratory you are currently being held captive in. To accomplish this goal, you must use your explosive (3) powers to platform your way across a large amount of levels and out to freedom.

The King of Fighters franchise has been around for a very long time and has been quite active the whole while. In fact, when comparing simply the main titles of the respective series, The King of Fighters actually has more releases than Street Fighter. Of course, where Capcom’s series has innovated over the years, The King of Fighters from SNK has for ages remained stagnant and has even used the same sprites and general gameplay mechanics for the majority of its history. Now The King of Fighters XII has arrived to improve things… at least aesthetically.

The older titles, specifically The King of Fighters 95, were decent time killers in my early gaming days, thanks mostly to an uncle with too much money and a love of the Neo Geo. Naturally, I played the the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter more, but for some reason the 3-vs-3 gameplay and the accurate arcade ports clicked with me. When I faced other gamers in those titles, I became something of a juggernaut. It also may have helped that nobody I knew really played the titles all that much, but still… I take my fighting game victories where I can get them.

What did I do to deserve this fate, oh lord?

As a reviewer, I’ve had a pretty good streak lately. Every game I’ve gotten to write about has fallen somewhere between passable and great. During this streak I knew that, eventually, my lucky run would have to end. That one day soon the dregs of the gaming world would bubble up from some developers hell and make me rue the day I decided to write about video games.

On the surface, Infernal: Hell’s Vengeance didn’t seem like a bad choice. I remembered playing the PC version two years ago when it was initially released and it was an unspectacular and below average game. It wasn’t very popular or well received, so it gaining a 360 port two years after its original release is a little bit puzzling. Still, with two years to smooth out the wrinkles that caused it to be such a disappointment, it has to be better right?

Blood-soaked dirt as far as you can see, the wind whistling through the local saloon. A vengeful sheriff contemplates bending his own laws to wrong those who wronged him, just one from an entire culture of people carving out their lives in the grey area between right and wrong. If this all sounds appealing to you, congratulations; you’re probably a card-carrying American – or maybe Sergio Leone – for when it comes to over-romanticizing bloody, lawless eras of history, we Americans have no equal.