E3 2014: Paradox on the PS4! A Game Changer If It’s Done With Care…

Posted on June 24, 2014 by geelw

I’d missed out on the big news that Paradox Interactive would be making and publishing future games for the PlayStation 4 as well as PC, but I’m glad I saw this Magicka 2 trailer because it’s hilarious and made me smile even more because PS4 owners will get to see how much fun this adventure/action RPG is soon enough. I was kind of hoping the game would also appear on the Vita, but we’ll see what Paradox comes up with down the road, I suppose. I know it’ll be interesting to see if some of their more complex strategy titles make the transition to the PS4 and as far as the other issue of Paradox’s PC games often being a bit buggy upon release, I’m gathering they’re going to be working very hard to keep that from being a big issue on the console front. Fingers are crossed here on the latter…

E3 2014: DOOM Teaser: Not Enough To Keep Me Away… Yet.

Posted on June 10, 2014 by geelw

Aw, man. I wanted to see some gameplay that would make me jump under the table, but nope. Just a GREAT teaser for the still in production DOOM reboot with some nicely familiar sound effects that made me smile rather broadly. Oh well. No, I’m NOT going to Quakecon this year, but I’ll be prowling around online during the show to post whatever new trailer and gameplay footage pops up at that event on the company’s YouTube channel or Bethblog. Okay, Bethsoft – make me cower in fear next time or else… I’ll just wait around until you do. Hey, I’m easy to please…

VGA 101: Fighting Games I’d Rather Be Playing Other Than Killer Instinct…

Posted on November 22, 2013 by geelw

Hmm. So, a friend who snapped up his Xbox One at midnight called me over today to play some games and Killer Instinct was one of them. I was not impressed. Granted, I’ve never liked KI all that much for a few reasons, but I respect anyone who can put up with its quirks on the SNES and even more of its quirks as a launch title for Microsoft’s $500 ego-center deluxe. Paying for characters piecemeal in a fighter may be the hot new thing, but while I was combo-ing away like a chump and winning a few rounds against my pal (he still kicked my butt around the room after about 20 minutes of us both fiddling with those yuck-worthy triggers on that new controller which work BEAUTIFULLY in Forza 5 but not for a fighting game), I kept thinking of the somewhat lousy pay to unlock “deal” going on here.

After about two hours of next-gen thrills, I hoofed it home thinking of something to write about and ended up walking in the door, yanking a few fighting games (or fighting game hybrids) I’d rather have played down from the PlayStation section of the library, snapped a few pictures and here you go. As many characters as you can stand all on discs and not stacked with fees or “coming soon” features. Granted, you cool kids who don’t mind the enforced evolution of mandatory DLC and playing games that aren’t exactly finished because you’ll be buying in for as long as you can stand it (or longer as you get lured into the pay schemes here and on the way) will be all over this one like bees on a bear trying to steal their honey. Me, I’m a plug an play guy for life and it seems some of these new consoles and me won’t get along like best buddies anytime soon. But if this sort of thing floats your particular boat, knock yourself right on out and pay (and then pay again)…

Jimmy Fallon vs. Xbox One: The “Who”, “What” or “Where” Show Returns…

Posted on November 21, 2013 by geelw

Yes, it’s usually pretty crazy on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, but just what the heck was this confusing mess of a live demo? Yeah, the Xbox One has SO many things packed into that black box that it was hard to tell what was going on. I did note that Kinect wasn’t used for the menu navigation (as it seems to have issues with more than a few people in a room according to some early press), Forza 5 got a few seconds of play (not by Jimmy) that showed off some lovely visuals before things switched to the camera scanning Jimmy earlier (and making an awful likeness) and there was some playing of that new Kinect Sports game with Will Forte. Ugh. Meanwhile, that Microsoft rep was no Ron Popeil at all, trying to cram too much talk into a handful of minutes.

Look, if you’re trying to sell an all-in-one living room dominator/media center/juicer to the non gaming public and it indeed does WAY too much for a mere under five minute demo… you need a longer sales pitch. I don’t think that sloppy mess last night was selling any consoles to anyone who wasn’t already buying one because other than Jimmy drooling about the new controller too long, it really didn’t show off much other than pretty visuals and a lot of “wait, what was that?” before it ended. Eh, whatever – we’ll see what happens when the system rolls out later today. Or: yet another midnight launch I won’t be going to cover because it’s all hype and the REAL proof is a few months down the road plus when the post launch titles start dropping into stores…

Jimmy and Ice-T Put The PS4 On The Hot Spot…

Posted on November 14, 2013 by geelw

Alright, it’s a given: CUTE ROBOTS SELL CONSOLES. And SUPER-cute virtual robots you can play with and/or kick around the room? When the audience goes “D’aaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” more than five times a minute? Yeah, there’s Christmas in a box for Sony right there.

Okay, despite my occasional cranky side acting up from time to time, I’ll have to admit that Jimmy Fallon always gets me excited about gaming despite me having a longer history with them than he has. Granted, it’s his great enthusiasm for the medium and NOT his play style (that tends to lean towards the “Boy, do I suck at these games but I’m having FUN!” although he did beat Ice-T at that Pong variant) that’s hard to fake. And yep, game companies love him, Conan and anyone else they can get a console and controller to. Of course, none of them love ME, but that’s more my fault than theirs at the end of the day. Oh well, we’re workin’ on it… we’re workin’ on it. I’m thinking of writing a fake e-book (not really) called “How To Get The Respect You Deserve Without Being A Total Ass or Total Suck-Up” but we’ll say no more about that unless we want to be called a total ass. Or a total suck-up. Not too good at either of those, but I can swing both ways once I take some lessons. Is the Learning Annex still open here in NYC?

BUY! Ridiculous Indie Bundles Galore From All Over!

Posted on September 13, 2013 by geelw

With so much other stuff going on here I’m having a stupidly difficult time keeping up with all the deals going on in the indie game space, so I’ll just list what’s in my inbox here in a single post and let you all have at it. There are some REALLY great titles in these bundles, so definitely check one or all of them out, especially since (with the exception of all those Square-Enix/Eidos titles if you buy them all) you’re basically able to get the bulk of these titles NOW for much less than the cost of a AAA title at retail or via a digital download service.

Ready? OK, here we go:

BUNDLE STARS (Indie Rush Bundle)!

Oh, that’s not all – I’m just sending you below the jump so I can save space on this page for more of my scribblings…

Continue reading →

Late Night Game Week (Final Stage!): Wii, U Get 2 C That Jimmy Still Sux!

Posted on June 22, 2013 by geelw

Ha ha. OK, I had to do that horrid spelling job in the header as a little in-joke even I don’t get and yep, it’s another pre-show title to save time because I just KNOW Jimmy’s going to lose it and fail at another game live on TV. Anyway, saving the Wii U for his final post=E3 Game Week show meant this was either going to be a blowout for Nintendo because more people stayed home to watch OR… a bust because they were all out clubbing or whatever the crazy kids do on a Friday night (har har). Anyway, the 20-Ryu Hadouken/cartridge blowing/toothbrush circle bits was dumb and funny (and all those “World Records” they set WILL be broken over the weekend, I bet). That multiple video games “record” bit was stupidly awesome, though. Jimmy “played” six games all at once for twenty seconds and looked as if he was trying to escape from robbing a vintage game shop and ran into an arcade only to be trapped on a Dance Dance Revolution Supernova machine. Or something like that – just watch the video:

See? Now go break THAT record, Mr. or Ms. Guinness…

Continue reading →

Late Night Game Week (Day 4): Jimmy Answers the Call of Duty, Gets Ghosted…

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geelw

I actually wrote the headline before Jimmy’s show kicked off (hey, planning in advance works when you know what’s coming, correct?), but in case you missed it, the proof is above (or will be once NBC gets its act together, grrrr!).

Anyway, the show was a bit more game-centric and snappier than last night’s thanks to Defiance’s Grant Bowler, Jimmy running viewer videos of themselves playing with their mothers (pretty damn funny) and Elijah Wood geeking out with Fallon over The Last of Us before talking briefly about the new season of Wilfred and the remake of Maniac and then some fake video games in a skit.

As for CoD:G, well, it looks great on the Xbox 360 (but I think that dog has a LEAN button… whaaaat?!), but the demo was too short and other than a nice scripted building tumbling down and the novelty of playing as Riley (the dog) for brief bits, it’s looking like a CoD game, which is great to bad depending on your bias in either direction. I only play for the campaign mode anyway, so I may look into this on the PS3 or PS4 in the future. And oh yeah, I was actually wrong up above! Jimmy didn’t suck so much at the game today. Well, other than barking at the screen at one point (OK, it made me chuckle a bit).

Well, tomorrow is Nintendo’s day on the show, although I noted in the teaser for the show, they had “Nintendo Wii” and not “Nintendo Wii U” as the system being demoed. Oops. Er, unless Nintendo has some surprises we didn’t see at E3 planned for tomorrow, that is…

Late Night Game Week, Day 3: Jimmy (Almost) Survives Watch_Dogs And Aisha Tyler

Posted on June 20, 2013 by geelw

The problem with five minutes of one game (or two and a half minutes give or take of two games) is it’s IMPOSSIBLE to grasp what the hell some games are about. That said, in the case of Ubisoft’s stellar-looking upcoming action/adventure game Watch_Dogs, five minutes on a crazy and funny talk/variety show with a giddy host is excellent yet somewhat less than perfect for a game so huge. Don’t get me wrong, kids – I’d invite Jimmy Fallon over to the home office and show off some wacky games he’s most likely never heard of at the drop of a hat, BOOM, I’m there… er, he’s here (oh, you know what I mean). Thankfully, Aisha Tyler (also a HUGE gamer and comic as well as Ubisoft’s go-to celebrity as she also happens to be a character in the game) did a great job of explaining the concept and some of the open world gameplay before Jimmy took over and failed a mission (*sigh*). Well, he got further than I thought, but still. I’d actually love to see the guy host an ALL gaming show one day, not just one with funny segments and a few stars popping up to plug their assorted projects.

Of course, that would be a different show entirely, but a NEEDED one for gamers and G4 is no more (although, like a zombie with a steel-plated skull, the damn channel is STILL on the air pumping out movies and reruns of old shows including X-Play and Spike TV is too damn dumb to watch unless GTTV is on, as it’s just macho crap and blood beat-fests all day and then some. Yuk). I suppose internet “TV” shows are a good source, but not if one has a crap connection or hell, prefers gaming news from eight feet away and doesn’t own a damn Smart TV or whatever it is that basically means you’re online watching Honey Boo Boo when you COULD be learning a new language or something else more interesting…

Jimmy Fallon Versus The PS4: Jimmy Gets the Knack!

Posted on June 19, 2013 by geelw

While the Xbox One got two games crammed into five minutes, Sony’s new PS4 showcased one game, the family friendly platformer, Knack was the showcase title on this second day of Late Night’s Game Week. Game Director Mark Cerny was on hand to show off the new console and controller, noting that it’s been redesigned for shooter fans, most likely to let them know they’re not forgotten despite the somewhat cute game on display Jimmy was about to dive into. He also got in a quick shot at Microsoft by noting that used games could be played on the PS4 and (yes!) the console can indeed be used offline. Microsoft takes another knock there, thanks to it’s spotty PR performance not doing the best job at explaining things. As for Knack, Cerny showed off a quick cut scene and played for a quick bit (the game looks great, but Jimmy was easily distracted by some amazing looking water for a split second) before turning over control.

Fallon played a cool ice level that showed off some great-looking Pixar-like visuals and a familiar mix of 3D platforming and combat. Knack can smash and absorb bits of the environment in order to grow and take on the characteristics of whatever he’s busted apart. It’s sort of like a Metal Men comic meets Crash Bandicoot with the aforementioned Pixar visual style and it looks pretty incredible. That said, I’m gathering Knack was shown for a few other important reasons. Fallon’s viewer base covers a wide age range, so Sony wants to get the console buying adults on board with a non-violent game they can immediately buy with that PS4. The game is a first-party title and Sony’s first party studios are responsible for a good deal of the system’s hits, so as a launch title, Knack needs to show it can be as good as the best games of its type on the new hardware. Finally, I think the game may be a hard sell to some of the shooter fans (thus the earlier shout-out by Cerny), so I think Sony wants them to know their games are indeed coming (and on launch day, at that). Then again, those shooter fans DID get a great demo of Killzone: Shadow Fall three months ago.

Oh yeah, Jimmy didn’t suck too much at Knack, but he’s still like a box of puppies bouncing in the back of a moving truck when it comes to getting all giddy about stuff. You have to love the man for his sense of wonder other TV hosts fail to activate in anything like a realistic manner, so I’ll give him that much…