Prey

This post relates to: Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Ace Attorney, Prey, Castle Crashers, Undertow, Too Human

The Giantbomb Community Podcast, Bomb Should Have a Face, is finally up! Join MattBodega, TokyoChicken, Jensonb, PureRok and my sexy, sexy self as we discuss both video games and the Giant Bomb community. Some of the main topics include:

• Giant Bomber LouChou discusses how Metacritic might be eroding our video game tastes!
• Pepsiman(Pepsilady?) reveals a dark, horrifying Famicon exclusive!!
• Soccer is still for punks
• Phoenix Wright: Trails and Tribulations. The Worst Ace Attorney game AND the best Ace Attorney game?!
• Prey is the Too Human of First Person Shooters.
• Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga dishes out hella Achievements points!
•  Experiments Gone Awry  is a great concept page.
• The Off Topic Forums are out of Control! Someone should do something! Like, lock a thread. That might be a good start.
• Castle Crashers makes me sad...
• The Bombing Run is Giant Bomb's most unofficial and sexiest community game night ever!
• God Bless Every Hamburger Forum!

You can subscribe through iTunes through the link provided at the beginning of this blog, or you can download (right click > save link as) / stream here.

Dis out!

This post relates to: Too Human, Undertow, Castle Crashers, Prey, Ace Attorney, Professor Layton and the Curious Village

It's up folks! The first exciting episode of the Giant Bomb Community Podcast, Bomb Should Have a Face (BSHAF for short) is now available for your listening pleasure. There are two ways to join the fun with MattBodega, TokyoChicken, PureRok, Disgaeamad and myself as we run through topics as serious as video game criticism being critiqued and as insane as how having Atheistium post on your blog is like sex to TokyoChicken.

(She totally posted on mine by the way. He hates that.)

The easiest way, one which should prove popular no doubt, is to hit up the iTunes Store. Either click that link or search for Bomb Should Have a Face from within iTunes itself and subscribe! You'll get Episode 1 and all future episodes will automatically download, leaving you to simply double click them to play!

Or, you can just listen to or download (Right Click>Save as) Episode 1 here.

Plus, introducing Special Edition 3rd Way, AKA "The Lazy Way"....

Just listen to it right here in this page!



Synopsis:

It's the very first episode of Bomb Should Have A Face! Join MattBodega, TokyoChicken, JensonB, PureRok, and Disgaeamad as they highlight the community matters that matter most!
Featuring blogs by LouChou and Pepsiman!
Music: "like they're gonna write a song about it" by Midnight Brown

This post relates to: The Darkness, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Prey

As the title suggests, yesterday I finished The Darkness on normal difficulty. I was pretty taken back by how good the story was, and the art style was just plain awesome as well. I had a lot of fun with it, definetly $9 well spent. I just might review the game at some point.

Speaking of the Darkness, unbeknownst to me until the other day, a sequel has been confirmed for a late 2008-early 2009 release window. I can't wait, especially after the weird ending of the first one.

The other game I bought last week, Prey, still remains untouched since chapter 12. If some of the puzzles in the game weren't so complicated I'd probably like it a lot more. I'll complete it at some point, but with Mercs 2 on the horizon it'll probably remain in the backlog for a while.

I'll be collecting my first paycheck today, it should be around $100. Not bad for three days of small shifts. I'll be picking up a $50 Microsoft points card at the nearby wal mart afterwards. I'm pretty much sold on Bionic Commando Rearmed and Geo Wars 2, and there's also a lot of Rock Band stuff I need to catch up on. I usually wait a few months and then splurge on DLC for that game when there's a lot of good songs out.

That pretty much wraps it up for now, see you all around.

This post relates to: Crackdown, Hitman: Blood Money, Dead Rising, Prey, Fable II, Fable II Pub Games, NHL 09

Today I woke up. Got dressed. Eat breakfast. Went to Gamestop and picked up my Fable II Pub Game Code after trading in 5 games (listed up top) for $40.
Later I went back, traded in my DS and Super Mario Bros for $100. Paid off Fable II and NHL 09 with $6 left on my EDGE card. Generation Kill rocks. And I hit 5,000 points so I have nothing to do anymore...suggestions?

This post relates to: Eternal Champions, Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side, Eternal Champions, Prey, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

Spirit Walker

I just rolled out yet another new song, this one titled "Spirit Walker." It's got a ton of harmony, and some intentionally dissonant chords. Check it out at the Eternal Champion Myspace!


























Download the album HERE!

Tracklist

"This Mortal Conquest"

1. Kingdom Come (5:36)
2. Soul Ruin (6:22)
3. Moonspell (6:30)
4. Broken Shadow (3:52)
5. For My Honor (8:16)
6. This Mortal Conquest (4:54)
7. Skyfire (4:04)
8. Demigod (6:01)
9. Spirit Walker (5:36)

Total Run Time: (51:11)

This post relates to: Gears of War 2, Prey, The Darkness

Quick blog today (though I don't even know if anyone is reading lol). Gamestop is having a huge ass sale on select games. You get 50% off a game's marked price which is already dirt cheap. I got Prey for four bucks (originally $8) and The Darkness for $9. Pretty sweet deals. I've only played the first level of The Darkness but I'm really liking the story. I had already rented Prey previously but never finished it. I was one of the few people who really liked it (c'mon, the Don't Fear the Reaper scene was amazing!!!).

On a final note, I found what is probably the most Epic (no pun intended) bundle ever for a videogame...

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26531969&sid=6195679&action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;1

If you didn't click the link, it's a bundle for Gears of War 2 that includes a life-size Lancer gun that you can reload and everything!! It'll cost $150 to get the limited edition bundle (limited edition game + lancer) and $140 for the regular edition. I was originally going to get the limited edition just for the gold lancer online bonus, but I'm seriously considering getting this new bundle....

This post relates to: Prey, Army of Two, Gears of War

I hate seeing “iterative crap” released as much as the next gamer, but some recent experiences have made me question just how justified rants on the subject might be.

The two games in point here are Gears of War, and Prey. Gear of War; the hit title which has come under a bit of fire for its lack of innovation. Prey; being the game bringing many new and interesting ideas to the realm of first person shooters, which on paper make the game look…dare I say “groundbreaking”, but ultimately scored in the mediocre range with reviewers and gamers alike. Some of the possible explanations I can think of are that Gears of War is simply more fun, the new ideas in Prey are not good, innovation really doesn’t matter, or all of the above.

Gears of War being more fun?…Well its quite true: the mission design is much tighter, it brings to the table a number of new cool weapons (the giant laser beam that shoots down from the sky), it has online cooperative support, and while they aren’t overly unique sequences it does have some differed gameplay thrown randomly to change the way you play the game slightly (shooting gas canisters to light up an area), and finally some boss sequences. None of these are really new to video games or shooters for that matter, but Gears of War manages to answer gaming’s golden question (Is it fun?) with a big fat YES.

The ideas in Prey are not good?…This is a tough question to answer, again when I was doing my initial pre-purchase homework, everything about it sounded like it was going to be this great new FPS experience. I mean the whole concept of portals in the game, the out of body experiences, walking on walls, all set against a reasonably good storyline. But now where the debate can come in for real is the question posed above…were the ideas simply not good? or was it poor application. I personally found a lot of the walking on walls sequences to be disorienting more then anything, causing not much but another level of frusturating to some gameplay sequences. The out of body experiences while cool, didn’t end up feeling anymore satisfying then your typical find the red key to open the red door sequences found in past games, becuase that’s all it was really used for. Finally the whole portal system, which to me ended up feeling like nothing more then walking through a door or crouching to crawl into a vent. It was just a slightly odd way of entering a new environment, almost feeling like an excuse not to build a transitional area between the two parts of the level.

I’m not going to sit here and say innovation doesn’t matter, but my ultimate point is that I don’t think brand new feature(s), no matter how great they sound, aren’t a home run unless they are applied correctly. From the looks of it, Valve’s Portal game is going to have a much better application of the portal concept, the out of body experiences found in Prey I still feel have a lot of potential for interesting gameplay, but I think it needed to be applied to a lot more interesting things then opening doors (how about using your body as a decoy against enemies…who knows?). Finally the walking on sticky walls thing, I’d probably leave out of my game, it is possible Prey’s dark environments made them more disorienting then they needed to be, but I still just wasn’t a fan of any of the sequences that used them.

Final Realization: It’s more about application then innovation. So I would probably take the comments made by EA’s producer with a grain of salt, and hope that the great new features found in Army of Two end up being implemented well.