Created by the developers of Fruit Ninja, Monster Dash is another iPhone game I never see myself deleting from my Phone. This simplistic yet hardcore game has you barreling through rooftops, jungles, and other scenarios while avoiding obstacles like mummies, spikes, and the dreaded walls of death, which is what I like to call them. Halfbrick knows what gamers want to do with their iPhone, easily boot up a game during short periods and quickly hop out if necessary.

Monster Dash shares the same principles as the known Adult Swim game Robot Unicorn Attack. Your character constantly runs in which all you control is the attack and jump button, which are virtual buttons but have yet to fail on me in any instance. Graphics look nice and switches scenarios every 1,000 points you score, you might start in the rooftops one instance and running though the jungle the next. The longer you go, the quicker things become which ends up being more of a reactionary twitch than skill. Not necessarily a bad thing but I’ve had a couple cheap deaths where I couldn’t do anything to avoid my demise. My best was around the 4,300 but the leaderboards has one fellow over 12,000; a number I never see myself achieving.

Your weapon starts as a generic blaster but their are a handful of cool weapons to use, which consists of a machine gun, machine gun jetpack, motorcycle, and electric gun. The Jetpack and Motorcycle are my personal favorites. With the Jetpack, you can use it to hover through part of the level while destroying everything underneath you; I’m always sad to see my ammo deplete. The best though is the Motorcycle, which you hop on and are virtually indestructible besides those dreaded walls. Neither enemies nor spike can hurt you, just run them over.

This is a game I can easily recommend at only .99 cents. I have enjoyed both Halfbrick games tremendously and hope they continue to develop for the iPhone. Monster Dash earns my iPhone Essential for this week.

Last week, a discussion was brought up on Twitter about embargoes and if they are good or bad for the gaming industry. You might not like the thought of developers and publishers making journalists either promise or sign papers stating they won’t let their audience know about their product until the date specified but it still happens. What would happen though if the industry abolished embargoes? Would this be for the better or could giving journalists complete freedom to post whenever they can start problems? My opinion is that embargoes aren’t always used rightly but help keep structure and keeps the large industry of gaming journalists on an equal playing field; for the most part.

Let me go ahead and state I’m not a professional video game journalist. I ran a gaming review blogging site for a while and have dealt with publishers before; definitely not as much as professionals do but I still have experience with it. I’ve received the press packets that contain the game and states: “do not run your review until…” This makes sense and helps reviewers know how long they have to play before the embargo date is lifted. Problems do arise from this procedure including when a bigger site can publish before your own or when you receive the game on release and the embargo is already passed.

If embargoes didn’t exist, then the industry would become nothing but a race and competition would become fiercer than what they are now. Honestly, many different websites respect each other as you can see then cracking jokes and exchanging links on Twitter so competition between sites isn’t hectic but it does still exist on some level. Imagine if you are a games journalist and you get a game to review and at that exact moment; the game you just gotten review could be published. What this would do is force the reviewer to blow through the game as quickly as they could and write up a piece on it and immediately publish; probably with errors and mistakes that could be avoided giving a grace period. Some say posting with errors isn’t much of a bad thing if you can get your articles up quickly but I’ll be the first to say when we pushed articles on resumeplay with errors we immediately knew about them because our audience told us; sometimes nicely but mostly mocking us.

Some people think that embargoes shouldn’t be in place; it gives publishers complete control on what is written and might makes opinionated pieces more subjective. This is both true and false. You do run into the instance where a publisher will ask the reviewer to not run their review until a certain date unless it’s a good score, and then they can run on an earlier date. This is the bad that comes with embargoes. Does sites purposely give good review scores just to run the review earlier to get that massive boost of hits? I’d say it’s happened and might still today, but by the time the game is release, you are definitely hit with many more reviews that can help persuade you to buy or not buy something in particular.

I don’t see a problem with embargoes; yes, their are the occasional instance but its more of a good thing than a bad thing. It also can help developers and publishers in a way that isn’t bad for the industry. For instance, you are a smaller developer that wants to push some big news on Thursday, but you know Tuesday the triple A developer is releasing big info on their upcoming game. In an embargo less world, the pieces would be put up side by side and the smaller developer would be overshadowed by the larger news from the bigger developer. You can continue to hate embargoes, but in this industry where the Internet makes it simple for information to leak when it’s not supposed to then you better get used to getting the info when the developers and publishers want you to.

The trailer has its up and down moments: “I think I’ll scope this guy out AHH MISSILE!” The two knive melee and the sorta knife projectile gun or whatever it is has been blowing up on message boards. It’s a knife with another knife and that’s something to highlight in your teaser? Treyarch is saying “*Fuck No” to single knife use; double knife is the future. Video recording is rearing its existence in Black Ops which is definitely the plus that they shouldn’t spent more time on then speeding it up at the end and forcing people to slow the video down to understand it more. Yes, they sped it up at the end “*they will have no idea what all the words say at the end and will be even MORE excited for September 1st.”

Lets break this trailer down. It opens with an idiot walking up to a camera not knowing that he is being filmed or watched. When the player sets up a camera, it pops up a video feed on your HUD (yes, something else to watch on the HUD) where you can set it up and go hide; something else to encourage even more camping. “*Heartbeat sensors got made fun of from our fanbase, so instead of being cheap and having it on your gun; you can place it up like an amateur porno and video tape the enemies.”

The next couple shots are nothing but shooting which we all know how to do and looks way too similar to MW2; even the cards that display your killstreaks are identical. You see Apollo 11 launch off as a war rages on close to then the player pulls out a crossbow HOLY SHIT 2 KNIVES AND CROSSBOWS! (head=blown.) A skewer comes out then reveals the 2 knives followed by a person diving forward which reminded me of how I used to make Link from Zelda run around; constantly tumbling because he goes slightly faster. Not sure if that will be a perk or if it will always be available to use but it looked cool. The rest of the trailer is exactly what you would expect from a COD game but ends with a teaser introducing the ability to capture sequences during the round and save them in a file share. More info will be announced on September 1st.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater of the series or anything. I get into the multiplayer for about a month then decide to move on because it becomes stale rather quickly. The games are solid competent shooters that can hold their own with all the others on the market. COD fans will definitely be excited for this one, it looks to just continue where MW2 left off. I myself just get bored with these games after a certain point and hardly will ever return to them. I’m not big on other shooters either; I’m a shooter fan but I don’t have a preference. It was funny to hear after the E3 trailer that many fans were saying Treyarch is trying to take Black Ops in new directions, then we get this teaser trailer which teases gameplay we’ve been playing for three years now. Who gives a shit though; you will still buy it, you will still love it, Bobby K. will still be flying his gold jet, and Activision will still remain on top being hated by all gamers that are tired of rehashed games.

*official quotes from Treyarch
 
originally written for my dumb blog 64bitbastard

I’ve had an extraordinary thought while playing Deathspank…

Not really but I do want to say that humor in games have never cut it for me. I’m currently playing through Deathspank which I’m quite enjoying but the “funny” parts of the game I’m feeling are a major distraction to what’s actually good about it. Deathspank’s voice is nerve wracking and is strikingly similar to Captain Qwark of Ratchet & Clank fame although it’s supposedly not the same VO. What’s supposed to be “humorous” in that style of voice? Is it the overconfidence, the loudness, I just don’t really get it.

Humor in games have never really done it for me. Have I ever laughed out loud at a game? Sure, but a game based primarily around humor would never work for me. I’m 23 years old; some say dick and fart jokes never get old but I wouldn’t miss a fart noise if I never heard one again. Even watching the latest AVGN about Zelda and having fart noises in the intro was just dumb. Games are missing the charm that is needed to be funny that are found in TV shows and movies. Why is it that games are never really funny? It has to be that it takes so long to make one and money gets allocated more towards making the game fun than to making the script humorous.

Getting back to Deathspank; it really is fun although it’s quite a grind. The descriptions to your weapons are supposed to be funny “Is this a hammer in a sword or a sword in a hammer” funny right? Even though the humor doesn’t tickle my fancy, the overall game is really fun. I really like the watercolor look of Deathspank and the environments seem pretty varied toward the beginning levels (I’m only a couple hours in.) The combat is easy to pick up but I don’t see it becoming stale. The inventory screen is ugly but you have a nice checkbox of “always equip the best gear” which means I never have to look at it again. The Summer of Arcade is full of hits and misses this year and it was nice to get Deathspank the week before it started.

Has humor ever worked for anybody else? I’m sure there are games that have their moments but has one truly made you LOL? Let me know some examples.
 
originally written on my blog 64bitbastard

The week really started out with me buying my first one month of WOW. I really wanted to try it and figured now that my PC is decently running I would give it a shot. I can easily see why people would get addicted to this game as it is not only massive but more customizable than what I thought it would be. I like WOW and plan on raiding many nights for the month but already know I will not be resubscribing next month since it will be close to Final Famtasy XIV; the MMO I really want to get into. *side note, giantbomb is not picking up on my WOW character; any reason why?

Saturday was spent trying out Firefight on ODST. *Sidenote I’m the gamer that is always late to the party; anybody want to play some 50 cent BOTS? It was me and one other guy on legendary; died around 9,000 points. Then tried it with a step down in difficulty, got around 14,000. Normal we hit around 50,000 but know now if we want the achievements we need 4 people. I would like to get them along with the playthrough on Legendary with co-op but everybody that gives a shit had more than likely done it by now.

Heavy Rain was the last game I played; woke up early Sunday and finished the remainder of it in about five hours. That game was really fun and I’ve already purchased Indigo Prophecy on Steam to give it a shot as well. Two things I really didn’t care for; the glitches and the ending. Heavy Rain spazzed out on me like three times; I even got a picture of the clown head rotating around it’s body (not a spoiler in anyway.) Also I was really upset with my ending and how everything unfolded. I understand it has around twenty endings but I’m only playing it through the one time as to not dilute my actual experience with it. Overall though, Heavy Rain was great and the action segments are intense enough to make me nervous as they are unfolding. I would recommend the game to anyone that like stories in games, suspense, and trying out new game types.  

That’s about it for me. I tried audiosurf but need to figure out how to play the game better. This week will be more WOW (character is maup) probably some Muramasa since that’s what gamefly decided I wanted, more Super Mario Galaxy 2 (40 stars in), and maybe more Firefight if I can round some people up.

If you want to listen to my podcast check it out here.

Have a good week

-Mau

5) Words With Friends

Scrabble. This is all it is but the fact that it’s multiplayer over my network makes it one I continuously play. I make a move then close the app and go about my day. Hours later I’ll check and see if anybody else has made a move. It’s the perfect multiplayer game for people on the go because you are allowed twenty games going at once.

4) Plants Vs. zombies

Originally played this game on the PC and loved every moment of it. The port to the iPhone is amazing with all the fast paced reactions working perfectly on the touch screen. It’s easily my favorite tower defense game I’ve played and it’s made by the fine folks of PopCap. I bought this game for ten bucks on steam and getting it on the iPhone for only $2.99 is perfect.

3) Geodefense

I’ll go ahead and say I’ve never completed either Geo Defense or Geo Swarm because they are hard as hell. Visuals remind me of Geometry Wars, Geo Defense is a tower defense game that will take patience to complete due to the difficulty. Some of the later stages really do require some major juggling of where to allocate your resources to buy. If you want a great looking game with a challenge, pick up either of these. I prefer Geo Defense though.

2) Trees of Doom

1) Angry Birds

My favorite game I’ve played on the iPhone to date. Angry Birds is about pissed off birds that out for revenge to rescue their eggs from the pigs who robbed them. You “launch” birds into structures that pigs hide behind or underneath that will knock it down and hopefully destroy all the pigs; sorta like Boom Blocks on Wii. The developers have done an amazing job supporting this game; constantly adding levels and already planning to add more. The best thing is the cost is only $.99 so it’s a hard game to pass up with as much content you get with it. Theirs a reason it has sat comfortably at the #1 spot for a long time.

What games would you recommend me and others to check out?

Out of all the consoles and download services they offer, my favorite will definitely be going to XBLA. Sure, I like some of the different types of games on PSN but hardly ever surf what the Wii offers; XBLA is something I watch week after week. This service makes a killing in profit according to the Research & Analysis division FADE (forecasting & analyzing digital entertainment.)

FADE reports that although XBLA was off to a rough start in the beginning months of this year, the overall market grew by 13% making $46.1 million in the first half of 2010. Even the month of June was up a staggering 36% from 2009 June. I gotta say, this is pretty impressive since it’s already been an amazing year with retail and downloadable games; the market must be growing. Microsoft did a big push in June with sales on many popular downloadable titles that helped bring in so much money, and July is the kick off with Summer of Arcade which is always a big hit. FADE also reports due to Summer of Arcade, Kinect, among other things, XBLA could bring in over $130 to $140 million dollars; whoa.

Here are the top selling games of this year:

* Toy Soldiers (Signal Studios) – $4.6 million (1200 Microsoft Points)
* Trials HD (RedLynx) – $4.4 million (800 – 1200 Microsoft Points)
* Castle Crashers (The Behemoth) – $2.9 million (800 – 1200 Microsoft Points)
* Battlefield 1943 (EA DICE) – $2.5 million (800 – 1200 Microsoft Points)
* Perfect Dark (4J Studios) – $2.4 million (800 Microsoft Points)
* Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom) – $1.8 million (800 – 1200 Microsoft Points)
* Family Game Night (EA Bright Light) – $1.7 million (400 – 800 Microsoft Points)
* Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainment) – $1.2 million (800 – 1200 Microsoft Points)
* Magic: The Gathering (Stainless Games) – $900,000 (800 Microsoft Points)
* Call of Duty Classic (Infinity Ward) – $800,000 (1200 Microsoft Points)

What are some games you have enjoyed this year? I think LIMBO takes it for me so far but definitely looking forward to the Lara Croft game and hoping NBA Jam comes to XBLA/PSN. Also, I’m glad to see Castle Crashers is still leading sales even after two years.
 
originally written for 64bitbastard.

I recently blogged about wanting to try my first MMO and I’ve decided I really want it to be on a PC. The rig I got is decent but it needed a graphics card and a fresh install on Vista (don’t want to pay for Windows 7.) Everything seemed to go well with the fresh install but I noticed a very major problem; it won’t connect to the Internet. After messing around with it all night I decided to take it to Best Buy with me and have Geek Squad look at if as I pick up my Nvidia 9800.

They hooked it up and told me it’s missing a couple drivers and it would take them seven to ten days and $140 bucks to fix it. I thought that was too ridiculous and figured I could teach it to myself, this leads into Sunday.

My network card drivers expired for some reason and the one I needed wasn’t available anymore. I turned to Yahoo answers and after a couple hours a guy pointed me in the right direction. I’m happy to say I got that working, got the graphics card installed, and was finally able to access the Internet. This all took six hours of my lazy Sunday, which sucked because I still had issues for some odd reason.

After downloading Steam and installing some games I decided to start working on iTunes and moving my music over. Plugged in my phone and discovered my two front USB ports don’t work, and still don’t as of this writing. It’s just something else for me to try and figure out. All this mayhem with my fucking computer stemmed from a faulty Weather Channel desktop app that corrupted my system.

It still works, and I played Half Life: Ep. 1 for a bit and it worked fine. I tried downloading the benchmark Final Fantasy XIV program a fellow member of giantbomb alerted me to but it wouldn’t work. I even downloaded Maple Story from a recommendation (never played an MMO) and it ran like shit, even though my computer can handle something like Half Life. This all brings memories back with me trying to run Medal of Honor on a machine years ago that could handle it but just refused to. I applaud all PC gamers out there that put up with bullshit like this. I’ve never had a good experience on my PC besides Diablo 2, Plants vs. Zombies, and the Command & Conquer series because something stupid always fucks up; you need special drivers, or its not compatible with your OS.

I know some people never have problems with their machine, but all this bull crap makes me rely 100% on my consoles. I’m not an idiot with computers, but some of this is just ridiculous. I love how Vista always tells me it will look for the right stuff which it has always failed. I was so pissed off all day Sunday until I finally got shit working sorta; my USB still doesn’t work on the front but all four in the back work so any help would be appreciated for that. I will say I love how my computer looks now.

If there are things that I can improve without buying more items, like special drivers or something else, please let me know. I’m real interested in PC gaming and have been my entire life but everytime I pursue it, something always stands in my way. Also I will say I own two Macs and love them both. They just work but sadly Steam on Mac has been a big disappointment and continues to be so. Also didn’t care too much for Maple Story.

That’s all, I hope to have a better week this week. Getting Heavy Rain from Gamefly and will probably start my epic playthroughs of Mass Effect 1 and 2; I haven’t played either.

 Here is a little list I wrote up of things that really annoy me about gaming.

5. Games that claim to be real
Think about this, how often have you played a game and thought “this really does feel like I shot somebody.” I understand games have car physics down and whatnot, but it never replicates “that real feel” they all claim to have. Just stop it already, I play games to escape reality, not find a way to link them together. Sure I get stuck in the experience in times, but my imagination has never tricked me into thinking I was actually a goblin with magic.

4. Stupid sidekicks
This is one thing that can really ruin a story for me, especially in JRPG’s (which I’m at the point now of swearing that genre off, but for other reasons that I’ll write about one day.) the main dude is badass, or super smart, or can fly or some shit, yet his main sidekick is some idiot with acrophobia. The worst is when the sidekick was working with the enemy all along. “Hey sidekick, who you talking with over there?” “Nobody… just my mother.” One more point to make with the sidekick is when he goes on missions with you and they give him a voice. “This direction hero” or something like it uttered over and over again makes me just want to kill him with my entire arsenal. “Don’t point that gun at me hero.”  

3. Recycled minibosses
I’m sure I’ve stated my hatred about recycled minibosses but I want to say I mean within one game. For instance, Batman: Arkham Asylum did this. A ton of games have done this where they have a mini boss that you fight multiple times, and it’s the same each routine each time. Then, you know you are getting close to the end when they throw now one but TWO of them at you making it twice as hard but also twice as annoying.

2. Games that continue when it should have stopped.
This is a weird one to explain so let me just tell a little story:
Hero: “Finally, the bridge is lowered so I can get into the “boss’s” lair and destroy him once and for all. Wait… the gate is locked, what does these three symbols mean?”
Mysterious voice:’” hero, you need to find the three pieces to get through this gate.”
Hero: “I just went through like nine caves to find all the pieces to lower that stupid bridge. Why wouldn’t you just tell me to grab these pieces as well?”
Mysterious voice:………… “I must have forgot”
Hero: “well, are they at least nearby so it won’t take long to get?”
Mysterious voice: “……………………………”
Hero: *sigh

1. Grievers
This is my most frustrating aspect in gaming online games. It’s one of the reasons why I rarely play online games. You hop in a room, and sometimes you luck out and gamers are just talking normal talk. This is the rare scenario; most of the time you get one of three things: gamers yelling racial slurs, gamers stating they make love to your entire family, or they talk about how much you suck when they just met you. No matter how much they pull the ban hammer, these gamers still lurk around and can only have fun if they piss others off. Fuck them.