Happy Camper

Wow, get home from a stressful day, hop online, and find out that my favorite series has announced another game. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Check out the trailer here. 11/11/11

Parody in the NFL

This team beat that team, then that team beat this team, the point is that on any given Sunday anything can happen.

Memoir 44 Online

Head over to the link below to download the free beta version of Memoir 44 Online. The game uses a pay to play model but gives you a free 100 "Gold Ignots" to get started. Each match against an online person costs only 1 Ignot while if you want to play against the computer it will cost you 2. You can then buy packages to play later on when you run out of money. I just played a good game which took 21 minutes, I lost 4-2.

Check out the download here.

For more information about the game visit here.

Were Back Again

Didn't We Already Try This Once?
Hello fellas, I know what your thinking, here we go again. Your absolutely correct, but this time we are back to stay hopefully. To understand why we have been so on again and off again the past few years you need to know about the crazy lives of some of the guys in the group.

What Is Going On With M0NSTAR09?
I started online gaming with the original Ghost Recon when my kids were little. As my kids grew and my son started playing football I started coaching him while trying to raise a family and finish college, which did not leave me much time for my online friends. To make a long story short, I finally graduated college, I kind of have a teaching job now, and my last day of being the head coach for my son is this Saturday. The point being, I will now have a lot more time on my hands for online gaming. I want to get us our gaming team back, back when we were really good at GRAW2 and the original COD over at DC Combat. Hopefully you guys will all come back, hopefully we can build this team again and compete with all the big boys.

MY NEW HOBBY?
During my time away from gaming I found another hobby also. This hobby gives me the same competitive gut wrenching feeling that trying to hold "A" gives you when your the last guys alive and the score is ties at 3-3. What is this, you might ask. This new hobby is War/Mini Gaming. I met a few dads about a year ago who got into this hobby with me and we usually meet once or twice a month to play board games. Games like Monopoly and Sorry are a thing of the past fellas, there are new games out here that are awesome and I will be the one to bring these games to you guys. I will let you know about the other stuff out there.

SO WHAT IS THIS 2ND PERSON SHOOTER/BEER DRINKIN GAMER THING?
This is where I would like to mesh the two groups together, my online gaming buddies and my offline Wargaming dorky buddies. The 2nd Person Shooter has been here for 2 years, idle, inactive, The Beer Drinkin Gamers have been active for almost a year, thriving, active. The best thing to do is the bring these groups together. To try to mesh these groups together and build a big gaming community. If your in then please sign up for a blogspot account and join the forums.

So for now I imported a bunch of older articles I wrote for the original 2PS as I wait to start writing new ones. If you are interested in writing then let me know, it would be nice to have a staff of guys who would write one article per week so we could constantly have a fresh content on the site.

Enjoy the site and remember, have a beer.

Uncharted-PS3

What do you get when you throw Tomb Raider, Gears of War, and a Hot Blond in a blender? The answer to that question would be found on the Playstation 3 and developed by Naughty Dog. Uncharted is the name while exploration and from-behind-cover-gunfights is the game. The hero of the game is Nathan Drake, part Indiana Jones with a mix of Laura Croft without the huge breasts, and your primary objective is to find the treasure that Sir Francis Drake was looking for back in the 1800′s.

After booting up the game I was immediately impressed with the opening cut scenes as they laid the foundation for the gorgeous visuals that I found throughout the game. The game is linear by design but the draw distance is up to par as you think your really in a much bigger world than your actually in. Just as the graphics shine throughout the controls do also. The shooting mechanics in the game are phenomenal as Naughty Dog has done the cover and shoot mechanic better than anyone I have seen yet. Popping in and out of cover never gets old as wave after wave of piraty-looking terrorist are after you and your companion Elena.

The story in the game was excellently crafted and easy to follow as long as you paid attention to the cut scenes. As intriguing as the story was the sexual tension that developed between the stories primary characters, Drake and Elena. Their love/hate relationship was comical at times and really helped develop the pace of the game when the story slowed down a little.

Naughty Dog took the blueprint for Uncharted right from the manual on “How to Make Video Games”, as there are a variety of game play elements that are used to break up the monotony of running around in the 3rd person view taking cover and shooting bad guys. There is an on-rails shooting level as well as a few levels where you man a jet ski when searching for the lost treasure. The game also boasts the best water effects I have ever seen in a video game, if you thought Far Cry had good looking water, you need to check out Uncharted.

Overall this game is definitely a must buy for all you PS3 owners out there as it took me a good ten hours to beat. The controls, graphics, story, and sound are all on par with the best games on the market today.

9.5

This article was originally posted on April 15, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

King Kong

One might wonder why I am reviewing a game that is older than dirt and that’s first appearance was on the original Xbox and to that person I would answer, “because I can, lol.” In all seriousness, the reason for the review is because if you play the game today it is pretty much a solid rental or cheap buy that will give you 5-8 hours of entertainment while netting you an easy 1000 Achievement points if your inclined to play a game that is over 3 years old.

My son has this King Kong/Achievement fetish lately so after his flag football game last Sunday we ventured up to our local Gamestop to get the game which we bought for $12. The games visuals are totally outdated when comparing them to today’s FPS’s but battling the great dinosaurs that are in the game is a fun as every encounter leaves you waiting for the next. I couldn’t help but compare King Kong’s T-Rex to Turok’s. Both are big, nasty, and full of heart wrenching roars as the T-Rex in King Kong would probably give the one in the latest Turok game a fair battle if they ever were to meet.

The game uses the standard FPS control scheme which controls quite well and the sound is also a pleasant surprise. There are a few different weapons that you use in the game but arguably the best for me was when I was able to find and throw spears at my enemies. At first it was tough but then I learned how to aim and I was able to hit anything that pissed me off. The story in the game was ripped straight from Peter Jackson’s movie but the presentation was well done as you could follow the story easily even if you lived under a rock and had no clue who or what King Kong is.

I recommend this game for anyone who wants a quick 1000 points and for only $12 it is well worth the purchase especially if you get it at EB Games or Gamespot. Those companies let you trade in your used games if you beet them or did not like them as long as it was within a week of initially buying it. So do what I my son did, buy the game, keep it for under a week as you beat it and get the points, and then trade it back in for another game while getting the full value of what you payed for it. Sweet deal if you ask me.

7.5

This article was originally posted on April 19, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

Battlefield: Bad Company Multi-Player Review

Since Last Fall the entire community of shooting fans have focused themselves mainly on the award winning shooters Halo3 and Call of Duty 4. Week after week, they sat one and two on top of the XBOX Live Leaderboards being the most played games on the service. Their online options are rivaled by none as both games share many options that catapult each games multi-player components into being the best in the history of online shooting games. As the heat from the summer forces most of us into our air conditioned basements we are finally tiring of those great online shooters and looking for something else to play. Enter Battlefield: Bad Company. Battlefield: Bad Company follows DICE’s 2006 release Battlefield: Modern Combat as it tries to improve on its average 77 out of 100 rating on Metacritic.com.

After playing the demo for a week straight I was thoroughly impressed on the scope and scale of the game as my son and I ruled Oasis on a consistent basis. We had a great time and were very excited for the final release of the game. After picking up two copies of the game we plopped them in out boxes and continued to play online for 3 straight hours as we were eager to see all we could see on the first night.

My excitement soon faded to disappointment though because as soon as I got online I noticed the faults with Bad Company’s lack of online options. One game type, no clan support, no lobby system for online clan matches, are just a few of the games online faults. Have developers ever played COD4 or Halo3? Did anyone notice how great MP games are loaded with options for people to experiment with. The three gripes that I listed above are inexcusable in this day and age . The game does run smooth but I think the online functionality of the game is just terrible. Man do I wished they would give you a Helicopters only Team Death Match mode, how fun would that be. Or better yet, what about a Tanks only CTF game, the possibilities are limitless. My question is why? Why not give us the option to play the game the way we want to play it. Make your “get the gold crates” game type the default but at least let us play the way we want to play.

As the game lacks any real features that make up a top notch shooter’s online functionality it gets 10′s across the board from me for the games fun factor. Yes, it is missing a lot but when you pop it in and hit the online battlefield but you always have a great time playing even if you can only really ever get three other friends in your games. The game is just plain fun, whether your crashing your teams only helicopter into a group of tangos running for cover or whether your on foot trying to take down that tank with your nube tube your always having a blast. It’s the kind of fun that makes you want to come back every night.

The graphics of the game are excellent. While not the best out there, the graphics sure make up for the lack of MP features and really add to the fun of the game. Trees sway in the wind, the character animations are great, the buildings and smoke look realistic, and the landscape of the battlefields look amazing. This is definitely a high point for the game as it looks like some of the better shooters out there. The graphics of the game complement the controls quite well as the controls of the game lie somewhere between the hardcore shooter and the arcadey shooter. The precision in aiming is not on par with COD4 but they are OK for a game with the scope and magnitude that this multi-player game offers. One issue that I do have with the controls however is that they are generally too fast for my old ass as I literally had to dumb down the sensitivity to bar one. The default sensitivity was way too fast and my reflexes are not what they used to be. It seems to me that the controls are more dependent on what gun or class you picked as they tighten up a little more depending on your kit. No matter what gun or kit you use you can bet that anything you pick is going to sound completely awesome. I dare you to shut your eyes and just listen, after a minute or two you will think your in the middle of Saving Private Ryan 2 or Platoon. The sounds in the game are that good and coupled with the great graphics it is a real stimulating experience for two of your 5 senses.

All in all the game is pretty awesome but I am still having a hard time with the way EA and DICE delivered the game without key options in place that would have made the game one of the best online shooters ever. If you want a team based game to play because you need something for your clan to compete in then pass this game up when your at your local Control Pad but if you want to run around crazy for the next four months playing with a few friends in hectic online battles then this game is a definite buy.

8.3

This article was originally posted on June 29, 2008 on our previous blog.

Sony's Three Red Rings of Life

How many people has had this scenario happen to them? You run downstairs with a beer and a sandwich in hand ready to conquer the world in Call of Duty 4 and you turn on your Xbox 360 only to be met with the Three Red Rings of Death. You think maybe its just a mirage, maybe if you turn it off and then on again it will work, maybe if you take out the hard drive and then clap twice while hopping on one foot if will miraculously return from the dead. But nothing happens, your video game love has fallen as Taps starts to play in the background. I know the first time this happened to me I was bent, I felt violated inside as I returned it to Gamestop. It wasn't until the second time it happened did I decide that I was not emotionally upset anymore but I was pissed off, the team I play Call of Duty 4 on was in the midst of being the best team on the site we play on while amassing an incredible 57-8 record and I was going to miss the last quarter of the season and the entire playoffs, at this point I was totally fed up with Microsoft for this and I vowed to get revenge. How does one get back at a multi-billion dollar corporation? How does one hit them where it really hurts? I found my answer at my local Blockbuster, the answer to me ran me about $450, the answer to me was a Playstation 3. I was a Microsoft fan boy forever, I never had a PS2 and I never really thought of buying a PS3. I was totally content playing the GRAW's and COD's on on Live via my 360 as I met many awesome people over the years. I played with 4 or 5 different teams online while we tried to gel knowing that we could never be as good as the guys who play the games 7 nights per week. My love for my Xbox never faded until I got the Three Red Rings the second time around. Once was OK, the timing was bad, it happened the night I brought home both Gears of War and Call of Duty 3, but I was good with it because I only had to swap it out at my local Gamestop instead of sending it back to Microsoft. But now I am truly upset and I am ready to give the Playstation 3 a chance, now I am ready to venture to the Dark Side. This article was originally posted on February 14, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

PixelJunk Monster's Review-PS3

A Real Beauty
When I picked up my PS3 I knew that the Playstation Network that Sony offered its customers was far inferior to Xbox Live and it's Marketplace but what I did not take into account was the quality of the games that Sony offers compared to the quantity of games that Microsoft offers. Now don't get me wrong, the 360's Arcade has a few great hits but none of them can hold a candle to the PSN's PixelJunk Monsters.

What's This?
PixelJunk Monsters is an exciting strategy game that pits you, the turtle, against wave after wave of enemy creatures all hellbent on consuming your precious offspring. What separates the game from most in the arcade lines of both consoles is that instead of actually shooting the bad guys yourself, you build towers anywhere on the map to do your shooting for you. Well you can't build the towers just anywhere as that would be too easy, the path that the monsters take is lined with trees and by running to a tree and clicking a few buttons you can transform that tree into the tower of your liking. If a band of flying bugs comes in from the entrance where they spawn you would build Anti-Air Towers, if a huge number of creatures came at you but were all slow movers you would build Cannons. The game proceeds down this path the entire way, waves and waves of enemies come and its up to you to decide how to defend you base.

Graphics & Sound?
There are some Arcade games out there that are really easy on the eyes and while there are some that look as if the designer's secretary threw the graphics together while he was out to lunch. PixelJunk Monsters doesn't necessarily go to either one of these extremes but the game does look good. On my 1080i HDTV it looks smooth and colorful and it is really a joy to watch and play. There aren't a vast amount of colors since we all know that grass is, green, and trees are, green, but the colors are vivid enough for me to be happy while playing as every map has roughly the same grassy-forested theme. The creatures and trees are all cell-shaded which gives the game a very nice and clean look. The sound is really disappointing as it pretty much had my ears bleeding from the start. Like many Arcade games it seems as if they just threw the sound in the game because all games need sound but when the game's pace quickens the sound does also which adds a nice touch when playing. There is nothing like a band of fast spiders coming at you as the sound puts you in the mindset that you have to hurry up and build or all your little babies will bite the dust.

Overall Review
Developers make arcade games different from standard console releases. A good arcade game is one that you can pick up and play anytime without having to get all caught up in a long drawn out story. It needs to be able to play quick when you have just a few minutes to do so and it needs to be fun and interesting. The only thing I want to see is a multi-player add-on which would pit you against others on the PSN network but it has all the traits which makes it a MUST BUY for anyone who is looking for a good game on the PSN. The mix of strategy and fun game play is unparalleled on either console and for $7.99 it is a steal to purchase.

This article was originally posted on February 16, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

Grand Theft Oblivion

OK, I will admit it, I am not a GTA fan but with the release of GTA4 next month I figured I would give it a chance. I tried playing the other games to no avail, I hated the targeting systems most of all and I really could not understand why every quest in the games were either fetch quests or the standard “go kill this guy” quest. Where is the variety in game play? There is none, and that's my problem.

At least with other open ended games there is variety in game play. Look at Oblivion for example. Yes, its not entirely the same as the GTA games but the games are more similar than you think. What makes Oblivion stand out more than GTA is the fact that you can play Oblivion like so many other games. It’s a shooting game using magic if you want it to be, its huge open ended RPG if you want it to be, its a fast acting action game if you want it to be. GTA is just GTA, there is only really one way to play the game, yes, its open-ended but why play a game like that which is so close to real life. Is it really fun to jack cars in the game? Is it really fun to go kill so and so? Is it really fun to take that thing to that guy? No its not.

In Oblivion its not like real life, yes, there are a bunch of fetch quests out there but the depth of those quests is a story in itself. I have played Oblivion for about 50 hours and I remember at least 5 quests that stuck in my mind because of how well the story was done. Has anyone had that experience with any of the GTA’s? I highly doubt it. What makes GTA such a hit is the culture of GTA and that it was the first of its kind. It came out with a roar when the Playstation 2 needed a killer app. At that time you were hard pressed to find a title that would let you jack cars and kill people at will and the original GTA let you do just that. But these days games need more. They need more than just messed up gimmicks in their games but they need the gimmicks because there is only so much you can do with a real life open ended games like all the GTA’s. gimmicks are what sells the games nowadays.

In GTA4 I guess you can get drunk now, what? Who does Rockstar think plays these games? Yes there is a rating for the game and its the parents responsibility to oversee what their kids play but we all know that there are thousands of kids out there that will play the game. Doesn’t Rockstar know that drinking and driving is illegal in real life but they put a drinking and driving mini-game into GTA4. Now some will argue that killing people is illegal also but most of the normal people in the world know that killing people and jacking cars is wrong and usually they abstain from those activities. Drinking and driving is different though. Having a d&d mini-game is just wrong. I can imagine the fifteen- sixteen year olds sitting around playing GTA4 one night and getting to the d&d mini-games. I think that's bad karma and I am a dad who lets his 7 year old play Call of Duty4 and whatever else he wants to play.

If the D&D mini-game is not as bad did you hear about the new Achievement that Rockstar put in its old/new title Bully:Scholarship Edition? Well word around the podcast community is that you can get fifteen Achievement points if you kiss a boy. I think that's a little strange but the pod caster who will remain nameless(because I cannot remember his name) tried to argue for this saying that it was like one of those choices you have to make in Bioshock whether you save or harvest the Little Sisters. I think this argument was totally pathetic, kissing a boy in a video game while playing as a boy has nothing to do with the conscious decision you had to make whether or not you saved or harvested the Little Sisters, its just a stupid gimmick to get people to talk about the game. What other developer puts such ridiculous aspects of game play into their game just to drum up interest?

The point I am trying to make is that their are better alternatives to GTA4. There are other games out there that will give gamers a better experience. Yes, its early but one can only look back at the past, the other GTA’s were the same thing over and over. Hopefully with GTA’s new cover and targeting systems the GTA franchise will be reborn without getting the positive reviews just because its another GTA.

PS3 On The Rise?

Arguably the Xbox 360 has enjoyed the lead in the console war thus far when comparing it and the PS3 but word around the community is that the PS3 is on the rise. It seems that people are now going to be propelled to buy a PS3 simply because Blue Ray has won the HD format war. That and the fact that the PS3 is finally coming out with some games are the two main reasons that advance these assumptions that are being made about the console. I have two questions that need to be answered. Who is going to pay $400 for a Blue Ray player six months from now when Blue Ray players start popping up everywhere cheaply, and what PS3 exclusive games are coming out that warrant this “the PS3 is on the rise” attitude?

So Blue Ray has won the HD format war. That’s great news for Sony but all that means is that for now they might sell a few thousand more PS3’s because some of these people have waited to buy a next gen system until the industry had picked a winner between Blue Ray and HD DVD. Does Sony think that they will get another 100,000 PS3 sales because of these events that have taken place? I think not. The hardcore gamer already has their system of choice, they don’t have to go out and buy a new system just because the format war has been won by Blue Ray. I think we need to remember that less than 20% of the households in America even own HDTV’s and when manufactures finally see a winner in the format war I bet ya a dollar that the price of Blue Ray systems will drastically drop in the next year. If I already own an Xbox 360 do you think I am going to go spend $400 on a PS3 just for Blue Ray or am I going to go to Wal Mart and get a stand alone Blue Ray player for $96.88?

So the PS3 game library is ready for a significant upgrade which will let Sony overtake Microsoft? Yes, it took the PS3 over a year but finally they are putting out some quality games for the system. Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, and Warhawk are all great games and a much needed addition to the PS3’s slow rising library but where does Sony go form here. As I look down the list of upcoming releases I don’t see very many games that sound good to me. Sure, you get Metal Gear 4 in June or whenever they release that soap opera but don’t you actually watch more of that game than play it? And better yet, you have to buy the online mode of the game for a total separate price and game and it won’t be available when MG4 releases. Wait a minute, Grand Turismo 5 is coming in April, great but isn’t that just a $40 demo with the real game coming in the Fall? Haze will be here in May but that game has been pushed back more times than the original Xbox game BC. The best exclusive game that the PS3 has this year is Little Big Planet which also ships in the fall.

Given the information above one can only wonder how people think the PS3 is finally on the upswing, but if they are, and they are finally turning it around, and this is getting better, its sad to see how bad it actually was for the PS3 in the first year of its existence.

This article was originally posted on March 4, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

How About PS3

The Playstation 3, big, black, a system of all systems, wireless controllers, huge hard drive, HDMI, and HD support. What else does one need? Well, I will tell you.

How about full HD support for one. How about being able to play Resistance: Fall of Man on my 1080p HDTV instead of in 480p because my HDTV does not support 720p. How about I go back to the original Xbox and play Halo 2 if I want to play games in 480p. How about I get out of this system what I should get after paying $450 for it.

How about I get some more games. How about some more first party PS3 exclusive games like Folklore, Ratchet & Clank, and Uncharted.

How about a Live like service where I can play with my friends and communicate with them while we are in different games. Playing with friends is fun Sony.

How about letting me hear the few friends that I do have on my list. How about making a standardized Sony Headset so everyone can communicate. How about making it cost under $30 seeing that it's free on the 360 and came packed in.

How about combining Sony Online Entertainment with the Playstation Network so PS3 owners can take advantage of all the software that SOE has out there that PC players utilize?

How about you fix all this and then your system will be perfect for the ten year life cycle that you claim your system will last. How about you don't wait till the 5th year of that ten year span to do all of it because by that time the next Xbox will be here and once again Microsoft will have one upped you.

This article was originally posted on February 16, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

More of the Same, But Different

Why aren't their more games out there that I like to play? When I think about gaming I think about having fun and enjoying my time in the basement which houses my setup but more often than not I struggle to find good stuff to play and find myself wondering why that is? In this age of gaming, developers really don't take any chances anymore because they know how high the stakes are if they produce a crappy game. Year after year we see new titles from old IP's and to me this is getting old. Madden 05, Madden 06, Madden 07, etc... This might be changing however, at least a little. EA is giving us some new stuff when Army of Two and Dead Space come out later this year. But then again EA has the money to be able to take chances and its good to finally see them doing so. Where are the other developers who take the chances? Do these guys know that they can take these chances while still delivering the same gameplay that has worked for many titles without necessarily being the same game or throwing an 09' on the title? One way to do this would be to do what EA is doing with the two games that I mentioned. Take an old game mechanic and mold it to a new IP. We have all seen both Dead Space and Army of Two before. Dead Space is Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Dino Crisis, and just about any other 3rd person shooter rolled into a space environment while Army of Two is more or less Gears of War with more emphasis on cooperative play. Personally I think that this is a great thing and I wished more developers would copy what EA is doing but they have to do it the right way, they have to take only the good elements of these games and mix them into the new IP, not the bad. Look what Naughty Dog did with Uncharted. They took all the exploration of a Tomb Raider game and mixed it with a better cover system that Gears of War had then added awesome graphics to create what might be one of the greatest exploration/shooter games of this and the last generations. This is what we as gamers need developers to do, you can make more of the same if you make it better. I heard on a podcast the other day that Eidos has been playing through Uncharted to get some more ideas about Tomb Raider Underworld. At first I was pumped up, playing as Laura Croft and being able to jump from cover to cover to manually aim and shoot would be great but then I heard the next sentence the guy said, it turns out that Eidos is playing Uncharted because they want to make sure they make Underworld different. What? What are they doing? Did they not see how good Uncharted was? Did they not notice that they made countless Tomb Raider games and not one of them can even hold Uncharted's jock strap? I was really bummed out when I heard this and this is an example of what I am not talking about here. Why take good gameplay and good game mechanics and change them from what worked so well in the past. I tell Eidos to copy Uncharted, do everything you need to do to make Underworld exactly like Uncharted. Thats what will get the series back on track, not changing your game so it doesn't copy something else. If your going to copy anything it should be copying the best exploration/shooter on the market today not shying away from what works. I could never understand why developers do this. Back in the day Zelda: The Ocarina of Time was known as one of the best games to ever come out on a console. It had a huge open world, it had awesome dungeons, it had strategic puzzles, it was the game everyone wanted. Why did we only see one? Now I know that Majora's Mask came out also and was good but why did we only see one game of this type released. Why did we not see a game centered in space that copied The Ocarina of Time? Where was the present day adventure game that could have mimicked everything that the Ocarina of Time did right? That is what I am talking about here. Developers were afraid to make a game like Zelda because they did not want to copy what Zelda did but if they would have changed the setting and spiced up the gameplay then they might have had a huge hit on their hands. If these developers would add more of the same in their games but make them a little bit different everyone would win. People would buy the games because they had awesome mechanics, mechanics that were proven in the past with other great titles, this would be tons better than just making another sports game year after year while slapping another year on the end of the title. This article was originally posted on February 13, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

Screen Shot Box Shot Injustice

We have all seen screen shots and box shots. Sometimes we look at them and get all googly-eyed about the game that were interested in even though they could look like an old Nintendo 64 game, but if its a game that were into then were going to love the shots of the game that they give us. Well actually, that's being a fan-boy but we will save that for another article. Were talking about screen shots and box shots, images taken from the game that are used to promote said game and tell the world how great the graphics are.

My problem with screen shots and box shots is that they barely ever show an accurate representation of the game. They are usually images that are taken from totally different camera angles than the game is played. Sports games are the main culprit to most of these screen shot and box shot Injustices. You ever see the back of the box of a Madden game? Whether it be Madden 92 or Madden 08, you will always see awesome in game shots on the back. These shots are there to show off the game, to make someone on the fence about buying go “damn, look at this.” The problem with this though is that the graphics never, and I mean ever, look like the box shots do. With Madden’s box shots or just about any of EA’s sports games the box shots are usually instant replay photos. Now that's fine and dandy but you know what EA, I don’t play the game in instant replay mode. I play the game in real time. I play the game with the same camera that is situated behind my QB and has been since the first Madden back in the 90’s. Don’t insult our intelligence and show us screen shots and box shots of instant replays, show us game play, show us the shots from someone playing the game. Don’t be afraid that people will see that very little has changed since the last iteration of the game, that's your fault.

This article was originally posted on February 21, 2008 at our previous gaming blog.

The War of Achievements

Over the last few years I have consistently played every team multiplayer game that has come around and I am sad to admit that I am getting a little bit bored of hopping online and playing the same games over and over. What can one do when they are bored of their gaming? The answer for me lies somewhere deep in XBOX Live, the answer for me does not necessarily lie in changing the games I play but changing how I play games. The answer for me lies in the War of Achievements.

You might ask WTF I am talking about, and that would be a great question. What I am talking about is playing games a new way, playing games in a way that re-generates fun for me with my games while not having to spend a boat load of money on new ones. To tell you the truth I came across this on accident and the award winning game Bioshock is to blame. Bioshock was the greatest single player game that I have encountered thus far, the graphics, the game play, the sound, its all done with such quality that I instantly fell in love with the game back in July when the demo came out way before the game even hit store shelves.

One day after beating the game I found myself browsing my achievement list and I checked out how I did with the game. I figured since every game has a total of 1,000 achievement points I would see how I did. I was shocked when I saw that I only gained 465 points out of 1,000. How could this be I asked myself? How could I spend roughly 25 hours with a game and only receive not even half of the achievement points. This started the Battle of Achievements for me, at that point I vowed never to lose the War of Achievements. I vowed to try to get all the achievements I could muster up while enjoying even the crappiest of games.

Playing games this way brought a new excitement to my play time and Timeshift was the first game I tried winning the War on. I thought that Timeshift would be a good experiment for me because I knew that the game pretty much sucked but at least it has a cool game mechanic. In Timeshift you can slow, stop, and reverse time whenever you want. This mechanic in the game is fun and helped me get through the first level while gaining a massive 45 achievement points. I got ten points for beating the first level of the game, I got ten points for nabbing ten weapons out of ten enemies hands while using my time stop powers, I threw a sticky grenade back at an enemy, I got five points for walking on water, and I shot five weapons out of my enemies hands. I did all that and now I sit at 45 points, how gratifying.

Timeshift was the first game that I used this new found strategy but my War of Achievements started way back on November 23, 2005, when I completed the Basic Training in Call of Duty 2 which I gained 50 points for. Back then I didn't give a shit about achievements, I didn't care that I got those 50 points but now I think its the coolest thing ever. What do they achievement points get you? Nothing at all, but I still think its a blast to play the games with the achievement list in front of me and try to get all the points I can. Just yesterday I plopped COD2 in my 360 and gained the Veteran of the Winter War achievement which upped my Gamerscore by 60 points. It's not necessarily the gamerscore that matters to me now but the fact that there are challenges in each game that make the game more fun to play. Whoever thought of the idea is a genius, these achievements add tons of replay value to your games.

So now every game I play is a Battle for me. It's a battle to win the War of Achievements, if I can gain at least half of the achievement points in every game then I will have won the Battle of Achievements for that game which gets me that much closer to winning the War of Achievements. So when you see me playing Madden 06 and you wonder WTF is he doing, just remember that to get 400 points in that game all I have to do is complete 30 years in the franchise mode, a small feat for someone who simulates all thirty years.

This article was originally posted on January 9, 2008 on our original gaming blog.

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