Phil-n Rob'd Games

Distributed Failure TV

2009-01-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

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Gamestop weekly ad (6-6-08 to 6-12-08)

2008-06-06T14:05:00.001-07:00

Here is the ad for this week:

And there is one hell of a good coupon as well:

More Reviews Than I Care to Know

2008-06-06T00:57:00.001-07:00

Gametrailers.com - Metal Gear Retrospective (Part 4)

2008-06-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

Gametrailers.com - Ninja Gaiden 2 - Xbox 360 - Review

2008-06-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

After seeing this review and plugging down $60, this better be wrong.

Phil

Distributed Failure TV Episode 36: The End of An Era...

2008-06-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

On this episode: A Big Announcement is Made, Are Demos even worth it anymore?, as well as What We've Played and the Resident Evil 5 trailer:

Gamestop weekly ad (5-30-2008 to 6-5-2008)

2008-06-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the Gamestop ad for this week:

Gametrailers.com - Deca Sports - Wii - Review

2008-05-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

It actually looks like this game might be fun, with a lot of people for about 2 hours.
Screenwriterman

Thoughts and Opinions 5-26-2008

2008-05-27T23:37:00.001-07:00

Ah, finally back to actually talking and writing about video games. For the past several days, my entire energy has been focused on working on the Distributed Failure TV intro. I am almost done. I have to only ad Kush's “Go” picture, ad the title along with shots of Rob and myself, and place in the wording such as “On Today's show” or what not. I am going to have two different endings just in case. One will be a generic one so that if Rob is the only one on the show, then he can do the generic intro. I will also have the modified title. If we have the time, I can quickly throw together the topics that we will talk about, the videos that we will play, and even if we have special guests they can be included. I believe that this will make the show a whole lot better looking. The intro may be a little long (1:03 by my counter), but it is definitely worth it. Rob saw the almost finished version and the words that he said made me feel good; “Holy shit”. Hopefully that is a good “Holy shit” and not a bad “Holy Shit”.

Well, this Thursday will mark one month since Grand Theft Auto IV has been out and that is when I will release the endings to the game. It will probably be in the 20 minute range because, in typical GTA fashion, the endings are never that long. One of the endings is a cut version because my dumb ass was hiding behind a car and I launched an RPG and it hit the car. Not smart. The good thing is that it is not that noticeable. When the downloadable content comes out, I will see what it is before investing more money into it.

I was looking through Destructoid.com a couple of days ago and came up to this article: If you love it, Change it: Mega Man. This article was cool in the fact that it gave good advice on how to improve the games from Capcom. One of the suggestions is to allow the user to combine weapons. I think that is would have been cool to combine the Metal Blades with the Air Tornados to have several Metal Blades spin in the air just like the boss fight with Air Man. You would have one hell of an unstoppable attack in your hands. It has been 20 years since that little blue bomber came out:

(God that box art sucked). The years have not been good to the bomber, and I hope that Capcom can resurrect him and give him the respect that he deserves.

Note: I want to play the PSP versions of Mega Man and Mega Man X so bad.

The above videos are the Metal Gear retrospectives parts 1 through 3 from Gametrailers.com. When Gametrailers comes out with a new retrospective; I sit back and watch them. Their 13 part series on Final Fantasy was very, very entertaining. The last part (3) was dealing with MGS 2: SoL (Shit Out of Luck?) and it was great. While there is no way in hell (right now) that I could ever do anything like that, there is something that is brewing in my mind and I think that is is “Essential” that I take my time on it. It is something that the whole DF crew could do and we could have some fun with it.

Well, it is about that time that I leave this web and go and work at my 2nd job. I hope you guys (and ladies...'cause I love the ladies) have a good one and I will be back sometime in the future.

Screenwriterman
Currently playing: Final Fantasy V (PS1)

Made My Decision...: My Review of Grand Theft Auto IV

2008-05-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

Welcome back to Liberty City. And for Niko Bellic, it is his first time there. He gets lured to America from his cousin, Roman, with the promise of riches beyond his belief and getting laid by the ladies. Unfortunately, that does not happen. Roman lives in a shitty apartment, Niko drives a taxi, and Roman owes gambling debts to a Russian goon. Thus, begins Niko's climb through Eastern European mobs. Along the way, you discover that Niko wanted to move to Liberty City to find two men that he was in the military with. They were witness to an entire village, Niko's hometown, getting slaughtered. Niko wants to know what happened.
This story is, by far, that best story that the GTA series has produced. You feel for Niko. Niko does not do this for money (Tommy Vercetti), he does not do this for his neighborhood (CJ), he does this for his friends and family. The story is weaved so well that you feel sorry for every wrong that Niko has to do. A cast of characters surrounding Niko is brilliantly portrayed. No A-list Hollywood voices. No porn directors who have shark fetishes. The story climaxes with three simple words, Make Your Decision.... No game has made me put the controller down and ponder what to do next. Top notch story is the best way to describe it.
The graphics are a site to behold. GTA's have been known to have a story, surrounded by a living breathing city. The city is breath taking. People move about in their lives. Neon signs pop up. Traffic is heavy during rush hours. Rockstar North took 3 years to make this game and it shows. They brought in new engines to create the look of the characters as well as a new physics engine for the vehicles. The facial features of the characters are a sight to behold. When someone is showing emotion, you would know about it without even hearing them. The cars are great as well. No longer are you stuck with vehicles that act like video game cars. These cars act, drive, and get damage like real cars. When you hit a pole with the front right side, the front right side is the one that gets damaged. There is a slight problem with pop up. Mostly, it happens when you go inside a building and the game has not thrown the interiors in yet. Not that bad at all. Go to the beach and you can watch people complete Yoga poses. A funny thing that you can do is when you shoot people. Shoot a person in the leg, they can walk right. Shoot then in the stomach and they double over. Shoot them in the head and... The graphics make this city seem like it is alive.
Niko is still like all the characters in past GTA games, but with some new approaches. He controls very well. A new cover system is in place so that Niko can hide and take cover when he is being shot at. You are able to disengage the auto lock so that the game can feel more like a FPS. You are also able to go hand-to-hand combat with people and that is a welcome relief. The other GTA have not been known to have the best cover system and this does a very good job of it. The driving mechanics can take some time to get use to. With the new car physics engine, the cars act more like what they are suppose to in real life. Once you get the handling down, you should be fine.
The sound in this game is top notch. There are no big names in this game, but that is for the better. It would have detered you from the real star, the game. Everybody is voiced perfect. From Niko, to the steroid-juiced Brucie, to the person on the side of the road (I LOVE Eddie Low). When in the car, you have your choices of several stations. Lazlow is back with his Integrity 2.0, a blatant rip-off of Howard Stern. On The Vibe, you can listen to Swiss Beats and Kanye West. There is Weazel news breaks when you complete something big, like a bank heist. The pedestrian all sound different. There was only one time that I heard someone say the same, and that was because they sounded like Bobcat Goldthwait. All minor sounds sound like they are suppose to.
This game is a blast to play. Anytime, during the game, you can go into multi player from your cell phone. There is anything that you can want from a multi player match in there; team deathmatch, capturing enemy territory, and even three missions. I would have like there to be more than those three story-type missions, but I'm not a multi player type of person, so I will live. In the single player, there is so much that you can do that I will forget some things. You can play darts, bowl, shoot pool, go to a comedy club with real comedians, race, even get drunk. The hidden packages are now pigeons that you have to shoot. The missions themselves are relatively easy. There was only one mission that I had to sit back and slowly figure out how to do this and get out alive. This city is alive and it can even get you to not worry about the story.
Overall, this is the game to own. It took 1000 people 3 years with a budget of 100 million dollars to make and it shows. This does deserve to be regarded as the greatest game ever made. Sorry, Link fanboys.

Grade: A+

Phil'N Rob-d moment: I can honestly say, there is nothing in this game that I felt cheated about.

Hints: You have a choice midway through the game when you can kill one of two people. Kill the right one and change clothes in his penthouse. One of the sets of clothing is the same outfit that Claude wore in Grand Theft Auto 3.

And, of course, the Gametrailers.com review:

Distributed Failure TV Episode 35: Phil's Prince Obsession

2008-05-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

In this lovely edition, Phil "tries" to make fun of the Prince of Persia movie, Rob loves Elebits, and Rob tries to play Metal Gear Solid 3 for a 3rd time (at least he ain't Phil with RE4):

Gamestop weekly ad (5-23-2008 to 5-29-2008)

2008-05-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry about being so damn late with the ad:

GTA IV thoughts

2008-05-02T21:23:00.001-07:00

As the first week of being able to play Grand Theft Auto IV (legally) winds down, I thought I would bring some of my thoughts about what GTA IV means now.
Ladies and Gentlemen, games are now mainstream. I know, I know, some people have been saying that gaming has already been mainstream for a while now. Well, with a game of this magnitude coming out the same week that a highly-touted movie comes out and now one remembers what the movie is, that is saying something. Last year did not count because Halo 3 was a far superior game and The Heartbreak Kid was another Ben Stiller “Oh look at how stupid I can get” movie. I cannot remember hearing a single thing about Iron Man since the game came out. Will gaming be a top tier form of entertainment, I doubt it. If people such as Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon (member of the Film Actors Guild) would embrace gaming, then I would say so. Until then, it is in line with actors that do not pay top tier. Sort of like an actor that would guest spot on a TV series. If you get my drift.
People are saying that this is the greatest game ever. It is. Just as GTA III revolutionized the open world sandbox type of game, GTA IV brought in a Hollywood type of feel to it. They also brought in a Hollywood type of budget and a Hollywood time line. Rockstar spent around 100 million dollars on this game (I actually typed movie in there first) and it took 3 ½ years to make it with thousands working on it. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because people are saying that every game will be compared to this game and I pray to God that it is not. For every Iron Man, there is a Juno. Most gaming studios do not have the time or money to put in for a game as great as this. I know it will be difficult to imagine post- GTA IV games, but there will be and we cannot compare them. Now if a major gaming studio such as Sony or Electronic Arts or even Activision/Blizzard would try it, then they better damn sure make a good one. Let me ask you a question. Would you believe Rockstar would be floating right now if GTA IV sucked? Think about it.
Okay, people are now bashing GTA IV for the graphic nature of it. They are saying that there is sex, violence, and general horrific behavior in the game. First of all, I am going to say this to all those that complain about the game and haven't even played it. FUCK YOU. If you want to talk to me about the violence and the sex of it all, then play the game. If you don't, then don't fucking talk to me. There is violence and horrific behavior all around this world and I will be damned if it is blamed on gaming. Just this week in Austria, a man was found to have trapped his daughter in the basement for 24 years and repeatedly raped her and fathered 7 children with her. Why isn't anyone blaming gaming for this? Oh, I know. BECAUSE THE TWO OF THEM DO NOT FUCKING CONNECT. So why are you blaming gaming for the ills of society? There were two incidents that I new of involving criminal acts surrounding GTA IV. There were multiple attacks on people during Black Friday this past November. When people find the ills of society, they find the hot button issue and place it there. This era is gaming. People need to stop blaming other things and blame the parties responsible. Rockstar did not put mace into that San Diego man's hand. Rockstar did not put the knife into the hands of the man who stabbed another on in line in London. What could have been done was maybe the parents should have known that the San Diego kid was a douche and tried to do something about it. Maybe some of the London man's friends should have known he was going to do something stupid and they tried to stop it. DON'T BLAME GAMES. Blame yourself. You, I, and everyone is the reason why the world is falling apart, not an imaginary world.

Might as well tell you...

2008-04-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah, if you haven't noticed, we have stopped posting articles on this blog. We are working on a new blog, so just go to distributedfaliure.com and that is where you will now find us.

Screenwriterman

My name is Bond...Juan Bond: My review of Just Cause (Xbox 360)

2008-03-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

After yours truly gets done with a long RPG like Blue Dragon, I usually sit back and not play anything after a while. I will just goof with some shit and what-not. Oddly, after putting in Just Cause into my 360, I was hooked...for about 6 hours. Here is my review:

Story – Just Cause takes place in the fictional country of San Esperito. The hero, Rico Rodriguez, is sent to help out in guerrilla warfare in hopes of overthrowing the government of President Mendoza. You have two CIA agents that “help” you. Okay, all they do is give you information, drink, and get a tan on this beautiful island. That is about it. Along the way, you will meet up with a imprisoned guerrilla leader, as well as a drug dealer and his woman. The story does get to be a bit on the boring side as the intro screens and outro scene are only around 30 seconds long (if that). The good parts of the story has to be sometimes, there will be something completely out of left field that someone would say (like references to the movie Air Force One) and the voice acting of the main character, Rico (I will talk more in depth later).
One thing that is really cool is the cross references that occur throughout the game. Just Cause was the operation, back in 1989, that removed Panama leader Manuel Noriega from power. The outfits that President Mendoza wears is modeled after dictators. Even the cover is a pretty blatant rip-off of Che Guevara, a famous Cuban freedom fighter. It is these little things that actually bump up this grade because, to be honest, I like that sort of shit.

Grade – B+

Graphics – This is the bad part of the game. I will first start out with the videos that introduce and conclude the missions. The first thing that I thought of was that this looked like it was PS2 graphics on the 360. I thought I was looking at the graphics of X-Squad again. Every character walked around really stiff, the clothes looked stiff, and the character voices did not sync up with the mouths and that is a big no-no in my book. The first time I figured on this, I said, “This is a 360 port of a PS2 game.” Also, during the cut-scenes, the characters looked like they were a little too animated for a serious sandbox game. For example, the drug lord reminded me of Boss Nass from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I believe that the developers did not know how to make this game and tried to go in the middle...and failed.
Okay, enough of the cut-scenes, now onto the world. I will say this to you and that is this world is fucking huge. The reason why I say that now is because it seemed like the developers decided to not worry about the minor problems with this world, like the glitches. This game is very buggy. One time, during a mission, I grabbed a motorcycle that I had just left and I was immediately in the air about 300 feet off the ground. The is no reason why I was up there. There were times when I would be climbing up a tall hill and the view would tilt and I could actually see behind the slope and see light blue. There was nothing but light blue inside of the hill. Not a good thing to look at. The lighting was very good, as the sun would make Rico look very nice in the evening. The weather was not as the rain drops looked like it was raining diluted ink. Whenever you are inside one of the small villages or a city, you are confined to the outside world, no inside views. The NPC's do not show any personality of their own, just a “I need some anti-depressants” feel. The vehicles look very good. They obviously took that idea from the fact that Cubans have had to deal with cars from the 1950's. One really good thing was the explosions. When shit blows up in this game, you will notice it and want to sit back and watch it.
Overall, it seems like the developers worked on some things, and didn't care about others.

Grade – D+

Controls – This is, yet again, a mixed bag. The controls for Rico are spot on. You aim and fire your gun with the Right Trigger. You can move the right analog stick to move the target reticle to get near the person your targeting. If you get near it, it will latch onto him. No precise targeting needed, just get close. And if you are worrying about shooting an innocent person, don't worry. The reticle will never attached to a civilian or a fellow guerrilla. The A button is used to jump and the directional pads are used to cycle the weapons. There are a ton of weapons, but you can only carry 3 guns, timed explosives, trigger explosives, a grappling hook (later), and your fists. Also, there is a finite amount of bullets that you can carry. You can't overload the guns like in GTA. The good thing is that your trusty sidearms (defaults) never run out of bullets. The right analog stick moves the camera, and pressing it in will actually move the camera really close to Rico (ala, Resident Evil 4). There is even a parachute that is always on your back. If you are falling from a plane and you take out your chute, you can put it back into the backpack and remove it yet again. Everything about Rico's movements and gun firing feels really smooth.
A quick segway to the grappling hook. It is a gun that allows you to latch onto a helicopter or vehicle and ride it piggy back with the 'chute. You can real in the hook and actually take control of the vehicle. Unfortunately, that is when the controls turn to shit.
THE VEHICLES ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO CONTROL. When you are driving around in the game, it feels like the ground is covered in slick oil and turning is a fucked up adventure. The Right Trigger acts as the gas and the Left Trigger acts as the brake and reverse. There will be one vehicle that is equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers and that is, by far, the best controlled car out there. I was a huge fan of motorcycles in GTA, but they are almost unusable here. As well as the “slick oil surface”, the camera will tilt with you as you tip over to one side or the other. It makes a person very disoriented. You can also pick up helicopters and airplanes. They actually fly really smooth, making the cars pale in comparison. If you can get a copter, get it. A cool thing, though, with cars and helicopters is that you can go into Stunt Action. You will jump on top of your vehicle and start shooting while the car slows down due to no driver. That gives this game a sense that a little bit of XXX was mixed with Bond and Antonio Banderas to make Rico and that is very cool.

Grade – C-

Sound – Finally, something good to talk about again. The voices of the characters are near perfect. Rico's voice, in particular, is perfect. He puts the finishing touches to a great character that I cannot wait until Just Cause 2. His CIA agents sound just as good. The CIA agent named Sheldon sounds like he deserves to be in a Bond film. His cohort, Kane, is a regular run-of-the-mill military chick that likes to tan in the sun.

--------------------------------Dumb Shit----------------------
Okay. There will be times when you will come up to the mission briefing and Kane will be either standing in her bikini, or laying down. Near the end, I was getting sick of this game and decided to take my frustrations out on them. When Kane was laying down, getting some rays, I would walk over to her face and click in the left analog stick. That would squat me down and make me feel good because she was getting some Tee-Baggin.
When she would stand up, I would get really close to her and click the right analog stick and start shooting the shit out of her head. God, that was fun. Now, back to the review.

The Hispanic characters sounded very well. It did not seem like they were being stereotypical Hispanics. The NPCs even sounded like the natives and it helped in the feel of the game. Overall, great voices.
The environments were very good as well. There were times when I was in the middle of the jungle that I would listen to the sounds of nature and thought that is was happening in real life. The only complaints that I had with this game was two sound effects in particular. When you would be climbing up metal stairs, it sounded like you were wearing tap dancing shoes. Also, the sound you make swimming sounded like a typical sound byte of a person eating. Very annoying.

Grade – A-

Challenge – The challenge in this game comes from two sources: the ending and how long will you last playing the side-missions. The game has a total of 20 missions that pertain to the central story line. The other 280 other mission are given by guerrillas from settlements. You are able to get these by freeing regions of government rule and you do this by freeing town and cities. You get a group of guerrillas and you kill everything in sight in a town until you are able to raise the guerrilla flag. Now, with the side missions, they are pretty much “drive from A to B, kill or pick something up, and return to A”. That is it. After each main mission, a new area becomes “Unstable” and you get to free it. If you do so, you are rewarded with new weapons and new homes to be safe housed at. At around halfway through the 20 missions, I said fuck it and fought till the end. The side mission shit pissed me off. It will get boring really quick.
The 20 main story missions are not that difficult. All it boils down to is to blow up everything you see in red. That's it. There was one mission that you had to defend a radio station from being attacked so a guerrilla leader could speak. Afterwards, you blew it up. You may fail a mission a first time, but it should not take more than that...except the last level. Oh my fucking God, that was brutal. Okay, I am going to talk about your health meter really quick. If you are low on health and you hear a heartbeat, your energy will go up just a little bit (pretty much up to the length of the word Health). You are pretty much oblivious to gunfire because it just doesn't hurt you. Rockets, on the other hand, hurt like hell and can kill you quick. The last level is full of rockets and they will do whatever it takes to kill you. Fly really high, drop down, and run. That will be my advice to you in the end. To go through around a 20 minute last level took me nearly 2 hours because I continued to die and that is brutal. Not Star Fox Adventures, but close.

Grade – B-

Achievements – The achievements are all seen at the beginning. There are no “Secret” achievements. You should get about 350-400 points by just going through the game. You get achievements from liberating provinces. You get achievements from killing 500 people (Jonestown would be so proud). There are achievements for picking up Collect Missions. It is just like the 100 hidden packages in GTA, but you can see them on the map. There are just 5 point achievements, but whores won't care.

Grade – B-

There are no extras in this game...sorry.

Overall, Just Cause is a good game...for about 6 hours. The great voice acting and all the shit you can blow up is cool. The repetitive game play will bog you down soon, though. This would be a good rental for maybe 2 weeks, but I found it for 14.99 so it is worth that price...barely.

Overall Grade – C+

Sorry, here is my review of Blue Dragon (Xbox 360)

2008-03-05T12:29:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the delay, I had some personal issues and this had to wait. Without further ado:

Back in 2004, Hirnobu Sakaguchi left Square-Enix and formed his own company, Mistwalker. People were shocked by this news and were even more shocked when it was known that Mr. Sakaguchi would make games for the Xbox 360; a western game system. When he brought in Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z, Dragon Quest) as well as Nobuo Uematsu (well-known video game musician), people believed that only greatness could follow. With the release of Lost Odyssey, I thought I would give you my review of his first game for the 360; Blue Dragon.

Story – Once a year for 10 years, Talta Village has been covered in purple clouds. When those clouds come in, land sharks attack, devastating the village. Three people (Shu, Jiro, and Kluke) decide to do something about it. They attack the land shark and are thrown into a cave. They eventually find the land shark and it is actually mechanized. While in the land shark, they meet up with the person that is attacking their village, Nene. Later on, they are given light orbs and are told to swallow them. They do and their shadows become a dragon, minotaur, and bird respectively. During the course of the story, you meet up with a Deede named Marumaro and a warrior for the city of Jibral, Zola. That is the basis of the story. Your entire game is based on following and trying to kill Nene. The story follows typical Japanese story lines about finding you own way in life. The first time that you play an RPG with this story, you can handle it. But the 100th time is just getting old. First of all, Marumaro's voice is, by far, the most annoying character since Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2. In fact, Marumaro is 20 times worse. There will be several times when Shu will say something such as, “I won't give up.” After the 100th time hearing that, you want to kill Shu yourself. There are rescue missions, as well as retrieval. In other words, this is the typical story with a horrible cast.

Grade – D

Graphics – The graphics are one of the best parts of the entire games. Akira Toriyama is well known for his work on Dragonball, Dragonball Z, and the Dragon Warrior/ Dragon Quest games. He lends his art style to this game and it shows. The character animations look great with a great sense of detail. The monsters all animate as well. The environments looks mostly good, even thought there are times when you could have sworn that you have seen this place before. You can spot minor glitches, but they are not that bad. Later in the game, you are given a special attack per shadow and they look truly amazing. They not on the scale of Final Fantasy, but pretty damn good. Overall, the eye candy makes the terrible story tolerable.

Grade – A-

Controls – Enemies appear on the playing field and you can choose to attack them or flee. You can place an attack circle around enemies by pressing the RT. Then you can fight the enemies in a typical match. There is no ATB in this game, which would have been nice. You can take as much time as you need for the attack. The battle controls are very smooth, except that you will be pressing the Defend command more often than you'd like. It can get very annoying. The character movement on the map is very annoying. It looks as if the characters are running when all they are doing is walking a small distance. Very awkward. Out on the world map, you are encouraged to check out everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING. If you get an item, good. If you get a Nothing, then that is good as well. It just seems like that was added to elongate the game a bit. Overall, the control is very good, except for some hiccups here and there. But hey, no one's perfect.

Grade – B+

Sound – This is a tale of two different sounds. On one hand, you have the terrific Nobuo Uematsu scoring the game. There are times when the music is very good, especially the ending song. I can just sit back and listen to it because it just sounds like a very good and happy song. The environmental songs are very reminiscent of Final Fantasy songs and it just sounds so good and subtle. But there are times when the music can just drive you up the fucking wall. There are, of course, boss battles. And with boss battles comes the inevitable task of a boss battle song. This song is fine at first, but when you are listening to the horrible Japanese hard rock song for the 50th time, you know the words to the song and wished that you didn't. Mr. Uematsu made a great soundtrack, except for one.
The sounds of the game are a mixed bag of good and downright shitty voices. Every grunt, every yell, every rustle of branches in the game sound as they should. The supporting cast of NPC's are voiced excellently, minus one town (I'll talk about that later). The main characters are also a mixed bag. Shu, the lead character, sounds very good but he continuously uses the same “I won't give up” mantra throughout the game. It will get old really quick. Kluke and Jiro's voice is very good. It fits the characters very well. Zola is, by far, the best of the bunch. Her voice sounds like a dark Gillian Anderson from X-Files fame. Far and away the best. Then there's Marumaro. Oh my fucking God. He sounds like Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars getting kicked in the nuts. His entire village sounds just like him and there is one time where you have to help cure his village of an illness and you actually wish that you had the option to let them die.

Grade – B-

Challenge – There are points in this game when you can cheat (somewhat) and I will tell you in this section. One of the challenges in this game is deciding how to level up your shadows. You have 9 different classes to level up and you try to get all of the skills unlocked for all 9, but it will make the latter levels brutally difficult. The shadow skills can all be unlocked by around shadow level 35 (Barrier Magic takes level 50). You want to get to level 50 with one person at the start and here is how. Go to the laser field during the game and there is a place where Needle Nosed Moles reside. When you start your level 3 field barrier, you can start to kill them and they continue to regenerate. You can gain massive amounts of levels for you shadows and make the latter parts pretty smooth. Another challenge in this game is getting a couple of achievements that are HARD. One is finding every monster in the game. There are times when you will fight a monster, or even a boss, and they will summon underlings. That may be the only time you can fight them. You may have to get two monsters together and have them fight each other to create a whole new monster. Almost impossible to get without a guide. The Last challenge involves collecting every item in the game. There times when you can purchase an item once and that is it. There are times when you need to steal a rare item from a boss and you will have to reset the game several times to get it. Just try to get the Treasure Hunt ability from the Assassin class to improve your odds. The game did not bother me at all so hopefully it will be harder for you. There are 8 super bosses that you can battle besides the final boss and they can wipe you out quickly. Just make sure that you are properly equipped. One boss kept beating my sorry ass until I had my characters at around level 66. Yes, I said 66.

Grade – B-

Achievements – There are a bunch of secret achievements in Blue Dragon. There are, in fact, too many to name here so I will put it to you like this. If you get to a scenario where it seems like a mini-game; get a perfect score on it. You will get an achievement on it. Also, run away from 50 battles for a zero point achievement.

Extras – The extras are involved in the download of extra content. For 200 points, you can get 6 new items that are not in the game. There is a free download for vets of the game. It is called “impossible” and that is all that you need to know. The gem is the Shuffle Dungeon. For 400 points, you will unlock a special cube (play the game and you will know what I'm talking about) that has new enemies, new items, and the level changes every time you enter. That adds an additional 9-10 hours easily. That with the super-bosses, makes it worthwhile.

Grade – B+

Overall, Blue Dragon is the game that you want to play because of the names, but end up not even caring about the story. The only thing that makes this game decent is the solid fighting engine and the extras. Hopefully with Lost Odyssey, Sakaguchi-san (I say that because we're tight) will do a much better job.

Overall Grade – B-

Phil-N Rob'd moment: With the leveling up shadow trick that I talk about earlier, I tried to do it on an island that constantly regenerates enemies. I put a piece of cardboard in between the analog sticks and left it so I could go to sleep. I woke up 6 hours later and found that my characters didn't level up once. I was running in a circle and enemies were behind me and would disappear before I got to them. 6 hours of my 360's life wasted on that shit.

And, of course, here is the 2nd opinion, courtesy of Gametrailers.com.

Episode 21: Phil all by his self

2008-02-24T14:33:00.000-08:00

Oh and you cant hear Rob on there because it does not pick up the webcam people LOL great.

Oops, two weeks of show Archives just for you.

2008-02-23T06:11:00.001-08:00

Sorry, I was lazy, but here are the last two shows for you.

Episode 19: Lost half of it because a browser crash, sorry.

Episode 20

and pt 2

Tech and Games Podcast

2008-02-16T15:29:00.001-08:00

At around 6 PM CST the tech and games podcast with Ravensdolphin will begin. He has two very special guest Phil-n Rob. From your favorite stickam video cast, Phil-n Rob'd Games.

You can go right here to watch us make fools of ourselves.

Tech And Games

Lost Odyssey: First Impressions

2008-02-14T22:26:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here this evening depressed. My 360 died. And the worst part there is something I am wanting to play terrible bad. A game that makes me want to run out and buy a second 360 console just so I can continue this adventure.

If you heard all the bad things about LO. Ignore them. This people are trolls and haters. If you like the way a game like ffX, then you will like LO. There is so much greatness in this 4 disc package that I think it killed my 360 because I was up til 3 am playing it, and did not want to stop.

Forget Blue Dragon. That game was a mistake. It may be one of the worst RPGs I have played looking back. LO is a more mature game. The package is just awesome. Wy do I think this. Well let me tell you what this game does.

The very first boss you fight in the game is hard. You may think a boss in a turn based RPG can't be hard. Well you would be wrong. The few bosses I fought took strategy. I did something I have not done in an RPG since fighting a boss in FFIV. I used the defense option.

The combat is fun, because it does take that extra strategy to play it. And I also think 1up.com and the 1up show did a great disservice to the game when they said the load times were long. And they show this 15 second clip of a battle loading up. That is one battle in the brief time I got to play the game. After that, battles take about 3 seconds to load up. Bosses may take a little longer.

Next up is the story. I am not too deep in yet, but what I have played I enjoyed. Its one of the first games that had me laughing out loud do to Jansen, and had me tear up after reading a short story...

Yes I said short story, there are times when you will enter into a conversation and the game tels you that a memory escapes your heart, and then gives you the option to read a short story. And these are some of the best stories I have ever read. These are powerful, moving pieces of fiction. Most are depressing, but go to tell a story of who your character is.

Please, if you like RPGs, buy this game. It is awesome, it is the best rpg I have played since Final Fantasy 10, and I am anxious to get to play it again. There are a few minor gripes (a stealth section that may leave you scratching your head) and some minor agitation with enemy encounter rates. But its a damn good game.

My 360 Died

2008-02-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

Here is a video of the 7 stages of grief I went through.

Devil May Cry 4: The Review

2008-02-12T17:13:00.000-08:00

Alright I will try to keep the story spoiler free, but there are a few things I need to bring up about game play and pacing, so if you dont want any kind of spoiler please return to wence you came.

I liked the game up until you play as Dante. Yes I liked playing at Dante but the game decided at this point that you have to know walk all the way back to the begining of the game. Sure things are a little diffrent, but its still the same place.

Worse you have to fight the same 4 bosses as Dante, but then the next to last stage you have to once again fight the bosses one more time. Ughh, come on this game has been in development for 2 years. You thik they could have come up with new areas for Dante. Too much back tracking.

The combat is fun. And I never minded fighting the weaker enemies, and I enjoyed trying to get the SSS rating in battles. This rarely happened. I found myslef going back to previously levels trying to get a S ranking, most of the time with little luck. But I will keep trying.

The story is filled with more plot holes than swiss cheese. You understand the theme of love, but why the hell is Dante helping Nero. Why does Nero look like Dante. This is never really explained. But playing through Dante's stage is quite hilarious. Especially the Shakespear-esq scene before fighting one of the bosses.

I liked the game, but its lackig in some areas. The graphic are great, and the combat is entertaining, but I wanted more substance.

B+

Phil-n Rob'd Moment: Really fighting the same bosses 3 times, really.

Phil-n Rob'd Games Episode 18: Arcade Classics

2008-02-09T07:31:00.001-08:00

We talk about the King of Kong and our old Arcade stories and favorite games

Gamestop coupon 2/8/2008

2008-02-09T00:38:00.000-08:00

The Gamestop coupon is Any used XBox 360 & Xbox Games 25% off! Very, very good deal. See ya!

Phil

WTF!? My review of Indigo Prophecy (Xbox)

2008-02-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

The Xbox Originals, available for download, is not my type of thing. I like the fact that I can go and buy them at your local Gamestop. One day last month, my Gamestop weekly special flyer had a coupon for buy one get one free on any used Xbox game. I picked up Fable and the game that I am going to review to you now, Indigo Prophecy.

Story – My name is Lucas Kane; and I'm a murderer. That is the tag line from the game and the first 3 minutes will show you why. Indigo Prophecy (known as Fahrenheit in Europe) was developed by Quantic Dream. This company brought us Omikron: The Nomad Soul for the Dreamcast. Tyler kills a man in a diner bathroom and you don't know why you did it. You felt like you were possessed. The game begins after that. You must find a way to cover up your actions and leave before you get caught. Afterwards, two cops (Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles) investigate the murders and things begin to turn from that. I really do not want to get too deep into the story because that would ruin your experience. The story in this game is a big part. The story is told through 3 characters: Lucas Kane, trying to run from the cops and figure out what the hell is going on; and Carla and Tyler investigating the crime to find out who did this. Throughout the game, you have the ability to determine what you can do to cover up your actions or catch the suspect. A very engaging story will make you want to help you both the cops and Kane. A lot of things unfold in this and it is very interesting. The only problems that I have with the story is that, within the last ¼ of the story, it gets really disjointed and bad. It seems like the developers did not enough space on the disc and just threw the ending on this. I will just say that enemies will become friends in the span of 5 minutes. Horrible, but forgivable. Overall, the story is very engaging, but a little rough around the end.

Grade – B

Graphics – The graphics in this game is very good. The characters act as any person would. The voice does match the persona and everything does seem to flow the way it should. New York City in 2009 looks very real. The environments in this game are really well done and that is good, because you will be inspecting every nook and cranny in this game. That is the only way that you can do it right. There is one part, though, that truly pisses me off. The name Indigo Prophecy is different from the European Fahrenheit in one way...nudity. With such a good story, sometimes sex can be involved. The European version has sex a prevalent, and visual component. The US version, however, has blurred pixels and parts of scenes cut out because sex is being performed and you can see women's nipples. I do not like it when you can see a man stab another one, or see two people being killed in a game. Then, to be a fucking hypocrite, blur out a nipple because it offends people. Grow up society, goddamn it.

Grade – B-

Controls – Controls, for the most part, serve this game well. The left thumb stick moves the characters around while the right thumb stick will help you interact with objects. When next to a yo-yo, for example, press the right thumb stick to the left (an icon appears on the top of the screen and the direction you need to get the yo-yo) and you will pick up the yo-yo. Sometimes, you will need to move the right stick in a certain way to proceed. With some of these, you will need to do this in a short period of time, but it is good that it shows you how to move to stick. Action sequences are not the usual fare in this game. Instead of using the A button to punch, actions are done two ways. Two circles will appear on the screen. When the top part of the left circle glows, you must press up on the left analog stick. Sometimes, the glows can get pretty hectic and difficult, but not anywhere near impossible. There will be times when a meter with L on the left and R on the right and you must mash the the LT and RT as fast as possible to move the meter from the left to the right. Sometimes that can get tiring and you need to move fingers over to help compensate, but it is very, very good to do. Sometimes, when people try to innovate, they over-innovate. This is a very well done control scheme and they should be commended. One small blemish is that when you have to deal with the two circles, you must concentrate on the circles, even when actions are taking place. You will only be able to see the events in you peripheral vision.

Grade – A

Sound – The sounds definitely delivers. Characters sounds like you would see from normal everyday life. You can turn on a radio and hear music (though mostly unknowns) and everything is synced just right. Wind noises and echoes are done with real great care. I always say that if you nothing bad to say, don't say anything at all. That is a lie, this is just great.

Grade – A

Extras – The extras in this game is really damn good. You can earn bonus cards by looking for them throughout the game. They give you 5 to 20 bonus points that you can use to purchase items from the bonus menu. There are pictures, the soundtrack, and video shorts. The video shorts give you shots from the development part of Indigo Prophecy. There is also a strip tease, an ice skating mini-game, as well as some grinding done by some of the characters. Very funny. There is also the ability to go back to previous chapters to go through a scene differently. It really does not affect the ending because you can get all 3 endings by completing the final chapter differently. It is a very good amount of extras.

Grade – A-

Challenge – The challenge in this game comes from asking the correct question. Ask the wrong questions and your character can get a little more depressed until you flat out lose it and it is game over. You only have a short amount of time to ask a question that you think is the best one, and hopefully it is. You can do simple things like drink some water to raise your emotional level back up. The circle presses are easy, if you do not look at anything else. There are other challenges like keeping the L/R meter as close to the middle as possible. There are pretty fun to deal with, but if you just concentrate on the task, you'll be fine. There are three different settings (Easy, Normal, and Hard) and they are mostly cosmetic.

Grade – C+

Overall, Indigo Prophecy is a very solid and different gaming experience. A great, but flawed, story; great cast of characters; terrific sound; really great control; a ton of extras make this a must buy. It will take you around 10 hours to get through and it is all worth it.

Overall grade - B

Phil-N Rob'd Moment: This game was really great; but there is definitely somethings that got on my nerves badly. It was when the game did a complete 180 ¾ through the game. I don't want to spoil it, but that part just flat out fucking blew. I did not like it and I was scratching my head until the end of it.

The following film is what is cut out of the American version. You can show people getting stabbed and mutilated, but show one fucking nipple or one sex scene and it has to be removed. Go fuck yourselves US Government.

As a special feature, Kush will also write a review for this to give two different perspectives on this incredible game.

Phil

And now...better thought than Rob's

2008-02-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

Every other week, when I get paid, I try to go and get some games that I can go through and put up on Youtube and review for you here. I picked up 3 Gamecube games (Starfox Adventures, Viewtiful Joe 2, and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis). I also picked up Freedom Fighters for the Playstation 2 (really wanted to play that), NCAA Football 2005/Top Spin for the Xbox (it was $.99) and Wartech for the 360. Wartech is probably going to suck (I bought it for $9.99 brand new at Gamestop). I have never played a Viewtiful Joe game and thought I would try to play through that one. I have previously played through Startfox Adventures and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, but I would like to go through them again because I thought they were very good.

From what I remember, Starfox Adventures had, by far, the hardest boss that you could go through. The boss was the same boss that you had to fight in every game there is, Andross. If he would suck you into his mouth, you would have to start the entire fight over again with him at full health and you at where you were and it was frustration as fuck. It took me 4 hours to complete a 10 minute fight because I kept dying. I hope to have it up on Youtube sometime soon, when I go through it, of course.

Something that I did want to touch on is Gamestop. I do think in some small way, Gamestop does screw game companies from their money, but I am still going to go there and buy games. Well, I subscribe to their newsletter and they send me a weekly deals newsletter and at the bottom, they have a coupon. The past couple of week, those coupons have been nothing but great. The one that is on this week's is for any used Gamecube or GBA games 25% off. I purchased Resident Evil 3, Starfox Adventures, and Viewtiful Joe 2 (used) and used the coupon as well as my Edge card. The total before the coupons would have been 41.97, but with the coupons it was down to 27.27 and I was happy. If you don't like Gamestop because they are damaging companies or if they are monopolizing the game store market, at least they are trying to use Vaseline.

Phil

The Stream of Conscienceness for Friday Feb. 1st

2008-02-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

Okay a few lines to describe my feelings on games, podcast and stuff.

Final Fantasy 12: Finished it today actually,very happy with the ending. I am glad I went back to finish it. So my total of Final Fantasy Games I have not completed is 2. Final Fantasy 8 and 11 (which barely counts as a FF game)

Call of Duty 4: I keep thinking I am going to get to the point where I can not finish this game on vetran. And then amaze myself when I get a little further. I think I can do it... maybe

Burnout Paradise: Wow, awesome game, especially when playing with the allgames.com crew. Its always better to play a game like that with people you know.

Turok: Rubber Dinosaurs, really...

Turning Point Demo: I want this game to be good. The developers came out and said the demo was bad. I will rent this one because I love the story line for this game.

Devil May Cry 4: I want this one, but since Lost Odyssey comes out the week after, and I want a good rpg, it wins out.

Lost Odyssey: Please Mistwalker, let this be the RPG that FF want on X360 and we will forgive you for the ultra kidish Blue Dragon.

Tomb Raider Underground: I cant wait, give Uncharted its due, but that game was not Tomb Raider. There is only one Lara Croft, and her name is not Nathan Drake.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl: The more I read about the story to this game, the more interested I become in it.

No More Heros: No copies for rental... anywhere

Allgames.com: My friends at allgames listn to the podcast if you have not. So funny you might spill coffee all over your laptop.

Cagcast: Cheapassgamer.com has a great podcast every week. Cheapy D and wombat keep you entertained with stories about games, fatherhood, and sometimes shitting in alleys.

Well thats all I can cram into this Stream of Conscienceness.

The ugliest generation

2008-01-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

After going through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I still felt like playing through another game. Rob brought over for the show on Sunday and let me borrow the other two games from Burger King for me to review. I will just state it like this: Big Bumpin' and Sneak King makes Pocketbike Racer look like GTA 4. Considering I gave Pocketbike Racer a D in my reivew, it puts the other two into focus. They are not even worth going through for the points. I had no idea what I really wanted to play. I had gone to a game shop earlier in the month and was able to trade for some games. I picked up Tomb Raider 2, Dino Crisis, and Parasite Eve. I decided to play through Parasite Eve and get the ending up on YouTube and to review it here. I played through around 20 minutes of it and had to stop. It just looked too damn bad for me to continue. So, I put in Tomb Raider 2 to do the same thing. 20 minutes later, I put that down as well because it just looks horrible.

I went looking through Kotaku.com to see articles and came up to one from Cnet.com (who checks the facts, checks them again, fires editors and put together what is best for the company) and they say that the SNES is the greatest console ever via a pole. I have problems with that because for its time, I believe the Playstation is the greatest. Anyway, I started to think that the Playstation also has a distinction with the Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64. The Playstation, the Sega Saturn, and the Nintendo 64 are the ugliest generation in gaming. Before those three, we had the SNES and the Genesis (TG16 and the Neo-Geo doesn't count because no one cares). Those consoles and the ones before that used sprites for their characters and static 2-D backgrounds. The consoles after the 3 were able to model 3-D characters and environments very well. Do not get me wrong, there are some games for those three that did it well (Gran Turismo comes to mind); but it just seems like most of that generation just looks horrible.
Tell me what you think. Leave a comment. Don't forget to check us out on Stickam.com, Sundays at 4:30 EST.

Phil

P.S. Found a game to play through and that would be Indigo Prophecy on the original Xbox.

Phil-n Rod'd Games: Episode 17 GTA Bitches

2008-01-28T04:20:00.000-08:00

We talk about ignorance in the non gaming community, and all things GTA.

Plus keep in mind, we want your Phil-n Rob'd Game. Email us at hendersonman@gmail.com

Gaming Gold vs. Gaming Old: My review of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Virtual Console)

2008-01-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

Around two weeks ago, Rob and I went over to Gamestop and he brought in 5 games to trade in towards Burnout Paradise. He didn't have an Edge card, so I let him use mine. He got an extra $27 in trade-in value. With that, I went and grabbed X-Squad for the PS2. It was the first game that I ever played for the PS2 and really wanted to go through it again to see the ending (and to put it up on You Tube). I got home and played it for about 1 hour. Let's just say that I did not have that good of a time. It definitely proved that is was a first gen title. So, disappointed, I decided to bring out the Wii and play a Virtual Console game, and it turned out to be A Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Here is my review:

At the beginning of A Link to the Past, a young boy named Link is awakened by a telepathic message from Princess Zelda, who says that she is locked in the dungeon of Hyrule Castle. As the message closes, Link finds his uncle ready for battle, telling Link to remain in bed. After his uncle leaves, however, Link ignores his uncle's command and follows him to Hyrule Castle. When he arrives, he finds his uncle seriously wounded. Link's uncle tells Link to rescue Princess Zelda from her prison, giving him a sword and shield. Link navigates the castle and rescues Zelda from her cell, and the two escape into a secret passage through the sewers that leads to a sanctuary.

Link is told by a man in the sanctuary that Ahganim, a wizard who has usurped the throne, is planning to break a seal made hundreds of years ago by seven wise men. The seal was placed to imprison a dark wizard named Ganon in the Dark World, which was once the Sacred Realm before Ganon invaded, obtained the legendary Triforce and used its power to turn the realm into a land of darkness. And the rest is only known once you play it.

Graphics – The SNES graphics for ALttP is pretty good. The view is from a top down view. Every part of this game screams of beauty. The problem with many games that have dungeons is that they all look the same and the 10 or so dungeons here are very well done. One stage was filled with water while another was mostly covered in ice. The two different worlds were definitely different (say that three times fast). While the light world was full of bright colors and many people (though you don't get to talk to many people), the dark world was...dark. Rocks were replaced with skulls and the enemies were more difficult on the other side. The enemies looked and acted like they have always had. Most any Zelda enemy that was known is in this game and you can tell right away who they are. Overall, pleasing to the eye.

Grade – No grade given (too long ago to be fair)

Controls – A good thing about playing games on the Virtual Console is that you have a choice between the Classic Controller or the Gamecube controller. I tried to play first with the Classic controller and that just did not feel that good in my hands. I tried it with the Wavebird Gamecube controller and it was actually really responsive. You can move with the analog stick or the directional pad. You swipe with the sword using the B button while the A button is used to do odds and ends, such as picking up rocks, running using the Pegasus boots, or others. You use the Y button to use a secondary item, like the ice rod, etc. The Z button is used as a pause button. It brings up the the “Continue Game” and the “Save & Quit” option. The Start button is used to bring up the menu to set which item to use in the Y slot. The L, R, and X buttons are not used. The buttons do feel really responsive. The only times that the buttons would not work was because my genius did not allow me to remember that the batteries were actually dying in the Wavebird. Like I always say, “If you don't remember anything bad about the controls, they did their job.

Grade – A

Sound – The sound of ALttP is very good as well. When you are outside in the Light and Dark Worlds, the sound is very suitable to both. Dungeon music is what you would expect in dungeons very dark and depressing. Animal noises and sword thrusts are very true to what you would expect. The music does set the mood for everything well, but it has been 3 days since I completed AlttP and I can't remember a single note from it, which is disappointing. You would like to remember a tune from it at least.

Grade – B

Challenge – Of course I used a strategy guide for it and it took me around 11 hours to complete it. Challenges were all around you. There were challenges such as finding a heart piece by digging up a field and you only had 30 second and 80 rupees each to do it or you would pay 80 more rupees. There puzzles that you had to be quick on to get through a door and it was challenging, but not impossible. There were enemies that you needed to find the right weapon to use against. There were times when a fairy in a bottle was very helpful. I died 8 times total and that was actually pretty good. Without that and it would have been double easily. All of the enemies were good, if not challenging. The bosses, on the other hand, needed some work. All of the bosses, minus one, had patterns that were learned very quickly. The weapon that you got in the dungeon was used to weaken, if not kill, the boss. That is something that I did not really like about Zelda games. I wish that there were times when you could go to one dungeon and grab and item, but could not finish that portion until you defeated the next dungeon's boss. Just a thought. Ganon took about 2 minutes to figure out and about 2 minutes beat. The only time I had a problem with a boss was with one that requires two different weapons that require magic and I was out and had to be killed.

Grade – A-

Overall, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is a prime example of what should be released for the Virtual Console. Solid graphics with a playable game. Not memorable, but competent music, and a good challenge makes this game definitely worth 800 points. Now where the fuck is Majora's Mask?

Final Grade - A-

Phil-N Rob'd moment: I completely forgot to do this when writing my review and I started slapping myself (mentally). My moment had to easily be in the dark world, there is a place where you can dig for 30 seconds. It cost 80 rupees and there was a heart container in the area. I spent 2 hours trying to dig a small area and I finally gave up. Further along in the game, that was the last heart piece that I did not have. I went back to it and started to dig. The last dig in the first attempt gave me the final heart piece. Bastards.

Phil

Don't Hate the Player, Hate The Gamestop?

2008-01-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

Okay. I just got looking through the website Kotaku, and a poster was talking about Gamestop selling used games is a Parasite to the industry. I read this and I felt kind of sick to my stomac. h.

I love my local Gamestop. I do not know why people hate gamestop honestly. Maybe a few bad experiences or whatever. I am one of those people that preorder a game. Why? Because I like getting a game day one. And the only place around here that it is a guarantee is Gamestop.

And you know what. I also trade games in at Gamestop. Sure I will not get what I paid, or sometimes even half. But I get something. And lets break it down. You wanna know why you buy a used game for $55. Simple.

Do you realize that every new game sold nets the average store, $8 after shipping, purchasing, salary, so on and so forth. So when you sell it to them, people seem to forget that it is not "Pure Profit" They just gave you money (sometimes as much as half, and more if you have an Edge card, hell I traded in Mass effect Yesterday and got $42.00) Right there is cutting into the "pure Profit" and in the end they may make at the most $20 But think about all those games you see when you go in there. How many of those games they are selling for $5-$10 do you think they paid $20-$30 and never sold off. I bet alot.

And people want to say the developers do not get there cut. Well honestly I can see that. But they get first time sales. Sure they get nothing from round two. But really how many times do you walk into a gamestop and see the hot game that just came out Tuesday. Rarely, and if you do see it half the time its because the developer did not do there job.

The reason games like Heavenly Sword and Conan are not selling is mostly due to length. I would not buy either game because I could rent those and finish them in a weekend. And without multiplayer whats the point to play through them again.

If developers want to nip this problem, they need to make games cheaper out the gate. If they are cheaper, people buy them earlier, and the more copies you sell out the gate is games that probably wont get a used sale later. Most of the friends I know that are gamers, wont touch a game until it $30 or less. Make your game $40 and watch it fly off the shelf.

I guess it is easy for me to say things like this, but then again I am the gaming community. And we are the ones who buy the games. Just think how many more I would buy if they were cheaper

Thanks

Hendersonman

Episode 15: Francise

2008-01-14T20:16:00.001-08:00

moar funny pictures

We moved to stickam this week. And our wonderful fan base followed us. Brukaoru, Kush, and we try to kill Tha_Alckie live on camera with laughter. Its just another episode of Phil-n Rob'd Games.

Phil-N Rob'd on YouTube

2008-01-12T15:50:00.001-08:00

Finally, we're on Youtube.com. I'm going to see what I can do to make sure you all can see it somewhere on this front page. Well, enjoy people.

Conan Xbox 360 Review

2008-01-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

Conan for the most part on the Xbox 360 was an enjoyable experience. You play the role of Conan. I know big shock right. And you are befriended by a Sexy Queen Early in the game. She needs your help and so starts a fantasy adventure full of Pirates, Dragons, and perilous ledges.

The game plays like a Devil May Cry or God of War clone. You walk around swinging a sword, picking up more swords, throwing swords, axes, rocks, people, barrels. You name it, it is probably a weapon.

You earn more moves by collecting red runes, which you spend like experience points. Moves in the game are dependent on what you are wielding as a weapon at the time. You do to have the same moves available when carrying a sword as you do when carrying a 2 handed sword.

The graphics in the game are only decent. I think they tried to match the art of Boris Vallejo. So it looks more like a painting than a graphic heavy game. But the animation is decent. There are clipping problems, and the camera gets annoying.

It is a fun game. Its mindless hack and slash. You save topless women, who looked like they walked off a Boris Vallejo painting themselves. And they say some of the funniest lines ever in video game history. (“Crush me with your love”, “My clothes, where are my clothes”) I was having a blast until the last level of the game.

Throughout the game. The enemies get really tough. Most carry shields that eject spikes. When you strike them you take damage. Well this is fine, a lot of times in games you have to wait to hit an enemy. Well these soldiers are psychic. I mid swing they let those spikes loose, and you have no choice but to follow through. And this happens over and over.

The last level and boss are just a aggravation simulator. The enemies sole purpose seems to be not hacking you to death, but pushing you off a ledge, because you can not block when they follow through with a combo. So when they come flying at you like a windmill, and you are too close to a ledge...

Thank goodness the last boss is fought in parts, I would not have had the patients to finish the game otherwise. My controller coward in fear every time I would die. I wish they would have fixed some of these problems. But it is a licensed game and therefore not considered game of the year material.

I really enjoyed the game up until the last level. If I were grading it I would have given it a 7.5, but the last level really is not much fun and causes the whole game to drop in quality. 6.5 is what I give it. It has a few technical hiccups and a harsh difficulty level at the end, that kept me from wanting to go through the game a second time for the achievement points.

I would give it a rental. Or if you see it for $20 pick it up.

Phil-n Rob'd Moment: Being on top off a platform that starts to fall away, try to jump but the game's camera system switches, causing me to jump off to a weird angle, and into the dark oblivion below.

Comparable to Paris Hilton: My review of TMNT for the 360

2008-01-01T17:50:00.000-08:00

I was looking through an after Christmas ad from Game Crazy and it had TMNT for the Xbox 360 on sale for only $9.99. I picked it up, but I got interested in Castlevania: SotN on the Live Arcade. After I completed the game, I thought I would go through this game.

TMNT is the game based on the movie of the same name. You follow Donatello, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Leonardo on their quest for unity; as well as their quest to stop a man from unleashing monsters from another planet onto Earth. While I have not seen the movie, at least I know what goes on. Here is what I think of the game:

Graphics – The cut scenes in TMNT takes the look from comic books, with still shots in paneling, mixed in with small clips from the show. The in-game graphics look very good. The environments do differ, only that most of the time in the game you will traversing the roofs of NYC and that can get very boring after a while. Sometimes, you will be going through a scene that is in the past and it will be in black and white, which is a nice feature. There are some instances where you will go through the sewers (DUH), you will also go through the subway system, buildings, and an ancient temple. The turtles are designed very well. Each of the turtles motions are different. Each turtles has a different finishing motion that does show off their different attitudes. There are several different enemies that you will fight, such as the Foot Clan, The Black Gators, and the Militia. It is good that there are so many different groups, but there are only 4 different models for each and you mainly fight the Foot and the Purple Dragons. This can bring down the fun of fighting, as you will get bored seeing the same enemies time and time again.

Grade – B

Controls – The fighting controls for the turtles are pretty much the same for all. The A button is used to jump, to jump from side-to-side on close together walls, and to grab onto poles. The B button is used to attack. Hold onto it and you will do a more powerful attack. The Y button is used to do a jumping spin kick. The X button is used to switch the four turtles and holding will perform a special attack between two different turtles (Michaelangelo will hold Donatello's feet and spin him like a propeller). Each turtle has a different special ability to perform by pressing any of the shoulder buttons. Raph can climb special red-colored walls, Don can traverse large gaps, Mikey can use his 'chucks as propellers, and Leo can mysteriously go through gates with meditation (WTF?). The fighting with enemies is relatively easy, it is the environments that deal the most damage. While outside, you mainly jump from building to building. You can grab onto ledges and quickly run across them. You also can also use the X button to call in a fellow turtle and he will throw you farther. You can also run along the sides of walls Prince of Persia style. That would be good and fine with you, but, THERE IS A HORRIBLE FUCKING CAMERA IN THIS GAME. There are times when you will jump, thinking there is a building to land on and, instead, will plummet to your death. There are times when you must make a leap of faith to land on a bridge that you CAN'T SEE. There are times when you are running along a ledge when a sudden and unscene puff of steam will send you to your death. When fighting, you will not see all of the enemies because the camera does not change. I “died” 116 times and EVERY ONE of them was from the camera not helping. There will be times when you need to jump to a pole, and because you are close to a wall, you will wall run instead and fall to your death. These problems are unexcuseable. The right analog stick could have easily been used to control the camera, but there is not camera control to speak of. This is a fun killer.

Grade – F (If I could grade it lower, I would have)

Sound – Give me a second, I need to calm down from the controls portion of this review...Okay, I'm back. The sound in this game is good, but not really audible. The cut scene are voiced by the actors in the game, and are enjoyable to watch. The in game sounds, are a different story. During the game, you will get a little snippet of speech from the turtles to further the story. The problem is you can barely hear it. The lines that the turtles say that you can hear is actually pretty funny, with a bunch of one liners. The environmental sounds mire the voice overs. The background music is even less noticeable. You will actually need to stop doing anything and pay attention to the sound to hear it. It wouldn't be bad if you could adjust the sound, but oh wait, you can't. You can up the brightness, but the sound was just too difficult to fuck with. But, this is a good sounding game, if you could just hear it.

Grade – B-

Challenge – Okay, let me first say that this game is most definitely designed for 10-13 year old boys who like the Turtles. With that saying, the 17 levels in this game took me 4 ½ hours to beat. I am not joking. There is absolutely no challenge to this game. The enemy A.I. Is stupid. Most enemies will just look around when you are fighting each and every enemy. When you are overrun with enemies, perform a team attack and the enemies are pretty well gone. If you do lose all of your energy, you won't die. Just press the A button constantly will bring you back to full health if your solo. If you have other turtles with you, then the next on in line will come and pick you back up, which is very, very sweet. The bosses have very predictable moves that you will be able to exploit. The turtles will also tell you what to do (such as luring a loose gorilla to beams to knock it silly)...if you can hear it. The final boss is the easiest boss to defeat in any game that I have played, if you know how to. The only thing that makes this game challenging is making sure the camera doesn't fuck with you. There were times when I would jump and the camera would screw with you so bad that you would fall to your death. At the end of the stage, you are ranked on speed, coin collecting, fighting style, and teamwork (if applicable). If you get an overall A grade (which is not hard to get) you are rewarded with Challenge Stage which last only about 20-30 seconds. These stages are hard to see because they are red and blue colored see-through blocks. Some reviews are irked by the fact that there is no ability to have multiplayer. This game is too easy not to have multiplayer. It is not needed. When I go through a game, I do not want to be done with it so soon. The only challenge in it is not to fall to your death because of the fucking camera.

Grade – F

Extras – Finally, the bright spot to the game. There are several unlockable items with this game. The proverbial Big Head Mode is available, Weekend Weapons (Donatello fights with a broom, Raph fights with spatulas), and Gassius Turtle (take a guess) are available. There are also clips of the movie, still drawing, and goofy spoofs available to unlock. Very enjoyable. The only downside is that the movie clips are already the ones you see in the game. But still a good thing.

Grade – B+

Achievements – This is the part where I usually tell you the secret achievements that you can get or all the achievements you get on a Live Arcade game. Well, I don't need to tell you any of them because...when (not if) you beat the game, you should have earned all 1000 achievement points. Every stage you complete nabs you points, every time you use each turtles special solo move, you earn points and you have to do these through the game. You cannot progress without doing it. You must perform a group move to get points and you must do it to progress in the game. The only time you can get achievements away from the main story is to get a gold coin by going back into a previously beaten stage. 20 second into the first level you can get it. This game is the second known game that truly deserves the Achievement Whore award for giving you a ton of points without much effort (Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth being the first).

Overall this game is like Paris Hilton. She may look beautiful on the outside, but there is absolutely nothing inside it that is any good. The worst camera ever mires this piece of shit. If you want points, get this game. If you don't, stay far away.

Overall – D+

Phil-N Rob'd Moment: I have been dogging this game the entire time and I am going to use this for something good. When with other turtles and you lose all of your health, a spotlight drops on you and another turtle jumps down and picks you up. One of the most beautiful parts of most games, it just feels so damn good.

We have a new feature for Phil-N Rob'd, were now on You Tube (sort of). Just type in “Phil-N Rob'd” to watch ending to several games (including TMNT) for free. There is also a video showing you how to get 1000 achievement points in 2 minutes. Also, don't forget to watch us on operator11.com every Sunday at 4:30 Eastern. Peace bitches.

I also included this little snippet from gametrailers.com. This is their review of TMNT so that you can have two different opinions.

Personal note: The only reason why I'm doing this is to make sure that I don't get fired. Hold on, I don't get paid for this shit. Well hell, screw this. I wonder if EGM is hiring?

Phillip

A rebound from annoyance: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Live Arcade) review

2007-12-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, I was playing through Assassin's Creed when I got irritated. I will tell you the reason why I stopped playing when I write the review of Assassin's Creed. So, I decided to check out a game that is on the Xbox Live Arcade; Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Castlevania: SotN is the 13th installment of the Castlevania series. The series begins with the ending of Dracula X and then starts with Alucard, the child of Dracula going through Dracula's castle to kill him. Along the while, Alucard will meet a woman, Maria, who is trying to find Richter. Richter was the main character of Dracula X. Along the way, you will fight through hundreds of different monsters and hundreds of rooms. Here is my review:

Graphics – The graphics on Castlevania: SotN are pretty good. Even though SotN is originally for the Sega Saturn and the Playstation, Konami has made improvements and it is now available in High Definition. Everything in this game is just flat out beautiful. The castle, inverted and normal, the enemies, your characters are all done with meticulous detail. The spells that you can perform light up the screen with the brilliant light. The only complaint that I have with the graphics, and it is a small one, is with the map. You use the LT button to bring up the map and when you do, you get a small map that covers the entire screen. This is not a big problem, but there is 1890 rooms in this game. Now, if you want to get the achievement for 200.6%, this really hampers because you can barely see the damn thing. I will give this a grade. I was thinking that I shouldn't because I would be comparing Playstation oranges to 360 apples, but this is definitely deserved.

Grade - A

Controls – The controls of SotN is very good as well. You can use the directional pad or the left analog stick to move, the A button to jump, the B and X are used as each hand. You can carry a sword in the left hand and a shield in the right or have two weapons, the Y button is for a back dash (totally worthless). The RB changes you into a mist (when you pick up the Form of Mist), the LB changes you into a bat (when you pick up the Soul of Bat), the RT changes you into a wolf (when you pick up the Soul of Wolf), and the Lt button brings up the map. The controls are very precise. On some Live Arcade games, it seems like there is a pause between pressing a button and it actually happening on the screen. Not with this one. The best way that I can describe it to you is that you won't feel anything. The controls are perfect.

Grade – A+

Sound – This is another strong part of the game. Michiru Yamane was the composer for this game. Many people believe that this soundtrack is the best soundtrack in all time, not just in the Castlevania universe. The music sets up the story line very well. A mix of the classic gothic style with metal styles makes this a brilliant soundtrack. All of the subtile noises are great. The death noises from monsters, as well as swords striking in the air are done with great care. What doesn't make this perfect is the voice acting. Even though the voice are used sparingly, they are poorly acted out. I felt like I was listening to a grade school production. But, if you can stand maybe 5 minutes of shitty voices, then it is all worth it.

Grade – A-

Challenge – This game gives you a very good challenge. It took me about 10 game hours to get through this game. Of course I used a strategy guide from gamefaqs.com, but who cares. There are some weapons that you can used to make this game just too damn easy, but what is the total fun in that. Every boss battle has his or her own weak spot which you exploit to great lengths (like equipping a Thunder Circlet when battling a boss that shoots out lightning). If you are able to level up your characters early on in the game, then most of the challenge will be on how quickly you can beat it. The real challenge comes when you are almost done with the game and you want to find every one of the 1890 rooms in the game. I will say this: CONSULT A MAP. It is almost impossible to figure out what room you forgot to get without one. Every boss is easy to defeat and you should really just rely on the Fairy familiar for your healing.

Grade – B

Extras – There are very few extras in the game. There are four different endings to the game. When you complete the game, you can try to beat the game using Richter (which is down right impossible). For the Saturn owners, you can play as Maria as well. Sadly, that is about it.

Grade – C

Achievements – Since this is an Xbox Live Arcade, there are 200 achievement points that you can get:
-Defeat 10 consecutive enemies using standard weapons without getting hit. (5 pts.)(you can get this easily in the first room you encounter with the zombies)
-Defeat 10 consecutive enemies using magic without getting hit (5 pts)(I waited until I could transform into mist for a stretch and was able to attack enemies while in mist form and it was easy)
-Defeat 10 consecutive enemies using special weapons without getting hit (10 pts.)(just get the dagger in the first room and hit 10 zombies with it and it's yours)
-Obtain the Bat, Wolf, and Mist transformations (10 pts)(you really need to find these pieces to complete the game, but there not that hard to find)
-Collect all five familiars in the game (10 pts)(all of these familiars are valuable to help you out, so find them)
-Defeat Gaibon and Slogra (10 pts)(it's the first boss of the game...I used the axe special weapon and went after them quickly)
-Defeat Dracula in the Bloodlines stage without getting hit (10 pts)(This was real difficult until I found out that grabbing the Holy Water in Dracula's lair and pressing the Y button releases a devastating attack and can take out Drac and the demon in just three direct hits)
-Unlock/Cast all eight of Alucard's spells (15 pts)(You can purchase 4 from the librarian, but others you must find on your own. Hint: the sword familiar, the Bat form, and the Wolf form have spells specific to them)
-Unlock the inverted castle (20 pts)(This happens when you beat Shaft at Dracula's lair)
-Collect a bank of $100,000 (25 pts)(You can get this two different ways. Every diamond that you find nets you $20,000. You can also equip the Jewel Sword and enemies will drop jewels instead of items. Just sell all of your jewels at one time to pass the $100,000 mark and buy a bunch of shit)
-Explore 200.6% of the game (35 pts)(Like I said earlier in the game: CONSULT A MAP)
-Finish the game, including the inverted castle, as Richter (45 pts)(Almost impossible. He has devastating attacks, but little health and cannot fly. If only there was a way to...)

Overall, Castlevania: SotN is a brilliant example of what game companies can do to make the Xbox Live Arcade a much better enjoyment for all. You can find Castlevania: SotN on Sega Saturn (good luck finding one), Playstation (no longer worth the high price), Xbox Live Arcade for 800 points (great value), and the PSN for $9.99. Get this game.

Overall – A-

Phil-N Rob'd moment of the game: Having to go through the entire map just to find the ONE FUCKING ROOM that you missed. Achievements can be such a bitch!

We have a new feature for Phil-N Rob'd, were now on You Tube (sort of). Just type in “Phil-N Rob'd” to watch ending to several games (including the four for Castlevania: SotN) for free. There is also a video showing you how to get 1000 achievement points in 2 minutes. Also, don't forget to watch us on operator11.com every Sunday at 4:30 Eastern. Peace bitches.

Phillip

Free Strategy Guides

2007-12-29T11:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, I was looking around the internet when I went to this site:

http://www.primagames.com/free/

and I scrolled to the bottom and found four free strategy guides for download. These are for games that are actually not that good, but I think you will live with it.

Phillip

Episode 12: Gaming Christmas

2007-12-23T19:08:00.000-08:00

1000 Achievement Points in 2 Minutes

2007-12-23T17:56:00.000-08:00

When I started looking through Youtube.com while uploading game ending; I came upon a video with 1000 achievement points that you can earn in just 2 minutes. I thought that was just too good to be true so I rented Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth. After putting it in and remembering to just press the B button on the 360, the rest was a piece of cake. Enjoy.

P.S. I would have just uploaded this from Youtube.com, but I just don't know how to.

Phillip

Stealing My Thunder

2007-12-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

When I was driving today, I thought I would write to you all and talk about the Virtual Console on the Wii and some things that I think need to happen to it. Well, someone already beat me to it:

http://kotaku.com/335527/two-more-consoles-for-virtual-console

When this article came up, I was shocked that Nintendo had the machines to implant thoughts into your mind as well as happy that they thought of it. Okay, for every Paper Mario or Ocarina of Time, you get Blazing Lasers or Urban Commando. Now, there are thousands of games that are on the consoles covered by the VC. I am in complete shock that there are no Metal Gear for the NES or that Capcom doesn't care about the VC. Nintendo continues to throw shit on the VC and we continue to buy them up. Nintendo also continues to sell the games for a high price. Sonic the Hedgehog for the VC is $8 while Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox Live is only $5; and the Xbox version is much better because you can play them online and they have achievements. Nintendo continues to drop the ball when it comes to satisfying the customer. I am a Wii fan, but come the fuck on.

Don't forget to check out the Phil'N Rob'd Games video podcast on Operator 11 this Sunday at 4:30 PM Eastern, there maybe a BIG surprise for people.

Phil-n-Rob'd Games: Epsidoe 11. Operator 11 worked for Once

2007-12-17T09:26:00.001-08:00

Good Times with Phil and I. One of our favorite shows.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Review

2007-12-15T00:38:00.000-08:00

The Playstation 3 has not gotten a lot of love lately. The system is suffering from the lack of exclusive titles. But it seems the clouds have parted and a gem of a game has revealed itself. That game is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

The graphics in this game are spectacular. You feel like you are in a jungle. The way light shines through the canopy overhead. Small things like taking a swim, and watching your clothing get soaking wet. When a gunshot pass by your character and he flinches.

The game has a few small problems. Drake seems to be floating over the surface of the world, not really running on it. Its really not very noticeable until someone else points it out to you. But that is a tiny gripe.

The story was very entertaining. The characters are likable and the voice acting is top notch. It does not suffer from the terrible voice acting of games from the original PS one era. You feel for the characters and I found that pushing me forward in the game. I wanted to get to the next part of the story.

Combat is more like Gears of War, and less like Tomb Raider. In fact the game is more like Gears than Tomb Raider period. In a way being a huge Tomb Raider fan, I was slightly disappointed. You have to use the cover system to survive. Because the enemies come in huge waves.

Most enemies take about 3 shots to kill. Unless you nail them with a head shot. You also have hand to hand moves but I rarely used them. In fact the hand to hand seemed to be less responsive. Especial when you try to the Square-Triangle-Square combos. It seemed I never could quite nail the triangle at the right time.

A few times in the game the action gets to chaotic. Enemies with Sniper Rifles who can shoot you across the map if you don't dodge when you seen the laser sights beam. And the grenade launching foes annoyed me too.

The games worst feature is the Jet Ski scenarios. There are only 2 in the game, but they do not flow well. You can either move the jet ski, or stop and shoot the enemies, but doing both is almost impossible.

Another thing that is more funny than annoying. You will find a place that “The pirates have no idea this is here”. Only to find the place swarming with them 5 minutes later. This happen constantly. Also what is with all the explosive barrels. I must have missed that part in history class that Pacific Island nations developed metal barrels loaded with explosives.

The game does have a twist near the end, I won't spoil it. But it changes the way you play the game.

All in all if you have a PS3 I highly recommend this game. It is a short game but there is a few reason to go back and play it again. (A medal system that is basically achievement points

I give it a 8.5 out of 10. And it is in my top five games of the year
Phil-n-Rob'd Moment: Running out of ammo in the middle of a huge firefight on several occasions.

One of those days

2007-12-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

We all heard about the tragedy in the media about the mall in Nebraska. As soon as I heard that this morning I waited for Jack Thompson to rear his ugly head. Maybe his disbarment trial is keeping him hushed up. Thank Goodness.

It is sad that I was afraid for my hobby again this morning. I read news reports and waited. The family he was living with said he smoked pot, and played video games... the normal teenage stuff. Even showed her the gun.

I am glad the media for once had not run screaming at Microsoft or Grand theft auto. perhaps they have wised up... perhaps they read that this young man was trouble. He was devastated by the loss of his job, and his girl friend. Frankly it is something I can relate to. But I am not going to take it out on others.

The saddest thing was the women he was staying with said things like, "He was like a sad puppy dog that no one wanted." That breaks my heart a little bit. Maybe he would have been okay if things had gone a little better that day. But in the end, he was mental unstable and that was all him. Not the lack of parentng, not the video games or the pot. And I hope the media keep that in mind.

It scary to think that the day after this tragedy, another Grand Theft Auto trailer was announced. It was excellent. It looks like it is fixing some of the ldGTA problems like auto targeting, and giving the game what it truly needs ... a cover system. The graphics look amazing. And the frame rate looked solid compared to the last trailer they showed.

Still they have not announced a new release date. But I am still thinking it wont be out til October of next year. But take your time 2K. We see what happens when some games are rushed out the door. (Kane and Lynch, Mass Effect)

Yes, I have a review for a Burger King game

2007-12-05T15:15:00.001-08:00

I had intended to not play my 360 last week, but something actually caught my eye. Pocketbike Racer was a game that was brought out by Burger King last year. Big Bumpin', Sneak King, and Pocketbike Racer were the games released for only $3.99 with a meal purchased. These games were made my Blitz Games, makers of Fusion Frenzy. Out of the three, Pocketbike Racer was the game most recommended. I will try to play other King games soon. So here is what I think:

Graphics – The graphics are pretty bad. Each of the 5 tracks are not really rememberable. A Burger King parking lot, a neighborhood, the King's castle, a construction site, and the Bacon Ranch. It was actually difficult to remember each of them. Now, I can understand why the graphics are not good. The disc has both the original Xbox and the 360 on it. The graphics in the background are not even memorable. I have seen better games when the PS2 first came out. One good thing to notice is that there is no pop ups throughout the game. During Live, human opponents seem to pop up with a bad frame rate. Just not good.

Grade: D+

Controls – This is where this game actually is tolerable. You use the RT to Accelerate, the LT to brake/reverse, RB to toggle up the weapon list, LB to toggle down the weapon list, A to power slide, B to boost, X to use a weapon, and Y to taunt (worthless). Along the tracks, the power slide is important. If you can master the power slide, you will master the game. The turning feels really good. You will, sometimes, screw up and shoot the wrong weapon when playing. You must toggle up/down to get the right weapon and if you get the wrong one, you could lose all of your boosting. Make sure to check.

Grade: B

Sound – There is not that much to talk about here. Each track has a different song and you will actually know when the song ends because it stops for a second before it begins again. The taunt button allows you to talk smack by saying 1 phrase. Hopefully you can play with people on line and talk smack. You do not want to hear anything from this game.

Grade: C-

Challenge – Oh my God. I appreciate the opportunity to play against AI that is actually able to CHALLENGE ME. There is absolutely no challenge what-so-ever. There are 4 types of racing: Standard (Race, Weapons, and Boost), Battle Royale (Most weapon hits win), Cone (Go through 20 lit cones first), and Hard Core (Racing, nothing else). I will give you this piece of advice: On the Cone and Battle Royale, go backwards. You will get a HUGE lead on everybody else on the cones because no one else will go backwards. On the battle royale, toggle down to the shield (1st level) and ram into the other cars. This game will be quickly completed. I believe I played at least 100 races and I remember losing 3 times. I never placed last. Something that would have been nice was to allow people to play the game in backwards. The 5 race tracks are not played in backwards. There are secrets you can exploit throughout the game and most of the AI will not follow. If you find the secrets, the game is a breeze. Maybe this game may be challenging for a 4 year old or Michael J. Fox.

Grade: F

Extras – There are absolutely no good extras in the game. You get to create a character (change the hair, skin, shirt, and pant color...THAT'S IT). You also get to race the tracks in whatever you want to. The only thing is that making this not being a total F is the multiplayer. You are able to play with people on line. If only there are people playing it.

Grade: D-

Achievements – The achievements are just completely stupid. You are able to get almost all of the achievements within two days of playing partially. The only difficult achievements are the ones about multiplayer. You must win 1 multiplayer match for 20 points and play in 25 Xbox live games for 25 points. Trying to figure out what the computer considers an actual race. A one lap battle does not count. I believe you must play the right amount of laps with a 150 cc bike. Oh well, here is the list:

Standard Gold – Win a standard race tournament (Easy)
Cone Trial Gold – Win a cone trial tournament (Easy)
Battle Royale Gold – Win a battle royale tournament (Easy)
Hard Core Gold – Win a hard core tournament (Easy)
Multiplayer King – Win a multiplayer match (Easy if you can do it)
Mascot Jr. - Win a race with each of the BK characters (Whopper Jr., The King, and Subservient Chicken) (Easy...again)
Career King – Complete all of the tournaments (16 in all and all very simple)
Pro Gamer – Complete 25 Xbox Live matches (easy if you can do it and find enough players)
Big Wheelie – Wheelie for more than 2 seconds (you WILL do this within the game)
Big Stoppie – Stoppie for more than 0.5 seconds (see above)
Big Air – Jump for longer than 50 meters (see above)
Time Trial Gold – Achieve a lap time of less than 1:30 on all tracks in Time Trial (kind of confusing...just hope and pray you can do it)

Expect to actually get all of them (if you can find on line approach).

Overall, Pocketbike Racer is not really worth it. With just 5 tracks (not racing backwards sucks), characters that are boring as hell, races that are brutally easy, why was this game worth $3.99 at Burger King. If you want and are addicted to achievement points, get this game for two days then bury it right next to the old E.T. Atari cartridges.

Overall grade: D

Phil-n-Rob'd Games Episode 9: Hodge Podge Edition

2007-12-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

Three parts of the show from Sunday with Rob, Phil, Paul, and Brian the Pc Guy.

Part one aslo went missing Sigh.... I guess stickam was not what I hoped it would be. Well Op11 is back up... hopefully it will stay that way.

Reminder: Phil-n-Rob'd Games is going to be on Stickam tomorrow

2007-12-01T19:20:00.001-08:00

Op11 has bee down for a majority of the week, so we are moving to Stickam tomorrow. Same Bat time 4:30 EST, different bat channel (Stickam.com)

It may become a permanent change.

Finished Mario Galaxy: I can has Princess now

2007-12-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

I finished Mario Galaxy last night. One of the greatest games ever. Forget Zelda, OoT. I never cared for it. I have not been a big Zelda supporter since they went 3-d. But this Mario Game is awesome.

I plan to continue playing it. I want to try to get all those stars. The games has no achievement points, no online multiplayer, but it is just fun. Its been a long time since I played a game for more than just fun. Most of the time I get burned out on a game and just keep playing it for a boost of Gamerscore.

The game continues to improve. You realy never feel like you are doing the same thing over and over again. Every star seems unique. Every challenge seems different. I wish all games had this much replability. I loved it everytime I opened another galaxy. I loved it when something unexpected happened .

And there were times that I just had my mouth hanging open like a hooker at a Bukake orgy. If you own a wii,buy this fucking game. If you don't own a wi. Find a soccer momand beat the shit out of her and take hers. Or curb stomp a bukake hooker and take her money and buy a wii off Ebay. This game is that good.

(The views expressed here are not those of Phil-n-Rob'd games. We love hookers and Soccer moms... mmmm Hooker Soccer moms. Quick get Vivid videos on the phone. I just found the next porn cash cow. Grand Theft Auto: Hooker Soccer Mom Bukake. Yeah those checks are just rolling in.)

Gamer Blood

2007-11-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

We had a dinner for the Phil N Robd crew tonight. Phil brought over his wii because he wanted my mom to get a shot at trying it out until She gets hers in the next week. It got me thinking as to how I myself had gotten into gaming.

It runs in the family. Its hard to believe but my parents were both gamers. They were gamers from the atari 2600 on. We went see my older cousin who was station in Ft. Campbell and we brought the Atari 2600 with us.

My dad, mom, cousin and his wife stayed up all night long to play bowling on the 2600. I mean the game could hardly be called bowling. It consisted of a ball, well it was supposed to be a ball. Ataris was never good at spherical objects.

My dad won every single game he played. Except for one. He said his hand got to hurting so bad he left my cousin's wife win.

Growing up I had most of the video game consoles. Intellivision, Atari 2600, talking intellivision. I remember the game crash of 84, when all the games were super cheap, and we bought a ton of games at that point.

My dad always got it. I guess that made my parents different. They knew why games were my passion, because they enjoyed them too. Before my dad passes away in 2000 he bought a playstation. I had moved in with my wife and took mine with me. He bought a bowling game. And he would play it all the time, and me and the wife at the time would play it with him.

The morning he died I came home to find he had been playing Solitare on his computer in my old bedroom. He had been playing it an hour before the doctor said he would have passed. The sad thing is that he was losing that hand. I think he would say that was what killed him, loosing at Solitare, not the heart attack.

My dad was a gamer, up until the end. And after tonight, I think my mom will be to. She played wii for the first time. We started out in a game of bowling. And her first game she kicked my ass, and Phil's ass.

She was laughing and smiling. Having a great time. And on the show tonight I was given a hard time. Afterwards she played a game of Tennis on the wii, she was not to hot at that. But she enjoyed the boxing game. And I watched her enjoy it.

Then she played two more games of bowling. And at this point she had kcked everyones ass that was there. Me, Phil, Jesse, Brian and Josiah twice.

She says she can not wait to get her wii this week. And I think my dad is smiling right now. I think its cool that bowling video games run in our families. And its good to see my mom playing games again.

She watched us do our show and she was proud that she kicked our asses. And I took the loss a little on the chin, everyone ribbed me about it. I wish dad had been there for the wii. He would have liked it too.

But I know where I come from. Gamerblood.

Robert

Rob'd doesn't know shit (he he)

2007-11-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Back a week ago, I went to Gamestop to pick up some new games and to get rid of Tomb Raider: Anniversary. I came back with Dead Rising and Pocketbike Racer for the 360. Rob was worried about me picking up the Wii Zapper. I didn't. I just waited a week. Here are some of my impressions of the Zapper.

The Wii Zapper was $24.99 at Gamestop and it came with Link's Crossbow Training in the box. You put the Wiimote, horizontally, in the Zapper. The nun chuck accessory is placed vertically in the Zapper. The cord connecting the Wiimote and the chuck can be hidden in a slope between the two. The trigger is up front and it takes the place of the B button. I place my left hand near the trigger and it feels pretty good. It does feel a little tight in between the trigger handle and the slope toward the nun chuck. I place my right hand around the nun chuck and my thumb can control the joystick while my index finger controls the C and Z buttons. The overall feel of this new accessory is very good.

The game that comes with it is Link's Crossbow Training. You take activity in 27 different shooting tests with shooting targets and shooting fruit. You earn points from each shot you take as well as shooting other targets like pots and scarecrows. Accuracy is key as you will earn multipliers for consecutive hits. Points are lost by shooting X covered targets as well as innocents. Each of the 9 levels has three different events. The three events are target shooting, defender, and ranger. To pass, you must accumulate 2,000 points to earn a bronze medal. A silver medal is earned after getting 4,000 point and the gold is for getting 6,000. The target shooting is very fun to do because you really do not have to move. The defender is pretty good because you are standing still and by moving the gun reticle to the far left and right, you will curve over to that side. The bad portion of the stages are the ranger missions where you have a certain time to shoot as many objects as possible. The joystick allows you to move back and forth but turning is very difficult. There are times when enemies will be just to your side and it is difficult to turn to their side. Overall, though, this is a great game to play with.

There are games that already utilize the Wii Zapper. Medal of Honor 2: Heroes, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and Ghost Squad are the games and many are soon to follow. For lack of a better word, the Wii Zapper is one of the reasons that I believe that the Wii will be a force to be messed with, especially with FPS. And for $24.99, you cannot pass this up. Get it, for Christ's sake.

Don't forget to watch the Phil'N Rob-D video podcast on Sunday's at 4:30 EST on operator11.com.

Old People Love the Wii

2007-11-23T00:16:00.000-08:00

So I am sitting at home watching Gilmore Girls with my mom. You know it sounds so gay when you say it like that, but trust me it gets worse. And a commercial pops for the old TV. Its a commercial for what has to be the dumbest game idea ever.

Dancing with the Stars. ( I told you it got worse) My mom says, oh that looks like fun. I looked at her strangely. "Well too bad, its on the wii, and we don't have a wii. Amazon would not sale me one for $79." (The night before Amazon.com had them for sale for the price of $79 for a special promotion.)

She was disappointed. She then asked how much it cost to buy one at full price. I told her it was 249.99. She started to act like she really wanted one. So we left and ventured to Kmart and also to get a paper for the Friday ads. (I forgot to get a paper this morning)

Well Kmart had them first thing in the morning. I knew there was little hope for finding one, but we were in the area. And sure enough they had nothing. The worse part was I could not even find a newspaper with the Black Friday Ads, everywhere I went there was nary a paper found. SIGH!!

We came home wiiless. I started hitting all the major websites for the wii Nothing unless you wanted to pay for outrageous bundles. I went to Cheapassgamer.com to see if they knew any off the wall website selling wiis.

They had an ad for amazon.com. They were going to be selling Wii at 3 AM (EST) for the regular 249.99. I thought this would be my one and only chance to get one if mom wanted one.

So I set my alarm for 15 til. Got up and went to the website. I waited, and waited. Constantly clicking the refresh button on the browser. Finally it popped up. about 7minutes late. And I bought it for her. (Okay she paid for it)

So yes folks, in a few days I will have all three of the next gen consoles at my disposal. SMG here I come baby. It-s-a-me Super Robio.

My mom is excited. This is the first game system she has ever wanted to purchase. She said it is something she feels like she can play. So I told her that she can review games for the show.

Game Reviews for the Elderly. :)

Look forward to her review of Wii Sports Episode 9 of Phil-n-Rob'd Games.

(Update: As of 3:30 AM the wii on Amazon is sold out. Mine is on the way)

My biggest Phil-N Rob'd EVER

2007-11-21T13:57:00.000-08:00

When this Sunday comes up, I want you all to watch. This Sunday, watch my portion of the Phil-N Rob'd portion of the show and beware that your jaw WILL DROP. I will talk about a game that I have been Rob'd THREE TIMES. I tried to play this game on 3 different occassions, on 3 different consoles, and was pissed 3 times. I even bought 2 different strategy guides for the game. That may not be that bad of a thing, but this game is one of the "greatest" games EVER MADE. This game is in the top ten on gamerankings.com for the greatest game EVER. I am so pissed and I need to hold onto this until Sunday. So Sunday, get ready for hell people. Until then,

Phil

Super Mario Galaxy: First Impressions

2007-11-20T12:24:00.000-08:00

I hate to admit it. I bought 3 games last week. Uncharted, WWE SMackdown and Assassins Creed. If I had a wii one of those autrocities would have never happened (I am looking at you WWE S vs R) Because I no doubt would have bought SMG.

This game is amazing. More of a game then I thought. Each level is broken up into planet toids. Some planets are unlocked only when you go after certain stars (Just like Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine before it). I was mistaken the levels are actual long and varied. I was never bored, and after gathering 10 stars in my allotted game time, I never felt like I was repeating anything to get the stars.

Old enemies made a comeback. Bullet bill was pissing me off at every corner. Moles were throwing wrenches, goombas were waiting to be smashed. Power ups were back, even thought bee mario looked a little light in the lofers.

I wish I had a wii now. I want this game. No if they would just ditch that horrible Steve Irwin Mode I would have loved them game even more (Mario rides a Manta-ray) The controls were horrible with it, having to tilt the Wiimote left or right and keep with in the floating river in the sky.

I can not wait to try this game again.

Rob

Mass Effect: First Impressions

2007-11-20T12:02:00.000-08:00

Well I want to get this out of the way. This game is very entertaining and the story has me interested. But this game was rushed. Plan and simply.

There is lag issues in a single player game. The frame rate struggles to stay constant. Textures load in slowly. The combat plays like a hybrid 3-person shooter/rpg and does neither convincingly.

But as bad as I am knocking the game I sat here and played it from 10:30 on. For 3 hours I played this game non stop. So it has something going for it. I just think they could have waited 6 months and put this game out and had a real great game on their hands. Instead it feels like it is a game that needs more polish. Maybe a patch will arrive, but will it be to late because people will have already finished and moved on.

Maybe in that time they could have put in a tutorial system, I still am not sure how to use my special abilities. Still making the character was fun. I went female, unusual for me in a game. Maybe its the hot lesbian scene in the game was the deciding factor.

But my character has a history, and even a time line about your life in the menu screen, including year of birth and how you came to join the alliance.

The graphics are nothing to ealy write home about in my opinion. Bioshock, Halo 3 and Uncharted on PS3 looked more amazing.

I will play it and give my further input this weekend on the show.

Rob

Phil-N-Rob'd Games Episode 7.5

2007-11-18T15:29:00.000-08:00

Last weeks show was a complete disaster so we did a do over. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary (360) Review

2007-11-18T12:52:00.000-08:00

There are times when you are looking through your movies and wonder why the hell you would want a remake of The Poseidon Adventure. Then there are times when your glad that they did (Halloween). Now that gaming is getting older, some of the games from the past are coming back, updated. One of them is Tomb Raider Anniversary. It is available for the PS2, the 360, and the Wii. TR:A is a remake from 1996. The story is simple. A nuclear bomb is set off in New Mexico in the 1940's and a winged monster is unleashed. Fifty years later, Lara Croft is told about the Atlantean Scion, an artifact that has been underwater for hundred of years. She was informed of this by Jacqueline Natla, a CEO of a large company. Thus, the beginning of a long-standing series begins. Here is what I thought of the game:

Graphics – Now, knowing this is the first time that I completed an X box 360 game, this grade may be a little higher than it should be. This game is gorgeous. The first time that I watched Lara move, it was beautiful. Lara is beautiful, but the real draw was the locations. The deep jungles of the Lost Valley seemed almost to be alive. Egypt looked just Egypt looks (even though I have never been to Egypt). When you splash and swim through the water just is breath taking. The design that the developers put into this game is just great. All of the human characters looked nice...except for Natla. Natla is the character that hires you in the beginning and this woman looks like Karen Carpenter after fasting (what...too soon). The enemies weren't really that mind-blowing good either. They just looked completely average. There really was not that many varieties as well. I only remember the wolves being available everywhere. Just a little bit of problem, but overall great.

Grade: A-

Controls – This is where I had a problem with the game. You have your basic jump, shoot, and what not. The slow motion controls was a great help. Just get the animals in a rage and they charge. By pressing the B button at a specific time and jumping around, you engage in slow motion. When the crosshairs turn red, push the RT button and you killed the animal with a head shot. Very good when you want to conserve ammo. I had some problems with jumps, targeting multiple enemies, and especially with wall jumps. There were times when I would jump over to a pole and I would not grab it. There were times when I saw my hands go through the pole. I was not happy at all with that. Targeting multiple enemies was not fun. On the great shaft, I had to shoot 2 bat demons and shoot a target on the wall. The crosshairs wanted to stay on the target while the bat demons were shooting balls of energy on me. You needed to move the right stick left or right to move between targets and it took too much time. And when you moved the right stick to the new target, you could actually lose your place on the floor and could fall off the side of a cliff. That was very irritating. The wall jumps were about as irritating as I have gotten with a game in several months. There were several puzzles that needed Lara to jump off the wall at the top of a wall swing and I could not do it. I was trying to get to what I thought was a artifact in Egypt and I tried to wall jump for about 3 hours and I did not even get it once. The only way that I was able to go up the Great Shaft was through a glitch that jammed me into a wall in the corner and I was able to jump to the next grapple ring. I was trying to get all the artifacts and I finally gave up on it. In general, the controls made this beautiful game a pain in the ass.

Grade: D+

Sound – This was another good part of the game, but not memorable. All of the animals sounded good. You could actually hear them in another room and it sounded like an echo. All of the background noises were good. The waterfall sounded like a waterfall, and the Egyptian winds sounded good. The voice acting was good, as well. The problem with it was that it was not memorable. I completed the game yesterday, and I can't remember anything from it. After spending a lot of time on it, you hope to remember SOMETHING. In general, a typically average game sounds.

Grade: C

Challenge – Now this is the part where, if the controls would have been good, it would have been great. The puzzles in this game were great. From the large gear room in Peru to the Trial of Damocles (the swords falling from the ceiling was scary the first time I played). There are so many puzzles in this game that took time to figure out, it was well worth it. A couple of memorable puzzles was Locating King Midas' Artifact and the Anubis and Horus puzzles. King Midas' Artifact room consisted of towers that would rise up with a switch but would all start to lower when you would touch them. This kind of challenge was really good. The Anubis and Horus puzzle involved water levels and shooting scarabs. The only thing that ruined the fun had to be the control. Having to climb up a statue and to fall all the way to your death because the controller was not responsive was very frustrating. Another thing that you will be used to is Lara's dead body. Because YOU WILL DIE CONSTANTLY IN THIS GAME. Anytime that you miss a step, Lara will die. Anytime you meet a dart wall, Lara will die. I believed that I died at least 60 times. Some of the deaths is based on when I landed, and some are because of the damn controls. The boss battles were pretty good as well. You had to figure out the weakness of each boss and extort the weakness. The T-Rex was real easy if you got the T-Rex to ram the barriers. The Thiocan's Centaurs were easy when you figured out that the shields were the answer. In general, the challenge was good, except with the controller issues.

Grade: B+

Extras – The Rewards section of TR:A is a great collection of extras. The Special section contains a letter to the fans of Tomb Raider while the Style Units (available after completing the game) allows you to run through a demo of the different environments. The typical cinematics are there. The art gallery gives you a side-by-side look of the remake and the original. There are character bios of the main characters. The outfits section allows you to view different outfits for Lara. You can spin the character, but you cannot zoom and that kind of sucks. There are short stories about all the relics that you find throughout your journey. There are tracks of the music throughout the game. The obligatory credits are there. There is also something really cool called Commentaries. You can play through the game and when you come up to a floating crystal, you touch it and members of the development team will talk to you about the thoughts and design of the level. A really cool thing. The last one is the cheats. You can unlock the good ones AFTER you complete the game and complete the time trials. Didn't like that, but that was nothing really bad. Overall, the rewards are some of the best you can get and I really enjoyed it.

Grade: A

Achievements – When I complete a 360 game, I will give you a review of the achievements. Some of the achievements are pretty easy. Getting good shows in the 4 area are nothing more than pressing the correct buttons during the cut-scenes. Getting all the relics in the 4 areas, are just that. Getting the 3 guns are achievements. Defeating the bosses without dying is mostly easy. Now, those are easy. The time trials are brutally difficult to achieve. You need to know where everything is and hope and pray that you don't have to jump off of walls. The ones that made me laugh was completing the 4 areas without dying. Like I said before, YOU WILL DIE CONSTANTLY. These are pretty difficult and don't really need much attention (hardcore gamers only). The secret achievements are:

-Complete all the tasks in the Croft Manor. (Easy)
-Complete the Peru gear puzzle without dying. (Difficult)
-Complete the Hephaestus room in Greece without being struck by lightning. (Pretty Easy)
-Collect the seals of Anubis, Horus, Isis, and Osiris without dying. (Not going to happen)
-Complete the central shaft in the Lost Island without dying. (Ha ha ha)
Expect to get a little under half of the 1000 points total.

Overall, Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a great game to play if you want to relive some of the good ol' days. The graphics are top notch (except for some characters), the control is not that great, the sound is typical, not memorable, and the challenge is good (except when jumping off of walls is involved). The extras are what really shine for the game. Maybe if they allowed the original to be on there it would have been perfect (wink, wink). Expect to get about half of the achievement points allowed. That is about it.

Overall grade: B

Listen and watch the Phil-N Rob'd video podcast on Operator 11 Sundays at 4:30 EST.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune First Impressions

2007-11-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while a game comes out that make me forget to eat my lunch. To make me forget to check my email, a game that makes time fly by so fast that other obligations are almost forgotten.

Today, that game is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on the PS3. Hands down this is the game of the year for the PS3. I have not had this much fun playing a game in such a long time.

The story is entertaining. I actually like the main characters. Eleana and Nathan have a great chemistry, and the interactions with each other are funny. There are times when I LOL'd.

Its like someone took the best parts of Tomb Raider, and added Gears of War and a dash of Lester the Unlikely (a quarter for anyone who remembers that game with out the use of wikipedia)(Quarter void in Rhode Island and all of the planet Earth). When a gun shot misses your head, you flinch. We you jump your arms flail. When a grende lands at your feet, he makes a comment about how he is alot of trouble.

The graphics are great, I really think they are the best this year. For any game, on any system. Some screen tearing aside, and sometimes textures load in slowly. But the jungle is lush and atmopsheric.

Plus this is the first ps3 game to use the medal system for PS3 Home. Basically achievements. 1000 points for doing things in game that unlock extras in game. Finding treasures, to killing people with weapons.

If you have a PS3 and liked the demo (Enemies die faster than in the demo thank goodness) pick this game up, or at least rent it. Naughty Dog has a great game on hands

Rob

My new reason to hate strategy guide haters

2007-11-16T13:09:00.001-08:00

Okay, Rob and I did a show several weeks ago when we discussed cheating. He said that strategy guides are cheating. So what I did was try to get through Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the 360 without a strategy guide. Now here comes the truth. A pair of scissors, a phone, the controller, and anything around me has been thrown in a pure rage of irritation. I do not have much time to sit back and look through all of the shit through a goddamn game to be a "PURE PLAYER". Tomb Raider: Anniversary is about to be thrown through the atmoshpere or crushed by my fucking hands. I will now put it like this. ANYBODY WHO THINKS THAT STRATEGY GUIDES ARE CHEATING, YOU KNOW WHAT, IT IS. BUT MOST ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T USE GUIDES FOR THESE SUCH GAMES NEED TO GET A FUCKING LIFE. I HAVE HAD IT WITH ALL THE "SEARCHING".

My new message is this. If I do not have a strategy guide, then I will not play it. Plain and simple.

Hopefully we will have a new Phil-N Rob'd games show this Sunday (internet permitting). So see you then.

Phillip "Fucking irritated"

Assassin's Creed: First Impressions

2007-11-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

I picked up my copy of Assassin's Creed this morning. And popped it into the old Xbox 360 this morning.

The intro I think goes on a little long. You learn the hook of the game in the first 5minutes. and again I will not spoil it. But if you heard about Kristen Bell and the part she played in the game, then the Assassin has been let out of the bag.

I heard so much negativity about the controls that had I not been seduced by Jade Raymond's cute little Mole, I may have only rented this game.

But thanks to a flat tire and G4TV, (Don't Ask) I watched a preview of the game and I was hooked. It looked so polished and the game play after it was described did not sound so bad.

And so far it has not disappointed. I mean you guys are lucky you are getting first impressions. If my old ass was not getting gaming arthritis because it drizzling here, you would not get my lovely opinions on this game nor Jade Raymond's mole. (Both of which are hot)

As a fan of Le Parkour youtube videos. I feel like a Parkour champion myself after playing this game. However after I tried it running home with the game I tripped over a bench, and realized that at 250 pounds, I was never going to be the parkour man I want to be.

So I leap from rafter to rafter, scale walls and run across fence post in my heart and let Altair do it in digital form. And the fact that by holding down RT and the A button and steering the L stick and walla... I never have to be the bane of Benches again. Run to a wall, and he climbs it, run to a ledge he leaps it.

I can say I recommend this game for rental. I love the team behind it, and at the end of the day, I easedropped on some of its fault, like repetition. But I have not ran into any of the faults after an hour with the game. Whic is expected because thenI would already be bored. So repetition aside, I enjoy the controls, the scaling walls, the historically Acurate story, the mole.

Episode 6: Worst Show Ever

2007-11-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

This so hurts me bad to put up here, no one stayed for the entire epsde the camera was fuzy, and I killed the first have 16 mnutes in. But next week we promise an Actualy show. And I less frazzled Hendersonman.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Combat and Preordering and The Simpsons Game

2007-11-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

Wel i bought Call of Duty 4 on Monday, it seems I was one of the lucky gamers to get to pick this up a day earlier than most. And all I did was go in and preorder it on Monday Morning. A scant few hours before it went on sale.

I have decided that most of my games are going to be reorders. I think it is smart to put down $5 on a game you know you are going to buy. That way you are going to be able to get your copy the earliest it is Available.

I never understood why people hate EB/Gamestop so much. I like most of the employees there. The manager is a dick, I just dont get the same vibe I got with the previous manager Jason. Maybe it was because Jason knew me every single time I walked in the store. My friends said Eb was my Cheers. Everytime I walked in the store they knew me.

Maybe that is why I like my store at the mall the most. As Long as you preorder you get to get your game, unless UPS fails to ship early or what have you.

So i went ahead today and preordered Uncharted Drakes Fortune, this is the PS3 game I am most excited about, and I know I want it. And the demo will be released this week so I can always cancel my preorder. Plus I also Preordered Mass Effect and that my friends is the end to my game buying Budget this year, more than likely. Since you know I dont have a job.

Call of Duty is good. I am not so far impressed with the single player. The graphics are smoth at 60 FPS but there seems to be very little detail. I maybe just getting burnt on FPS (First person Shooters, not frames per second, jeez we need to find a new abrevation of one of those)

But most people dont even bother for the SP mode of this game. So that maybe the reason the developers only made it last 5-6 hours from what I hear. I swill still play through it. Unless early next week I find A rental copy of Assassins Creed.

But the MP is fun, and I like the level up system in the game. The more games you play, the more enemies you kill you rank up and earn abilities. Like Last Stand, where we you are killed you fall to the ground, and pull out your pistol, allowing you to get a few shots off on that fiend that shuffled you from the digital coil.

It really adds a lot of depth to a FPS (again you can only guess which is which) becase you certainly do not get that depth from the maps. I thank all the maps look very similar and I would have liked to have seen a differnt look to them. All the maps in Halo 3 lok unique. These al look very similar. And even one map, if you took out the modern looking tractor, I would be hard presed to tell tha is from a modern time and not just a left over WW2 map.

But it is so much damned fun. I would not have bought it with so many FPS out there al running at 30-60 FPS, but damit my friends in Europe love this game series. I swear, I am not sure how I survived high school with out trying Pot or Heroin because in gamng I suck at avoiding Peer presure.

Anyway if you are on live, have loved ones on live and want to experience something differnt from Halo I recommended this. The graphics are gorgeous, if just a tad of bland textures. If you ar want to try the SP then my gawd man just rent it.

I also rented the SImpsons Game for the crew this weekend. Unfortantely I rented it on PS3. Not that its worse on the PS3, because it is not. I just need achievement Points. I dont want to get to far in this game, because i know i want the achievement points later down the road. So I may wait to buy this game on the cheap in a few months when its in the $20 dump bin. But i will keep it out a little longer so the guys can play it again this weekend, because they are not goig to want to play CoD4.

Also I bought a used game for the PS2 of all things. I re-bought Final Fantasy 12. I have plenty of time to give it unlike the first time I played it, when I was depressed. You know when you find out your sister has given your friend the clap for the second time .. its one of those things.

But I started over from scratch. Since I did not buy the memory card thingy for the PS3, which I could care less I forgot most of the story by this point anyway. So everyone have a great day. And catch us on operator11.com

First thoughts of Tomb Raider: Anniversary (XBox 360)

2007-11-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

I just completed the first level of Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the 360 and was completely surprised. TR:A is a remake of the first ever Tomb Raider. Crystal Dynamics took the foundation that Core (original designer) built and redid a classic. When I started to play, I noticed several things that were in the original, including the T-Rex from the lost world. I will give you my full review after I complete it, so hope you guys can wait. But I suggest you get it.

****I also played Prince of Persia Classic for the XBox Live Arcade. It is a remake of the original game first brought out on the Apple computer back in 1989. The game is updated with the Sands of Time graphics. It is brutally difficult and some of the action is more of a hit-and-miss. I hope that you guys will at least give this game a shot.

Heavenly Sword Review and Impressions

2007-10-30T09:04:00.001-07:00

My impression on the Ps3 game Heavenly Sword on the PS3.

Phil-N-Rob'D Games Episode 5

2007-10-30T08:46:00.001-07:00

Stuido P was filled to the rafters for this weeks episode. We discussed video game music, and the depiction of women in video games.

The Guest this week were
Paul, Brian, and Jesse, along with your loveable host Phil and Rob.

The death of the arcade

2007-10-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

Back in the early years of the great Phillip's life, I always remember my mom and dad taking me to the local Wal-Mart and I would always pass by the arcade machines. There would be two at the Wal-Mart and I would ask my mom for a quarter. There would be times I would just look to see what the new games would be and play them to my hearts content. I remember, one year, that I went to Wal-Mart and blew my entire birthday money on Dark Adventure, a game that I really can't describe good anymore. My mom was none to happy about that. I remember that there was an arcade, called Tilt, at the Washington Square Mall and I could get lost in there for hours on end.
Sadly, those days are gone. Now at Wal-Mart are all those Cabela hunting games. Yeah, great way to teach kids about violence.

"No, Billy. Don't you dare play that game that you shoot fake people. Go over there and blow that bucks head off, though."

The Tilt is gone, and also is the crappy replacement, the Golden Nugget. Those machines were in need of so much repair that half the games didn't work and no one was around to even fix those. Now, the only places to go and play arcade games is a building attached to batting cages, one attached to a putt-putt, and the ones you play while waiting for a movie to start at the cinemas. I just wish there was an area where people could congregate where all people would do it play games and chat about games. I know that we have the Phil-n-Rob'd games podcast (where you can watch us live on operator11.com every Sunday at 3:30 CST), but being able to play with a person right next to you was so much more...intimate. Those were the days.

Phil

Playstation 3

2007-10-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

I am now the owner of a Playstation 3.

So far, I am not impressed with Motorstorm. Hopefully I will enjoy renting heavenly sword and Ratchet later. Or at least something not Motorstorm

Episode 4

2007-10-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the show from this past Sunday. Our Special Guest was Raz from Spain, he showed us a bunch of funny clips. And we talked about cheating in video games, well we did briefly. Would have had this up sooner, but I got addicted to Gilmore Girls. Hey a man needs his sappy romanticsm okay.

Finally...a review of Bully for the PS2

2007-10-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

I have been talking and talking that I will give you a review of Bully when I complete it. Well...here is my review.

Bully is the story of Jimmy Hopkins and a year at the Bullworth Academy. In the beginning, you are the one that is picked on by EVERYBODY. As you slowly progress through they story, you will litterally beat the respect into the separate gangs.

There are similarites between this game and the games that Rockstar is known for, Grand Theft Auto. This game is a sandbox-type in that you have a lot of freedom to move immediately. The big difference is that you don't shoot people with .357 magnums, you shoot them with slingshots and potato guns. Also different is that you have a time that you must be asleep. If you do not get to bed before 2:00AM, you will pass out and may wake up missing some items. You also have classes to attend at 11:00AM and 1:00PM. These classes hamper your advancement in the game, but once you complete the classes, you won't have to attend and you gain incentives, such as ability to talk out of trouble and receive kisses from girls without giving them presents.

Graphics-The graphics are on par with other PS2 games. Not as pretty as God of War and other excellent games, but still good. (B+)

Controls-Control is pretty good. You use the L2-R2 buttons to switch weapons. The battle system is pretty much the square button and the lock-on (L1). When you lock on, you can press the square button and hold it to use different attacks. Once you master that, the game is a breeze. (A-)

Sound-The sound is pretty good. There are no noticable people doing the voices, but they do a great job. With Jimmy not being able to drive cars, there is no need for radio stations. They do a solid job of playing a tune that is perfect for mischief. The ambient sounds of others talking is great and funny. Most of the sound effects are good. When I was driving the go-kart, it takes a little of time to hear the sound of the go-kart. Overall, pretty good, though. (B+)

Challenge-This is where the game suffers. I do use strategy guides, but I do expect some challenge. There was only one mission that took me more than three times to complete, and that was the 3rd to last mission. There was really no challenge, simple as that. (C)

Overall, Bully was a good game. Great atmosphere, great graphics, good sound, but not much of a challenge. Right now, Bully is $19.99 as part of the Greatest Hits and it will be out for the Wii and the 360 as Bully: Scholarship Edition. Those games are scheduled to be released soon.

Overall (B)

Continue to watch the phil-n rob-d games video podcast. We appreciate all of your support.

The Empire Has Grown

2007-10-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

It started with 2 gamers. Endless Gaming. But we have gotten bigger over the last few weeks. We are not 2 gamers, we are 5 gamers strong. Lets say hi to those new guys.

Brian- The Pc man of the group. He likes the PC and we will let him speak on it, since we know nothing about that stuff. Look forward to his discussion on MMORPGs

Jesse- MeeGosh he is our Ms. Pac Man Loving man of the group. He is into the classics and is a self proclaimed Cheap Ass. He wont buy a game until it is in the $20 range.

Paul- He is not sure why he is here. He owns none of the newer systems, but he is planning on buying a Wii for Metriod. But he knows his Classic shit.

So look forward to our new shows on a Video Cast where the doritos run free.

Phil-n-Rob'd Games: Video Game Movie Edition. Part 1 and 2

2007-10-15T04:43:00.000-07:00

Gone to the Dark Side

2007-10-14T07:22:00.001-07:00

I would like to apologize to anyone that thought I wasn't blogging here anymore. The Rob'd part of our group is the hardcore type of gamer. I, on the otherhand, am the more casual gamer. I only spend about 10 hours a week on games. That is why I am still going through Bully. I hope to have it complete within the next 2 to 3 weeks. When I complete it, I will give you all the full review.
I have, I guess, finally jump ship. I went out and purchased an Xbox 360 on Friday. I picked up the Marvel Ultimate Alliance/Forza Motorsport 2 combo. I have been a staunch PlayStation man ever since I picked up my first PS1 and Final Fantasy Tactics. When the first Xbox came out, I was opposed to it and didn't even want to touch it. Xbox got some good games, such as Ninja Gaiden, but I still didn't want one.
When the new generation of consoles came, I was still opposed to the 360. I started to get warmed up to it because of two things. (1) The game library for the 360 was far superior than the PS3. I know that the Japanese are overwhelmingly a PS3 group, but they are now the 2nd largest market for consoles behind us. (2) The arrogance of Sony for putting a $600 system out on the market. There have been several consoles out there that were for $600 and they all failed miserably. There is a limit of how much people would pay for a console and Sony completely missed the mark. Sony tried to put a whole lot of things into a gaming console. They wanted the console to be the all-in-one entertainment center and people don't really do that. They wanted their machine to be the best machine out there. They should have looked at the past generation. The PS2 was far inferior to the Xbox and the Gamecube in terms of power, but it ruled the generation. It ruled with two things: games and notoriety. They have tarnished both of them with this console.
Back to my 360. When I started to look through the Xbox Live, I was amazed. I enjoyed the fact that I could actually download games and try them before I went out and put down $60.00 on one. I like that the 360 would even let me try an Xbox Live Arcade game before putting points on it (YOU NEED TO LEARN THAT NINTENDO). I also do like the chance to download movies (in HD), but to be honest, I have no need for that. It is nice, though. I got some points and downloaded the full version of Uno. UNO! It is pretty cool when you sit back and waste an hour playing Uno with people throughout the world. The only thing that I do not like is that you have to pay $8 a month/$20 for 3 months/$50 for a year for a gold account. That is the only way that you can play with others online and I really don't like that. I think that are going to get enough of my money.
Overall, in the US, there are two powers in the gaming community, the Wii and the 360. They have the games that people want to play. The PS3 may have already lost this war, and may be where the TG 16 and the Amiga CD-32 are, off the complete map.
Don't forget to chat with Rob and I at operator11.com. Well be there at 3:30 central. You can also find me on Xbox Live under “Screenwriterman”. Until later, peace bitches!
Phil

Portal Review (Orange Box 360)

2007-10-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

My Review of the game Portal, a part of the Orange Box on 360

Puzzle Quest Review

2007-10-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

My review of the Game Puzzle Quest on XBLA

Eternal Sonata Review on Op11

2007-10-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

My review of the 360 game Eternal Sonata on Xbox360

Episode 2: Console Wars Part 1 and 2

2007-10-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is the Second Show. It was so awesome we had to split it into 2 parts.

There was a slight problem with the video Quality. Hopfully we will have it figured out by next week.

My thoughts of Brain Age 2

2007-10-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

The one thing that you have to love about Nintendo is that they are very innovative. With the motion sensor of the Wii to the touch screen functionality of the DS, Nintendo seems to put interaction before blow-me-away graphics. Now with that interaction comes new and great ideas, such as Brain Age 2. Just like the original, Brain Age 2 allows the player to try to work their brain in new and exciting ways. There is piano player, where you need to coordinate your hands with a beat by pressing certain keys on a virtual piano. There is also Word Scrambler where a word is mixed around and they spin in a circle and you need to write the correct word (very difficult).

Now, the graphics on this is not the best that the DS has to offer, BUT WHO CARES! The main reason why you would purchase the game is not the way it looks. The game does enough to make sure that you will enjoy it.

The sound on it is pretty well...for the most part. The music on the Piano Player is pretty good. One game (Word Blend) is very difficuly for you to hear because the game is speaking two and three words together and you have to write down the words. Some of them get blurred because you need to turn the volume all the way up to even try to hear it. During Rock, Paper, Scissors, the microphone does a barely competent job of recognizing your voice. Overall, not the best.

The touch pad does a decent job of recognizing letters, but for some very odd reason, it has a hard time figuring out what an "H" is.

Overall, this is a pretty good game for people that want to use their brains for more than hand-eye coordination. It is great that there are games that allow you to work the whole brain, and not just that hand-eye part.

3.5/5

Sorry for The Delay

2007-10-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

My Wedding Cake if I am ever lucky enough to get married again.

Its been a week let me tell you. All I have played until Today was Halo 3. And I have big plans with it tomorrow also. My buddy from high school who disappears and reappears more than the Arbiter with a cloaking device has finaly gotten a 360. S I promised him I would take him through Halo 3. Okay I am sure he would prefer a better partner, but he is stuck with me dammit.

Today I broke the menotonous shooting of things, to play some more Lumines Live, and Tetris Splash. I found out one thing, I am about tetrised out. Do we really need to release more tetris games that have no improvments. We have been playing the same game since the game boy. The graphics get a little more pretty, but nothing else is innovative.

Lumines on the other hand is fun. I really wish I were better at it than I am, oh well. I am hearing a good rumor coming down the pipe line. Puzzle Quest will be out on the Xbox live Arcade next week. I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THIS ONE. I have waited so long for this game.

I enjoyed doing the show. I really think I missed my calling in the production industry. But we are planning as far as I know to shoot episode 2 this Sunday, at 1:30 PST. (3:30 our time in Central). As of right now we will be giving our opinions on the Consoles. And several other fun topics will release later.

Let us know what you think by leaving comments. AndI hope to see you in the studio next week.

Later

Robert

Phil-N-Rob'd Games Super Hype Show

2007-09-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

My Review of Halo 3

2007-09-27T22:50:00.000-07:00

Okay I just finished the fight.

This games was what I expected and more. I never finished the first 2 halos til a little over a month ago. So a lot of the story was fresh for me. And I think that made the game better for me.

I was not expecting Citizen Kane, I was expecting Halo 3. And what I got was amazing. So let me go over a few points that other web sites are going on about.

Point 1) Graphics. I think the graphics are perfect for Halo 3. Hlo 3 is not Gears of War. They are two totally differnt types of games. Gears level design is one that you are fighting in confined levels. Halo 3 is fully 3d. SO when you watch a saved film, you can actually go behind every building, go into buildings, and focus on every shot fired from a gun. This game is a master piece when it comes to this game.

Point 2) Length Okay size does not matter right. I did not feel this game was short at all. It took me a few hours to Finish the Fight. And I now know I want to finish it again with friends in Co-op. I say it took me about 11 hours to finish the game on normal.

Point 3) Difficulty This was the most annoying thing to me. Normal was not that hard, except at first. But I did feel that the Heroric Difficulty was way to hard. I plan on giving heroic another try. I had to go back and finish the first level and it was not that hard the second time through, so maybe heroic will be for me. I am saving legendary for my friends in Co-op

The Multiplayer shines. I still suck at it. But people still want to team up with me, I guess they are gluttons for punishment.

I Loved the story for Halo 3. I will be playing this game for weeks and months on MP. As long as those bastards on live dont figure out how to cheat like they did in Halo 3. I give this game a buy for MP. If you are not going to play MP then it is a rent only. But as I can see from my friends list, everyone already bought it.

So have fun Be safe and always use a bubble shield.

Scratched Disc

2007-09-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

The limited edition Disc for Halo 3 is scratched. ANd I made a small video to show it.

The Aftermath

2007-09-24T22:30:00.001-07:00

Before The Halo 3 Launch

2007-09-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Second opinion: Metroid Prime 3

2007-09-24T13:31:00.001-07:00

When Metroid first came around on the NES back in the day, people enjoyed the side-scrolling action and Mother Brain. We cannot, also, forget about what would happen when you completed the game in less than 2 hours. With Metroid 2 (GB) and Super Metroid (SNES), the formula continued to work really well. When Metroid Prime debuted on the Game Cube, people were shocked and really worried about the move to FPS. Well, when you played it, you know that the move was a great move for everybody.
Now, with the Wii, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption; the bar has been raised even higher. MP3:C begins six months after the events of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and follows bounty hunter Samus Aran as she assists the Galactic Federation in their fight against the Space Pirates, despite being slowly corrupted by the mutagenic material, Phazon. The Wiimote gives such a level of immersion with the game that it boggles the mind. You point the Wiimote at the enemy and press A to shoot. You use the nunchuck to move around and disable shields. The graphics look about as good as any on the Wii right now. The controls are fluid (just try not to switch hands due to exhaustion), and there are VOICE ACTORS! I don't have to sit back and read the story. Overall, if you have a Wii, you need to get this game.

First Impressions: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

2007-09-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

I do not own a wii and I never thought I really wanted a wii, I thought the wii was a disappointing console. None of the games really appealed to me. But Yesterday I saw a glimmer of hope. I seen the reason for a hard core gamer to buy one. I seen, touched, played... Metroid Prime 3.

I suffered through learning the controls, I only played it for few minutes. Phil really enjoyed it. He was alot better at it then I was, and I think that is my only complaint.

When Phil played it, at times it was poetry in motion. When I played it, it was more poultry in motion... as in running around ith my head cut off. But at the same time I was jealous. I wanted a wii. I wanted to explore, a very great looking game. The graphics seemed to work for the game, it was no gears of war, but you really did not need that.

I was not very good aiming the wiimote. I would not be able to aim very well, but the lock on feature helped for the most part. I got easily confused on moving. There is something about the way your arms are not close together confuses me.

The most fun though is opening doors. To watch your friend struggle. I mean how difficult can it be to pull the wiimote towards you, twist it and push it forward. For me,very difficult. But it made it very interesting at the same time. And riping shields away with the grapple beam was a lot of fun.

The bad thing is that after about 2 hours, Phil was tired. The game takes a lot out of you,and that has always been one of my problems with the wii.

I know one reviewer said that this is the way all FPS should be played. But I have to disagree with that. I would not enjoy my FPS if they were all like that. But at the same time. I noticed Phil Struggled just as much with the BIOSHock Controls since he was not used to FPS at all. So I guess it is a matter of where you start, as to where you are.

From what I played I was impressed. I wanted to play more, but at the same time I thought about getting a wii, and do i really want to blow through a game here, or wait a while and enjoy it from the comfort of my own recliner.

I would highly recommend those looking for a deeper game to sink there colective teeth into this one. The better this sales the more games like this we get. So when you are at the Store, Put down that copy of Carnival Games, and pick up Metroid Prime 3

Hola Halo

2007-09-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

Well tomorrow night I will be standing in line at the stroke of midnight, waiting to finish the fight. I have decided to go to walmart instead of EB Games where I had it preordered.

One reason is walmart is 10 minutes away. Two, they are giving away Halo 3 dog tags. I mean who could not use a set of Halo 3 Dog Tags. I am deciding that if they have the $70 I am going to get it instead of the normal version. I want the little collector tin.

I have sat around tonight watching video review after video review, and I can not wait to Finish The Fight. There were moments that I had to hiverwith delight. More like a Geekgasm. And when they showed Infection mode, I squelled with delight. I can rememebr playing that back in the day when we went by the honor system. I am sure I will be playing more of that then anything else.

So look forward to tomorrow.... well maybe more like Tuesday, for me to show off my dog tags, my Unboxing video and my first impressions. And any shennanigans that happen during the Walmart line.

Robert "Henderson Master Chief" Wood

Retro Lust Part 2

2007-09-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ocassionally I will purchase some old arcade game for the xbox live arcade. I enjoy old games, but really I am stuck in the present. However, some of the recent purchases I made are:

Streets of Rage 2: i dont think i ever realy played this back in the day. I finished the first one. But the second one I think I had a hard time finding to rent. I miss the old beat em up genre. Heres to hoping Capcom jams a Final Fight down our gullet, while we wait for another DeAD Rising.

Sonic The Hedgehog: I remember buying a Genesis from my buddy Will in high school. With it, I got Sonic and fantasia. While Fantasia was not good at all. Sonic will always hold a special place in my gaming heart... until now. Sonic 1 did not age so well. No spin dash, enemies appear out of nowhere, come on. Oh well the good thing is I only paid $5 for it.

Pacman,Ms pacman: old favorites. I remember the first time I ever seen a pac man arcade machine. It was a tabletop at a local diner my dad and i would go to, most of the time we would go there on his way way to work in the oil fields. He would take me along and we would get breakfast and play Pacman. I have to highly recommend pacman Championship edition. All the coolness of pacman, redone. Bright colors and great addicitive fun. think of it as: Pacman at a rave

Paperboy: My friend Melanie loved this game as a kid, and so i bought this game so she could play it anytime she wanted to. I liked it too. But man, this game is hard.

Digdug: Next to Burgertime, this was one of my favorite arcade games. The skill this game takes when you get to the upper levels is awesome. What this game offered over any arcade game of its time was the levels never really felt the same. Rocks, and tunnels were in differnt places. And trying to work out the maze in your heard was awesome. Now XLA give us burgertime

So there are just a few of the retro games I have played lately.

have a great day

Hendersonman

Retro Lust

2007-09-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

Video games have been around me all my life. I remember getting an NES when I was young and that was the only gift I can ever remember. I remember playing a ton of games on that console from Peter Pan and The Pirates to Super Mario 3. Thank God, now, that the Wii console has brought the old games back. I sat back last weekend and played The Legend of Zelda for about 8 hours and I am pretty close to completing the second quest. Considering game development is in the millions of dollars, playing a game with characters who can only have 3 colors on them is a great thing.

Past gen consoles were getting into the fold with retro games. Sega Genesis Collection, Mega Man Collection, and Taito Legends are just some of the compilations that were on the PS2, 'Cube, and XBox. The Wii virtual console and XBox live see that people do like the oldies and are selling them online. Companies are also thinking that and you are seeing NES emulators (due to the NES patent expired) being brought into the fold. I own a Generation NEX console and actually bought a screw bit to remove the old batteries from old NES games. When I am able to play Final Fantasy on the NES and be able to save to the cartridge, I will be in heaven.

Real Life Donkey Kong

2007-09-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

When i was in High School. I had a Psychology teacher who told me that when I was done with his Psyche class that I would understand why people do the things they do.

12 years later, I still think he was senile. What would possible make someone do this... Besides for my unadulterated Amusement. I present to you, Real life Donkey Kong. (no Billy Mitchell included)

My Thoughts: Medal of Honor: Airborne (360)

2007-09-19T14:39:00.001-07:00

Wow. I knew the Medal of Honor games was going down in quality over the years, but did they have to make such a mess of it on its first deployment on the 360. The first time i popped this game in the system, I was excited. I remember storming the beaches of Normandy, Bombs exploding around me, the scared soldier screaming beside me. But this game has something the other games did not have.

The worst accuracy of any weapon ever. i am not sure if it was the aiming sights, or just poor programing. Trying to shoot a gun across the battlefield was a diffcult to do as trying to teach Helen Keller to Mountain Climb.

The game also suffered from Monster Closet Syndrome. Enemies would seem to reappear everywhere. I am not sure how they got there. I felt like there was times that I had cleared out the room and the next thing I know, I come around a corner, and I get Fatal Lead poisioning.

And another thing. When I say the word, Checkpoint, to you in a video game... whats that make you think of. Well In MoH:A it means sure you killed one of the three generals you were tasked to do, but you still have to jump out of the plane, and get back to the same spot you died at. With all the enemies you killed, having respawned. Not only that, unless you reach one of these check points, you do not get to keep the upgrade to your weapons.

Now, it sounds like I am dogging this game for its annoying level of difficulty. but I did find something that actually made it somewhat fun. I had to change the difficulty to Casual. After that, the enemies were not head shot kings. The moster closets closed up shop and the weapon upgrades did not make me want to pull my hair out. At these point I was able to finish the game.

I really think EA could have given this game a little more devolpment time and made a game worthy of playing. As it is now, I am not sure I would buy this game if i had a thousand dollars in cash and nothing else to spend it on. However if you are a WWII fan, and are not sick of the entire genre, then I say go for it as a rental. I did not try the MP mode on the game, but I have not heard anything really good about it. So i would say its a rental.

Welcome

2007-09-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Rob. I am the creator of a new blog, and soon to be a co host of the new philnrobd Video Cast on Operator11.com

My friend and fellow gamer Phil, will talk about all the hype surrounding games, and even get to some serious duscussion on topics that we feel need to be address. If it effects gaming, we will talk about it.

Also, we will review games, to tell you our honest opinion about what makes the games you want to play great, and if they fell short of the hype.

Please leave your questions and comments. Have a great Day.

Phil-n-Robd Games Creator
Robert "Hendersonman" Wood