Christmas Gaming

Traditionally for whatever reason christmas has always meant heavy gaming. For what ever reason you always end up with some downtime. Either its too cold out or your just sick of listening to your mom talk about how people you graduated with are more successful than you but whatever your excuse you end up alone in front of the TV.

Christmas is the perfect time to discover some new titles that you were waiting for as a gift from that rad family member who knows who is intune with your wants and not your needs. I still remember very fondly the year the i discovered original Halo. It blew my mind. I hadn't really gotten back into FPS's since Perfect Dark and after that christmas i was all in.

Adversely it is also a good time to finish some game that you might have started and then neglected for shinier prizes. This is the route I decided to go this year but instead of something recent I took a time machine 16 years to the past and played Shinning Force with the help of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.
For one reason or another I have always looked back at this game with fondness and rose tinted fading memories. And it was all justified.

There must be something about cartoon graphics and RPG's it just seems to fit. I can loose days to these and not really notice but for some reason the newer 3d super graphic mega complex RPG's wear me out after a few hours. It might be nostalgia or just my old age but i haven't managed to cram through 21 hours of gameplay in 3 days in quite some time.

Of course it could boil down to my first salient point and I could have just had nothing better to do. That or all the rum.

F-ZERO TO F-HERO: 10 things I learned from Modern Warfare 2

1. Nothing will stop racism.

Even though I am a moderately well educated man and have learned the true travesty of groundless ignorance at any given time there are seemingly billions on X-Box Live who haven't.

2. In game graphic cut scenes still suck.

We have now reached the capability with computer imaging to make people and scenery look like badly constructed rubber puppets. In CG of course.

3. Your rarely the best.

It doesn't matter what mode your playing on multi player 95% of the time there are 1-3 people who are better at it than you. The other 5% your at the bottom of the list.

4. Never go on a shooting rampage in a crowded airport.

You think you might get away with it just this once but you won't. If the security force with riot shields doesn't get you, your double crossing leader will just shoot you in the face at the last second.

5. There are Predatore Missiles in Fast Food joints.

In the back left corner on the counter.

6. Tough guys are dead guys.

If you run ahead into the fray you die. If you stand up and spray down the wilderness like that guy in Predator you die. The only way to really survive is to go slow stick to the shadows and bushes and fucking check your corners Jesus Christ how have you not learned that yet.

7. Your favorite characters always die.

You know who's awesome bad mamma jamma's who wear skull bella clavas like Ghost. You know who dies on a double cross bad mamma jamma's who wear skull bella clavas like Ghost.

8. Old Scottish dudes are tougher than shit.

You thought Price died at the end of Modern Warfare. He Didn't. You imagine being locked away in the gulags for 5 years would be too much for one frail human being. It wasn't. You think maybe getting his face stepped on repeatedly by Sheppard in one of the best fist fights in video game history would at least knock him out. IT FUCKING DIDN'T.

9. Mohawks are still bad ass.

Soap has one and he whoops ass. Just like Mr. T, Haggar, Zangief and the Legion of Doom if there's a stripe on your head your handling your effin business.

10. Somebody will always die with a precision face strike.

Whether it's a bullet in the middle of the forehead or a super-bad-ass-awesome-throwing-knife-that-you-pulled-out-of-you-own-chest-and-from-your-back-you-hit-that-asshole-square-in-his-left-eye its coming and you want it.

no more mass effect

well as you may have noticed there have been no mass effect posts in a while. Mike's x-box red ringed and his hard drive had my save game on it.

Through happenstance and pure luck my brother roasted his hard drive but not his x-box so he bought a new one and gave me his old one after we got drunk and took it apart to figure out what was wrong. We were not able to fix it or actually put it back together properly. We didn't figure out it was the hard drive until the next day when we tried to put it on his new arcade. We are total tards. But i got an x-box again and i need some rpg crack to tide me over.

Even though Mass Effect is a very good game re-playing the first 2 hours makes me want to repeatedly hit myself in the mouth with my controller. Since i don't need my teeth anymore crooked I started playing lost odyssey again instead. That game is complete total awesome buuuut its complete total molasses awesome so i got bpred and switched to sacred 2.

I have a loot whore boner for that game and don't really see anything taking its spot as a rad time chewing rpg. Maybe border lands but that doesn't have armor and outfits quite like sacred. I can honestly say Sacred 2 is the best action RPG I've played since Champions of Norath. And even though Too Human was pretty fun the lack of variance in the items and how the bad guys all looked the same makes it a distant second.

If you feel like helping me out I and the Dryad that keeps dying trying to kill that shitty colossus.

Oh fuck i forgot about odst

Lately I have been shitting my mind in anticipation for Modern Warfare 2's arrival in just under a month. It's delicious FPS promises have my dreams dancing with multiplayer sugarplums. It has fill my mind and blanked all other upcoming releases.
Until I just realized Halo 3: ODST comes out in about a week and a half.

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/852871/bungie-project-2/videos/haloodst_trl_liveactionextended_90809.html

Watch this video and join me in Halo Fanboyism.

I don't care what any hater says Halo rules all. Halo has always ruled and I am seriously reconsidering my modern warfare two hype... condsidering if i even care at all anymore. Sure Trey Arch and Infinity ward have made titles that compete with Bungy's dominance and the greatness of Halo 3 but the thing is Modern Warfare and World at War both came out after Halo 3. Bungy hasn't answered their challenge.
To this day there are still things that the call of duty IP can't compete with when it comes to halo. No split screen Live Play. No smooth but end instead of a jenky knife that misses more than it hits but most of all nothing that comes close to a Wart Hog in sheer radness.

What could we be instore for. Will this grab any halo fans that might have fallen by the wayside with Halo Wars. I can't wait.

Sure this isn't really a stand alone title or an expansion pack its more like a halo 3.5 but really more halo story is all I need. Halo has the best campaign mode of any FPS it's untouchable. The multiplayer's only downbringing is its too hard because power nerds are too good and its just frustrating. This will be exactly what the doctor orders before i yet again play another uninteresting call of duty story mode.

I am and always will be a Halo Fanboy because they earned it time and time again.

Mass Effect and the obliteration of annoyance

I have touched on the matter of me already playing mass effect in the past. I had also divulged that I chose a wrong character build and as a result did not enjoy the game to it's fullest. I did however remember a vague sense of over all satisfaction from my experience and couldn't quite put my finger on why. Well today I got to a part in the game I had already been through once around and it was full of answers. But one in particular. It's also the title of this post: The obliteration of annoyance.

I got to a situation where a scientist upon orders of his employers had tested a spore on the people in his employ and had infected them with a mind controlling hive mind belonging to a giant sentient plant. As you might have guess the plan goes haywire and and the people go amok and everything gets screwy for a bit. The scientist is then ordered to wipe up mistakes and purge a whole colony to cover the mistakes.

All too often when the subject of catastrophe is covered in entertainment there is always that one dickhead character who either through negligence or direct sociopathic activities fucks everything up. You then get to be enraged that the douche bag gets to go live and usually slink away into the darkness with their tail between their legs. Well not Mass Effect My Friend. You show up and that turd gets got. That piece of shit annoyance doesn't get to go free, doesn't pass go they just effin die. Frontier justice, eye for an eye, black and white, no grey area death, thats what they get-fucking shot in the face obliterated.



Sure it seems wrong and even macabre to gun a being down in cold blood when they are trying to recant their evil deeds. Maybe they would have been better rehabilitating in a cell somewhere with only their thoughts and memories to haunt them and keep them company with constant reminders of the havoc they wreaked. Sure you know it's not really a viable alternative to evolved courtroom justice. Vigilantes are wrong you know this. You've learned this... but you still ache for it. Don't tell me it's wrong you can tell that to my maniacle laughter, pleasure and the video game souls of all the characters that garbage killed.

The moral of the story is that even though people have the ability to show great kindness and compassion and risk everything for the greater good there is also the other side of the coin: There will always be assholes who want to fuck everything up for everyone and shooting those people feels really really good.

Piddling around in mass effect

There was a quote I read somewhere about journeying through life. It read something along the lines of "the quickest route between two points is a straight line". I think the over all ideal the person who wrote that quote was trying to say was some bullshit about tackling your dreams head on and not going about it in a round about way.
I have new quote for you "the quickest route between two points is anywhere you fucking drive in this amazing piece of machinery".

Alright it might not be the quickest but it is definitely the most bad-rad-ass way to go about it. For the record I have been on some snow covered planet trying to find a down spaceship with a clue on where to go with the story or some other thing like that. Suffice to say I gave up along time ago and am just getting sweet air.

funny romatic feelings in mass effect

Far and away one of the best elements of mass effect is the stellar (snap) voice actors that are put to work in this game. Seth Green, mila kunitz which is kind of bad because she is the most annoying character in the game and has directly lowered her on the do-ability scale in real life, that guy from aliens who says "look into my eye" (no-one knows his name but we all agree he is fucking bad ass). And Deanna Troy who as little sci-fi whelps I am wagering we all had a wee crush on. We all were very green with envy as we imagine that fucking bearded number one with that confident smirk as she was giving him a hand job and reading his feelings. Well she is in Mass effect as some elderly female alien that had turned evil and is helping the main badguy. Funny thing is even though she's old and evil and you end up killing her... I want to do her a bit. I mean she has massive massive cleavage. You can almost see her nipples for christ sake.

she was even voted #12 most sexy video game milf on this blog
http://vhayste01.blogspot.com/2009/05/17-sexiest-video-game-milfs.html
which is also where i linked the picture from because i am lazy.
This list must be riddled with nostalgia because On pure hotness i would have to bump her up a few slots myself.
Is it wrong that I find blue cleavage ever so titillating (snap again)

I'm replaying Mass Effect

I never finished the game the first time i tried to play through. It's mostly because i chose a character build i didn't particularily like. The first time through i choose the vanguard who used a combination of biotics (magic) and weapons. I got sick of that character because I could only use pistols and shotguns and never really got into the magic. By the time I realized there was going to be no good weapons or armor available to me because of the character build I had made I was too far in to start over.

A combination of things has happened since then that brought me to replaying the game. The sequel looming on the horizon and the new DLC for Mass Effect one were pretty enticing. It has also been long enough that I can just start over and not be too bored with the game a second time through. I figure If i started now I might make it through before the sequel drops.

I built myself a soldier this time. All guns all the time and its awesome. All ready I am having a smoother funner experience than the first time through. I still hate how you have to take that loud mouth bitch in the white and pink suit with you. At least now that I am a gunner she can stay in the ship and talk to seth green (joker) while daddy goes and plays.

If your out in the Univers and you see a guy named Schteeve with a handlebar mustache stop by and say hi I've got badass weapons and i'm pretty rad.

Rad batman: Arkham Asylum Trailer

So you've seen all the trailers for the new batman game. Still not convinced you want it. Watch this awesomely creepy trailer about the world which you play in.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/talkaboutgames/videos/191/

alex in prototype = 8 levels of douche

I know everyone is probably sick of the hype and talk behind prototype but there is one thing I am surprised never really got discussed and that is just how douchey the character design of alex is.

Ok heres the check list of douche

tight pants = emo slash metal heat douche

cowboy boots = cowboy douche

popped collar = obnoxious loud douche (Undershirt)

hoodie = dark misunderstood douche

secondpoppedcollar = nerdy underspoken douche (is that a sweater vest overtop of the hoodie)

sweater vest = pretentious learned douche

leather jacket = Tom Cruise from war of the worlds douche

Now i don't want to complain too much cause the game is pretty fun but what were they thinking. 8 douches make a right? Well ok I can live with that

I just finished Ghostbusters for PS3

I decided to play Ghostbusters on PS3 because the 360 version at work was rented. I also thought I would get some better graphics but was sad to learn that this game is yet another title that uses in game graphics for its cut scenes so it doesn't really matter which version you play the graphics are kinda bad. The game was still fun non the less.

I would recommend renting this game since I finished it in about 3 play sessions totaling roughly 10 hours and even though the game is short it is pretty sweet. See what I did right there ha ha. I digress. The game was written by the same people who wrote the movies and has the same voice actors. Your are a new recruit for the team and you receive no shortage of delicious facetious nick names from established team. Especially Venkman (Bill Murray)who once again reprises his role as delicious comedic relief.

Over all the game plays through like a 3rd movie referencing the previous 2 on multiple occasions. Best of all the Stay Puff man is back for s'more. Don't worry there are plenty of like jokes in the game. They did give you four different proton pack modes to spice up your busting of ghosts. Which was nice because each weapon feels different and changes the game play enough to keep from being too too repetitive.

Final rating is 7.5 out of ten although the game is simple and on rails in a lot of situations it is still very much the ghostbusters.

As an afterthought I went to check out the website (http://www.ghostbustersgame.com/)

In Response to the Previous Post

Shadow of the Colossus sucked!

There I said it. I immediately feel better. A lot better.

With the announcement of The Last Guardian getting everyone in an uproar of simultaneously shitting their pants all over the place and ball washing of Team ICO. I stand alone on an island with this sentiment of hatred and bitterness. Since I still have a sour taste in my mouth from Shadow of the Colossus I'll tell you why it sucked.

I remember hearing the buzz about the title. Leading up to my actual playing of the game I heard legendary and earth shattering and revolutionary and a bunch of other wrong words. Guess what your game wasn't a game.

There was no story. I say this because the story you thought was in the game was what you extrapolated from the simple cut scenes throughout the game. Who was that girl? Who was the shadow? Why was the world empty? Why were the only living creatures lizards? These are the questions that were never answered in the game. You were led to believe the answers were there but they were simply hinted at.

There were no characters. Sure there were a handful of giant statues you had to figure out where to stab but beyond that and your horse and that dead girl you carried there was nothing. Oh wait there was that light thing that pointed out where to go to get to the next creature and kill it. Awesome! Wait what if I don't want to run 20 minutes through an empty landscape void of everything but a ruined gazebo here and there?

Don't get me wrong the graphics of that game were awesome but that might have to do with the fact that there was nothing to render. There was no skinning and texturing besides green grass and blue sky. Probably a few ruins here and there as well. Oh I almost forgot about all the hair on the colossuses or colossi or whatever they were they were hairy.

I just want one thing from Team ICO and that is for them to make The Last Guardian a real game.

Can I have this check list?
Drops: armor and weapons.
Characters: maybe more than 11 this time. Fucking around: going from boss to boss is ok but there seem to be alot of games that managed to make pissing around in an environment fun. Peons to thwart: call me crazy but sometimes I just like destroying small enemies like flies. Eating lizards: ok I liked that part. Theres just something about eating reptiles that makes you feel badass
Online Multiplayer: Just joking I just said that to troll.
Easter egg rewards: When I spend 34 minutes climbing vines and jumping from outcropping edge to roots to foliage to make it up a cliff maybe give me something for my efforts. Its just polite. A leveling system with unlocks: I mean more than making my grab circle bigger.

Ok just give me all that and I will be fine. Oh could you also leave out an overwhelming sense of guilt because I destroyed some stoic beasts for no reason other than getting a zombie girlfriend.

Thanks I look forward to your fans trying to castrate me soon.

guess what

dale: oh god guess what
mike: what
mike: chicken butt
dale: CHICKEN BUT
mike: BEATEN
dale: damn
mike: hahahahaha
dale: your lame
dale: and i hate your stupid jokes
dale: hahahaha
mike: hahaha

X-Box live gold accounts on sale on Amazon

mike: how much is xbox live for a year
mike: do you remember?
Dale: hahaha of course i do
Dale: and i'm only telling you if you say i'm awesome
mike: you're awesome
Dale: YOU DAMN RIGHT I AM
mike: dammit
mike: i should have said
mike: i'm awesome
Dale: but you didn't
mike: fail
Dale: yep
Dale: its $60 by the way
Dale: and thats for 13 months
mike: ok
mike: amazon.ca has them for $47
Dale: ooooooh really
mike: yeah
mike: i am going to buy one i think for next year
Dale: do it you'll save 13 dollars and the only thing you have to do is hold onto a card for 9 months without loosing it or forgetting where it is
mike: haha

Sacred 2 just blew my effin mind

I didn't hear about Sacred 2 until the day of its release. It's probably better that way I have been waiting for a good action RPG since I bought my 360. By far my favorite style of game I have had little to nothing to keep me satiated in this respect. Sure there had been games promising to hit my little pleasure nub.

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle Of Doom was a nice attempt but the combat system was ultimately broken and trying to synth gear for hours got old fast.

Rise of the Argonauts just turned out to be terrible. I can't put my finger on it but it just hurt me deep inside to play that game. It might be the constant running back and forth to try find trigger points for the quests. Really if I wanted to run back and forth for quests I would have never quit WOW.

Tales of Vespiria wasn't actually what I would consider an action RPG like it was toted before release. Sure you could fight when you got into battles instead of turn based action but really thats more of a band aid fix for my wanton need.

The only action RPG game that was worth anything so far was Two Worlds which according to everyone besides me sucked but was actually pleasurable but not pleasurable enough.

So when Sacred 2 came out you could guess that I would be leery to sprint down to buy it with my gamer erection pushing against my pants. I needed to see if it was worth my love. A friend once told me that having a motel heart will just leave you upset and depressed if you love anything that comes along. So that's why I was mister hard to get.

So Mike bought it and I started playing it. This game is more than I could ever have hoped or dared to ask for. Sure the trading between two players doesn't work right now but thats good because who could resist duping and cheating the game - I know I never could. The graphics are wild the action is good and the game plays a lot like a mix between Champions of Norrath and the aforementioned Ultimate Alliance. The spells and skills are mapped to the controller like Marvel Ultimate Alliance which could only have been designed by a visionary who needs the video game equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize.

I will admit I found the start of the game a little awkward because it was not clear which character is which class. Turns out they even made that more awesome. Instead of having the warrior, mage, archer and what have you. Instead You get characters like an undead warrior-necromancer who was brought back to life to kill shit (I might have skipped my characters motives).

I do have to warn you though if your going to play Sacred 2 go to the store and buy thousands of face diapers because your going to shit your fucking mind. Your going to just keep shitting it everywhere repeatedly and constantly its that awesome. I'm only about 11% done the game right now with one character one one of his campaigns.

So far I have already proved aliens as the culprits behind crop circles. I chased one down to its lair and cut off it's head to show the farmers.

I also ran into a gladiator fight organizer who was stereotypically gay and he chose my opponents by what color my skin would accent well against which happened to be a green lizard man. Sure theres no proof that any of the historical gladiators were homosexuals with the eye of an interior designer but theres no proof there wasn't either.

But the highlight of the game so far and the incident which just spurred me to write this post was the inclusion of Blind Guardian. Fantasy and power metal go together like nerds and shit nerds like so it was nice to hear some power metal in the opening CGI cut scene. Whats absolutely magnificent however is the fact that the actual band are characters in the game. Commence mind shitting.

You run into Hans on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and he asks if you like metal which is weird for a high fantasy game. He then goes on to explain that While his Band Blind Guardian was on tour they were attacked by the undead and had their instruments stolen. So you start out on a quest to get first Hans' mike which is actually a mage staff that shoots lightning. After you get this he joins you on your quest to get the bass, the guitar and the drumsticks. After you get everything your warped to a merch booth in the middle of the forest.

Commence even hard mind shitz because after you talk to Hans again it unlocks a CGI cut scene of the band playing a song live. Switch diapers because the shat is about to tsunami because the crowd is made up of monster werewolves and trolls.

AND IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH AFTER YOU WATCH THE SONG YOU GET THEIR INSTRUMENTS AS WEAPONS. My Shadow warrior now walks around with a flaming bass guitar.
THIS FLAMING BASS GUITAR

F-ZERO to F-HERO: Top 10 fighting game characters

With the heralded success of both Street Fighter 4 and Soul Caliber 4 and Tekken 6 on the horizon it would seem that fighting games are making some sort of resurgence. No problem with me I have always enjoyed fighting games throughout my long assorted gaming career. The feelings of nostalgia all bubbling to the surface I figured i would run down a list of my favorite characters from fighting games.

I kept my list to one character from each series so I could touch on more universes and not just a bunch of sequels from the same maker.

10. Ragnar Bloodaxe: Mace the Dark age N64 1997
Face it vikings are cool. Whether you agree or not with the morality of raping and pillaging villages and basically building a religion around war you have to admit they could probably kick some ass. And when your fighting demons, golemns, monks and hell knights you need all the ass kickery you can muster. VALHALLA!

9. Slash: Eternal Champions Genesis 1993
Sometimes you don't care about what type of martial art training your character has. Sometimes you just want to grab a fucking club and beat people about the face and shoulders with. In comes Slash a cave man of particular brutality. In his character write up it states "He did not train in any specific martial art, and instead fought in any way which could cause as much pain as possible."

8. Rasputin: World Heros SNK 1992
Whats more bad ass than a crazy evil wizard? How bout a crazy evil wizard with giant spectre fists and feet. Plus he's based on one of the most infamous characters in history. Now that my friend is badass.

7. Voldo: Soul Edge & Soul Calibur series
Back in the glorious days when fighting games where coming out seemingly everyweek in the 90's there was one character a little bit different from the others. He had a unique fighting style that blending a certain flow with scorpion stings and some good old sado maschism. The best part about Voldo is his "untouchable" fighting once you get in the groove.

6. Jax: Mortal Kombat series
Really theres no that much to say. You have giant metal arms and you can pop enemies heads like zits or rip their arms off. Among the many Mortal Kombat characters Jax was always the most satisfying to lay the beats with.

5. Bakuryu (the Mole): Bloody roar series
If you never played bloody roar, weep. Just start crying right now because you missed one of the fastest paced awesome fighting games. What made this game a standout was each character had a beast form that they could turn into which was more powerful and even had a super combo move that dealt major damage. There was one character who was equal part fast powerful and trickery and that was the ninja assasin who turned into a mole. He was my first character that I mastered and soon became my favorite guy to return to if I was having trouble with a particularily annoying apponent.

4. Sabrewulf: Killer Instinct 1&2 1995-96
If your a man of any Ilk then you respect the art of Lycanthropy. Werewolves are awesome. Utilizing this and letting me control on in a game is actually a very easy way to appeal to me. Now take that werewolf and give him cybernetic arms and well sir you just blew my fun muscle.

3. Ken: Street Fighter series
He's obnoxious he's cocky and half the fighting games out there use the same move set as he did. You master ken and you master about 85% of fighting games available. Besides who wants to be that moody fag ryu anyway sure his fireballs are bigger but look at kens dragon punch. You wanna fuck something up you dragon punch that shit. Look what it did to sagats chest. Ripped it in half my friend right in fucking half. Why would you do that kind of damage then focus on fireballs? Because your not ken and you don't drive a red porshe and bang sluts and look in the mirror and smile because you fucking rule all. Thats why.

2. Juggernaut: X-men vs Street Fighter
At first I didn't want to mention this character because I always thought of him in the street fighter lineage but this game should be considered a crossover and it also it lead to the best 2d fighter ever made which is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The reason I love Juggernaut is not for his size, which is huge. Its not for his power, which is again huge. Its for his medium punches. The are straight they have lots of reach and he grunts ever punch. There is just something so addictive and maniacle about trapping an enemy in the corner and laying about 20 punches into them. Hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh.

1. King: Tekken series
Tekken is the best 3d fighting series ever made. EVER. The realistic fighting styles mixed with simplistic move parameters makes for a very pleasant experience. Your a wrestler who wears a tiger mask. I find it hard to really find the words to describe how rad this is. I would go into length about why I love king but it would just be me gushing about every move he has and his bio and such in length. He truly is the only character that could not have been made better in any way.

F-ZERO to F-HERO: Top 10 fighting game characters

With the heralded success of both Street Fighter 4 and Soul Caliber 4 and Tekken 6 on the horizon it would seem that fighting games are making some sort of resurgence. No problem with me I have always enjoyed fighting games throughout my long assorted gaming career. The feelings of nostalgia all bubbling to the surface I figured i would run down a list of my favorite characters from fighting games.

I kept my list to one character from each series so I could touch on more universes and not just a bunch of sequels from the same maker.

10. Ragnar Bloodaxe: Mace the Dark age N64 1997
Face it vikings are cool. Whether you agree or not with the morality of raping and pillaging villages and basically building a religion around war you have to admit they could probably kick some ass. And when your fighting demons, golemns, monks and hell knights you need all the ass kickery you can muster. VALHALLA!

9. Slash: Eternal Champions Genesis 1993
Sometimes you don't care about what type of martial art training your character has. Sometimes you just want to grab a fucking club and beat people about the face and shoulders with. In comes Slash a cave man of particular brutality. In his character write up it states "He did not train in any specific martial art, and instead fought in any way which could cause as much pain as possible."

8. Rasputin: World Heros SNK 1992
Whats more bad ass than a crazy evil wizard? How bout a crazy evil wizard with giant spectre fists and feet. Plus he's based on one of the most infamous characters in history. Now that my friend is badass.

7. Voldo: Soul Edge & Soul Calibur series
Back in the glorious days when fighting games where coming out seemingly everyweek in the 90's there was one character a little bit different from the others. He had a unique fighting style that blending a certain flow with scorpion stings and some good old sado maschism. The best part about Voldo is his "untouchable" fighting once you get in the groove.

6. Jax: Mortal Kombat series
Really theres no that much to say. You have giant metal arms and you can pop enemies heads like zits or rip their arms off. Among the many Mortal Kombat characters Jax was always the most satisfying to lay the beats with.

5. Bakuryu (the Mole): Bloody roar series
If you never played bloody roar, weep. Just start crying right now because you missed one of the fastest paced awesome fighting games. What made this game a standout was each character had a beast form that they could turn into which was more powerful and even had a super combo move that dealt major damage. There was one character who was equal part fast powerful and trickery and that was the ninja assasin who turned into a mole. He was my first character that I mastered and soon became my favorite guy to return to if I was having trouble with a particularily annoying apponent.

4. Sabrewulf: Killer Instinct 1&2 1995-96
If your a man of any Ilk then you respect the art of Lycanthropy. Werewolves are awesome. Utilizing this and letting me control on in a game is actually a very easy way to appeal to me. Now take that werewolf and give him cybernetic arms and well sir you just blew my fun muscle.

3. Ken: Street Fighter series
He's obnoxious he's cocky and half the fighting games out there use the same move set as he did. You master ken and you master about 85% of fighting games available. Besides who wants to be that moody fag ryu anyway sure his fireballs are bigger but look at kens dragon punch. You wanna fuck something up you dragon punch that shit. Look what it did to sagats chest. Ripped it in half my friend right in fucking half. Why would you do that kind of damage then focus on fireballs? Because your not ken and you don't drive a red porshe and bang sluts and look in the mirror and smile because you fucking rule all. Thats why.

2. Juggernaut: X-men vs Street Fighter
At first I didn't want to mention this character because I always thought of him in the street fighter lineage but this game should be considered a crossover and it also it lead to the best 2d fighter ever made which is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The reason I love Juggernaut is not for his size, which is huge. Its not for his power, which is again huge. Its for his medium punches. The are straight they have lots of reach and he grunts ever punch. There is just something so addictive and maniacle about trapping an enemy in the corner and laying about 20 punches into them. Hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh.

1. King: Tekken series
Tekken is the best 3d fighting series ever made. EVER. The realistic fighting styles mixed with simplistic move parameters makes for a very pleasant experience. Your a wrestler who wears a tiger mask. I find it hard to really find the words to describe how rad this is. I would go into length about why I love king but it would just be me gushing about every move he has and his bio and such in length. He truly is the only character that could not have been made better in any way.

I hate sim games and love Halo Wars

I've been playing Halo Wars and for the record its awesome. If your like me you've been hearing alot of "hardcore" gamers crying about how it's not RTS enough and how it actually happens to be a dumbed down system that makes it easier and faster to play. I love it.

The game has trimmed out useless annoying steps that are usually involved with this genre. The most notable is resource collectin. No longer do you have to watch your grunts/harvesters walk over to mine/tree/whatever and slowly collect it and slowly walk back. You just build a building and a magical space ship from somewhere else drops off glorious cubes of building... perfect.

I might have a swayed opinion on RTS games because I actually lost interest in this type of game because usually its a giant pain in the ass that sees you farming your troops for an hour just blitz the bad base and realize you could have done it with a smaller army and not wasted all that time. Worst part is you try that the next level and get your ass thoroughly stepped all over and are given a lose for your efforts. I was going to probably go on with my life not playing this type of game anymore untill I heard about this one.

I decided to get back just to play this one. The best thing is this game is like playing a game and not doing some video console chore. You don't have to work at it. You don't have to strategize and think of how you want to create your town and where to place your buildings for maximum effort. You just add stuff to the predesignated pads and start the war machine.

Sure you can go through the levels slowly take cover in the captureable bases and strategicly cut off the enemy and chip away at their defenses and go that route. Or you can get a bunch of warthogs and tanks say eff it and run over some purple jerks and blow up everything else.

My main point is this: I don't want my video games to be work. I want them to be fun well paced blow shit up action.

e74

Well it finally happened. My xbox has a critical error. Much to the rejoice of pee ess fanboys everywhere. I bet they can't wait to tell me all about the wrongness of my decision to purchase a 360 instead of their haloed a symmetrical monolith. Although the loudest one my best friend derek already fried his PS3s laser so at least I don't have to worry about him trying to claim that his hardware is superior.

I called customer support and aparently my xbox's warranty ran out last year. Which is a giant douche. But really I purchased my beauty from a pawn shop over a year and a half ago so i kinda saw something like this coming. That said I am still depressed and i feel very emotional right now. The only thing that could possibly console me right now is the fact that there are still XBOX in my household because each of my roomates also own one. I guess I could drop $400 bonez on a PS3 but that seems like a lot of money to blow on a console when I could just buy a new arcade for $200.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time because my gamer score is just shy of 10000 and with a good push a couple of games I could have been there. Well at least I can just recover my gamer tag and play on my roomates machine.

VIDEO GAME AWARDS

Well I wanted to break out this new thing I was going to write about in a giant comprehensive list of Awards for games that truly covered a lot of ground. But I decided instead of hold onto these untill I thought of other good ones why not give them to you when I thought of them. Sort of a mini surprise slash present whenever I thought of one. So here are the first few.

The basic Idea is that I will award games not for best visuals or graphics or any broad sweeping category of that ilk. But for little victories. Just a way to show that I as a gamer appreciate the little things as well. Or adversely when the companies miss I like to point and laugh at there failings.

The I didn't know how much I missed it till it was gone award: Head shot ping noise in COD World at War
- Really it doesn't matter which game was better or worse or which developer you side with, just hearing that noise. Knowing you just owned someone makes all lines drawn in the sand fade.

The Why the hell is there only 2 multiplayer character skins award: Quantum of Solace.
- You took out the absolute best part of the old James Bond multiplayer games. Do you know how big of a dream you crushed by not letting me be baron samedy with a COD engine? It was very large.

The why isn't this game more fun to play: Spore
- That annoying morality argument aside this game seemingly had all the pieces for greatness and endless fun. Leveling up customization unlocking new body parts and building your creature however you want. Yet for some reason when I got to the tribal stage and realized it was more of an RTS style gameplay I lost all interest. Can we get another version of this game where everything before that was longer.

I could just drive forever: Burnout Paradise City.
- I love this series alot. I was a more than a little anxious when I found out they had changed the style of gameplay from the previous titles to a more sandbox open world style. That is till I played it. The funny thing was I enjoyed exactly what i thought I would hate. The pointless driving around with no real goal... Just driving. Ripping up and down the far west road through the mountians I was fully content.

F-ZERO TO F-HERO: 10 Favorite achievements of 2008

(Mike's list)

• Game: Portal
  Achievement: Vanilla Crazy Cake
  Beat all six Portal advanced maps.
  
  Nothing funny or spectacular about this achievement. Just one I proudly possess, for one of my favorite games ever.
  
  
• Game: World of Warcraft
  Achievement: Hallowed Be Thy Name
  Complete all of the Hallow's End achievements.
  
  You get this achievement by completing all of the annual Halloween events in WoW, which only happened for a week or two. Most of them were easy and just took some time and a bit of effort, but one was just devilish. You had to get 2 special loot drops, both of which could only be gotten from the unique Hallow's End boss the Headless Horseman. And you could only kill him 5 times a day, which seems like a lot, but since you needed a group of 5 people to summon him, even if one of the 2 rare items dropped, you had to win the roll against the other 4 people who also wanted the item. I lucked out and got the first drop with about a week to go, and then killed the boss 5 times every day for the rent of the event, slowly driving myself crazy. Finally on the last night - in fact, about 4 hours before the event officially ended - the 2nd item dropped, and I won the roll against the other 4 people with me. And I freaked out. What did it get me? Now I have a title "the Hallowed" that appears after my character's name.
  
  
• Game: Fallout 3
  Achievement: Dream Crusher
  Talk Moira Brown out of writing the Wasteland Survival Guide.
  
  You get this secret achievement by telling Moira Brown that instead of finishing her "Wasteland Survival Guide", she should stop because people might use it and get hurt. She reluctantly agrees, her ambitions shattered by cold reality...or more likely, your laziness and unwillingness to do the quests. After getting radiation sickness, blown up by land mines and ravaged by ferocious man-crabs in toxic sewers, all for "research" for her idiotic book, my delight at telling her that her book is stupid - and the ensuing achievement - was probably my favorite moment in the entire game.
  
  
• Game: Call of Duty 5
  Achievement: Gunslinger
  Assassinate General Amsel with a sidearm
  
  I saw this achievement before I had even played COD5, and immediately vowed to get it. What a terrible decision. In retrospect I should have figured that it would be freaking impossible. I probably also should have been tipped off when the first time I heard Amsel's name was a sniping level where you were climbing through top floors in buildings and shooting people on the ground. It took me probably about 15 tries - there is no hope of assassinating the general through skill. The best you can hope for is looking for movement far, far FAR off and start firing off your entire clip. Keep in mind that you're being shot at by nazis with rifles and turrets and OH YEAH A TANK OR TWO. When I finally offed the bastard, I was proud to get the achievement and yet ashamed that I would force myself to endure such frustration for a stupid achievement.
  
  
• Game: Left 4 Dead
  Achievement: Akimbo Assassin
  Survive an entire campaign using only pistols.
  
  I loved using the pistols in Left 4 Dead before I even found out that this was an achievement, as they have infinite ammo and you can just freely unload constantly. I figured this wouldn't be that hard to get, but then after a seemingly-successful campaign I discovered that using the turret negated the achievement. Then I tried it again, but this time I got knocked down and when my teammate helped me out, the game automatically equipped my hunting rifle - something I didn't realize before I had already fired off a shot. Then on my 3rd attempt I didn't pick up any other guns or even the molotovs or pipebombs, and made it to the last stage with 3 computer teammates...who were all crushed SIMULTANEOUSLY by the Tank, who smacked a forklift into all 3. Of course, having only pistols, I didn't have the firepower to kill the Tank and so I died. Finally, my computer teammates managed to stay alive and I finally got the achievement.
  
  
• Game: Battlefield: Bad Company
  Achievement: Never Used a Door
  Destroyed 1000 walls
  
  One of my favorite "tactics" in BF:BC was lurking behind the enemy lines, looking for snipers holed up in a house. Then I'd rush the house, slash the door down (one hit with a knife destroys a door) and murder the snipers inside with said knife. One game my entire team was bunkered down in an old castle and I was prowling around the far corner of the map and spotted 4 enemy players inside a house conferring. The smart idea would have been to throw a grenade in the window and kill all 4, but for effect and awesomeness I instead chopped down the door, ran right up to them and murdered one right before their eyes. They shot and killed me a second later but I maintain that it was totally worth it.
  

F-ZERO TO F-HERO: 10 Favorite achievements of 2008

10
Game: The Bigs
Achievement: 250,000 Points
-Get 250,000 points in Home Run Pinball.

The home run derby in this game is amazing. Instead of putting you in a park where you ho hum hammer out a few your in times square hitting balls at giant neon lights collection power ups and basically fucking some shit up.

9
Game: Crackdown
Achievement: Airtime Assassin
-Shoot and kill 5 gang members in a single jump (while airborne)

Keep in mind these kills are all in the same jump. There's something magical about a game where you can leap tall buildings and cap five chuckle heads in the face in a single bound.

8
Game: Battlefield. Bad Company
Achievement: Forest Ranger
-Knocked down 1000 trees

Dale: Hey Mike I am going to get this Forest Ranger achievement
Mike: WHAT A THOUSAND TREES THAT WILL TAKE FOREVER.
next day
Dale: Oh i got that achievement... yeah I got bored and started AA gunning trees

7
Game: Soul Caliber 4
Achievement: Numeric God
-The last two numbers of total play time and remaining time in a victorious battle were the same.

Sooooo yeah that happened.

6
Game: Quantum of solace
Achievement: Time to face gravity
-In White’s Estate, open the cellar door with one shot.

The way to get this achievement is head shot a guy on a balcony. His corpse will then fall over the railing through a cellar door. Pretty good achievement to get with a well placed shot but think of how good it would feel if you ran around a corner with an Uzi and just shot a hail of bullets at a guy and the first shot just happened to catch him in the face.

5
Game: Too Human
Achievement: Feeder of Ravens
-Kill 10,000 enemies.

You know a game is fucking good when you have killed 10,000 enemies and are still playing it.

4
Game: Burnout Paradise
Achievement: Parallel Park
-Power Park achieved with a 100% rating

The absolute best part about this achievement is how I got it. On the second try. Yeah yeah yeah it might have been a fluke but I beat Mike so thats all that matters.

3
Game: Spider-Man Web of Shadows
Achievement: Id
-Spent time with Black Cat

"Spent Time with" is code for had sex with. Even if the developers didn't intend it to mean that I am extrapolating that meaning. I made Peter Parker go bad and Have sex with one of the hottest female comic characters ever thats awesome. Now more crybaby little kid Spider-bitch I made him truly a Spider-Man.

1 a
Game: Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga
Achievement: Let the Wookiee win
-Pull 25 arms off other characters.

1 b
Game: Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga
Achievement: Follower of Fashion
-Wear Every Hat.

Lego Star Wars got first and second place because these two achievements are hilarious on their own but looked at side by side they are Epic. You have Pretty much the toughest BA achievement ever which sees you ripping guys arms off that contrasted against the a typical femme achievement of wearing all the hats in the game makes it the clear out and front winner.

Review: Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead has been one of the most intriguing titles to hit the 360 in the past few years. Mixing the genres of survival horror with true co-op/team gameplay has created an incredibly enjoyable and exciting undead beast, yet one that has countless simple flaws.

The Good: Teamwork
Hands down, L4D is the best cooperative shooter I have ever played. When compared to other games in the genre that are recognized and respected for their co-op aspects, such as Gears of War or Halo 3, it blows them out of the water. This is because in virtually all such games, you play it pretty much like you would a single player game, except you sometimes pick up an injured teammate or take turns driving / shooting a vehicle.

L4D completely abandons this style by forcing the team of 4 survivors to be exactly that: a team. This is accomplished primarily through the use of "special" zombies which can pounce on or strangle a survivor, incapacitating them. An incapacitated survivor CANNOT defend themself - a teammate must come to their aid and hit or shoot the attacking special zombie away. As a result, you end up playing like a team - watching each other's backs, rushing to each other's aid, and constantly saving each other from death. Another surprising benefit of this gameplay style is that is greatly enhances the game experience by creating a powerful bond and sense of kinship between the players, elevating the game's goal of survival to an almost-real state of believability. In this sense, L4D's co-op nature almost needs to be compared to other "team" games, like EA's NHL series.

Another unspoken benefit sure to be appreciated by anyone who has played public games on Xbox Live is that this game will likely be hated by the idiots who ruin online play with juvenile behavior and attitude. It takes a reasonable level of maturity/responsibility to succeed at Left 4 Dead - if a player is selfish, doesn''t care about their teammates, or has a "I can do everything by myself" superiority complex, they will lose. Going into a public game full of strangers and already knowing that the other players want to work with you as a team is an incredibly encouraging sensation.

The Good: Variety
One of the most publicized and anticipated elements of L4D was what Valve calls the A.I. Director, a system that ensures that every game is different. A basic example of this system at work in L4D is that one game a room will have a medkit, and in the next game it won't. Not being able to rely on pickups really makes you appreciate them more when you find them - sometimes you unexpectedly find an ammo cache or much-needed medkit and you genuinely feel lucky.

However the A.I. Director is capable of making more complex decisions that truly create unpredictable, uneasy scenarios. The most commonly experienced event is that if the team of survivors lingers too long in an area, suddenly a giant horde of infected will rush around the corner or start crawling through the windows. Not only does this prevent players from slowly and easily working their way through a level, but creates tension by forcing them to keep moving - just as if they were really in a zombie-infested city.

Another perfect example of how the Director really keeps things interesting is placement of special zombies. Last night while playing, a friend wanted to show me a useful shortcut he had found before, where we could bash down a door and skip a difficult scripted zombie attack. We gathered around the door and bashed it down and started celebrating (we weren't sure if Valve had removed this shortcut in a recent patch). However our celebrations were cut short when we realized just a few feet away lying in wait behind the door was a tank special infected (picture an undead incredible hulk that pulverizes anything nearby). We barely survived and walked away shaking our fists at the sadistic Director.

The Good: Versus Mode
Deserving of its own category, L4D's versus mode is where the game truly shines. Versus mode lets four players play as the infected against four players playing as the survivors. After playing through to the first checkpoint (or until all the survivors die), the teams switch roles and play through the area again. Both sides receive points depending on how many survivors perish and how far they make it. As good as the campaign mode is (and it is very good), versus mode is just awesome. First of all, being able to be an infected and take your revenge for the countless times you were murdered in campaign mode is extremely satisfying. But since you are against other real players, when you pounce or strangle someone or catch someone lagging just a bit too far behind, it is delicious because you know EXACTLY what they are thinking as you claw their face off.



Teamwork is also very important as infected. While you don't have to worry about defending or rescuing your teammates, if you don't coordinate your attacks you have a much smaller chance of winning. A survivor team working together can fend off any single threat - a zombie horde, a tank, etc. Which is why in order to win, the infected must throw the survivors into chaos. A well-coordinated infected team can blind the survivors with a boomer (special infected that vomits/explodes into bile, blinding players and attracting a swarm of regular infected), and then while the survivors are blinded and fighting the swarm, take out one survivor with a hunter infected pounce attack or a smoker infected strangle/drag away attack, both of which eventually kill the survivor if they aren't rescued (and of course, their teammates are blinded and dealing with their own problems). As the survivors, being the victim of a well-organized assault is thrilling, regardless of who wins the struggle.

The Good: Presentation
The sensory elements in L4D are interesting. The graphics, while good, are not groundbreaking. The music, while fitting, is also not exceptional. But they are combined superbly in the game, especially when combined with fantastic horror movie-styled lighting. Streets are dark and foreboding, lit only by a blinking storefront neon sign or a lone car whose headlights were left on as it was abandoned. Subway tunnels underground are cast in eerie red light, but then you end up in a brightly lit warehouse and you can see every snarl and grimace on the infected's faces. Even though you don't often get the chance to carefully examine the infected, the level of detail on them is impressive. (We had a good laugh one game when we noticed a recently killed infected was still wearing a pair of bright pink and green striped socks).

The sound and music are also secondary to the gameplay, and is used mostly as indicators of danger. The game tends to be either eerie silence or a chaotic symphony of screaming infected and shouting survivor. But when the audio does kick in, it's always noticeable and effective - you can hear a hunter infected growling before it comes into sight, and when a tank is nearby you hear a blood-pumping crescendo before it bursts into sight. All in all a very slick and polished presentation.

The Bad: It Sucks Alone
I'll be honest. Left 4 Dead is terrible by yourself. It's boring, it's hard (in a bad way), there's no storyline, and it just feels like an average kill-everything game. The excitement and danger created by saving your friends just doesn't carry over well when you are saving nameless computer bots who just run around getting strangled and stealing the medkits.

The Bad: It Sucks With Two or Three Players Too
It's not much better without a full team too, unfortunately. The behavior of the computer teammates is annoying beyond belief. They go from being ridiculously omniscient, shooting special infected a block away before you even see them, to being complete morons and standing in the middle of a three-hall intersection being ravaged by a horde of infected while the actual human players huddle in a defensive corner.

The Bad: Not Enough Variety
There are only four levels in the game, each consisting of 5 sub-stages. It doesn't take long before you have played through them all, and while the A.I. Director does accomplish great things in keeping the gameplay varied and fresh, four levels is still only four levels. To make matters worse, only TWO of the levels are playable in versus mode. While there is probably a good reason for this (maybe the unavailable levels have areas that aren't balanced for versus play), it's still very disappointing.

A lot of people would also point out the lack of weapons as a negative. (Your initial weapon choices are a shotgun or uzi, then you can upgrade to a scoped rifle, auto-shotgun or assault rifle.) As a result, it gets a little boring using the same 2 or 3 guns over and over again. However, I think adding too many options would devalue the game's core experience, as it is the simplicity and teamwork that are important and not the weaponry. Yeah, Halo 3 has some sweet energy swords and sticky grenades, but they're completely different games trying to satisfy completely different niches. A few more guns would be fine, but too many would ruin it.

Another common complaint is that the survivors don't have different strengths and weaknesses. I am neutral on this one. On one hand, it would be nice to be able to fill a specific role in the group, like if one survivor was good with explosives while another ran faster. On the other hand, this would cause problems when players didn't get to play as their favorite character. As it stands now I like to play as Bill, the grizzled war vet (he's grouchy and cranky which I find amusing). But if someone else takes Bill, I am fine being a different survivor because they're all the same. An interesting dilemma.

Final Score: 9/10
I give Left 4 Dead a 9/10 because for me, that is what it is. I play it online with friends. I know 7 people now with the game, and once we get another person we can do full versus matches and it will be incredible. However if you don't know others with the game or don't like playing with strangers, you will enjoy this game much, much less. If that were my situation I would give it a 4/10 for being a smooth playing game with no storyline, and very limited replay value and variety.

New Meme

We came up with a new internet meme today. We present it to you now.

A Year in Azeroth

So crappy Blogger erased the post I made a week ago about how Shaun and I have been playing World of Warcraft for exactly a year now.

I had some handy calculations figuring out how much I have actually paid for WoW this year and how it compared to buying new 360 games. It worked out to something like the equivalent of 4 new Xbox games. Knowing how I play Xbox games, I doubt I would play each of those 4 games for 3 months (making a year) so WoW has been worth it. Plus, that is including initial purchase costs of WoW, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. If I play for another year and there is no new expansions it is only like 3 Xbox games, so even better value for my play time.

There is also the case of how much time played. Well, all I know is that after 4 or 5 months we moved to a different server, and my main character on the NEW server has played for something like 20 days...so like 500 hours. And that is only my main character. On the NEW server. Scary. Then again I did rack up over 400 hours on Monster Hunter for PSP which was no quests, no storylines, just slaughtering monsters...so basically what I am saying is this is a terrifying statistic and I should stop talking about it.

I am convinced that the devil works at Blizzard, because every time I was feeling a bit bored of WoW or felt the game was getting a little stale, they come out of NOWHERE and suck me back in.
"Hmm I'm a little bored of leveling right now."
"Oh here is a new patch with an entirely new dungeon and area to level in, and a major storyline swerve that changes the entire game."

"Hmm I've played all the classes and I'm bored of them."
"Hey guess what we reworked every single class and made them all more fun and exciting and added new talents to make everything new and fresh again."

"Dang, I'm still bored now even with these new talents and everything."
"Merry Christmas, here is a new class that is unbelievably fun and refreshing to play as."

And it's not just me! Shaun said he was going to quit WoW. Dale and I had our doubts and made a bet on how long he would last. We ended up both being wrong because Shaun's declaration of quitting WoW lasted LESS THAN A DAY.

EGM is done

Well Electronic Gaming Monthly is dead and I am filled with sadness, shame and regret. Here is the official press release that I found mirrored on www.talkingaboutgames.com "http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090106006505&newsLang=en". I should probably learn how to do that hyperlink stuff one day. Aparently my child hood favorite game mag is going to be done after January 09. My favorite Videogame Podcast is in stasis until further notice and my second favorite video game podcast is the peddlar of dark news on this terrible day... actually Jan 6.

The Uncle Gamer podcast while doing a test live podcast mentioned that 1up digital assests were purchased by UGO. It was kind of skimmed over as a teaser for an upcoming 100th special podcast. I wanted to leave it till I knew it was more than a rumor. I didn't want to find out because garnet, shane and john with 1up yours had grown very dear to me. The still to be determined future of 1up yours is my sadness. I love their podcast and without it work will be well more worky. Fridays will now be just the start of the weekend and not game podcast day. Whats even worse that out of 73 1up employees 40 will be playing more video games in the near future. As in they were laid off. Really youshould go read the story at www.talkingaboutgames.com they have great coverage and even have a link to an interview the editor of UGO did with a MTV in which he comes off sounding like a giant prick in my opinion. But c'est la vie the depression has come and everyone everywhere is suffering in some way.

That explains my sadness but how could I feel shame if I had no actually affect on the whole situation? Well my answer is that I never really supported my favorite game mag. Even though I love magazines I never buy them because come on love is beautiful but 8 bucks is 8 bucks. I feel shame because I never in any manner let EGM know that they were rad. That I have poured over their pages since the Genesis of my gamerdom... get it see what I did there... the video game system named Genesis and the begining of my video gamerdom. Actually I started before Genesis but I digress. Now that the 20 year run is over its hard to think of theworld without it.

I feel regret as well as sadness and shame. Being a video game writer for EGM was a teenage dream of mine. It's one of the main reasons I went into Journalism in the first place. I regret I gave that goal up as a pipe dream. I convinced myself it was most likely impossible and now it really is impossible.

Goodbye EGM thanks for the memories.