Vanquish Review -- If Metal Gear And Gears Of War Had A Baby

Much like Sam Gideon's ARG suit, Vanquish is cool to look at, ridiculous to make sense of, and very few people will get it
Vanquish is a game that is just as challenging as it is beautiful. Platinum Games has managed to squeeze out two eccentric gems within one year that not only challenge several constructs of what makes a game fun, but also keeps the non-JRPG aspect of Japanese games on American gamers’ radar. This being said, there are core principals of Vanquish’s design that are unflinchingly Japanese. Recommending a game like this is like recommending someone hold a beautiful rose with the sharpest thorns. You will die several times. You will laugh at what constitutes a cogent narrative. You will blow stuff up for points and realize how something so simple as this, has been abandoned by most modern games. All these things and you get to casually smoke cigarettes.

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The Brog's Best Movie Of 2010: How To Train Your Dragon

Why? Because Inception and True Grit didn't have dragons this adorable

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The Last Year Of The PSP

My last article saw a lot of activity due to disregard of its first sentence, so I’ll put the most important message in the second. I am deeply envious of PSP owners. Furthermore, I hope they continue supporting such a quality platform. With that said, the impending announcements of both the Playstation Phone and the PSP 2 in 2011 should solidify Sony’s fate in the handheld arena.

By now you’ve seen the NPD sales for November and have heard the always trustworthy predictions of market analyst, Michael Pachter. At this point in this current gaming generation, Sony’s brand is at a point of no return (no fiscal pun intended). The writing is on the wall for the companies that control the direction of both consoles and handhelds. As a byproduct, this coming year will be the last year Sony’s PSP platform(s) stand a chance of making a grand impression on consumers outside of Japan.

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Is Capitalism Devolving Games?

In an age where the games industry is one of the biggest cash cows, it seems only fitting that consumers should question the quality of products sold. What happens when companies do just enough to appease the general gamer?
Before you dart down to the comment section of this article and begin feverishly typing prior to reading, it should be said that I’m an avid supporter of most [not all] forms of capitalism. However, as this term applies to the games industry, I think its a pretty rotten time for consumers. Though there are small glimmers of the games industry doing right by the developers and gamer, this era marks an odd turn. Bethesda, Lionhead and now Polyphony Digital studios were the first group of studios to spark my interest in this new development. Capitalism typically thrives off of the quality of a product. Traditionally, if the consumer has qualms with the product there is an outlet in which they can be heard. Unfortunately, we live in an age where we can only vote with our dollar.

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BlazBlue: Continuum Shift -- Fighting For A Chance

It's not that Calamity Trigger wasn't an aweomely weird game, but that Continuum Shift is so much more awesome and weird.

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Video: Kinect's Joy Ride Fail

By now this video clip has circulated your favorite popular blogging sites and has garnered almost a half a million views as of me posting this entry. I want you to think about a couple things going on in this video. Kinect has been picked [in an odd sort of manner] for being this holiday season's high-tech Furby or Tickle Me Elmo toy. Much like political campaign strategies, advertising dollars control the masses. There were talks of having this Microsoft branded device in your living room being able to give you some form of a Minority Report experience. I'm guessing the video below will suffice as a lofty pipe dream being made into a kind of reality.

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BioShock Review -- Late Is The New Early

BioShock could be one of the classiest games I have ever played, but I'm still unsure of what the future holds for the franchise.
This past Halloween I decided to invest in a bottle of blended wine and a game that had mounds of dust collected upon it, BioShock. I had always wanted to play it and had it not for broad plot points being spoiled and over-hyped fanboys echoing the zeitgeist, I would have taken on this epic much sooner. Be that as it may, this is my tale and it has taken me almost two weeks to formulate some form of a coherent opinion. I really liked BioShock [add me to the list]. From the Ayn Rand references to the allusions of governments past and present, BioShock is one of few games I’ve played where I finally understood the need for this current generation of consoles. The experience(s) found in BioShock instill a benchmark that is rarely pushed. A game that points out the foibles of man may have unintentionally pointed out the missteps of its own genre.

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Are You The Character Or Are You God?

When consuming any media, our brains decide how much of our personality is invested. In games, chances are you are either the master or a slave to the narrative.
I’ve been watching how I play games as of late. Like a lot of you I have a 9-to-5 job and personally, nothing makes a better pixellated punching bag than a soon to be sniped skull in a round of Bad Company 2 or Team Fortress 2 multiplayer mayhem. This week I decided to buck that trend and play BioShock for the first time. Saving the review of the game for a later date, I’m noticing a stark difference in how I’ve consciously decided to play the game. Not only this, but the role I’ve decided to play in games differs from RPGs, RTSs and so forth. With this small revelation, I look at other media I consume and how it effects me. I look at the quality of games and debate whether I’m making the game fun or otherwise. Maybe you’ve noticed something strange in how you play games as well?

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Vote No On Outsourced

Come November, vote no on crap television!

This week is the final week for us American’s to step into a voting booth and vote on the issues we care about most. We’ve been inundated with junk mail and ads every other commercial break, but I want to take time out discuss a serious topic you should care about. Though November 2nd is the final day your vote will be counted, Thursday night on NBC [or NBC.com depending on how you watch the network] is a night where your vote will decide if public television will spiral further into Armageddon. People, when you sit down and you see a little television show starring a ‘stock white 30-something bro’ educating an office setting of naive New Delhians, I want you to think about your future and how terrible Outsourced is.

Outsourced’s only positive contribution to society is that its giving the talented Dietrich Bader work for the next year. This is where you come in. If you see a commercial, credits or anything affiliated with the show, click that s**t off! There are two jokes in Outsourced. One relies on this supposed culture clash between this American white man making fun of the naivete of Indian culture while showing them the foreign and strange ways of Americans [see also: The Balloween episode].  The second joke is far too rote. Don’t Indian people who speak English sound hilarious? Heck, there’s a character named Manmeat on the show, so how could that not be funny? Making fun of how Indian people talk and how strange their very Indian names sound was about as funny when I heard it the first hundred times on The Simpsons. And with all due respect, The Simpsons did it better.

So, my fellow Americans, you have a choice. You can contribute to the longest, unfunny Apu joke running on NBC. Or you could make a stand, right here and right now. Tell your friends who watch Outsourced, that doing so kills Jesus or whatever diety they worship. If they are atheist, tell them Outsourced is funded by all religions and in someway contributes to the anti-atheist movement [there is one right?]. I’ve watched NBC air such gems as the reboot of both Knight Rider and American Gladiators. Both equally offensive by the their own right and still managed to be somewhat entertaining [taste did not apply]. However, Outsourced is the Alamo in regards to what you [the viewer] will tolerate. It is a show that spits in your face while asking you to tune in each Thursday for the same joke. So this Thursday, vote no on Outsourced and in doing so, you’re voting yes for freedom.

Thank you for your time,
This message is brought to you by the letter I and paid for by The Brog Association for Brogging.

Then And Now: Feelings On The Fighting Game Genre

Fighting games are back! Or are they? Moreover, should I be nervous that less-than-stellar clones are not to far behind?

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