REVIEW: Bulletstorm

There is something vaguely familiar about all of this. I feel like I've been here before. You know, they say nothing is original anymore, and you see it everywhere. Music samples from earlier music (which usually ends in the new music sucking). Newer music samples from the music that just sampled the older music (also sucks). Movies are being 'rebooted' (sucks). American television shows are being either rebooted, or are directly ripped off from British Television (the result of which is pretty sucky in nature). With video games, its more there is a trend that gets set and is repeated and then variants are built from it. The side scroller. The first person shooter. The RPG. The JRPG. The MMORPG. 3D. Even with that, I think video games can differ from other media in that although they follow a certain predictable pattern, if done properly, they can stand out as unique through milieu, presentation, and gameplay.

Bulletstorm doesn't.

I could just end things right here and simply tell you what this game Frankensteins together. However, that wouldn't be fair and that lets me off the hook way to easily. So I'm going to show you but also say a couple of good things as well. I will start of by saying that Bulletstorm is not a bad game. There shouldn't be points taken away because a game isn't extraordinary, or redefines a genre, or is life altering. Which is good, because this game isn't extraordinary, genre definitive or life altering in anyway.

You are Marcus Fenix Grayson Hunt. You're a wayward mercenary, seeking revenge on the commander that you feel betrayed you and cast you out of your elite military unit. In the attempt to take revenge, you crash land on a once populated resort planet that is now overrun by mutants, convicts, and indigenous creatures.  Your mission is to escape the labyrinth of dilapidated buildings, cavernous terrain, and war-torn urban chaos, and figure out a way to exact your unpleasant reciprocity.  You aren't alone in your run of terror; your main companion from the get-go is Ishi, a fellow crewman who, during the first engagement, suffers a catastrophic injury and must become half cyborg in order to sustain his life. You will also gain another companion about a third of the way in that knows the ropes of the city and will help you get through (though she doesn't trust you much).

C'Mon, Sal. The Tigers are playin'...to-night!

Early on you will acquire your trusty machine gun, and...what I can only describe as your "power whip". Its an attachment that you'll use to grab either items or people. As you move through the game, you are able to grab more weapons, upgrade them, and enable their special abilities.

You earn your upgrades and are able to buy ammo through points you accumulate through kills. You just shoot a guy a billion times until he dies? Ten points and boring. You aren't buying a lot of bullets with that. Kick him into a a mutated cactus? How about a hundred points. Blow up that explosive object next to four guys? Fifty points each (times four). THAT is how you accumulate your experience currency. Its simple to grasp, and pretty fun to toy around with, trying to pull of 'kill trick shots' just because you can. Its very arcade-like, and something that you may have experienced before.

Whoops, wrong game. But do you see what I mean? 

One thing I do want to point out that is an overwhelming positive about the game, and something that is praised in almost every review I've read, is that the environment and look of the game is totally gorgeous. Though the controls are somewhat clunky (you can't jump, buttons can be slow to react when you want to change weapons or target something), but the landscape, the action, the characters, movement, all just fantastically rendered. There are times where it almost has a Borderlands feel to it, some have that cell shaded feel, but there are definitely elements that are staples of Epic games style animation.

If you had honestly told me that Bulletstorm was a 'Gears of War' side story, part of the cannon, just sans the main characters I would have believed you. Its first person instead of third, but when you run, the camera gets that familiar blur. When you shoot, you need a hailstorm of bullets to take someone down, if you can get in a good decap, that feels the same.

Ishi the Killer. 

Even the banter and speech in which Grayson carries himself is all very...Gearsish. That banter, among other things, landed the game under a little bit of scrutiny from our resident mega media squeaky wheel. They felt that the crude sexual comments Grayson (and later on General Serrano) makes, the names of some of your killing moves, extra bonus points awarded for shooting enemies in their nether parts, all made Bulletstorm the beacon that summons young children to mischief.  Trust me; there are better other games more vulgar, more gratuitous, and more gore-laden than Bulletstorm. This is not the pole in which to waive the "video games corrupt children" flag. The game is rated M for a reason: and honestly, its not really even a very good one. The crudeness is forced. The gore isn't anything new. You've seen it before, you've heard it before.

This is where I talk about the multiplayer aspect of the game, but instead of deathmatch or anything like that, we get a co-op horde mode. I played a few games, and was pretty much done with it. I've mentioned in years past that games with good stand alone single player campaigns really don't need multiplayer. Bulletstorm needs multiplayer. Although I usually suck at Epic games that have multiplayer (Gears, Unreal Tournament), I think I would have enjoyed what they could have thrown together in close spaces or a large landscape using the weapons from the campaign. While I won't count the lack of true multiplayer against the game, the fact the single player campaign clocks in under seven hours playing on normal difficulty, it would have been something nice to extend what is otherwise a rental at best.

Bulletstorm is what it is. Short and unoriginal. But what it also is, honestly, it is fun. Its a quick ride, but despite what you may think reading the words above, I didn't hate the game. Its a quick, not very frustrating (at least at the level I played), sometimes smirk-inducing, mindless game thats fun to look at and fun to play. In short...

TL;DR -

Yes, please.

November can't come here soon enough...

REVIEW: Dead Space 2

Before I dive in, I want to take a moment to give some advice for new fathers. When your new baby is big enough to be out of a bassinet and into an actual crib, (around the 2 or 3 month mark) you should give your wife a break on the overnight feedings. What you do is whatever night you don't have to work the next day, take your infant, put her in one of those little bouncy chair things, and just rock her to sleep while you play video games until about 5 in the morning, stopping only to feed and change the baby. That way the Mom can get a solid night's sleep, you get some good gaming in, and you look like a hero. 

I give you this advice because that is how I played the first Dead Space game two years ago. It was one of those games that in the cold and darkness of a November night, and with surround sound speakers sitting behind you, really made you jump when startled by a man you once knew turned necromorph. As Isaac Clarke (an obvious nod to classic sci-fi writers), you were part of a team that tried to figure out what the hell happened on a wayward excavating vessel only to discover that things are no bueno in the worst kind of way.

Well, you're back and and so are the necromorphs. This time you wake up three years later in a space station type setting and there really is no moments of peace before the chaos. From the second you are able to control Isaac, you are evading people getting eaten, begging for help, and screaming for their mothers.

The first chapter of Dead Space 2 really sets a great tone for the game. You don't get any kind of weapon except a flashlight through most of the first 25 minutes or so. After you've evaded the initial chaos of the psycho ward you just escaped, you are now trying to traverse dark rooms and shadowy corridors in order to find something that you can use to fight back. The game does a great job in the beginning of giving the gamer a sense of anxiety as you hear things that may or not be there, you try to find your way to escape, not knowing what lurks around the next corner.

Uh....umad?

Your first encounter with the necromorphs, you won't even have a weapon. You acquire a kinetic ability to objects and have to use it to impale the first batch of baddies that come your way. Once you get the all familiar plasma cutter, then the strategy is conserving ammo and your med packs to survive. You'll always have your ability to kinetically throw objects at enemies and potentially kill them if you run out of ammo, but you will have to be very deliberate in which you can take down necromorphs; shoot off their limbs, then run up and curb stomp them to finish them off.

I got a great sense going through the first part of the game that reminded me of the first Alien movie: quiet, tense, and not sure where the next attack is coming from. Scaring people is more than just jumping from a dark corner; Dead Space 2 gets psychological on your ass. Throughout the game you are haunted by the memory of your dead girlfriend, who appears to you in the form of a vision trapped inside your mind, making you wonder if you are personally responsible for the terror that has befallen this settlement. There are also moments while you are traversing the living quarters of people that have gone crazy and lost it. Candles with alien writing, people crying out for their lives in the distance, later a mother holding her infected infant only to see them both explode; that is where the real fear resides and where Dead Space 2 can seriously creep you out when you're playing all by yourself in the middle of the night.

I'm so ronery. 

As the game progresses, the action becomes more fast paced. You go from the feeling of Alien to more like Aliens as the necromorphs begin to come at you in higher numbers, actually making you fire forward but be mindful of your blind sides as some of the different varieties of baddies flank you as you're fighting.

The scenery also changes up a bit, right at the right time. You will go from fighting in a cult-like church, to open room shopping area, to trash compactors in zero gravity and more. I was really impressed with the amount of different environments and varieties of weapons you're able to employ to dispatch enemies. As with the norm these days, you have someone there to guide you through the game, but you also have another voice of one of your fellow test subjects who is slowly descending into madness and foreshadowing what is next in store for you if you can't get through to the end of the game.

I don't have a lot of bones to pick with Dead Space 2. I do recommend that you play on a higher difficulty than casual. I played on Normal and got through the Single Player campaign in about 9-10 hours total. I then began a second play through (New Game plus) on casual to pick up some achievements (you pretty much have to go at least two playthroughs to get the majority of them) and that's probably going to finish up around 5 hours. At a higher difficulty, again, ammo is going to be at a premium, so don't just go firing blind. I also left myself in a few sticky situations where I had no health, no ammo, and bad guys surrounding me in opposite rooms. Be sure to use your stasis packs sparingly and only when you are in serious trouble. Higher difficulties will make the game more enjoyable for you. Beating the game once unlocks hard core mode which only allows you three save points in the entire game. I am not that glutton for punishment that I am going to try and beat the game on hard core (which you have to start from scratch; no New Game plus), even though doing so would unlock one of the coolest guns evar.

There is a multiplayer component to Dead Space 2 but I never really bothered to get into it much. I played a few rounds and it seemed very Aliens v. Predator to me (not a knock against AvP). Its something to play to say you've played but its something that will neither add nor significantly detract from the overall experience. If you don't want to buy a game that is about 20 hours total of gameplay (considering the number of playthroughs), that's fine, but you definitely need to play it. Its fun, terrifying, and visually stunning. With this, the original, and last year's Dante's Inferno, Visceral Games is becoming one of those studios that I've totally bought into. You should too.

TL;DR - A fantastic ride.

Stop Your Grinnin' and Drop Your Linen...

...because shit is about to get real around here.

Living in the midwest is a treasure on its own right. You get to be considered a "flyover state". You're a red state! And when it snows heavily, people are asking me if I've made my peace with God since we are in the midst of the end times.

As of today, schools in my area has been closed 5 times. Today will be six, and probably tomorrow will be seven. The University of Kansas cancelled classes in consecutive days for like only the second time in 30 years.

People are totally freaking out around here. The good news is I don't have to go anywhere. The fridge is stocked, I have some work I brought home to finish, and have plenty of time to type up some stuff I had meant to post for awhile. As long as this stuff doesn't turn into ice, I won't have to worry about this:

Battlefield Bad Company 2 -- 'Arica'

Quite possibly, the best fan-song for a video game I've heard in a long time.



Lyrics:

I hear a gunshot echo in the night
It's quiet here on Nelson Bay when wookies get their camp on
I take him out with my 4x Noob sight But he'll be back
To piss me off as soon as he can respawn

I see a camping asshole in our base
Waiting to steal our chopper so he can fly around and rape us
I take my engineer kit in my hand and say
Hurry Boys! The Hind is after you!

Chorus:
Gonna take more than Black Ops to drive me away from you
Ain't nothing that a million C4 Whores could ever do
Let's bring the pain down in Arica
While we're at it let's tear them a new one on Port Valdez Too

Gonna squad up and play some rush tonight
Hoping to find a lobby that isn't mostly full of douchebags
C4 on the UAV ain't right, If that's their plan
We'll raid their base and steal the driver's dog tags
Better fall back 'cause victory's in sight
Hurry Boys! The Tank is after you!

Chorus

Dark Tower - Old School Reminiscing

This is just a random bit of verbal spewage. I've pretty much been playing games since man first figured out how to connect a controller to a TV. Ok, that dates me a bit. But seriously, I used to play Pong at my grandparent's apartment clubhouse.

Anyway, I was chatting with a friend of mine about the good old days, we'd play games like the Bard's Tale series (Not that joke of a game released in 2005 that sullied the franchise's good name), Gold Box Games like Pool of Radiance, and the like. We'd literally play 24+ hours straight. Good times!

It got me thinking about other computerized gaming and one item that's oft overlooked is Dark Tower, yeah, the board game. Man I can't tell you how many hours I spent playing this as a kid. We were die hard about this game. We'd listen carefully while our opponent played for clues as to if they received a Wizard, or a Sword, or the much needed Keys to the Dark Tower its self. I still to this day can remember the sound effects to this game, the music that plays at the Bazaar is still imprinted in my brain.

At its core though this was one of the more innovative board gaming interfaces of the day, not to mention a crap ton of fun. If you know what I'm talking about you can actually play a single player Flash version of the game HERE. May Dragons fall on your Sword.

Sorry for the random spewage, but felt like reminiscing.

Twas 10 Days After Christmas...

...and all full of fail.

Yeah that's an Unreal Tournament 3 faceplate. Recognize.

It was March of 2006 when I first got her. It was really a momentous occasion. Xbox 360 Pro Model.  I had already purchased a few games, got a wired controller off eBay. For a time I was happy.

Then over Thanksgiving in 2007 I started getting disc read errors playing Mass Effect. I had a brown out and suffered through my first dreaded Red Ring of Death. Though the console still kind of worked, you had to turn it off, wait a bit, turn it back on and pray. Eventually it got to a point where this became to tedious a nightly ritual so I decided to have it sent off for repairs.

I had heard horror stories of trying to talk to someone over the phone to request repair so I went exclusively through Xbox.com. I found that process to be relatively simple; all I had to do was register the console, request a repair, and done; a white box (coined "the coffin") was at my doorstep within a few days.
Funny story with that- the box you are sent is a plain white box with a shipping label, not very ubiquitous. When I went to my local UPS store to drop it off, the clerk without hesitation asked me if I was sending back a broken Xbox 360. Curious, I said I was and asked him how many of those boxes he sees. "Four or five A DAY". I was kind of taken back. This was just some simple UPS store in suburban Kansas City and a dude sees anywhere from 25-35 of these things coming back A WEEK? I was a little skeptical of his numbers but he would be validated about a year or so later.

After a fairly quick turnaround time in getting repaired, I was back up and running only this time when the disc drive spun a disc, it sounded like a jet engine. I tried to do all I could to ensure the machine was in an open area, well ventilated, and well protected from overheating. Other than the noise of the drive, I encountered no problems for the next few months...

...then another holiday happened. This time it was Fourth of July holiday in 2008 and I was in the middle of some Call of Duty 4. This time when the Red Ring occurred there was no mistaking. I got the freeze up in the middle of the game along with a checkered screen. Knew it the moment I saw it happen. Did the deed again with going through Xbox.com to request a coffin. Fast, simple, no problems; turnaround time was excellent. I go to pick my parcel up this time from the UPS distribution store and I had to wait a bit for them to find it. They had to sort through probably tens of white boxes to find mine. OFF ONE TRUCK. I then asked the guy there how many he sees go out, and without hesitation, he says "hundreds. Per day".

Well, for two and a half years I got no problems out of this run. I give a lot of credit for that to the fact that I run games off the hard drive almost exclusively. Doing that, at least in my mind, keeps the internal temperature of the console down a bit, thus no overheat and I am a happy camper. Every now and then a game will freeze and my heart will skip just a beat as I turn the console off and wait a few seconds and turn it back on. No problems.

Then it happened. About an hour ago tonight. I was in the middle of Call of Duty Black Ops (Activision conspiracy?) and just when we got started I froze. Very curious but ok, I turned off the unit, waited a few seconds then turned it back on. No problem there, got the opening Xbox 360 graphic, and there it stayed.

And stayed.

And stayed.

Frozen.

I started to get concerned here and turned off the console once again. Closed my eyes, turned it back on....and no screen. There it was. Three. Flashing. Red. Lights.

Self portrait. 

You go through the five stages of grief so fast in this instance. I was like "no no no. This isn't it. If I just wait and turn it back on it will be fine". Then I was pissed for a few seconds. Then I was like "ok what can I do to make this work, what trick is there? The console wasn't hot. There must be something I can do to fix this". Then I just sat there....I'm going to have to find a 250GB slim but they are sold out like everywhere. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. Then finally, acceptance. Ok, The good news is I will have a slim Xbox that's kind of cool looking, yeah I'm out $300 bones but its only money, right? I mean it would have been better if this happened before Christmas but its cool, man.

Now the real dilemma is... how do I sneak this one past the wife?

TL;DR- Good night, Sweet Prince (2006-2011)