Dragon Ball Z On The Kinect: “Kamehameha” Means “Heart Attack” In What Language Again?

Posted on April 12, 2012 by geelw

Well, “Holy Hmm…,” Batman, the rumors are true. There’s actually a Dragon Ball Z game hitting the Kinect in October, so make some room in the living room and pad the walls for those screaming sessions you’ll be having in front of your TV. All I’ll say is this had better be fun as hell or else Namco Bandai’s formerly impenetrable HQ will be stormed by angry DBZ fans wearing bright gold wigs and costumes they made in their basements (some with the assistance of a parent or very understanding significant other!). This could get ugly and fast. I can see the newsflash now: Angry Dragon Ballers Raging At Game Publisher’s Offices! Details at 11…

What? Don’t get offended, now. They’re NOT going to show up in person or post those angry rants on the internet while sipping a snifter of brandy and thoughtfully stroking their beards, if that’s the other direction you want me to go here. Eh, whatever. With a franchise like this, there’s sort of no middle ground unless you don’t take the series seriously enough to be upset about the Kinect getting a DBZ game. For me, there are more urgent things to be pissed off about (like the fact that I need to get a Kinect at some point, but I’ll probably need to punch a hole in a wall so I have enough space to use the damn thing)…

Up For Air: A Xenoblade Chronicles Progress Report…

Posted on April 11, 2012 by geelw

Well, so far, Xenoblade is… pretty good. Like any game this big, careful poking around reveals it’s flawed, but quite impressive nonetheless. Of course, I’ve played far too many RPGs from all over the world (and too many JRPGs) since the late 80’s to throw down any absolutes about how it stacks up against my favorites, but it’s quite well done. I do have a few issues with some things I’ll go over in more detail in my review, but it’s nothing too dramatic.

OK, stop turning blue in the face – I’ll spill a few gripes here. Stuff like not being able to enter too many buildings, the hard to find quest givers that you need to get items back to, a tiny bit of unsympathetic writing after a major incident and a few other quibbles that won’t really affect my overall score. That said, if you’re a Wii owner and/or a JRPG fan looking for a fine game to eat away the hours as it pulls you into its story, you can’t go wrong with Monolith’s best game to date. A proper review is incoming, most likely this weekend…

Sorcery Is Lord of Sorcery In Japan (And Still Coming Along Nicely)…

Posted on April 11, 2012 by geelw

This PlayStation 3 exclusive is looking more and more polished and could be the best Move game to date that will also make folks who shelled out for that rough Kinect Star Wars game a bit cranky that this is what their game SHOULD have played like. Anyway, here’s a look at the Japanese trailer for the upcoming game. Hey, Sony, get the SCEA PR hype machine going harder for this one – you really need to Move a few more people to snap this gem up on day one! Hell, I’ll be one of those people just because I want to see this game do well after all the work that’s gone into it…

PROTIP: A Little Monty Python Can Make Anyone’s Day Better…

Posted on April 10, 2012 by geelw

To wit: I was at the post office earlier today mailing some stuff out and the place was mercifully empty save for two ladies taking forever at the two open windows. When it was finally my turn in line, without thinking, I raised one leg up and stepped forward in such a way that the clerk I was headed for nearly fell off her seat laughing. Truth be told, I really didn’t INTEND to do a Silly Walk at all, it was just me automatically being goofy. Nevertheless, I did make her day, as she told me when she game me my change. Score another victory for learning through public television!

DmC Captivate Trailer/Gameplay: Dante’s Looking Sharper Than Before, So Lose The Hate, Kids…

Posted on April 10, 2012 by geelw

Go, Ninja Theory! I love what I see here (even with the changes made), but as usual, the noisy crickets vomiting in the weeds outside keep getting in my way of enjoying all this hard work. OK… all the haters really need to put a boot in it already and just let the game get completed and ship as Capcom and Ninja Theory want it to go out. A little RESPECT goes a long way, kids – so knock it off and maybe try to accept something new for a change.

Still, I have to say, Capcom and Ninja Theory have a hard road ahead of them that I’m sure they’re a lot less diplomatic about in private. Man, what a bunch of unappreciative babies we have this console generation. This sense of entitlement too many feel towards content they should simply let a talented developer try something new with is getting out of hand. If the game is a hit (despite the bile being spilled), it sill still be hated by the idiots, but that’s too bad for them, I say.

Why more people aren’t waiting for some ACTUAL hands-on time before damning the final game to the discount bin is beyond me. Being a sheep and following the bleating heard of Negative Nellies just means you end up playing the same crap year after year and complaining about it afterward as if you don’t know YOU’RE part of the problem…

Xenoblade Arrives… Off To The Diving Board, I Go!

Posted on April 10, 2012 by geelw

Nice, GameStop actually delivered! I’m still quite surprised that Nintendo hadn’t figured out that having a Premium RPG line for the Wii might actually have been a good thing for their PR among JRPG fans if as many of the games they craved were being released without the need for online petitions and the usual bean-counter hand-wringing about whether or not these game will sell at all. Anyway, no changing things now, right? The art book is lovely, but how is the game, you ask? Well, give me time folks, give me time. off to crack that shrink wrap and get to it. Back in a bit with some impressions.

Sniper Elite V2 Demo Goes Live. Give It A Shot.

Posted on April 10, 2012 by geelw

Even if you’re still somehow on the fence about this one (why? It’s NO CoD clone or anything even close to what you’re probably thinking if you ONLY play FPS after FPS), you can now PLAY the PSN or Xbox Live demo and see for yourself what I’m psyched for. Rebellion’s done its best work to date with this one, so take it for a spin and then go pre-order the game, already. As for you PC owners and your tricked out rigs… well, you have to sit it out for a bit longer until that demo is ready, so keep your shirts on, OK? Maybe you can go hang out at a friend’s place even though playing games on a console is “beneath” your graphical and keyboard-mouse control expectations (*yawn*… whatever!), you’ll see what you’re in for shortly.

Hell, All those German V2 scientists aren’t going to shoot themselves, you know…

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Enhanced Edition) Hands-On: The Best RPG I’ve Played In 2012 (So Far)…

Posted on April 10, 2012 by geelw

The first word that came to mind when I finally got my hands on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition was Quality. Quality of content, quality in the richness of detail in the characters, environments and even the way the game’s non-playable cinemas added to the epic feeling of the living world CD Projekt RED has worked so hard on. It’s not hard to look at the screens in this article and think that the Xbox 360 can’t do some of the stuff you’re seeing, but in fact, you can expect the game to be surprising in a number of ways when you finally get your hands on it next week. I got to play an early portion of Geralt’s adventure last week when WBIE rolled into NYC (with a trio of excellent games you should keep an eyeball on) and I wanted to stay in front of that big screen for a few hours longer diving more and more into what’s looking like one of the best games of 2012.

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Telltale Games Wants YOU To Be In The Walking Dead Game. So Go Do It Already.

Posted on April 9, 2012 by geelw

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. You HATE pre-ordering, right? You want to wait on your hands until the big review sites pass judgment on the games you want, then wait some more until they hit the clearance bin and snap them up for a song (or a whistle when they drop in price even quicker).

However… Telltale isn’t having that noise, kids – they’re giving ONE of you out there your big, fat chance to be IMMORTALIZED digitally in the upcoming game based on Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic and all you need to do is… guess what? Easy as pie to enter and it doesn’t involve becoming irreversibly infected with a zombie virus at all. So go make yourself a potential neighborhood superstar and take a chance on winning this one. As much as a feel like one of the undead most mornings, I’d go and enter, but I’m sure us media elite (little in-joke there) aren’t allowed… rawr!

Mortal Kombat On The Vita: That Challenge Tower Just Got A Whole Lot Taller (And Trickier)

Posted on April 9, 2012 by geelw

I’m one of those people who hates the word “port” with a divine passion, particularly when it comes to portable versions of home console games. Hell, a LOT of hard work goes into getting everything jammed onto a handheld and in the case of games like Mortal Kombat on the Vita, the smaller system is actually getting a lot more in the way of new content. Gamers who still don’t quite get it hear that word and automatically think they’re getting nothing changed from the home version or worse, they think they’re getting a “lesser: game for their money, all squashed down and unrecognizable. Well, that’s not the case at all with this version of MK, as I found out last week when I sat down with the Producer, NetherRealm’s Hector Sanchez and he showed me around some of the new Challenge Tower events.

The Vita-specific content actually shows up in a separate tower and as you make your way up, you’ll see missions that use the Vita touch screens in some interesting ways, a few of which will be familiar to fans of certain hugely popular casual device games. Sure, slicing flying stuff while avoiding bombs or trying to keep your character balanced for ten seconds over a deadly pit using the Vita’s accelerometer might seem a wee bit too casual to some hardcore MK fans, but it works perfectly on the Vita. And besides, we’re talking about a franchise that’s had a “chess” mode and kart racing dropped in as funky bonus content in previous installments. Not to worry, though – there are plenty of gory moments in these new mini-games that should please even the most die-hard fan of the series.

As a portable game, MK still delivers the goods where it counts, controls like a dream on the Vita and with its May 1 release date screaming up pretty fast, looks as if it’s set to be as big a hit on Sony’s shiny new little wonder as it was on consoles. Of course, that “big hit” stuff all depends on YOU (and I don’t mean your skill at pulling off Fatalities, either), so don’t disappoint Hector, folks. Or Scorpion, Baraka, Stryker or any of the other fighters in the game, for that matter. You wouldn’t want them to come looking for you to ask why you’re not taking them out to play, would you?