Back on the Scene

Today is a very special day. It may yet live in infamy my friends. Today officially marks the beginning of my return to PC gaming. It's taken many years, but a man's will can only hold out for so long.

I've been a PC gamer at heart since the first time I played Wolfenstein on my cousin's pc many years ago. Unfortunately, sometime around the start of this console generation I realized that constantly upgrading PC hardware to play the latest games is about as worthwhile as wiping your ass with wads of money then flushing them down the toilet.

I couldn't bring myself to replace my video card for the 20th time, or update my drivers, defrag my hard drive and sacrifice a goat to the pagan gods just to make games work on the damn thing. I didn't have the time, the energy or the money to continue with it. And people wonder why console games sell so much better these days.

So what brought me back? Honestly I don't really know. It seems that finally PC games are looking good enough compared to consoles that it's worth the frustration of trying to get them to work properly. I've got some money to blow and there are some great looking titles on the horizon. Not to mention Steve and Jaison both got new PCs. Thanks, assholes.

So today I ordered a bunch of parts I don't really understand off NCIX.com and am praying to the pagan gods that when the box shows up on my doorstep next week I am able to assemble them into some sort of PC shaped object. I already bought two sacrificial goats. You can't leave these things to chance.

Yeah, Pretty Much

Another Hawken Trailer

More Hawken Videos

Just take my god damn money already you bastards! Go on take all of it!

Jonah's Arcade

Ever wish there was a comedy show on TV based on videogames... No, well neither did Comedy Central. This is the pilot they passed on for Jonah's Arcade. It's basically Tosh.0 for videogames, if Tosh.0 was funny HaHa and not funny sad.

Space Marine Demo is Out

Are you a BIG MAN with BIG GUTS?! Do you like to RIP and TEAR?! Then you my manly friend need to download the HELL out of the Space Marine demo on your MANLY console of choice!

KILL ORKS with your BIG GUNS. Kill them ALL KINDS OF DEAD!! YEAH! Chainsaw swords. Rocket launchers. The FURY of a thousand DEATHS!! That is what I am talking about!! HERE COMES THE NIGHT TRAIN CHOO CHOO CHA BOOGIE

Xbox Indie Games Summer Uprising

With considerably less fanfare than the Summer of Arcade, this week kicked off the start of the Indie Games Summer Uprising on the Live marketplace.

Indie games on Live have always been a guilty pleasure of mine. They're cheap, they're amusing and some of them are actually really good. If you have a few extra points kicking around, they're a great way to piss away an afternoon when you should be doing more important things like bathing the dog.

Colonial Marines Gameplay

Finally some gameplay from the upcoming Aliens game. Looks awesome so far. Each day my boner for this game becomes more powerful!

If I have one complaint though it's that every Aliens related game has to copy the movies down to a T. You've gotta have marines acting cool, you gotta have a power loader fighting aliens, you have to have a showdown with the queen. It's like, Jesus christ guys god forbid you try to bring anything new to the franchise.

It's a Revolution, Baby (Deus Ex)

Tonight on the way home from work I picked up the much anticipated Deus Ex: Human Revolution for 360. After a couple hours of playing, I figured I'd give my impressions for anybody who is on the fence about this game.

If you've never played the original Deus Ex, you should be ashamed. Go to your room and spank yourself! If you have, then Human Revolution will feel pretty familiar. Actually if you've ever played a FPS-RPG hybrid, then you should feel pretty comfortable with the mechanics. You can sneak up on dudes and perform stealth kills, shoot them in the face, hack computers and upgrade your stealth killing, face shooting abilities.

The story starts out pretty standard. Some science guys are working on artificial robot arms and some other guys don't like that I guess? So then much shooting and exploding happens and your girlfriend gets kidnapped. Also you get your shit blown up. But then you get brought back with a bunch of robot parts. Like a less cool version of Robocop. Except your sunglasses have become part of your face.

Overall the story is somewhat interesting so far. I do find the concept of transhumanism and human augmentation very intriguing. Unfortunately HR seems to fumble awkwardly with it, stopping every so often to beat you over the head with some moral quandary. It just never has any of the impact it should. In my opinion, these themes have been explored to much greater effect in other media. But maybe I'm firing off prematurely (I have that problem a lot), I don't think I've experienced enough of the story yet to come to a real conclusion.

Gameplay feels very streamlined, like most RPG franchises ported to consoles. Not that it's a bad thing, as much of the tedium has been removed. You're free to use stealth or brute force, and are rewarded appropriately for each. The levels have some very nice branching paths, which bring back good memories of the first Deus Ex. There are lots of items and weapons to find, and overall the game just feels very cohesive.

Sadly in some areas the game doesn't feel as fleshed out as it could be. NPCs will repeat the same lines of dialog over and over. I was trying to defuse a bomb and they all kept yelling at me "HELP GET US OUT OF HERE!" "HELP GET US OUT OF HERE!" Maybe if you'd shut your god damn traps so I could concentrate here... Anyway, Enemy AI doesn't seemed to have changed much since the original, goons are still dumb as posts. I guess that leads me to my biggest disappointment. Overall it doesn't seem like the franchise has evolved very much. I mean, it's certainly more approachable. But sadly nothing that I've seen so far has surpassed what I played a decade ago in the original.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a very worthy game. Just maybe not the Revolution we were hoping for. Haha ha oh man, I was holding onto that one all night!

Rant of Today

Today's Rant of Today is useless Xbox Live Deals of the Week. I don't want fucking Rock Band songs, or Lips songs or original xbox games. Crap like that nobody wants should have it's own section. Come on Microsoft, would it kill you to throw us a freaking bone here? Steam sales kick the everloving shit out of XBLA sales.

Jaison says they've been shit lately because of Summer of Arcade, and Microsoft wanting people to buy those overpriced games instead. Which makes a lot of sense, but it's still annoying. Sorry assholes, you're not getting me to buy fruit ninja!