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Uninteresting $#!% #3

By jakob187 June 22, 2010 10 Comments

IN THIS BLOG:

Shitload of XBLA games
Blur
New Xbox 360
E3 2010

Hey folks! It's been a while, eh? I hadn't realized it was nearly two weeks without writing a blog. For the first time in a while, I found myself utterly caught up in video games, and by the time I was ready to write up a new blog, it turned out that E3 was happening. Frankly, there's just no point in writing during E3, as everyone would be posting shit everywhere and yapping about their raging nerd boners over (insert game announcement here). In the time that I haven't written a blog, I've had a lot of ideas and thoughts pop into my head - some of which I've collected and will probably bestow upon the masses at some point, while others are things that need more development. You'll probably see those show up at some point. Above all that, I added two more S-ranks to my achievement whoring list: A Kingdom for Keflings and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. Both were immense amounts of fun for the time they lasted. Now I have to wait for A World of Keflings. *sigh* Anyways, on with the blog!!!

I Cannot Stress Enough: SHITLOAD of XBLA Games!

SERIOUSLY! LIKE A SHITLOAD!!!

A lot of this recent absence was due to Microsoft throwing out some muthafuckin' deals for that ass, and not ponying up the cash for some points cards just seemed like a ludicrous notion. Games that were purchased include: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Alien Hominid HD, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Earthworm Jim HD, Geometry Wars 2, Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Turtles in Times Re-shelled, Trials HD, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade, and Duke Nukem 3D. As was previously stated, there were a SHITLOAD of XBLA games bought. All of them are pretty damn great, although Earthworm Jim HD could've used some better translation on the controls, and there are plenty of times that it seems Jim will be sliding off of a platform rather than standing firmly on it. That's kind of annoying. The realization did hit that Castlevania: SOTN is still one hell of an incredible game, as well as the fact that my skill level in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is non-existant. Also, don't waste money on Turtles in Time: Re-shelled. That's a horrifically boring game.Otherwise, it's probably the best $60 or so that could've been spent in a while for some video games, and it has provided hours of entertainment...with no doubt that hours more will be going into it as well. Thank you, Microsoft, for the massive deals, and Summer of Arcade should guarantee you see more of my damn money soon enough.

Blurring The Line Between Karts and Racing Games

The game's pretty, fun, and fucking addicting!

For those who weren't made aware, there is currently a $20 off coupon for Blur, the "kart-game-that-isn't-really-a-kart-game" racer from Bizarre Creations and Activision. Moreover, the game is on sale at many retailers this week for $40, so it's needless to say that Blur was purchased at Best Buy yesterday for $20. After spending some time with it yesterday, that game has proven you can do compelling work within the "kart" genre of racing games without sacrificing graphical fidelity or general awesomeness. It's interesting that the team behind something like Project Gotham Racing was capable of presenting something that has impact to it, and that is meant in the most literal of senses. When you get hit by a shunt, it HITS. The same can be said with anything. There is a great amount of weight to everything in this game, and it helps lend a stark freshness to what could've been an otherwise mediocre title. The online setup is probably one of the most interesting you'll find in a racing game, as it combines some of the best elements of other online racing games as well as the loadouts idea from Call of Duty 4 and car upgrades into one smooth and solid combination. There's so much to play around with, it's almost a criminal offense that Bizarre set the timers to 30 seconds between races for you to select a car and play around with your loadouts. Beyond all of this, the game is definitely rewarding to those achievement whores out there, as almost all the achievements are multi-tiered with meta-achievements within the achievements. All of that is tracked via a "Stickers" option in your menu, and you'll also find progress trackers pop up during gameplay. Add onto that the ability to share updates from the game via Facebook and Twitter, as well as the idea of declaring one of your friends as a "rival" and offering up friend challenges (similar to the way Game Room does challenges), and Blur is an astounding package...especially at a $20 price tag. Everyone, whether you are a racing fan or not, should be running out to add this game to their collection.

I Gave Money To Gamestop On A Pre-Order. I'm A Bad Person.

Pretty sexy...

How about that redesigned Xbox 360, folks?! At first, it just looked like a dumb design with good ideas in it. As time has progressed, that fucker has gotten sexier and sexier. By Friday, one of those should be in the house and ready to hook up, thanks to the sweet deals that Gamestop has going on. A lot of places I've been visiting have been bitching and complaining about a couple of things, though - namely "disc spin noise". Folks, let's just get this out in the open, shall we? If you believe that any...ANY...modern disc drive is going to make no noise, you need to get your head checked for mental illness. In this day and age, with the amount of information we have been compressing to discs, it would be a miracle to find something that would be "whisper quiet" when spinning a disc. However, Microsoft put a 250GB hard drive on that box for a reason. Therefore, use it. I know that I plan to do so by the end of the week. If that does happen, expect to see a blog about the box next week. If not, then I'm going to be a bit perturbed that it hadn't shown up yet.

Booze, PR Chicks, and Games!!!

POW! IT'S RIGHT THERE! IN YOUR FACE!

E3 - it happened. There were a ton of great game announcements, and from what we all saw, it seemed like the 3DS showed pretty well. Personally, the handheld market just isn't that interesting beyond "hey, that's a neat little thing". The 3DS might change my mind on that a little bit, but portable gaming just isn't something that seems necessary for me. Dead Space 2 showed very well, and my excitement for the game just continues to increase. There was something a bit more visceral in what the gameplay demo showed for it that wasn't there in the first game. The EA press conference also got me hyped for Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm, so thank you to EA for those gameplay demos. Luckily, some new Splatterhouse news as well as a new trailer came out of E3 as well, although the media rarely noticed and it seems that most people still don't give a crap. That makes me sadface pretty damn hard, as the idea of BottleRocket's swan song being all but ignored just shouldn't happen. The stuff for Def Jam Rapstar that Giant Bomb showed off actually looked pretty cool, although I just don't know how appealing the idea of rapping rap songs can be. The video editing stuff and community features seem quite interesting though, pushing the boundaries of what stuff like Rockstar's Social Club and even Blur's online website have been doing to the logical next level. The interview with Greg Kasavin about Spec Ops: The Line continues to get me fucking uber-psyched about that game. Overall, the show was exciting, and there was definitely an energy coming from it that hasn't been seen in a few years. Thanks to Giant Bomb for the constant quality coverage during the event, and thanks to Snide, Matt, and Brad 2 for keeping things held down on the homefront. You guys did good, and here's to next year.
_____________________________________________

To end all this, I don't know if the cat is out of the bag yet or not...but I'm letting it out: expect a surprise from me in the second issue of the Luchazine. After reading the first issue, I've gotta say that it's one of the best community features we've seen in a while, and I think that everyone involved with that is doing some fantastic fucking work. Thanks to GoranP for the opportunity, despite how much I bugged him about it. = D

Until next time, piece!

P.S. - My vote goes towards Mountain Dew Distortion.

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