Is it really even necessary to put "The Game" at the end of something that is sold within the games section of a Best Buy, with a big ol' honking "Xbox 360" or "PS3 banner on the cover? Probably not, and the three people who may actually be confused by such a problem and buy the game thinking its their lucky day and they found Avatar on DVD early deserve all the hassle that will ensue. How long did the marketing department work to make the title of these movie games? Did they label it "The Game" for production purposes to separate it from the movie and then forget to change it back?
By the way, this movie was as awful as this game will be.
It can be argued that all movie games suck dong. It's almost a bulletproof theory, but as with everything there are exceptions. Spider-Man 2 was pretty great, and is probably the reason we're still subject to all the multiple unnecessary additions to the series that don't build on the series at all (other than Ultimate Spider-Man, which I think is probably the best iteration of Spider-Man games). Its fine that movie games suck. I get that it must make some sort of money for whoever makes the games, since they're repeatedly being churned out. Why not make some money off your brand that you're marketing already anyways? How many millions of dollars did Beowulf spend on letting that dude scream "I AM BEOWULF" on my TV? If plastering the words "Beowulf" onto a blu-ray disc with a truly terrible God of War-esque remake will off-set a little of the costs, go nuts. I saw people pay full price for that game-soon-to-be-coaster. Some people came to the EB Games I worked at every week, buying two games a week no matter how awful they were. I'm sure Beowulf made enough money to maybe even turn a profit. But seriously, at least give me something different.
Also, you fight crabs. Vicious, vicious crab.
For example, Wanted: Weapons of Fate is the only movie game to ever try and take a step forward, in the sense that it didn't just create a lame recreation of the movie. It was a sequel/prequel, and expanded on the story. It used that one thing that movie had, the bullet bending, and made a decent game concept of it. Sure, it wasn't a great game, and it was trying way too hard to be, I don't know how to explain it exactly, maybe cool? Hardcore? Extreme without the E? But at least they had the right idea? I don't want to watch the movie, and then play a very poor version of the movie, whilst fighting some extra dudes that weren't in the movie. I want to know what happens after the movie. Or before. That's all.
Wanted also had the good sense to know it's limits. No multiplayer normally sounds like a ripoff, but seriously, who is playing Avatar online? Even Aliens vs Predator had a pretty terrible online feature, where it fell off the Plays list on Giant Bomb within a we ek of its release. No one plays movie games online. If people have money for buying Clash of the Titans on PS3, they certainly had money to buy Modern Warfare 2 or Bad Company 2. Making a half-hearted multiplayer is just a sign that they could have spent some more time on improving what I assume was already a terrible singleplayer, but instead had some crazy idea that they were going to add any amount of replayability to their awful game. This doesn't mean they can't add co-op. Adding co-op seems like a pretty good idea for any game, as it gives more of a reason for someone to convince their friends to buy the game as well. I would have never played Saints Row 2 if it weren't for its co-op function, and eventually I got two friends to buy the game. Of course, Saints Row 2 is pretty awesome, and Wanted was no where near as such. But it would add some replayability to the game and I normally have more fun playing the co-op features of a game than I do in any other mode.
But I digress. In my opinion, movie games would be best served as a prequel to the movie and, in a perfect world, be released some time before the movie. This way, you take advantage of any hype the movie might have generated and attract cust omers who hope to get an early glimpse of the movie in some shape or form. Of course, I'm sure a lot of movie people would not want a video game to take away from the film in any way even if it didn't touch on the main plot, which is why most movie games get released afterwards. If this fact is known by the developers, make a game set just after the events of the movie. At least this way I might actually take something from the game. Or do what Bioware did and set it thousands of years before the original story and make Knights of the Old Republic, a game who's story is far superior to any Star Wars media. Yeah, I said it.
Here's an idea for people who want to mix things up with their friends in a private match and are tired of normal game modes. I call it CoD Zombies, although this title is probably no longer appropriate due to World at War's zombie mode. Nevertheless, here it is.
- Set game mode to Team Deathmatch . - Headshots only, no killstreaks, no radar, no friendly fire, third-person mode. - Pick a smaller map, for MW2 I suggest something like Favela or Terminal.
Now, normally I'd say make the teams 3vs1 but unfortunately, MW2 has completely disabled this option forcing balanced teams. CoD4 and CoD: WaW both allow 3vs1 matches though. Anyways, one team will be the survivor, the other, the zombies. The survivor is allowed to use everything except his knife and the Marathon perk. The zombies can only use knives and nightvision. Generally, it's best if the survivor is the worst player or one who is least familiar with the map. Also, they cannot go on a spot in which the zombies cannot reach without help of a ladder.
I've been coming to Giant Bomb for about three months now. Originally, I went to GameTrailers.com for all my gaming needs, but then all my GTD up and disappeared like goddamn Dumbledore and their reviews became essentially commercials for games. Invisible Walls is the one thing left on that site worth going to, otherwise Giant Bomb has original content every day, with legitimately funny stuff. I hope you guys keep it up. Sounds like you don't get any free stuff from anyone.
Anyways, I'm going to blog whenever I have some free time. Mostly just about games, but some movie stuff will leak in every once in a while. Mostly games though.
I just bought Valkyria Chronicles despite having pretty much no money. It's a pretty rare game here in the snowy climes of Canada, so when I saw it at Best Buy (which by the way didn't have that $10 a game sale, bastards) I snatched it up. I generally don't buy Sega games, or J-RPGs. Sega hasn't released a decent game for a while and J-RPGs are way too linear, never changing or evolving like the vastly superior Western RPG genre. Valkyria Chronicles, though, has the advantage of being an alternate reality World War 2 game not called Turning Point. It's pretty wicked, and you always get the feeling of being in a war in which your side is overwhelmed. But for some inexplicable reason, all the cutscenes are chopped up and have to be selected to be watched seperately , and most of them are boring. J-RPGs stories are usually pretty cookie cutter, along with all the characters being interchangeable with a billion other characters from other anime, but all I really cared about was the gameplay. It's sort of a more complex version of Final Fantasy Tactics with guns. It also looks very pretty, and the music for the most part is good, no J-Pop made-for-porno awfulness. If you see it, pick it up. Worse comes to worse, you can sell it later on EBay and make all your money back anyways.
I've had Marvel vs Capcom 2 for the Original Xbox for about a year and a half. It never got patched to work on the 360 (work properly, not dumb pixel explosion nonsense) and never got a serious offer to sell. Now it's coming out for the Next-Gens and will be completely worthless. Now I know for sure that God doesn't want me to have money. It'd be awesome though if they made it a 6-player game on Xbox Live. One person controls one person on the three man team. That'd be awesome. I think I'm decent at MvC2, but I'm sure if I ever went on Xbox Live with it, I'd get my spleen punched through a wall. I don't have a curly moustache at all.
I went to see Star Trek the other day and my friend kept asking me which song was playing during the pre-movie commercials. This is odd since the last chart worthy song I heard was "I'm on a Boat" by The Lonely Island.
I'm sick of Call of Duty: World at War. The single-player is crappy and a giant let-down after the beast that was CoD4, the Co-op is half-assed, Nazi Zombies is pointless for people who have Left 4 Dead (which I hope is everyone), and the multi-player is frustrating beyond all reason. The first three months had people going through floors and shooting people from below or flying into the night sky and shooting them from above. Throughout all this you have to put up with the worst respawning system known to man, with you either respawning in front of an enemy or in your own airstrike, or someone will respawn behind you. Why are bouncing betties so hard to see and then shoot? Why are bolt-action rifles so useless? My Xbox Live rep took a swan-dive because of this game since, apparently, using a tank is "unsporting conduct". Is it really so hard to use one of your five classes with satchels? Is it really that hard to throw a satchel beside a tank? Tanks can only take two well thrown satchels. It can only take two rockets and a sticky on the back. Your team spawns with a tank too!
I'm super excited for Champions Online. I'm a huge comic book fan, and a pretty big MMORPG fan (Ultima Online fo lyfe, yo. Although I stopped that 10 years ago). And now it's going to be on a console, thus I won't have to drag out my honkingly big computer out of storage, upgrade it, then have it crash on me every day to play it.
Okay, so this first blog was pretty bad. I promise, it'll improve once some bloody games come out or on a night I'm not watching baseball. Damn Yankees.
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