Super Heroes vs. Karate Dudes vs. Ninjas vs. Demons vs. Gods vs. Aliens

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is an excellent game. I got the majority of the single player experience in the 5 days I had it from the video store. But honestly, when it comes to fighting games, the single player is going to get old rather quickly. It's the multiplayer that keeps a fighting game fresh. It used to be that you would have to call up friends and have a room full of sweaty nerds to get a full multiplayer experience. This caused all sorts of problems, who was responsible for bringing the cheetos? Who drank the last Mt. Dew? Who left a floater in the bathroom? Thankfully, with the INVENTION OF THE INTERNET, the congregation of the nerds can now be done through the fat pipes of the INTERWEB.

Hyperbole and jokes aside, the internet does make it a lot easier to get a good group of people together to play a good fighting game and, for the most part, MvC 3 pulls it off swimmingly. The only real issue I ran into was occasionally it would take a few tries to connect to an opponent. Not a big deal at all. The biggest problem I had was the fact that through online play my skills were exposed as "weaksauce" My final tally was something along the lines of 3 wins and 17 losses. Hell, I lost my first 9 fights. This was all to similarly ranked opponents so either I really, really suck, or I kept running into fighting game veterans playing online for the first time. I'm worried it was the former.

Everything else about the game is spot-on though. Character roster is excellent, graphics are absolutely gorgeous, the screen often looks like a colorful mess of controlled chaos. Controls are simple to pick up but take a long time to master. It is the best fighting game out there right now.

Got to spend some time with Bulletstorm recently. I haven't played it a lot yet but so far, from what I've played, it is really fun. Shallow, kind of stupid, fun. Getting points for killing in creative ways is addictive and Bulletstorm has no shortage of ways to kill. The leash is what seperates it from other FPS games. You can grab enemies with it and pull them in in slow motion to setup shots to different body parts, or you can pull them into obstacles in the level for bonus points. Overall it's a pretty hectic experience. We'll see how it holds up as I play more but I can see the game getting repetitive after awhile. It follows a pretty standard kill enemies, run through level, kill more enemies approach. The most fun I've had so far is riding a train while being chased by some giant drilling wheel thingy. On rails, shooting the hell out of everything while blowing up explosive barrels to knock the wheel off course was a ton of fun. If these levels get mixed in more often then the repetition I was concerned about earlier in the paragraph won't be an issue. I'll expound upon it more after I've put more time into the game this week.

In the world of Xbox Live Arcade games, I recently picked up Sonic 4 when it was on sale. I was very skeptical when I heard about it coming out. I own every other 2D Genesis Sonic game and I love them will all of my gaming heart, but most of the Sonic games since then have been mediocre to bad. Sonic 4 settles somewhere between the greatness of the old games and the mediocrity of the newer ones. They finally gave up on trying to update the game into the 3D realm and went back to what made Sonic games great. Two dimensions and high speed ring collecting. The formula works but something about Sonic 4 doesn't quite feel right. It's still good but not as good. The updated graphics are sharp, but Sonic looks weird...kind of stretched out. The sense of speed isn't quite what it used to be either. I've not finished it yet, but from what I've played it is worth picking up. It's the best Sonic game made in a long time even if it isn't perfect.

That's pretty much it for this entry. Well, I did borrow Sims 3 from the library and play it some. It's relatively standard Sims fare so I'm not going to go into it here. I more got it for the wife to play and to milk for some achievements. It's not bad. If you're a Sims fan you'll like it, if you aren't you won't. Pretty straightforward.

Next entry I'll continue discussing Bulletstorm and whatever else I play. I need to get back into Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Call of Duty: Black Ops, as well as start Halo: Reach, though I would like to finish Halo 3 and Halo: ODST before I even begin Reach but we'll see.

Until next time.

Top Ten Xbox Live Arcade Games

The title says it all, this is a list of my ten favorite Xbox Live Arcade games. Originals, remakes, ports...anything goes here.

10. Pac-Man CE DX

Fast, fun, and frantic, these are the three F's of Pac-Man CE DX. Eschewing the classic gameplay in favor of a rhythmic, patterned game, DX takes the original formula for Pac-Man and injects it with flavor. Instead of completing the maze while avoiding ghosts, DX gives you a number of different mazes with patterns of dots to eat. The name of the game is speed and timing instead of careful avoidance. The idea is the find the best and fastest path through the dots and ghosts while gathering fruit and power pellets. As you pass sleeping ghosts they awaken and chase you. The best part of the game comes when you eat a power pellet and turn on the 30 or so ghosts chasing you. Building up combos like this is how you score the big points. The only thing that kept DX down on the list is it doesn't offer a lot of variety and it got stale after awhile. When it was fresh though, DX was one of the finest XBLA experiences I've had.

9. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is simply one of the best games ever made. Originally released on the Playstation 1, SotN became a rare and valuable gem to add to your gaming collection. Taking the Castlevania action packed gameplay and injecting it with RPG elements was a flash of brilliance. The voice acting is laughably horrible and the graphics are dated but this is still some of the most fun you can have gaming. It gets held down on my list only because it is basically a port with nothing new added and I'd played it so many times on the Playstation that it was a little bit old hat. I still fire it up from time to time for another go through, and I probably will until the end of time.

8. Limbo

I wrestled with where to put Limbo for awhile. I had it higher up at first but when I started adding more games to the list it got pushed down. When I first started playing Limbo I loved it. Within minutes it was my favorite XBLA game. The black and white style, the visceral gameplay and creative puzzles sucked me in. The spider in the beginning was a thing of my nightmares brought to life. In a word, it was perfect. Then I played some more, and some more and the puzzles got more complicated and introduced new mechanics and suddenly I wasn't having as much as I was before. It got too complicated for itself. Adding in gravity modifiers and such took away what made the game so great to begin with...it's simplicity. When the game was running and jumping from giant spiders and weird humanoid creatures hellbent on your death, Limbo was gaming perfection. If they had kept the puzzles simple and challenging Limbo might have been at the top of this list. The first half hour or so were enough for me to consider it in the top 3. In the end though, the game lost itself near the end and stopped being fun and became frustrating. So, Limbo ends up here. One of the best games on XBLA but not the absolute best.

7. Trials HD

Crazy jumps on motorcycles, vicious crashes, flips, and speed. Trials HD has it all. Simple gameplay belies just how difficult this game is. You control speed and braking and the angle of your bike. Using these controls you navigate a ton of levels. It's more of a platformer then a racer though everything you do is timed. It's a game that starts off easy and very gradually gets finger crampingly difficult. The end levels will leave you a broken husk of a person. It can get frustrating at times, especially when there is a single block that you just can't seem to get past no matter how hard you try. In the end though, when you finally figure it out, the sense of accomplishment is always worth the frustration. With tons of levels, and a healthy amount of mini-games, Trials HD has enough to keep you busy for a long time.

6. Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers was one of the most anticipated titles to come out on XBLA. I remember reading about it for months, looking at pictures and waiting impatiently for its release. There was a very real chance that it would be disappointing after all of the hype. Fortunately, it lived up to the expectations, hell, it might have exceeded them. The one thing that keeps it from being closer to the top of the list is the fact that it for maximum enjoyment, you need at least 2 people. A a single player experience it is still fun, but it gets monotonous pretty quickly. When you get a group together to play the game becomes hectic, fast paced, fun. Also, for being a pretty basic brawler, Castle Crashers has a surprising amount of replay. Each time through the game unlocks new characters to control, there are hidden pets to find, and stats to increase. The graphic style is one of the best to be found with bright colorful characters mixed with blood and viscera. It's a pretty funny juxtaposition if you have a good sense of humor. So whether you have friends or spend your time alone and lonely, Castle Crashers is an excellent way to lose a weekend.

5. Peggle

PEGGLE! God I love Peggle. Another simple game made fun by excellent, excellent gameplay. It's kind of like Plinko and pinball had a baby. The entire premise of the game is clearing the screen of orange pegs by bouncing a small ball off of them. You set the angle and the ball does the rest, careening around until it either falls through the bottom of the screen or is caught by the moving "basket" at the bottom, resulting in a free shot. Different cartoon-y characters host levels, each one offering it's own special shot like multi-ball or zen shot where the AI auto adjusts your shot for maximum point value. For such a simple concept it can be pretty tough. Beating the levels isn't particularly hard, the true challenge comes from trying to max out your score. It is ridiculously addicting and very easy to pick up, even for non-gamers. It's one of the few games my wife plays, and of those few games, it's probably the one she has spent the most time with. Anybody can play because it really is just that simple. Incredibly easy to play, incredibly difficult to master.

4. Shadow Complex

Shadow Complex is the most ambitious of XBLA games. Utilizing the Unreal engine for graphics and borrowing heavily from Super Metroid (one of the greatest games ever made) Shadow Complex is an instant classic and a must play for anyone who considers themselves a gaming enthusiast. If you've ever played Super Metroid, or Metroid, or any other two dimensional action/adventure game, then you already have a good idea what Shadow Complex is all about. It isn't anything original, but it is so well made that you shouldn't care. Tons of hidden collectibles like missile upgrades, giant robot bosses, tons of scrubby guards to shoot, and puzzling puzzles all add up to one of the best experiences available on the arcade. Almost top 3, but it just got beat out. Honestly, any of the games in the top 5 are so close together that I almost didn't bother ranking them...but then this wouldn't be a top 10 list now would it?

3. Puzzle Quest

I love it when genres mix together to make something greater than the sum of it's parts. There are mediocre examples of puzzle RPGs (gyromancer comes to mind) and there are sterling examples that keep you playing for months and months and months. Puzzle Quest is obviously the latter. An excellent example of how you can take two great ideas and make something amazing. Puzzle Quest takes a simple concept, matching same color tiles, coats it in a slathering of RPG elements such as character creation, leveling, magic spells, armor and weapons, fantasy creatures such as orcs, dragons, and elves, and a pretty decent story featuring evil, all-powerful Gods. The whole concept is so simple it's amazing how deep the whole thing can be. You move colored gems to make matches of 3. Each color represents an element and gaining elements allow you to cast spells. Matching skulls on the board damages your opponents. A combination of casted magic and skull matching leads to your enemies demise...or your demise. That's the whole game in a nut shell but it ends up being so much more. I've personally spent hours and hours and hours playing and I still haven't quite finished it. The ability to find hidden relics and craft your own artifacts just adds even more to an already full experience. The cup runneth over when it comes to Puzzle Quest and I am happy to drink.

2. Marble Blast Ultra

The second game I ever purchased from the arcade (Geometry Wars being the first) Marble Blast Ultra is still one of my favorite games to just put on and play. I sound like a broken record, but simple gameplay once again wins the day. You control a marble and you need to navigate from a starting point to a finish point, occasionally picking up a few gems in between. Most levels though rely on the simple start to finish mechanic. In between is where things get awesome. The level design ranges from simple and fun to mind-numbingly difficult. It never gets frustrating though. Even when you've fallen 50 times at the same location, you will always feel compelled to finish. The "skiing" levels are of particular note. Nothing between you and the finish except for a downhill slope and ridiculous speeds. Each level has a par time to try and beat and beating them all is an accomplishment that few will achieve. The final level alone (cleverly named "Schadenfreude" which is a German word meaning to derive pleasure from someone's pain) will defeat most people. I beat it eventually with a time of over 45 minutes. I don't expect I'll ever make par even though I give it a shot every now and then. I'll still be trying in a couple of years unless they ever make a sequel. The online play was fantastic too. I say was because sadly, there is little to no action anymore. Back when the game was still popular though the online play was fantastic. There wasn't a lot to it. Rolling along competing with people for gems on the board. Whoever collected the most won. Very simple, very fast paced, and very fun. There is not a single game on the arcade that needs a sequel more then Marble Blast Ultra.

1. Braid

Simply the best...the title belongs to thee, Braid. This didn't take a lot of thought. When I was putting together the list Braid started at number one and nothing even came close to knocking it out of the top spot. It really is a game that has it all. Story, atmosphere, gameplay...everything. Such a simple idea. Make a basic platformer and give the player the ability to control time. That's all it is. So simple, yet so intriguing. The story is really what sells it. I'm not going into much detail but you control Tim, a man who is searching for something or someone, a man who has made a mistake he regrets and wants to fix. The story is revealed by little books between the levels and through pictures you put together by finding pieces in the levels. Like the game itself, the story is very minimal but completely sucks you in. You feel genuine emotion for this man and his princess. It's presented so brilliantly that I can't do it justice with words. This sounds cheesy but you have to really play the game to understand it. I could go on and on about how amazing it is, how using the time mechanic to open doors and kill enemies while trying to find keys and puzzle pieces is unbelievably fun, but it would be a waste of time. My words will not do it justice. If you read this and you have the means, go play Braid right now.

Brotherhood of Creed - Scott Stapp Approves

Finally dug into Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood after it sat here for weeks collecting dust. I don't know why I waited so long other then the fact I had been dedicating about 95% of my gaming time to Lost Odyssey which I'm not going to talk about at all here. This is the last time it will be mentioned, I swear it.

Anyway, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. It's fantastic. I haven't progressed too far into the story yet but it definitely seems to be pretty standard Ass Creed fair. It really feels almost exactly like Assassin's Creed 2 and that is certainly ok. It picks up right at the end of the previous game and just runs with it. They didn't overthink it, they just took a good game, made some slight improvements, and went for it.

One of the few changes to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is in the title...brotherhood. After going at it alone in the first 2 games and through the beginning of Brotherhood, you open up the ability to get citizens to join your assassinly adventures. You can call on them with a press of a button to smite your enemies, or you can send them on missions to earn money and experience. There are pigeon coops throughout Rome where you can control your lackeys. It's a nice diversion from the standard game.

So far the story is a direct continuation from Assassin's Creed 2. I'm not going to go into it here due to spoilage but it is pretty good stuff. They use the same mechanic from Ass Creed 2 where you unlock tiny parts of back story by solving puzzles located on important buildings. The puzzles are tough but very fun.

They've expanded the idea of rebuilding your own villa into rebuilding all of Rome. The basic principle is the same, earn money to reopen various shops, but they've added in landmarks, and underground tunnels to make travel around the giant city a bit more manageable.

I seem to be about halfway through the game so I'll talk about it some more in the future as I progress further.

Rented Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 finally. I wasn't going to but the game just kept calling to me like some Siren, summoning me to smash my ship against the rocks and drown at sea...well, it eventually worked. I put a few hours into it so far and it is quite excellent. I'm far from a fighting game expert. I don't spend hours and hours and days and days mastering anything in fighting game. I'm more of an enthusiast. I love to play them, and I get pretty good usually, but anyone who spends time practicing can beat me. I find fighting games are best when you have a group of guys hanging out who don't get real technical. Then it is just plain fun. MvC3 is one of the better fighting games I've played. It is similar in appearance to Super Street Fighter IV and this is an excellent thing. They took those stunning graphics and made them prettier.

The gameplay is insane. 3v3 combat gets very hectic but it is never out of control crazy. To the casual observer it may look like a jumbled mess of characters and fire and energy weapons and swords and robots but to the people playing it is a controlled frenzy of fighting and tag teaming and super moves and lasers and robots and weird cat ladies with giant...paws.

Also, the last boss is Galactus. I love Galactus. I haven't delved into the online play except for one fight where I was destroyed by another guy with a 0-0 record. I don't know if that means I am especially terrible or if he was just good and hadn't played online yet...I prefer to believe the latter.

I will cover some more on MvC3's finer points as they are revealed to me over the week I've got the game rented so look forward to that in my next entry.

That's about it for this round. Look for another top 10 list in the next day or two (Top 10 Xbox Live Arcade Games) and another classic review from the depths of my hard drive.

Until next time readers.

Blast from the Past - Gran Turismo 4 Review

Every now and again I'm going to dig in to the old archive from when I wrote for etoychest.org and post an old review of mine. Today is going to be my Gran Turismo 4 review. Based on reading it I would say I thought very highly of the game at the time.

"In reviewing Gran Turismo 4, one must harken back to some of history’s greatest achievements. The Great Wall Of China, The Pyramids, The Mona Lisa, The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, etc… All of these things have one common denominator. They are works of art beyond what normal mortals can create. Yamauchi is no mere mortal. His creation, Gran Turismo 4, is to video games what these great accomplishments were to their respective fields. Groundbreaking, breathtaking, and many other adjectives all ending in ing. To put it in perspective, GT4 is damn near perfect.

This is no mere game. GT4 is a crowning achievement. The kind of game that will have you busy for years trying to do everything, leaving you happily frustrated as you strive for 100% completion. Now, don’t get too excited though. Only the most hardcore will ever see 100% on GT4. There is simply too much to do for the average gamer. 24 hour endurance races, over 700 cars, tons of tracks, Model specific races, used cars that only appear on certain days, and that is just scratching the surface. Anyone who managed 100% on GT3 will discover at least twice as much time is required for GT4. It’s just that much grander in scale. It’s amazing that so much can be crammed on a single DVD.

The graphics are, of course, stellar. Light reflects off of the cars with stunning precision, the crowds are animated and lively. (During rally races, they will leap out to take a picture, then run back before you hit them. And no, you can’t hit them no matter how hard you try.) The courses are nothing short of beautiful. Photographic backgrounds lend a sense of realism never before seen in a racing game. Mountains and trees are gorgeous to behold. Truly every course is a complete work of art. Then there is the photo mode. You can save your replays, race laps especially for photos, or pose your cars in one of many various locales, all for the sake of photographing your machine. You can save these photos to your memory card or, in what is a brilliant move, you can use any USB drive to save them to, so you can transfer them to your computer and share them with the world, or if you are feeling clever, photoshop your ugly mug into the car and impress friends. The photos look so amazing that you could easily fool someone into thinking it was a real car…imagine the possibilities!!!

Gameplay has always been the staple of this series, and GT4 manages to take it to another level. Somehow, Polyphony has managed to not only surpass GT3, they’ve beat it up and stolen its lunch money. It feels like you are driving. No doubt about it. The cars handle amazingly well, one would imagine just like their real world counterparts, but most people have not ever driven a $150,000 Mercedes 200 mph in the real world to use as a guide, although it would be safe to say it would handle almost exactly like it does in GT4. Nothing else can be said. No other game is as good as this, hands down.

The “extras” are just icing on the cake. GT4 offers a B-spec racing mode, which is similar to managing a sports team. You tell the driver how you want him to handle the race, and he the AI does the rest. You can make changes on the fly as well. You can tell the driver to try and pass, or to slow down, whatever you feel is the best course of action to win. As always, car upgrades make an appearance in GT4. There are no external modifications except for adding a spoiler, or changing the wheels, which was a little disappointing, but that isn’t what the Gran Turismo series is about. It’s about taking a 100HP Civic and turning it into a racing machine, and all of the options are there. The best part is, if you are a car novice, you can make changes that don’t require a lot of work, but enthusiasts will be enamored with the ability to adjust gear ratios, downforce, camber, suspension, etc…

Gran Turismo 4 is an amazing balance. It is never too complicated for beginners, but always complicated enough for grizzled vets who’ve been driving since you were sucking on your mama’s teat at Lollapalooza. This is what really separates it from other games. Sure, the presentation is beyond human comprehension, the graphics are outrageously beautiful, and there is enough gameplay to keep the average person busy throughout their natural life, but it’s the balance that really makes it perfect. Gran Turismo 4 is one of those games that come along about once or twice a year and just blow everything else before it out of the water. Even if you are not a fan of the racing genre, GT4 is a must play. Even if it is just so you can shake your head in disbelief at the amazing visuals, or gasp at the sheer magnitude of the GT4 experience. Don’t deny yourself this simple pleasure, it is worth every second."

Wow, I really, really liked Gran Turismo 4 when it came out...maybe a little too much.

Top Ten Evilest Bastards in Video Game History

As a little side note before I publish my first top-ten list.

1. These are for fun, just something to write while I'm playing games to blog about.

2. I have extremely little PC gaming experience and I never owned an original X-Box so if you see a lack of characters mentioned from games that were original X-Box or PC only this would be why.

3. These are opinion pieces based on my opinion therefore they cannot be wrong. You can disagree, but they can never be wrong.

4. I'm going to do most of these from memory without a lot of research so there is a good chance I will miss someone or something that should have been on the list...oh well.

5. HERE BE SPOILERS! If you haven't finished the game I mention then don't read on because there are probably spoilers within.

Now, on to the first list from least to most.

10. Bowser - Super Mario Series

He just keeps kidnapping the Princess...what are his intentions? Cross-breeding? World domination? Who the hell knows. He does seem to be extremely competent at kidnapping but extremely incompetent at hostage retention. You definitely have to admire his spirit, his never-give-up attitude, his...ok, maybe after failing 900 times it might be time to give up and try something new.

9. The Joker - Batman: Arkham Asylum (and other lesser Batman games)

The Joker is one of the most evil characters I can think of and if it wasn't for the fact that I think of him more as a comic book character then a video game character I would have him a lot higher on this list. The guy is straight-up insane but in control enough to be very dangerous. He seems to have no regard for human life and wants to be evil. He enjoys it more than any other character. He prays on people's fears and uses them against him. When Mark Hamill is performing the laugh it sends chills down your spine.

8. Gongora - Lost Odyssey

Yes...Lost Odyssey again. I'm making an effort to limit the number of RPG villains on this list bit it is hard. No other genre gets to develop characters like RPG's due to their story driven gameplay. Gongora is a damn evil bastard. He comes to the world with 4 others that all become immortal. He seals away their memories, kills important officials and tries to sacrifice humans in an attempt to become the ruler of a nation. He then uses his powers to create magical beasts to wipe out an army and freezes an entire city. He is cold, calculated, and manipulating all while showing a complete disregard for human life. I kept him low because his final form went down like a little bitch to my over powered party at the end of the game...and there are more evil people in video games, such as...

7. Dracula - (Tons of Castlevania games)

Another villain who is kept down by the face that he isn't strictly a video game villain. Although, now that I think about it, there is probably a large portion of the gaming community who doesn't know that Dracula is a famous person from history and literature but, I digress. This is an article about the video game dracula.

Not a ton to say here. He shows up with his evil castle every so often and threatens mankind. He clearly hates man, thinks they are a miserable little pile of secrets, and is a vampire so lives off of the life blood of humans. All very evil.

6. Albert Wesker - (Resident Evil)

Wesker...not only does he look like a complete douchebag, he acts like one too. In the beginning he starts off on your team but later it is revealed he is undercover the entire time for the Umbrella Corporation. He is conniving and intelligent not to mention completely delusional. He doesn't think he is trying to destroy the world, he thinks he is trying to save it. When the shit hit the fan he faked his death and ended up with super-powers from an experimental virus. His latest plan was to turn the world into superhumans and rule over them as a God. Of course, he failed. He'll be back though, you can count on it.

5. Ganon or Ganondorf (Legend of Zelda)

Throughout time there has been a hero to rescue Hyrule. A silent protagonist who saves the world over and over again from the same guy...Ganon...or Ganondorf...or whatever. The sometimes piggish faced evil mastermind that has been trying to rule Hyrule for as long as anyone there can remember. He differs from game to game in appearance and power but he is always an evil bastard. A powerful sorcerer he uses his magic for his own nefarious gains and will not let anything get in his way. He is seemingly immortal thanks to the tri-force of power and no matter how many times Link takes him down he comes back more powerful and more evil.

4. M. Bison (Street Fighter)

The leader of Shadowloo (an organization hell-bent on controlling the world's government) he will use any means necessary to achieve his goals. He is in control of an evil energy called "Psycho Power" which he evilly uses to kill people with evil. Many of the Street Fighter characters have a vendetta against him for various evil things he has done. He looks demonic, his eyes glow white, and he controls "psycho power" to kill people so he can take over the world. That's pretty damn evil if you ask me.

3. Mecha-Hitler (Wolfenstein 3D)

Come on...It's Hitler, one of the most evil people in the history of the world, except he is a freaking robot! With machine gun arms. Does it get more evil then this? Well...yes, since he is only #3 but that is only because Wolfenstein 3D never really had a story. Until someone makes a Robo-Pol Pot or an Electric Stalin, Mecha-Hitler stands alone as the only real life villain to be turned into a robot. So he's #3 behind these 2 guys.

2. Luca Blight (Suikoden 2)

I had a hard time deciding if Luca Blight should be number one or number two. He is the main antagonist for about half of Suikoden 2 and his absence from the second half of the game is what kept him from being #1. The guy is absolutely crazy looking with crazy, beady eyes and wild hair. He kills at random and seemingly has no regard for human life. He burns towns and cuts down people praying for their lives like they are blades of wheat. He is hell-bent on destroying everything that opposes him in a misguided effort to take over the world he knows. Jowy Atriedes takes over as the main villain in the second half of the game after you kill Luca Blight but he doesn't go down easy. After taking on 3 of your groups and a being pierced by arrows he still fights on before finally going down. Completely psycho and ridiculously powerful, Luca Blight takes the number 2 spot. This only leaves the most evil villain in gaming history...

1. Kefka(Final Fantasy VI)

I know he is probably used to death on lists like this but I can't help but put him here. He is the most evil bastard in gaming history without a doubt. The man casually poisons an entire river to kill off the citizens of Doma Castle along with Cyan's son and wife. He kills his general, he kills the emperor, he kills innocent espers to take their power. The number one thing he does though, the main thing that puts him at the top of this list, the thing most people on this list try to do but fail is this...he actually succeeds in destroying the world. His crazy plan actually works. He moves the statues and brings ruin to the world below, becoming a God in the process. Then he sits atop of his tower and strikes fear into the remaining people by using his Light of Judgement to destroy entire towns if they disobey him. For his complete lack of any compassion whatsoever, his completely deranged attitude, and the fact that he is the only one on this list that actually succeeds, Kefka is the #1 most evil villain in gaming history.

Formatting

Something weird happened with the formatting on my last post and I can't be arsed with fixing it. Oh well, everything seems to be working now. TOP TEN LIST LATER THIS WEEK!

I'm Mentioning Lost Odyssey in the Title Again...

...because I think it is the only game I've played since my last update. The rental situation in this town is abhorrent and Gamefly is too slow here. Waiting over a week for games makes the service too expensive. What this all amounts to is I won't be playing any new games for awhile so I figured why not spend my gaming time grinding things out in Lost Odyssey.

I bought Lost Odyssey after doing some research. I had been playing Suikoden 2 again for the millionth time and it got me thinking about current gen RPG's and how they are trending away from old school gameplay. Most people think this is a good thing but I am of the rare breed that loves random encounters and grinding for levels. I'd played Final Fantasy XIII, The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, Enchanted Arms, etc...and none of them captured the old school essence I was looking for. I liked them all but I needed something different.

So, I went to the internet and starting reading about all of the RPG's I've not played yet. Almost everything I read pointed me toward Lost Odyssey so I found it used for sub $20 and played it.

It really is everything I was wanting. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it is the best RPG on the Xbox 360 by a good mile(kilometer for my foreign readers).

This is a short update because I hadn't been playing much else but I recently dove into Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Pokemon White. I'll have a new update up by the end of the

week hopefully.

Also, I'm considering doing something like a regular top ten list because A: I think they are fun,

B: People like to read them, and C: It gives me something to talk about when I haven't been doing a lot of gaming. We'll see. I'm going to try to get one up in between this update and the next one.

Odyssey is Still Lost...Call of Duty's Ops are blacker then ever.

Been trying to get into Call of Duty: Black Ops recently. I loved Modern Warfare 2, spent enough time to go prestige and level again to over 50. My time played online was measured in days rather then hours. Now, I was never the best at the game but I regularly finished in the top 3 with a kill/death ratio hovering right around 1 or better. I would sometimes have a miracle game with 30 kills and 6 deaths and sometimes I would crap the bed and go 6 and 30.

Now, I'm playing Black Ops and I'm finding I'm absolutely terrible at the game. My ratio is regularly .25 and I've never finished in the top 3. I really don't understand why. I don't know if it is the difference between the two games or if the average skill of my opponents has increased or if even my own skills have deteriorated due to my advanced age but either way, I'm sucking ass at it. I hate it because I really like playing Call of Duty online but it just isn't fun when I'm getting my ass kicked by people with usernames like Cheefin Weed 420. I don't mind losing, I just want to be competitive once in awhile and it just isn't happening. I do enjoy the training mode with AI controlled bots though. I've been using it to try and improve at the real online game but so far it isn't working.

I really can't say much about the story as I've barely touched it. I finished the first mission then went back to playing online. It seems like pretty standard CoD fare. I could already feel like the Infinity Ward touch is missing. Treyarch always makes a good Call of Duty game but never a great one.

You know, when I really stop and think about it I think my biggest issue with Black Ops is I wanted Modern Warfare 3 and it is not Modern Warfare 3. It is close enough that I cannot shake the ghosts but far enough away that it leaves me wanting. I'll talk some more about it when I finish the offline story mode.

Last entry I was talking about playing Bayonetta and that is now a mostly finished experience. I'm going to go back and do a playthrough on hard but that is on the backburner right now. Too many other games to play. My opinion on the game has improved to very high levels. Bayonetta is an excellent game. I wish I had played it sooner but as I said in my previous post about it I was turned off by Devil May Cry comparisons. The comparisons are fair but Bayonetta is a far superior game. Level design is better, combo system is better, characters are better, pretty much everything is better. I'm very impressed with the game as a whole. The action is ridiculously smooth and it is the kind of game that someone with little skills could play on the easier difficulties.

Lost Odyssey is sort of nearing the end. I'm on disc 4 of 4 but my understanding is the fourth disc allows you to clean up the things you've missed and battle some difficult optional bosses. I'm going to try to avoid the problem I have with RPG's where I get to the end then double my previous playing time leveling and trying to complete everything. Then I never finish the game. It's happened a few times in the past. Tales of Vesperia comes to mind. Got to the final dungeon but spent so much time on completion that I never finished it. Same with FFX. I'm going to spend a lot of time working on maxing out the game and trying for achievements but dammit, I'm going to finish it too. Most likely, Lost Odyssey will be a part of my updates for awhile as I play it here and there in between other games.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is sitting on my shelf still unplayed. Hopefully by the time I do my next update I will have spent at least a little time on it. I'm planning on spending some time with Fight Night: Champion, Bulletstorm, and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 in the coming days so we will see.

Oh...Kinectimals...I forgot to mention it. Well, I played it for about an hour, realized my kids wouldn't be ready to play it for years, and sent it to Amazon as a trade-in. Profited on the trade-in too. It seemed like a fantastic game for kids to play and in a few years when my kids are older they will love it. Right now though it doesn't have enough to entertain an adult playing by himself. My 2 year old liked watching my play for about 10 minutes then he lost interest. I'm not going to say it is a bad game, it is just really made for children.

Quick end of post summary: CoD:Blops(frustrating), Bayonetta(still great), Losy Odyssey(even better), Ass:Bro (still unplayed!), Kinectimals(not for me or most adulys)

Tune in next time when I will mention Lost Odyssey again (though I won't reference it in the title), and hopefully have some words on a combination of new games like, AssBro, MvC3, Bulletstorm, or Fight Night: Champion.