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• 30Sep 08

  Game Collection Purging Complete

  A couple weeks ago I made a list of games that I really didn't have any intrest playing or couldn't play due to it not being BC. Yesterday, those games left my collection for good. Here is the list of games:

  Project Gotham Racing 2 (Xbox)

  Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers (PS2)

  ATV Offroad Fury 2 (PS2)

  Yager (Xbox)

  Sudeki (Xbox)

  Chromehounds (X360)

  Sonic Adventure DX (GameCube)

  Monsters INC Scream Arena (GameCube)

  Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (Xbox)

  Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Xbox)

  Total Overdose (PS2)

  Gran Turismo 3 (PS2)

  Matrix: Path of Neo (PS2)

  Stuntman (PS2)

  Motocross Mania (PS2)

  Because they are for the most part older and kinda crappy games, they all netted me around $22, which I used part of to get a 1600 M$ points card. The rest I put on my card for use possably for getting Buzz for PS3. I've become addicted to the PSP one after my day at Disney, where my friend and I played it a lot while in line. We'll see what happens.

  While Live was down, I desided to finish beating Civilization Revolution with every civilization, so I did earning myself a bunch of achievements. Now it's on to King difficulty...

  That's all for now.

  • Posted Sep 30, 2008 7:12 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 26Sep 08

  BigC43's Best of 2008 So Far

  I know we still have the best three months of gaming releases still to come, but I figured it would be interesting to try to post my personal nominations for some of my major catagories so far. It will be interesting to see how many, if any of these early nominations last until the end of the year. Only time will tell. Anyway, here is the current list:

  Worst Game:

  Turning Point: Fall of Liberty

  Vampire Rain: Altered Species

  Operation Darkness

  Two Worlds Epic Edition

  Conflict Denied Ops

  Most Disappointing Game:

  Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements

  Haze

  Alone in the Dark

  Guitar Hero Aerosmith

  Incredible Hulk

  Most Suprisingly Good Game:

  The Club

  Boom Blox

  Viking

  Culdcept Saga

  Sega Superstars Tennis

  Most Addicting Game:

  Rock Band 2

  Spore

  Mario Kart Wii

  Soulcalibur IV

  Civilization Revolution

  Best Graphics, Technical:

  Battlefield Bad Company

  Soulcalibur IV

  Grand Theft Auto IV

  Metal Gear Solid 4

  Madden NFL 2009

  Best Graphics, Artistic:

  Tales of Vesparia

  Lost Odyssey

  The World Ends with You

  Okami (Wii)

  Best Musical Score:

  Soulcalibur IV

  Too Human

  Ninja Gaiden II

  Battlefield Bad Company

  Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

  Best Licensed Soundtrack:

  Rock Band 2

  Grand Theft Auto IV

  Guitar Hero On Tour

  Singstar (PS3)

  Madden NFL 2009

  Best Voice Acting:

  Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

  Battlefield Bad Company

  Too Human

  Lost Odyssey

  Condemned 2: Bloodshot

  Most Unique Game:

  Culdcept Saga

  Spore

  Best Party Game:

  Rock Band 2

  Super Smash Bros. Brawl

  Mario Kart Wii

  Singstar (PS3)

  Soulcalibur IV

  Best Action/Adventure Game:

  Metal Gear Solid 4

  Grand Theft Auto IV

  Too Human

  Devil May Cry 4

  Ninja Gaiden II

  Best RPG:

  Lost Odyssey

  Infinite Undiscovery

  Baroque

  The World Ends With You

  Tales of Vesparia

  Best FPS:

  Battlefield Bad Company

  Condemned 2: Bloodshot

  Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

  Frontlines: Fuel of War

  Rainbow Six Vegas 2

  Best Fighting Game:

  Soulcalibur IV

  Best Racing Game:

  Burnout Paradise

  GRID

  Best Other Game:

  Spore

  Culdcept Saga

  Boom Blox

  Best Xbox 360 Game:

  Ninja Gaiden II

  Rock Band 2

  Civilization Revolution

  Grand Theft Auto IV

  Soulcalibur IV

  Best PS3 Game:

  Soulcalibur IV

  Civilization Revolution

  Metal Gear Solid 4

  Grand Theft Auto IV

  Singstar

  Best Wii Game:

  Super Smash Bros. Brawl

  Mario Kart Wii

  No More Heroes

  Boom Blox

  Okami

  Best PSP Game:

  Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

  God of War: Chains of Olympus

  Best DS Game:

  The World Ends with You

  Guitar Hero On Tour

  Best PC Game:

  Spore

  GRID

  Rainbow Six Vegas 2

  Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

  Devil May Cry 4

  Game of the Year:

  Rock Band 2

  Grand Theft Auto IV

  Metal Gear Solid 4

  Soulcalibur IV

  Civilization Revolution

  Publisher of the Year:

  EA

  Codemasters

  Ubisoft

  Namco-Bandai

  2K

  Developer of the Year:

  Harmonix (Rock Band 2)

  DICE (Battlefield Bad Company, Mirror's Edge)

  Project Soul (Soulcalibur IV)

  Maxis (Spore)

  Rockstar North (Grand Theft Auto IV)

  There you have my early nominations. Post your thoughts and looks for updates as games release this fall.

  • Posted Sep 26, 2008 8:12 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 24Sep 08

  Guitar Hero and the Death of Music Games

  Ok, I promised you this editorial a couple of weeks back, and I'm sorry it took so long for me to sit down and write this, but I've had a week from hell and needed some time to get over it. So here I am and here it is.

  The music game genre has been around for many years, but only once in a while has spirts of popularity. It became popular in the mid 90s with Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series, disappeared for a little while then came back with the release of Guitar Hero 2 in 2005. The Guitar Hero Franchise is what really rocketed the music genre into mainstream popularity. Wouldn't it be fitting if it is also the cause of death for the genre too?

  Let me get this out of the way first: I am a huge music game fan. I own every Guitar Hero game made on the 360 and the DS one. I also own Rock Band 2 and play that on a daily basis. This editorial is not in the least critisising the music game genre, but more so Guitar Hero's publisher, Activision, for their supposive plan on how to continue the series.

  When Guitar Hero launched for the Playstation 2 in 2004, most gamers and critics saw it as a gimmic. It was a very expensive game which came with a funky guitar controller. It would never catch on... 4 years later, Guitar Hero has become a pop culture icon. You see it in South Park and other TV shows. You see it in movies and they even make little toy guitars with the Guitar Hero brand. Guitar Hero's dramatic rise to popularity can only mean one thing: it's going to have a dramatic fall as well. Personally, I think this fall will be attributed to the game's publisher.

  The single most dramatic occurance in the series' short history was when the two elements that made Guitar Hero were split appart. The game's original publisher and guitar controller maker Red Octane was baught by Activision, while the game's developer, Harmonix, was baught by MTV. Harmonix went on to create Guitar Hero's new arch rival series, Rock Band for EA, while Activision passed Guitar Hero to Tony Hawk franchise developer Neversoft. Neversoft proved their inexperience with the music genre with Guitar Hero 3, which had a decent setlist and some interesting new features, but wasn't that great of a music game in general. Rock Band was the next big thing for the genre because it introduced band play, which allowed two guitarists, a drummer and a vocalist to be able to form a fake plastic band and play together. Obviously Activision was paying attention at how successful Rock Band was, even though Guitar Hero 3 outsold it due to simply the Guitar Hero name. Guitar Hero World Tour, which comes out this October, is Activision's answer to Harmonix. "if we can't beat you, then we'll rip you off!" World Tour does have a couple unique features that are interesting such as the 8 player battle of the bands mode and the music studio where gamers can attempt to make their own music and custom versions of songs. Two interesting ideas, but we'll see if they will turn out better than Gutar Hero 3's half baked battle mode.

  Anyway, the whole purpose of this article was not simply to bash Activision or Guitar Hero but to point out why Activision's future plans for the franchise may bring it's downfall. In a recent earnings report, Activision revealed that they would be tripling the number of Guitar Hero SQUs next year. This means that they intend to release a bunch of Guitar Hero games each year, instead of supporting existing ones and making one once a year like EA and Harmonix with Rock Band. What does this mean for gamers? Every year, you will be buying 3 or 4 different Guitar Hero games, meaning that last one you baught is now old news and turned out to not be worth $60 or $100 that you paid for it. A classic example of that is the reciently released Guitar Hero 3 spin off. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. It is a decent game for Aerosmith fans, but Guitar Hero fans will find it easy and very short. If you baught it just because you are a Guitar Hero fan, you were disappointed. It appears that the spin off games don't stop with Aerosmith. Activision already announced that a Guitar Hero: Metallica would release next year and there are rumors of a Guitar Hero: Hendrix as well. These spin off games, although interesting for fans of each respective band, will begin to help fans become tired of playing these short rehashes of the same game but with different songs. The Guitar Hero franchise has constantly had to add a ton of new features and a new guitar each year to keep alive, while rival Rock Band desided that releasing new content every week will keep fans interested and rocking. Rock Band 2 has several new and important features, but it isn't drastically different from the original because they didn't have to make it so, unlike Guitar Hero.

  What Activision doesn't seem to realize is by making customers regret their purchase of each of these new Guitar Hero games, the brand name begins to weaken and eventually will cause the entire music game genre to crash. The lack of long term support for the Guitar Hero games is the first big problem. Rock Band 1 is still being supported even though Rock Band 2 is out. Not only that, but you can import most of your Rock Band 1 disc songs into Rock Band 2, making the sequel even better by allowing gamers who owned the first one to now have a ton of songs right away for the sequel. Guitar Hero 3 will be offering a similar feature for World Tour, but there wasn't much downloadable content anyway for GH3, so most gamers might have an additional 7 songs on the game instead of hundreds. The lack of DLC for Guitar Hero seems to be mostly due to the fact that Activision needs to save all the good songs for the next one instead of giving gamers what they want sooner. Rock Band has had a lot of excellent downloads over the past year and that trend is sure to continue into 2009 and beyond.

  Now please understand that this wasn't intended to solely be a comparason piece for Rock Band and Guitar Hero, although I won't deny that it is partially. I do intend on getting Guitar Hero World Tour because some of the features look interesting. All I am trying to say is that gamers, instead of blindly following a franchise because of name recognition, you need to stop and think about what the game's maker and publisher is trying to accomplish. Activision wants money and is getting tons of it by forcing us to keep buying multiple versions of Guitar Hero each year. To tell you the truth, I was less excited about World Tour after the setlist was released because most of the songs were already on Rock Band 2, and the few I liked that weren't were few and far between. Activision needs to learn that gamers aren't stupid and that we don't want to keep buying these games just because they don't want to support existing ones. Guitar Hero is becoming worse than Madden. Worse than Dynasty Warriors. Worse than many Nintendo franchises. Activision needs to learn that we want bang for our buck. We want that $60 game we just baught or that $190 band kit to last longer than 5 months before becoming outdated. We want our games to still be fun a year from when we got them, not become dull after a month or two. Guitar Hero is the franchise that began the music game boom of the 2000s and it could also be the franchise that put's the nail in it's coffin.

  There ya go, post your thoughts and reactions below. No trolling or bashing please of you will be reported. I do know several mods and I'm sure one of them will be happy to ban you for trolling. Thank you.

  • Posted Sep 24, 2008 8:07 am PT
  • Category: Editorial
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