So what I’ve learned today is that if you send a bunch of guys who actually like Street Fighter out into the woods with some cameras, they will end up making something that is, without exaggeration, one billion trillion times better than any of the fucking god awful Street Fighter movies we’ve been graced with to this point. I give the original one a pass because it was campy and I was a dumb kid when I saw it, but that Legend of Chun Li nonsense was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen that wasn’t directed by Michael Bay, a GI Joe live action movie, or a Dragonball live action movie. It was just awful. Luckily, this exists now- it is only three minutes long, but it is the best three minutes of live action Street Fighter ever recorded. And yes I’m counting that Jacke Chan thing.

Of course you do.

For those of you who aren’t gigantic dusty old bones like me and the rest of us 20 somethings, you might not remember Nick Arcade. Nick Arcade was the most frustrating show ever for video game kids, geek kids, or just kids with brains to watch, as it seemed they had to pry some of their contestants gnarled fingers loose from the very bottom of the barrel. Not to mention a host who might have been a little bit crazy, awful 90s era special effects and skits, and everybody sucking at video games. This will probably send you back to nostalgia land- a land where you are still wearing your Boba Fett underoos, eating Nintendo cereal, and getting yelled at for the very first time by your parents because you cursed at the television screen.

Whatever, dumb bitch should have known how to charge Sonic’s dash.

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.

Geekologie, the blog where I steal find most of the material I post here when I can’t think of anything smarty pants or interesting to talk about. Or when I’m just hungover/stoned and too lazy to write anything of substance. Since everybody on the internet loves infographs now, this was a super relevant one I figured you would all enjoy. It is a break down of World of Warcraft over many factors.

Now, I don’t like 99% of MMOs, and I tend to get a decent amount of hate mail because of this. My reasoning is that I don’t generally enjoy games that ask for a huge monetary/time investment with very little reward. I understand that, to the people who play and enjoy WoW, the reward is the general entertainment the game provides along with the community you can be a part of. That isn’t what I look for in a game though. I just don’t put too much weight in a community in the sense that WoW has one, and I prefer games I can actually be better than somebody at because of my competitive nature as an alpha male (ladies know this is true ;) ). What I mean by that is, in WoW your skill is directly proportionate with the amount of time you put into the game. While this isn’t necessarily that different in comparison to games like Counter-Strike or StarCraft, obviously the more you play the better you are, I feel as if it is still different. In Bad Company 2, when I shoot people in the face it feels like a rewarding accomplishment, when I play most MMOs, killing mobs does not feel like the accomplishment it should. Obviously I’m in the minority, since seventeen gajillion people play WoW, but it is an opinion I can’t shake and that extends to all MMOs.

Still, even with that said, the rise of the MMO has a genre has been impressive, and this infograph helps plug that one home. Right into your brain. With info. And graphs.

Click the picture for the full size dealie.

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?”

There is a special art within the world of creating video games that doesn’t enough respect. It is an art form even beyond me, something requiring so much craft and so much effort that it is almost too much for a simple video game journalist to tackle with only a column about making a perfect game.

There is something uniquely satisfying in watching a magazine like Vanity Fair, one with so much money and history behind it, absolutely shoot themselves in the foot with the wrong group of people. It is satisfying, but entirely infuriating, to watch so-called “traditional” media botch coverage of things like internet culture, video games, or really just technology in general.

Assassins Creed II Mosh: Ezio Really Loved Raw Power in the 80s (Video)

Microsoft Patents Muscle Sensors, The Shocker

Tony Hawk Will Be Your Friend… if You Play Ride

January 5th Return to Ostagar: Delayed. Please Check Your Bags.

Grishnákh’s Choice: Man Forced to Choose Between Average Wife and Awesome Orc Statue

Blu-Ray Capacity is Now Probably Larger Than Your First Computer, You Feel Old

If an Offer in a Forest is for a Limited Time and Nobody Knows, is it Still Stupid?

Dissidia: Final Fantasy Confirmed for Consoles?

Make Your Dumb Kids Mega-Man Up to the Alphabet (Video)

Infinity Ward MMO Rumored, Not Balanced for Paladins

Suikoden Tierkreis Simply the Best, Better Than All the Rest

I figured instead of updating every single time I post something over at Ripten, since that would drive me crazy, I would post my favorite news stories of the week in one conglomerate post. Think of this as me telling you what I cared about without actually having to think of two different things to say about it. Thinking about things is hard.

Video Games > Movies in England
Modern Warfare 2 Not Balanced for Wikipedia
Slime Curling: Big News, or Biggest News?
No Diggity, No Beating Your Family With Rock Band Controllers
OnLive Looking Lively Letting Learning Laymen Leer
Windows Mobile and Xbox LIVE to Breed
Bandit Bungles Burglary Badly, Barely Beats Bubble Bobble
Wiiwaa: Not Just an Overused Borat Quote Anymore (Video)
Be Still Your Beating Hearts, Next-Gen Guilty Gear a Possibility
Wii New Year’s Eve: The Game – Exclusive First Look
Hero No More: Fan Made Zelda Film Taken Down Due to Nintendo Copyright (Nintendouchebaggery)

While going to the store to purchase some delicious Jameson for my flask (I have a long train ride to the Burning Angel New Year’s Eve XXXtravaganza tonight and will need liquid courage to brave New York public transportation), I happened to walk by one of the sixteen Gamestops between my house and the liquor store.

The holiday season is upon us. To some, that statement is joyous and represents the love of their families and a cozy return home. To others, mostly those who work retail, it is an ominous phrase which causes flashbacks that would make Jacob Singer cringe. Whether you deck the halls with holly or bah humbug, you’re still probably going to run up a whole lot of credit debt over the next month. The world’s economy has put retailers in a hole, and this is the time of year for them to claw themselves out of it and make some sort of profit in the name of Yuletide joy. The likely largest bringers of joy are terrible novelty shirts purchased on Christmas Eve from relatives, the kind of relatives that don’t really know you but remember you wear shirts. A close second: video games.

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.

Over the past few years, one media darling has risen up to conquer all in entertainment: the lovable zombie. Whether in books, comics, movies, televisions, or something the kids call ’video games’, it’s fairly obvious reanimated corpses are a hot commodity. The zombie revival has been welcome by most, but been entirely annoying to those elitists who hate things they like becoming popular. This is ignorant of how bad things could actually be. Zombies could be angst-ridden and beautiful, sparkling inexplicably in direct sunlight to the delight of tweens everywhere. Instead, zombies feature in cool things like Left 4 Dead. No sparkling, just exploding heads – zombies 1, lame teenage wish fulfillment vampires 0.

Dante’s Inferno is going to be so incredibly awesome, I don’t care what anybody else says.

Ranked in order of importance to humanity, from least to greatest; Neil Armstrong. The Treaty of Rome. Abraham Lincoln. The Big Bang. Starcraft.

I know, I know. You are probably saying to yourself “that is a little bit ridiculous” and you might be right, I might have something rated a little bit too high- but honestly, I thought landing on the moon was really important to humanity from a scientific point of view.

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.

If there is one thing we all love, it is being so scared that our sleep pattern is messed up for a week. While video games may not be considered as unsettling as television or movies, a well crafted survival horror game can be just as detrimental to one’s bravery as any other entertainment. But what sewn-together Frankenstein’s monster would it take to make a universally enjoyed game in the genre? The courage of Sweet Home? The heart of Silent Hill? The brains of Left 4 Dead? The incredibly fashionable red-sequined shoes of Clocktower?