Dare to Play the Game

Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I’m glad your back, whoever you are. My honest hope is that you are a 5’4 redheaded girl who likes to watch movies and play video games. I’m picky I know. And call me. Some weeks, I just think I float in space until friday and then I think I wake up for…about a day before resuming my schedule. This is one of those weeks. I bought the new Nine Inch Nails cd – Year Zero this week and a rather unique cd. I won’t give away the surprise but if you don’t know; just look at the cd, play it and then take it back out and have a look again. Neat huh? The music is very good also. Honestly I wonder whether Trent is kinda like Bruce Springsteen & John Mellencamp where they write so much music, they just have it sitting everywhere and could release dozens of albums without even trying.

Then there are some pictures which defy explanation. In the wide world of blondes gone wrong we see a hair color that just doesn’t suit Morgan. I like short blondes to be honest but Morgan is just better as a brunette or redhead. Or a funny color she saw at Walgreens. Do you think she shops at Walgreens? Like would she buy an interesting new hair color and then walk over to the candy aisle and buy some juju fruits? Yes I have bizarre thoughts, I also keep down a paying job. The government is trying to sort it out.

The release of Guitar Hero II on Xbox 360 brought cheers from the faithful who’ve been eager to rock. Things, however, haven’t been so jolly for early adopters of Guitar Hero II. Of chief concern is an issue with some copies of Guitar Hero II that had faulty whammy bar control.

If your 360 bit the dust following the Guitar Hero II update, contact Xbox customer service and explain the situation. If you haven’t downloaded the GH II update yet, you may want to hold off putting the game in your system for the time being. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Well it’s nice that the fixed the faulty whammy bar control. Except one problem, my whammy bar was just fine. In fact I probably wore it out physically on Freebird last week. Not to mention the update is bricking systems. That’s not good! *looks nervously at Guitar Hero II game and backs away slowly*. Yeah I’m not playing GH2 for a little bit. So they fix a problem a lot of people aren’t even having and cause more problems to others. Add this on to the fact they are still charging a ridiculous 500 points for GH1 3 song packs on Marketplace. Are they just trying to piss off their faithful followers? Seriously. This game is a walking slam dunk and cash cow and they do silly things like this.

Sony Upgrading PS3 Hard Drive(from ign.com)

Sony recently announced it is discontinuing the 20GB model of the PlayStation 3 in North America, leaving the 60GB version the only SKU available for the console. But a spokesman for the company recently revealed that Sony is considering releasing a new model with an even larger hard drive.

With the imminent release of the Xbox 360 Elite, the PS3 stands to be out gigged by 60GB (the Elite comes with a 120GB hard drive). It only makes sense that Sony would be making plans to remain competitive with Microsoft.

The very definition of silly. Okay, we have a 60 gb hard drive. Well Microsoft just came up with a 120 gb hard drive for their 360. What should we do? Well we could offer a 80gb model? Brilliant! (somebody gets a raise and I have another ulcer waiting for me). Why waste your effort? And is it so freaking hard to issue a 200 or more gb model? When I saw a 1 Terabyte external drive selling for less than a 360 system; I know this is past the point of reason. I scratch my head when I just think about all of the storage that could be thrown out there but yet we are stuck inside the minds of a simple minded system. I’m sure Sony will think to charge $50 more for their 20 extra gb, as if the PS3 needed another reason to be more expensive. Please, somebody get me my medicine.

Well by the time you read this the above two games should be available for your XBOX Live Arcade. Cool stuff, Gyruss is a classic shooter from yesteryear where you fly a spaceship (like most shooters) from Neptune to Earth while battling all sorts of things that will keep you from your goal. There are upgrades which is nice and it will also include the original and the enhanced version with 3d graphics. Kinda like the way they did Geometry Wars Evolved. Look for Multiplayer cooperative and versus. Very very nice for 400 points.

Then we get from the people who brought us Assault Heroes, good ole Sierra Online and finally what appears to be a good Mini Golf game and on XBLA to boot. 3d Ultra MiniGolf Adventures provides 3-d characters, three theme courses of 12 holes each, up to 4 player multiplayer and get this a course editor!! Courses shouldn’t hold up much hard drive space and I hope they were smart enough that we can actually share these courses with others online. Think about it, making up 9, 12, 18 holes (or however many they allow) and then playing it with three friends online. I’ve actually designed a few golf courses when Jack Nicklaus golf for PC was a big deal with its course editor. So I have my fingers crossed on this one that it will provide what I might be looking for in a editable golf game. This one goes for 800 points but looks to be worth it.

This week we explore the second greatest racing game of the early video game era (behind Pole Position). OutRun; made by the minds at Sega was a game where you drove a Ferrari of all vehicles down a path with multiple checkpoints and paths to one of 5 ultimate destinations. It was innovative for its time since it gave you choices and the stages were really different which meant for quite a few different experiences and good replay value. The music was pretty decent as well, sporting a very mellow beach music feel. The arcade cabinet offered a vibration feedback steering wheel which shook very violently should your car take a spin. In the arcade, I usually only got past the first 2 or 3 stages, but I have beat the Sega Master system version. OutRun most recently appeared on the Sega Classics collection for PS2. It is one of the few games on there that while it has updated graphics it is pretty faithful to the original. (A fate most of the other games on the compilation did not share).

PS2

Eureka Sevel Vol. 2 New Vision
Raiden III
The Plan
Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2
Red Star

PSP

Pocket Pool
Valhalla Knights

Wii

Bust a Move: Bash!

DS

Toondoku
Classic Action Devilish
NY Times Crosswords

Not much going on this week. Mainly a couple of throw back titles warrant your attention. Bust a Move: Bash should be much fun; I still remember playing the original on the 3do of all systems (yes I own a 3do, yes I have about 60 games for it, and yes I’m willing to sell it and all of the games). Raiden III should be fun for some of you budget minded shooter folks who own a PS2. The first couple of Raidens were good clean fun and I would expect nothing less from the third incantation. It’s a real shame that this one will probably go unnoticed. Honestly, it is also nice to see a crosswords puzzle game makes it to the DS. The DS and its innovative use of a stylus practically beg for a crosswords game. For those who actually are into that sort of thing :). Anyway, I was looking at the release schedule for the next couple of months. I got excited; no, not redheads on trampolines (though I would suspect that will come along any day now); Taito Legends 2 comes out for PS2 on 5/7. Some of you might remember the first one which came out last year (and now sells for $10 at Best Buy) and had some great titles such as Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Operation Wolf, & Elevator Action. I did see a few pictures of the new one, and one of the games included was Cadash! For those of you who don’t know, Cadash is one of my favorite games of all time. It’s an awesome arcade rpg. It will be nice to see it brought back to life. I also have a good feeling that Elevator Action 2 will be included as well which was a good game but forgotten sequel to the classic. $20, can’t beat it.

In gaming, a lot happened for me this week. I finished the Old Spice Achievement Challenge one week before it was over. I know some of you finished it in days after it launched but I took my time since I’m only a level one anyway. Well, now level two. I had finished Guitar Hero 2 on medium, and went back and five starred everything on easy (that was my last achievement). My career score is over 6 million campaign (8.2 million overall) I think which is pretty good. Last I checked (before the supposed auto update that started bricking people’s systems), I was in the top 35k out of 250k. Hey it’s something and I’m still first among my 5 friends who own the game. I also bought a copy of Ninja Gaiden Black (thanks goes to Ginger @ EB who swayed me away from the original) for the original XBOX. I think I own every XBOX 360 compatible XBOX game that is worth owning now. Which amounts to about 15. 🙂 Finally in Guild Wars, I am now level 13. I think I’ve beat all of the Piken Square missions now. Anyway, have fun kids and remember who loves ya (your mom and dad, geezus!)

As Always,
Kedrix of Aldrianian
(*The Forgotten One*)