Hey, Dude, want to win Guitar Hero on Tour: Decades for the DS?
Get your Mom (heh, we said your Mom) to enter this contest over at one of our editor, Viv's, other blogs:
Even little dudes want cool games for Christmas.
So, here's a heads-up: if you're looking for something for lil bro, keep looking.
According to our editor, Viv, you'll want to steer clear of the famous penguins' latest lame-duck effort. Read her review here:
Madagascar: Back 2 Africa
Short story: The movie had some laughs, and the animation stands up in the Wii version--but monotonous gameplay and less than intuitive controls makes this endeavor a frustrating failure.
Removed by request (auto-playing audio). Our bad--this is an Entrecard no-no. Color us red with embarrassment.
Visit Capcom's site to play the Neopets Puzzle Adventure Demo instead.
What's within your soul?
If you're a fan of the first three Soul Calibur versions (and who isn't?) and you'r
e ready for another action-packed fighting game with glorious visuals, new attacks and customizable characters, you'll want to add this infinitely re-playable game to your collection. (You can, by the way, chose an easy or tough road through the bosses in single-mode play, so there is a campaign challenge for those who want it.)
For those familiar with the earlier versions of Soul Calibur, you won't be disappointed. New in this latest edition to the winning franchise: in addition to the standard I-fight-because-I-have-something-to-prove characters with their built-in storylines, you can also play, in the Xbox 360 version, as Yoda of Star Wars fame. Get the game for PS3, and instead of Yoda you'll fight as the Dark Lord himself, Darth Va
der. Playing under arcade mode as either of the two lets you earn the right to unlock "The Apprentice," a sith-in-training who uses Force Lightning to shock his opponents in battle.
As fun as the fighting in the game in, let's face it, the best part of fighting games is facing off against online opponents and kicking some serious butt. Once you've worked your way through the bosses in Soul Calibur IV, you can start making your own guys (and girls), customizing their looks and choosing their style of attacks until at last you have created the perfect fighting machine, thus effectively smashing your enemies into a bloody pulp.
In theory.
In practice, it's not so easy to create one winning fighter. In online battle, it's not uncommon for a player who loses pathetically in one match to then find supreme victory in his very next fight. And more than one match is won by a judicious use of a grapple for a surprising Ring Out just when the battle seems lost.
In fact, that's where the real fun comes in. It's not all about brawn. Winning takes some brains, or at least some strategy. Designing your own army of characters with vastly different fighting tactics and then matching them appropriately to your opponent's fighter is the key to emerging triumphant in fight after fight.
Or you can be cheap, choose Cervantes or Algol and just teleport all over the place.
Your call.
If you haven't seen Spippo's deviantART Gallery, you'll want to give it a look.
We love his modded "My Little Ponies" like the one below.
Our faves?
"My Little Cthulhu" and "My Little Alien".
Pictured, obviously, "My Little Joker." Love the 'do.
We here at Fuel the Rebellion touched briefly on the best of PAX.
Now here's the worst, without question:
Waiting in the interminable lines.
And there were miles of 'em.
First, there was the long long long long long (did we mention long?) line to get into the Expo hall at the beginning of the day on Friday. As members of the media, we were allowed in two hours early to conduct interviews, but we still stopped by to talk to some of you who were waiting in line to get your thoughts on the huge "waiting area". Milling about in long queues, with chained-off lines running about the length of a football field, some gamers couldn't help but make the comparison to a herd unwittingly on its way to the slaughter ("You see people coming in, but you never really see anyo
ne coming out." "They can fit more in there if they grind them up real small...").
We asked one gamer, camped out on the floor near the front of the line for the Expo hall and playing board games with friends while passing the time, why he chose to get to the Expo so early, well before the Expo hall was open, and wait in line for hours just for the moment he could walk through the door.
His response, simply: "I've never been here before, and my friends said this is the way to do it."
Though arguably some events were worth the wait, some who spent as much as an hour in line still didn't make it into major events, like the keynote address on Friday, the Fallout 3 play-through, or the discussion on Sex in Videogames. Note to PAX organizers: why was this last in a tiny conference room? Did you seriously think that SEX IN VIDEOGAMES wasn't going to get any comers? (excuse the pun).
To their credit, even those who waited patiently and still didn't make it into the above talks didn't whine and complain much. Other than an understandable, "I waited here when I could have been playing something inside!", the gamers we talked to not only took it in stride but were very positive about the entire PAX experience. Gamers, quick to become enraged and decapitate an opponent over the merest slight in the virtual world, are an amazingly gracious bunch in real life.
In fact, the only time I ever heard anyone even threaten violence was when one little weasel in a pony-tail (you know who you are!) snaked his way up towards the front of the line, butting in front of several patiently waiting gamers, who were heard to remark to one another, "I will give you good money to yank him back here by that pony tail."
The easy-going nature and acceptance of the gamers (many of whom were younger and not yet hardened into jaded cynicism like yours truly) may have lulled the organizers of PAX into keeping the status quo.
But we hope not.
So, PAX guys, thoughts for making PAX even better next year:
Consider having more than one showing of the talks you just know are going to be most popular. For that matter, why not have monitors set up in the waiting area so that people who couldn't make it into the room could still watch the show on the screens?
This is PAX, after all.
Surely* we have the technology.
*Yeah, yeah, we know, don't call you Shirley.
Here's the notice as it came to us: Insomniac has announced a release date for Resistance!
Mark your calendars: November 4th is Resistance 2 day!
Pre-order it from Gamestop and join in the online beta later this month, or choose a special skin when you get the game from Amazon. Circuit City will give you a ten dollar giftcard with pre-order.
The Collector's Edition, complete with mini Chimeran, will run you $79.99 and is loaded with extras, including artwork and an additional "making of" DVD.
Rayman Dance Video
They were doing this for the chance to win a prize, given out by the fabulous Frag Dolls, so we award these guys major points for courage for their improv dance routine.
Gears of War II Gameplay
We're recovering from two full days of PAX 2008, and now that we've safely secured our loot in a Secret Hidden Location away from the mad crowds, we'll take a moment to give you a quick, overall impressions of the Big Bash, with specifics to follow once we've had time to decompress. We need to chew on it, ruminate a bit, digest and then...regurgitate all that stuff back up. Frankly, we're just not ready to re-enter the real world yet.
So, without further ado, here's our take on the Best, and the Worst, PAX had to offer this year.
We'll start out with the highlights.
THE BEST
Best Exhibit in the Expo Hall: Hands down, Bethesda Softworks Fallout 3 booth wins this one. From the shiny happy family milling contentedly around the old camping trailer to the twisted, desiccated ruin it becomes and the Protectron robot guarding its charred remains, this booth was the one to beat. Swag available at the booth included a
vault-dwellers guide complete with helpful tips from Vault Guy, pure retro genius.
Best Forum:
Again, and we don't mean to sound sycophantic and obsequious (thought a little smarminess is certainly in keeping), the guys from Bethesda rocked PAX with their highlight play-through of Fallout 3.
Though we weren't allowed to film it, here are some of the features worth mentioning from the Fallout 3 Play-Through:
If your dream is to become the world's next Snowboarding phenom, thne Destineer's got you covered this fall with their latest offering for the Xbox 360, Stoked, and open-world dynamic snowboarding title that promises lots of bang for your buck.
Destineer set out to do Stoked right, partnering with developer Bongfish and snowboarding movie creator Absinthe Films in an effort to really capture the maverick spirit of the pro backcountry boarders, with always changing, never predictable dynamic backcountry backdrops. Says Patrick ("Brusti") Ambruster, co-founder of Absinthe, "Developing a snowboard video game has always been a dream of mine. There are endless synergies between a snowboard film production and a game developer that were just waiting to be activated. Bongfish and Destineer have realized this potential, and have shown a real passion for snowboarding, and together we’ve worked to bring snowboarding luminaries from across the planet together for this project."
And just who are these "luminaries? The sport's top professional snowboarders, including Travis Rice, Nicolas Mueller, Wolle Nyvelt, Annie Boulanger, Romain de Marchi, Tadashi Fuse, Gigi Ruef, and Bjorn Leines.
And that's not all, Stoked has also lined up 30 of the sport's authentic sponsors, familiar names like Burton, Dragon, Arcus, Von Zipper, Eleven, 686, Billabong, DaKine, Electric, LibTech, Nitro, Northwave, Oakley, Quiksilver, Ride, Hart, Rome, Salomon, TechNine, Vans, Volcom, and more.
Stoked promises a game that relies "more on style and finesse" than button mashing, allowing you to customize your own style while riding five famous mountains and ove4 45 square miles of open terrain in each location. You can discover new drop points by helicopter, be challenged by ever-evolving weather conditions, and track conditions tha suit your own individual taste.
Team up with friends for cooperative and competitive plays, then head to Xbox LIVE to face other riders in sponsored events to boost your fame. Own trick spots, show up rivals, and build your reputation. Take pictures of friends and capture video of your best moves to win the kind of attention that lands you on the cover of a snowboarding magazine.
With all that Stoked has to offer, the attention to detail, key names in the industry and dynamic backcountry environment, Destineer's latest offering, expected on shelves in November, promises to be a hell of a ride.
Natsume, the group who brought you Harvest Moon, have released the trailer to their latest endeavor, Princess Debut, for the Nintendo DS. You can find the trailer here in Quicktime format.
Princess Debut is like an anime version of Cinderella: players (naturally, the game is geared towards young girls) have 30 days to prepare for the big ball where they will meet not one but six handsome Princes (this is apparently a multi-nation ball) and win him over. Because of course that is the dream of every young girl, right?
How to 'prepare for the ball'? Master your dance moves, of course! You can practice for the dance and, "meet and woo the princes through the game's large, branching storyline and exciting event system." So, no one-size-fits-only-the-perfect-girl glass slipper required, and fortunately you don't have to slave away for a cruel stepmother and stepsisters while you are waiting.
Once the player convinces a prince to be their dancing partner (this is a family game, so I'm assuming there's no hanky-panky involved), it's time to go out on the dance floor!
This is a really neat feature of the game: utilizing the Touch Screen on the DS lets you guide your character gracefully across the dance floor in time with their partner's rhythm. And the dance moves are real, taken from moves the professional dancers use. According to Natsume, this makes the game as much fun to watch as it is to play, like watching your friends trying to keep up with Guitar Hero or Rock Band.
And there are 18 dance styles to choose from (including Tango, Latin, Waltz, etc.) as well as a myriad of costume choices for your aspiring Princess.
Princess Debut is scheduled for release sometime this fall.
The long wait is over. Maden NFL '09 hits the shelves today.
That's right, Brett Favre is back, dominating the field like a general commanding his troops in battle.
Except, you know, without the hacked-off limbs and decapitated heads.
Unless of course you wanna really play Madden-style football.
And you know what's really cool about EA? How quickly they reacted to the whole Favre situation. Because although you can still play as Favre with the Packers if you want, or download EA's extra content to put him in his new Jets uniform.
Madden NFL '09 is out on the shelves today, and here are some of the innovations that make this version even better than its predecessors:
