Christmas

I hope everyone had a spectacular celebration of capitalism this December!

Fuck you Ikea, try as hard as you want to make your instructions as vague as you want, all I need is a too small monkey wrench and three hours.

For the love of my life, a new Harvest Moon to pour a couple hundred hours into.

Star Wars Hot Coccoa Mix!

Pokedad Review: Omega

So the newest dlc for Mass Effect is entitled Omega, and takes place on Bioware's Mos Eisley inspired planet of outlaws. Aria meets you on the Citadel and informs Shep that Cerberus has taken control of her station, and wants the commander's help in getting it back. Unlike other ME dlc's and against common sense, Shepard isn't allowed to bring any of her own party with her, instead using Aria herself, and a new female turian teammate, Nyreen.

So, I've never really liked the Omega station to be honest, its always screamed cliche as I ran around doing uninteresting fetch quests, however, I have always liked Aria. She seems to rebel strongly against the typical Asari roles, and really does a good job convincing me that she is a ruthless crimelord. So, with my interest peaked, I helped Aria repel the Cerberus occupation.

The problem is that its all action, and no story. Sure you find out that Aria and Nyreen used to bang, and that there is a new gang on Omega, but the outlines of these stories are bare, and 95% of the time, you'll be fighting. That isn't to say that the fights aren't fun, Aria's biotics are the most powerful of any character that you've ever been in a party with, and Nyreen gets a ton of stealth kills. The battles are fast and frantic, especially if you're playing as a vanguard, which lets you bomb into clusters of 10-15 Cerberus troops at once.

At the end of the day, my biggest problem is with the bad guy for this dlc, General Oleg Petrovsky. Apparently, everyone knows about him but Shepard, yet he has never been mentioned before, even when the commander WORKED FOR CERBERUS. I understand that there are other prominent characters in the series that you can say the same about, (like Kai Leng), but with Oleg, its painfully obvious that he was created for this dlc alone.

So, there are a few pros, like Aria's story, a couple new horror enemies, and crazy fights. There are a few bad things though too, like not being able to keep Nyreen on the Normandy after the dlc is over, or the spontaneously created Oleg, and the 2nd hand story. All in all, I had fun, but by no means is this a must buy, even for the crazier Mass Effect fans.

Pokemon Memes

Do you love Pokemon memes as much as I do?

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Fuck you bandwidth!!

Games I can't wait to play with my son

Oliver just turned 2 on Sunday, and I can't help but daydream about playing great games with him someday, to share with him all the joy and art appreciation that comes with video game devotion. Here are 5 that I will use to present my case to him..

Wind Waker
Not my favorite Zelda ever, but perfect for a child's introduction into such a lifechanging franchise. The art style is fucking gorgeous and whimsical, accompanied by Koji Kondo's best soundtrack. The only thing that isn't kid friendly about this almost perfect game is the pedophilic Tingle and the fact that Link very adultily stabs Ganondorf through the skull during the final fight. No resurrection, no banishment, a straight up violent murder.

Silent Hill 3
Yes, this game is terrifying, and yes, Heather eats her own fetus, but there are major accomplishments in this game. The best lighting of it's time, a creepy-fantastic score, and in my opinion, the most cerebral and disturbing scare scenes any video game has ever had. Silent Hill 3 is proof that video games can evoke potent emotions out of the player.



Final Fantasy 9

Again, a franchise installment that isn't my favorite, I want Oliver to play FF9 because of it's perfect blending of old and new. Square celebrated what made them great in the first place and innovated many new things to keep pushing them forward. Even if it does have a stupid, random, and frustratingly unknown final boss.




Shadow of the Colossus

Before Shadow of the Colossus, I would spout out all of the items on my made up checklist that made a great game. My naive self would say such republican-minded sentences as, "A great game has to have a great story", or, "You must have a compelling main character,". Shadow of the Colossus has neither of these, and happens to be a masterpiece. It proved to me, that there are no rules, great games are great games.

Katamari Damacy
Enough seriousness, this game is fun, and an 8 hour acid trip. Watch the opening scene and tell me you aren't burning to play it's randomness. I can't wait to roll up people and skyscrapers with Oliver.

Review: The Walking Dead Point and Click Adventure Game!

Based off of quite possibly the greatest comic book series of the past decade, (and I heard something about a tv show?), Walking Dead gave the video game medium a shot with a 5 episode point and click adventure series. When it was announced, I raised more than one eyebrow upon seeing that Telltale Games were the ones behind it, seeing as they make the Law and Order point and clicks, along with Back To the Future and Tales of Monkey Island. I've been playing this Walking Dead series for a couple months, and now that episode 5 is done and completed, its time for the full review.

The comic book and tv show have achieved such great success because of Robert Kirkman's writing and vision of the world after a zombie apocalypse. What makes the stories so compelling is the fear, not of zombies, but of other people. Zombies ironically become an afterthought as other human beings fight and struggle for survival, and the vision definately stays true in the video game. You play Lee, a man who was on his way to prison the day of the outbreak for murdering his wife. What you get is a sort of redemption story for Lee, as he vows to protect adorable little Clementine, a girl orphaned by the virus.

Lee is one hell of a well written character (voiced by the amazing Dave Fennoy from Mass Effect and motherfucking Darkwing Duck), who really gives Rick a run for his money in terms of likeability. Lee struggles, first with surviving, then leading a group, getting closure for a dead family who had basically disowned him after the murder, and raising a little girl who depends on him completely. Throughout the 5 chapters, Lee deals with bandits, cannibalistic farmers, shady drifters, a lunatic cult of cancer survivors, and finally, in the 5th chapter, the most disturbing villain I have seen in a very long time. You get to know Lee pretty well by the end, and you should feel even more sympathetic to his desperate salvation story.

The game is centered around a Bioware style decision wheel, with super important questions lobbed at you quite frequently. You're also timed for each choice, making some of the bigger decisions a frantic and stressful ordeal (in a good way), which answering blindly can lead to serious consequences like the death of a team member, or loss of your own limb. The writing is so crisp that I never saw anything as forced, and the big showdowns at the end of each chapter are edge-of-your-seat exciting, as Lee takes seriously drastic actions to keep his group safe. Every decision you make has a serious effect, a small decision like who gets a candy bar in chapter 1 can decide if you're surviving or not in chapter 5. This gives the game a sort of random fate feeling, and I know that sounds bad, but it really makes the game more realistic in my opinion, you can prepare all you want, but you never know what going to happen.

This game series is amazing, and it is certainly on par with my favorite point and clicks, (Monkey Island, Myst). The Walking Dead game isn't just fan service, its a completely new story about a different group that is just as well written as the comic. Telltale created a game that achieves probably the hardest goal that development companies struggle with, making the player actually give a shit. Love it, can't wait for season 2.

Games I Never Beat: Sonic CD

So, even amidst all the chaos of new games, I always try to re-visit and conquer games that have conquered me before. When games sit on my shelf unbeaten, it always bugs me. So, here's my first attempt at punching an old enemy right in the mouth, Sonic CD.

Is that...an angel? Wtf?

I never beat this game when I was little simply because I didn't have a whole lot of exposure to it. Sega CD's were scarce, and I personally had a Saturn, and this game almost passed me by. Luckily, I got to play it a couple times at a friend's house, and I remember it the way most Sonic fans do, as the best installment in the series. So, now Xbox Live has released it, giving me a chance to have a little nostalgia.

One of my huge gripes about the Sonic franchise on a whole, is that they force precision jumps in a game thats all about blurspeed. Sonic CD doesn't have a lot of these moments, (except for Wacky Workbench, hate those levels), instead ramping up the difficulty of the boss fights to achieve some balance.

And fuck are a few of those fights tough. The Quartz Quadrant alone is probably the most frustrating Sonic boss I've ever faced, (although the new Sonic 4 final boss is a close 2nd), and The Wacky Workbench platform jumping spree boss took me 15 tries. Be prepared to try several ideas and many different approaches to each boss before figuring them out.

All that aside, I beat the fucker, and now I'm going to go back for some extra achievements, I had such a nice retro experience with this rare Sonic game. Its sad, because this really was the last Hedgehog game before all the new characters took the series over and made it boring. If you have a chance, go find it.

Modern Nerd Cartoons

We all know that the 90's were the greatest decade for nerdtoons, but you don't always have to look back 20 years to find a great animated geek show. Here are 5 cartoons from just the last 10 years that you can watch with your kids and still feel hip.

5: Teen Titans

Marvel may make the better movies, but DC dominates the comic book cartoon medium. Teen Titans was a fresh take on my favorite superhero team, done in an anime style. The show is funny, extremely well voice acted, and action packed. The show also gave underrated villains like Lobo and Deathstroke a great 2nd impression. Teen Titans also has one hell of a catchy theme song, available in English and Japanese!

4: The Clone Wars

So remember how the prequels sucked and they ruined your life? Well, the animated adaptation of the infamous Clone Wars is fucking brilliant. You get to see Jedi's actually using their brains to solve problems and the action is believable for once. 

3: Batman Beyond

Yes, two DC shows on the list, but if you've ever seen Batman Beyond, then you know why. The show has a silly premise, it's Gotham City 60 years from now, all high tech and futuristic, and Bruce Wayne, (now an old man) trains a young teenager named Terry McGinnis to be the new Batman. What makes this show so spectacular is the attention to detail and the dark exploration of hypothetical ideas. What if Superman was a brutal vigilante in the future? What if The Riddler and The Scarecrow had children who became evil best friends? The show is dark, riveting, and supremely compelling. Also, the Batman Beyond movie, Return of The Joker, is in my opinion, the greatest animated superhero movie ever made.

2: Adventure Time

This show is made for those who live in the nostalgic nerd past. With a video game or dungeons and dragons reference in every single episode, Adventure Time is a giggle fest based on all the different influences of geek culture. This show has a bizarre but intelligent sense of humor, and two main characters you can really relate too if you love elves, lasers, and Nintendo. This show is made by nerds, for nerds, and Jake the Dog is voiced by my favorite voice actor John Dimaggio! Adventure Time is already a classic that will be playing in my house for the rest of my life. 

1: Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

Avatar The Last Airbender ran for 3 seasons. In that short amount of time, the creators of this masterpiece were able to craft one of the most beautiful stories ever told, cartoon or not. This series has a soul, and every single character absolutely drips with intrigue. The choreography, the sound design, the story itself, the voice acting, the dramatic moments and the comedic moments are all absolutely perfect. And after all of that extreme wonderfulness, they follow up with a spinoff series that rivals the greatness of the first with The Legend of Korra. My son will watch this with me when he gets just a little older, and he will know what true animated art is. If you haven't seen Avatar yet, do yourself a favor, your heart will forever thank you for it.

Review: Sakura Samurai

I've been very happy with my 3ds so far, and I have been trying to stockpile some games from the Virtual Console onto the system. I downloaded the original Zelda and replayed it again for some nostalgic giggles, but sometimes you get sick of retro shit and just want something new. So, at 7.99$, Sakura Samurai looked interesting and original, so I bought it on a whim without reading anything about it.

What I got was a wonderfully unique tactical swordfighter that really mimics the animes that got me interested in the entire samurai thing to begin with. Every fight is slow, with pattern memorization and precise striking required to dispatch your enemies. Every opponent can kill you quickly, so instead of absent-minded button mashing you have to focus, waiting to counter after a perfect block. Learning patterns, precision blocks and strikes, it takes a lot of skill to get good at this game.

Needless to say, I die a lot, and the game makes up for this by showering you with cash. Here's how it works; Whenever you die, your Kappa master appears on screen and points to a level that you have already completed. If you re-visit this level, you will find that every enemy now drops 5x the gold that they would normally give up. The sword upgrades and health items are extremely expensive in each new town that you go to, making frequent deaths actually A SMART FUCKING STRATEGY. Isn't that dumb?

Other than that small gripe, I really love this game. It looks good in 3d, (don't let my poopy screenshots fool you), and Sakura Samurai really is unique, a smart fighter with some incredibly challenging boss battles and a mini game system that is both relaxing, and massively rewarding. It's worth every penny of it's small price tag. What a great find.

Why I am no longer a Final Fantasy fan

My FF collection

My first exposure to Final Fantasy was on the Super Nintendo with 4. It was the first game that really blew my mind. I had conquered Mario and Zelda by this point, but Final Fantasy 4 gave me something that I had never really associated with video games before, a story. It was incredible, and even at such a young age, I grinded levels, built my party, and eventually beat Golbez on the moon. FF4 was always my answer to the favorite game question for years to come.

Square really had me by the balls as a teenager. Final Fantasy 7 changed what video games are, and the standard they are held too, and Final Fantasy 8 completely changed what can be accomplished musically. I fondly remember beating FF9 and devouring 10's religious based story. I wasted hundreds and hundreds of dollars on FF11, and even 12 was damn good. It really seemed as if Square couldn't fuck up their signature franchise, then of course, they did.

The Final Fantasy series has always cranked out disappointments, but they were never the signature installments, the core games were always great. But games like Crystal Chronicles, Chocobo's Dungeon, Dissidia, Revenant Wings, and Mystic Quest were all donkey shit, and the product milking was always bearable, because the actually numerical installments of Final Fantasy were always good. Until 13.

After the success of Kingdom Hearts and it's vague, friendship feelgood story, Tetsuya Nomura took over the Final Fantasy directing job after 12. What he wrote for us, was absolute garbage. Instead of morally ambiguous politics like in 12, we got teen angst. Instead of the religious power abuse we got in 10, he gave us a convoluted race relations snore story. We got a linear path to a vague story, complete with probably the worst dialogue I've ever seen in a big budget RPG. Also, NO TOWNS IN A FUCKING 80 HOUR ROLE PLAYING GAME.

Exactly where this shitty game is from

So if Square just made one bad game out of 14, then why do I want out so bad? It's the same reason Cubs fans leave their beloved team after years of devotion, the company simply doesn't care about quality anymore. I guess it was bound to happen, but Square really has devoted itself to making money, and money alone. Games get direct sequels now, anime spinoffs, major motion pictures, and formulaic, cookie cutter characters that have proven their worth by being popular in other games. Its artistic laziness, and its sad, because I do really believe that Square has, in the past, told some of the most interesting, unique, and exciting stories in video games. They made me cry before. And now, its a Disney Channel tween show, complete with every single anime cliche you can think of.

Should Square re-make 7? I don't think so, but honestly, I've stopped caring. If Square wants to enjoy the return of their hardcore fans, then stop making sequels, stop re-treading over the old stuff, and really pour your hearts and souls into making 15 the juggernaut of story telling that we used to think Final Fantasy was. However, they won't do that, and with western RPG companies like Bethesda, Bioware, Lionhead, 2K, and competing Japanese RPG companies like the always innovative Atlus, there really isn't any need to pay attention to Square anymore. Thanks for the childhood memories guys, but I'm moving on.

Game Dad: Thane Krios

First off, it has to be said, that Thane Krios is in actuality, a terrible father. If asked about it, Thane will spit a few paragraphs explaining why, but to sum it up, he abandoned his wife and baby son because he was too good of an assassin (really?). So, this is about how bad of a dad Thane is.

So Thane did the douchebag move that Superman and Andrew Ryan did when they learned that they were fathers. Leave. Thane uses the argument that he "didn't want my son to be lured down the same path I was", but it's a cop-out, and finally his guilt builds up inside and he intervenes in his son's life by throwing him in jail to save his life. Way to go dad!

Thane has Drell cancer, and is dying. He uses this to constantly get whatever his selfish heart wants, femshep in bed, or conning his son into forgiving him. For such a progressive sci-fi franchise, Mass Effect sure made some bad space assassins. Ride the bench Thane!

500 Pageviews!? Random top 5 list!

So, I love lists. Here's one that's personal to me, my top 5 favorite Pokemon and the reasons behind the choices in reverse order!!

5.Pikachu
He simply has to be on every true pokemaniac's list because he is the mascot who made everything possible. Without Pikachu, we wouldn't still have the franchise almost 15 years later.

4.Dugtrio
I tend to love and appreciate the pokemon that I can remember kicking a lot of ass with. In the orginal red/blue, you could catch a lvl 30 Dugtrio outside of Vermilion City. Thats a lvl 30 ground type being used at a lvl 22-28 lightning gym. I fucked up everybody AND got to escape from dungeons for free.

3.Magnezone
I've always preferred a rock and lightning heavy squad, and in the days Magneton was my go to electric type. Even over Zapdos! And now that the new generations gave him a third evolution, it's rare that he isn't present on my roster. He even learns Steel moves!

2.Porygon-Z
He is the pinnacle of technology! The precious child of science! The accomplishment of geniuses! I love science, and I love porygonZ.

1.Geodude
He is tattoed on my arm. He is the 1st choice of my favorite gym leader. He is also, the very first pokemon I ever caught on my own. I evolved him twice, and he never left my squad, even after he, as Golem, single handedly beat Agatha of the Elite four. Geodude reminds me of childhood, and will forever be, my rock.