Ecco Jr for VC, Asteroids for XBLA and another History Channel game for the 360, could this be the worst release week ever? – Welcome to the column that would realize that it might suck if it didn’t spend enough time putting itself over known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another addition of Dare to Play the Game. Puzzle Quest has fallen, all twelve achievements are done with and I’m a pleased gamer. Level 50 went pretty quickly as I mentioned. I also finished Guitar Hero 3 on medium so I can safely say I’ve beat all the Guitar Heros on at least medium. The Lou battle wasn’t so bad in comparison to the Slash battle but I guess I gained a few skills. The thing is I barely shuffled through the last tier and had all three stars to my name in most of the songs. Some of those last songs are ridiculous, even in medium. I will certainly go back and try to improve but I’m good for now. I played a good smattering of Carcassonne which once you learn it is quite fun. I have three achievements left and can see myself getting the rest of them, but it will take a little bit of luck. (especially the 9+ tiles for a city against 2 or more people in a player match) That would make for my 4th XBLA game to be completely finished. But I have about another 4-5 that are anywhere from 1-3 achievements away; some of those are just buggers I swear.
She’s like a picture on a movie screen. Here we catch Morgan behind the scenes on her latest movie. Okay, not really. Just one of those cool shots where they decided to make Morgan look like she’s on widescreen or something. I do sit at night and wonder about what roles she would play in Hollywood or is she forever doomed to be a geek girl. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Keeps her on X-Play reviewing my favorite games if nothing else :D.
Urination Gaming
Piss Screen, of which we’ve spoken previously, has been shut down at a games show by Belgian police (a little while ago, yes, but news from the urinal gaming scene travels slowly). The game showed up for display at Belgium’s GamePower Expo, in Gent, but once there police believed the game to be “indecent” and had it removed. Despite the whole point of the thing being to discourage/prevent people from drink-driving. Ah well. Looks like it’s back to care-free games of “don’t cross the streams!” for the men of Belgium, then.
I’m not sure what’s better; that there was a game that you could play while taking a leak or that the company had the audacity to name themselves Piss Screen. It’s genius, but a racing game controlled by your stream. It was also developed I believe to keep people from drunk driving by looking at the alcohol content of your “tinkle”. But it’s innovation like this that keeps gaming always leaping a couple of steps forward. Let’s just hope that they don’t take one step back and develop a game called Dump King or Grand Theft Dookie.
Wii/DS
John Carmack used to hate Nintendo. With a fire that burned wildly inside of him. Some may say it’s because Nintendo (was rumored to have) completely ignored his idea for a Mario port on the PC. Carmack says otherwise:
We ignored Nintendo for a long time for a number of fairly good reasons — we hated dealing with them 10 years ago, as they always lagged behind the front runners in terms of raw technology… now we’re branching out onto lower-end platforms, so now its an interesting platform for us to be looking at. Six months from now, when our current projects are done, we have all sorts of options we’re focusing on.
Ah well. Whatever the reason, least they’re all chummy now! Interesting he talks about “options” there, too. If those “options” don’t include either an official Doom or Quake on the DS I’ll eat your monkey’s uncle’s hat.
It’s so funny how money talks, especially when ID hasn’t made a worthwhile game in a long time. So the Wii and the DS make huge sales and suddenly a FPS is viable on those systems. I loved the fact that the original Doom appeared on the XBLA. That was one of my first purchases in fact. Beat the first three episodes but couldn’t hack it in the 4th. Would love to see a Quake as well but doubt it (since Quake 2 and 4 already exist, there is little reason to go back and visit). I would imagine the ports mentioned will happen at the very least. But one thing I want to know, where is Wolfenstein 3d and where the heck is Blake Stone? (yes I need help but help is only available between the hours of 2-3am and I am asleep in my bed)
Wrestling/Xbox 360
Dear Boss,
I’m pretty sure you’re upset with me. I tried to get in touch with you all day on Friday, but you won’t return my calls or text messages. You blocked me on AOL Instant Messenger and won’t reply to my Facebook pokes. Heck, I even tried sending you a game invite when I saw you playing Halo 3 online, but you ignored that too. I would have let you frag me with sticky grenades as much as you wanted if it made you feel better. You know, just like old times!
Now, I can understand why you’re mad at me after what happened on “iMPACT!” (you know, me accidentally winning the match when you had Jay Lethal beat). But hey, I paid for it in the end, right? I was the one who had to put on that ridiculous turkey outfit. Plus, I’m not sure if you’re mad at me for not inviting you to Kurt’s Thanksgiving dinner, but I made him promise me that he sent you an invitation. I’m not sure if it got lost or not, but I guess I should have just invited you in person.
I’m also really starting to get the feeling that you’re mad at me for supposedly turning my back on you and joining Kurt Angle. But please believe me when I tell you it’s all been a huge misunderstanding. When you made me the Captain of the Coalition, I knew I had to do all I could to help our team. That’s why I talked to Karen Angle and figured out a way that BOTH sides could work together as an unstoppable unit. Can you imagine me, Tomko, you and Kurt as a team? Who could beat us? Tomko seems to think there’s some heat between you and Kurt, but I’m not buying it. I even asked Kurt about it and he just rolled his eyes and walked away, so I know it can’t be true!
Christian – I still consider you my close friend. My teacher. My mentor. I would never try to ruin that for anything. So this Thursday night on “iMPACT!”, I have a plan that will put all these hard feelings behind us. I’ve requested interview time on Thursday to explain my idea – all I ask if that you hear me out and give it a chance. I think after Thursday, we’ll all be one big happy family again!
I didn’t want to post this on the internet for everyone to read, but it’s the only way I knew to get my message to you.
See you on Thursday night, Boss. I’ll have my cell phone close by in case you want to talk.
Your friend
AJ
PS – Please accept my Halo 3 invite next time you’re online. I miss having you on my team and Tomko sucks at it…he keeps killing me with friendly fire – most of the time I think he’s doing it on purpose
Tremendous. Okay, typically I won’t post anything Wrestling related (even though I watch it heavily) because it isn’t gaming. Especially when it deals with story-lines or what not. But I found this nugget and just couldn’t pass it up. A quick run down. A.J. Styles, Tomko, and Christian Cage were in the Christian Coalition. In the last PPV, AJ and Tomko helped out Kurt Angle to hold onto the TNA Heavyweight Belt. Even though they were with Christian. So needless to say Christian Cage has been a little bit upset lately. So AJ wrote this letter to smooth over things. And posted it on TNA’s website. Genius, seriously. The Halo 3 references are fantastic as mentioning Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger. The interesting thing about A.J. is that you can tell he’s a gamer and not just because of the letter. He’s been in TNA contests, where if you win you get to play videogames with him backstage. He’s heavily involved in the new TNA game by Midway that’s set to come out next year. The guy is a fantastic wrestler (one of my faves along with Christian) and looks to be one of those rare cases where he’s also down to earth and would be fun to hang out with. Even though wrestling is choreographed, I would venture to say he wrote this all by himself (in character naturally). Now, two missions I’m setting forth for the immediate future. To somehow acquire A.J. Styles Xbox Live name to put on my buddy list and once again nudge Midway into sending me a copy of the TNA game when it hits next year (360 version naturally). I don’t try to beg but a little asking never hurt anyone.
Asteroids? What’s next? Pong? Perhaps a Commodore 64 version of Football? I’m sitting here drumming my fingers because I really don’t know what to say. I mean they did have the decency to release it along with the deluxe version that cropped up in 1980. 1980, 27 years ago! *sigh* Evolved versions are also included which support the newer televisions, you know the ones that have color (the original Asteroids was in black and white). And it is a measly 400 points. So for $5, you could take a trip down video game history. Asteroids gets released, can Mappy be too far behind?
Ahh, the first Basketball game I ever played. Possibly still one of the best. It sported only a few teams but was actually the first 5 on 5 basketball game I am aware of. It felt a lot like college basketball which was actually a good thing. But the best, raining threes all day long from either of the corners. Seriously, it was rare to miss once you knew how to do it. The slow motion dunks were also nice. Before NBA Live was even Lakers vs Celtics, there was games that didn’t need licenses to be a lot of fun.
A game in the vain of Casino Kid is Vegas Stakes. You took your character through several casinos in an attempt to win ten million dollars. You could play blackjack, slots, poker, craps or roulette. In addition at random intervals you were approached by people who would ask you to wager on other events or help their sick kid. Sometimes it would be a con, sometimes it would net you a lot of extra money. A pretty cool game if you were into that kinda gambling. I play poker through XBLA every so often but for some reason I only play slots when I’ve went to Vegas or Louisiana casinos. Someday perhaps I’ll get up the gumption to lose my money in a more serious manner.
Ecco Jr? You mean they made a dolphin game but for kids? Cause the original was too hardcore I guess. I mean with Ecco slaughtering fish and having his way with an octopus, I guess that was just too much for children to take. So they had to make a kid friendly Ecco. Please help me. Advil will simply not help this headache of a release week. Double Dribble and Vegas Stakes are both good affairs but do yourself a favor and shoot yourself if you grab Ecco Jr. The world and dolphin safe tuna will thank you.
Xbox 360
History Channel: Battle for the Pacific
Wii
Cranium Kabookii
Cruis’n
Game Party
History Channel: Battle for the Pacific
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
DS
Master of Illusion
Super Fruit Fall
Boogie
Geometry Wars: Galaxies
*blink* Not that the week after Thanksgiving you ever get a strong release week but geez. The Wii is the only system to really even show up. Everybody else pretty much pushed their games to go out next week. The only two games to mention is the Wii version of Puzzle Quest (for those without an Xbox 360, DS, PSP, or a PS2) and Geometry Wars Galaxies which should be a fun arcade romp. The History Channel needs to stop releasing video games or at least make decent ones. No, they just need to stop. It’s really a hard week to recommend anything on the retail market. So pick up something else, like Marvel Ultimate Alliance Gold ($29.99 at Best Buy) or a life size poster of Morgan Webb (Get an extra one for me, I need it for the umm…bedroom). Whatever works to pass the time.
I received an order from Amazon this week, two PS2 games. Yep, I went a little backwards for this week. Taito Legends 2 and Fire Pro Wrestling Returns. The first a compilation game that includes Elevator Action Returns, Legend of Kage and Puzzle Bobble 2. But sadly no Cadash. Cadash was to be on the XBOX version but it never made it stateside. The European version does play on American Xboxes supposedly but it’s a bitch to import and I don’t own a regular Xbox either. So hopefully somebody at Taito will get smart and release Cadash for XBLA. I’m not holding my breath. Fire Pro Wrestling Returns is the first time the Fire Pro Wrestling game makes it stateside on a non-portable console. It’s very popular overseas and I will be providing a review in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, feel free to read my review of the Orange Box on the Xbox 360 console. Good times, good times.
As Always,
Kedrix of Aldrianian
(*The Forgotten One*)
