KMK Episode 3

My laziness has finally been overcome, I have finished editing Kamikazee Mind Kontrol so take a listen...it's good, I think.

KMK Episode 3

OK, I figure if I post I will finally get around to editing the second half of the podcast. It should be out next week sometime.

Game Reviews

In the past two weeks I have been thrust back into the world of table top gaming, and I will say that it has been a long time coming that I reunite with my table top pals. In the past two weeks I have also learned two new games.

A Game of Thrones card game:



"A Game of Thrones" is the first book in the G.R.R. Martin book series "Song of Ice and Fire." The objective of the game is to reach 15 power which are points you recieve for receive for completing various tasks.
You can play a "Joust" which is a 1 on 1 game and a "Melee" which is for multi-player games. I got to participate in one of each of the game modes.
In my first game I played a melee game. I played as House Stark and didn't get utterly decimated which is all I really wanted to do. In my joust match however; I got annihilated. The guy I was playing against said that it was late and I was probably tired...nothing like a little pity to make you hate the loss even more.
Rather than explaining each phase of the game in-depth I will say that I recommend it and you should play it if you get the chance



Warmachine in all honesty was much to complicated for me. Warmachine is game similar to Warhammer only in that you control miniatures on a map and move them and fight other miniatures. Calm down, I just made a comparison which I can only assume no one will really understand, but if you are offended that I compared Warmachine to Warhammer deal with it...that's the kind of hard hitting edgy blog I am.
For me to learn Warmachine it took about 4 hours, and even then I still didn't really understand what I was doing. I played a 2 on 2 and my teammate was guiding my pretty much the entire time.
Again, I started out strong thanks to my good friend beginners luck and some hot dice but in the end my army was destroyed and sent to the scrap pile. As for my recommendation to you, well, if you are into the miniature thing then go for it. If not, watch a game and see if it picks up your interests. Fair warning, Warmachine is expensive especially if you want to play it properly. You need to buy miniatures and you will need to paint them. Warmachine is a serious commitment even if you are a casual player.

As I am lazy I am not going to make a banner yet for my check it out rating. I will also accredit Destructoid.com for the idea for my ratings. If I can avoid putting a score on something I will avoid a lot of hate...from the one reader I probably have ;) hello out there.

Games I am playing: Uncharted: Drakes Fortune(PS3), Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood(360), Scribblenauts(NDS), Shiren the Wanderer(NDS), Madden 10(PS3), Ghostbusters(360)

Watching: Robotech: The Macross Saga

Feel free to watch or play along, leave comments and spread the word. Gamers on Hiatus is back and as much as I hate using this cliche it's with a vengeance.

Lamentations and Resurrection

So last week I lost my XBOX to the dreaded red-ring of death...I thought to myself that my XBOX must still be under the warranty that Microsoft extended in order to cover the red-ring, unfortunately this was not the case.
I then searched(youtube) diligently(first video) as to find a solution that wouldn't require me to spend $100 to ship it out for repairs. See I am a college student, and I am on a tight budget what with paying for things to help me live and what have you. So I came to the towel trick.

Which to my surprise actually worked. This fix was but a poor band-aid to a much larger problem. I lost my XBOX about three days later and was forced to think that I would be without my XBOX for an extended period of time.
Some of you might be spouting off that I need a PS3 or a Wii. I have both, but I have a lackluster game library on all of my machines, I just happen to have bought a new game(Modern Warfare 2) when it came out and I have a need to play it.
So today I decided that an already expired warranty and not wanting to spend the money outweighed my fear of opening my XBOX.
I will not detail what you have to do in order to fix it, but it is readily available on the internet.
In all this repair cost me about $25 and my XBOX is now fully functional and is still able to connect to Live.
I will say that opening the XBOX is a lot easier than I expected. I am happy to be back and will report more as time goes on.

GAMES I AM CURRENTLY PLAYING: Shiren the Wanderer(NDS), Ghostbusters(XBOX 360), Uncharted: Drakes Fortune(PS3), Scribblenaughts(NDS), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2(XBOX 360)

My reimmersion into gaming

Alright well it finally happened. I am back into the gaming community full force... What did it take to wake me from my gaming slumber? Borderlands and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Let's start with Borderlands as it was the game that first pulled me back in. I had been hearing a lot about Borderlands and have been interested in it since they changed the art style a while back.
Borderlands is essentially first-person shooter Diablo. I will admit that I am a loot whore and I love games that have that aspect in it. Borderlands exploits my love for collecting loot to the full effect. Although there are a couple of items that are recognizable in the game, there are no, as far as I can tell, Stone of Jordans or Tal Roshas Armor or anything like that.
The art style is a stylized cell shading that just works really well. Here is the box art, and basically what the game looks like.


The game had enough side missions to keep me playing for a good 25-30 hours. The main story line could probably be finished in about 8 or 9 hours. The game offers a new game+ feature that ups the difficulty of the enemies.
Basically what my love for this game boils down to is the fact that the stylized art and shooting and rpg-elements all blend well together.
The cons...this game has awful, and I mean awful netcode for PC. If I wasn't against all caps when describing something I would say it's AWFUL...oh wait I just did.
All that aside, it's real fun when you can connect to someone and even better if you can hook up with a friend. With a surprising amount of sales I would say that we can be expecting more Borderlands in the future and I am not ashamed to say that I will buy that one too.

Modern Warfare 2
Really, what do I need to say about Modern Warfare 2. It's fun, it's multiplayer is amazing and it even appeals to people who aren't good at it by having a fast rank up system.
I am now level 24 on Modern Warfare 2 and I haven't even touched the campaign. Now I know that 24 is not a very high rank, but I have other games I want to try while I am still on my streak of wanting to play games.
With the controversy about the PC version still (sarcasm) raging (/sarcasm) not having dedicated server support I am surprised to see how many people are still logging on to Steam to play. As I play on my Xbox I am always pleased with my experience online...as long as I am playing in a party. Even though party chat has been disabled I find that playing in a party is much smoother in this iteration.
Infinity Ward has earned my money on this one and while I may not run out and buy everything that they will produce in the future I will say that Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 certainly have not hurt their reputation in my eyes.

Well, as much as I would love to stay around and blog more for you games are calling my name...it feels good to be back.

Why I no longer finish games

I have discovered that as of just recently I do not finish, nor do I intend to finish some of the games I buy or rent. I will take a more specific approach and say that I will probably never again finish a J-RPG or almost any other RPG for that matter. I bought Fallout and I borrowed Oblivion and both games got only a couple hours out of me before I lost interest. I played the first disc of Lost Odyssey before sending it back to gamefly.
I have been wondering what it is about this particular genre of games that has kept me away. I thought it might be the length only to realize that that was only a part of the problem. I also realized that I am no longer able to sit and grind out levels until I can beat a boss. I find it to be an archaic formula for games. That is not to say that I want to be able to breeze through a game, but I find that spending countless hours trying to bust a couple levels just to beat a boss is a stupid way of doing things...J-RPGs are the biggest offender in this category.
Oh western RPGs aren't far off. I am tired of being the biggest baddest dude and people not responding accordingly. In J-RPGs at least they never really make any aesthetic changes to your character. When you get the best armor and a sword that spews all types of elements from the very bowels of hell I expect people to run for their lives not greet me and tell me to get their dogs out of trees.
Then we have games with awesome mechanics that are poorly executed. EA's "Mirrors Edge" is a perfect example. I really liked what was going on in that game and the story and ALMOST everything...The controls and the ambiguous way points made for an awful experience that I chose to stop after getting halfway through.
I almost like going back to formulaic gameplay...ie Koei's Samurai and Dynasty Warriors games. There is some comfort in those games, perhaps due to my nostalgia I have associated with those games.
I guess what I am trying to say in my very long winded way is that what game developers should be looking at is to try and make a well balanced game...."Well duh Nigel don't you think they think that...?"
And my answer to you is no...I don't think they are thinking that, at least not at all times of the creation processes. I mean we can take a look at "Mirrors Edge" again. It feels as though the developers were constantly pushing having a game that looks fantastic and a game where the concept of free running really felt like you were free running...however, they seemed to forget that this was not a free running sim, but a game that had more aspects to it, and somewhere along the way the combat got messed up and the way point system never got finished. If the developers get another chance to make this game, which I feel they should, I suggest rounding out the game to have something more than just the BEST of one thing... and this goes to the rest of the developers.
Whatever take this for what you will but let's try and focusing on making our games well rounded and not just the best in one category.

Episode 2 is out

Hi Everyone,
Episode 2 is out on kmk.podbean.com the audio should be a little bit cleaner than last time. Tomorrow I should get around to writing a little bit on here....I promise...for what that;s worth.
-Nigel

Podcast

Hey everyone,
I just got my podcast up at kmk.podbean.com give it a listen...It's rough, I know, but check it out.
-Nigel

Back from a long hiatus

Hey Everyone,
I am back, I plan on writing finally. School is crazy and everything that you would expect.
Just a quick update saying I am back, I will be changing the blog to include everything that I am into and not just games. Hope you enjoy when I get around to posting a real post.

-Nigel

Ultra Violence on Wii

I am, one would say, late to the party on a lot of video game issues. I have been itching to play Madworld, I am a student however, and therefore have no real money for gaming, what with tuition and all. What I do have, is enough money for a Gamefly subscription, so I played through a couple of games, and then Madworld arrived.

I will say, I played the game for a mere 2 hours before turning it off in sheer and utter boredom. There are so many things wrong with this game. The combat is repetitive. It consists of limiting an enemies arm movement jabbing something into said enemies face and then throwing that enemy into spikes. This sounds as if it would be something poised for greatness, it turns out that doing the same thing over and over with poor controls isn't that fun after all.

I am not trying to review the game, what I want to bring up is that recently analysts said ultra violence on Wii and DS wont sell well. My response: How wrong you might be. I feel ultra violence could sell well on Wii or DS, but how often is it said of Wii games that it's controls are awful. Who can make good Nintendo Wii games? I'll tell you, Nintendo. They know how to make their controller work properly as well they should.

What needs to happen, is that there needs to be someone who understands what good controls on games are, and step up and take a risk with a Mature themed game. "Oh Nigel they can't do that, it would be suicide." I say that taking risks is what is going to push this medium forward.

At any rate, make a better game and you will see that ultra violence will sell just fine on Wii just like everything else.

From the ashes.

I have recently been in a slump and seeing is how I really only write about once a month I figured I would look at what drives me to write at all. I have come to the conclusion that I write so that others can read. I am going to focus now more on media in general and give opinions on movies I see, books which I read which is a lot less than I would like, and games I play.

This week I have been playing Bully for eat-sleep-game.com Game Club, where listeners have the opportunity to go back into their pile of shame and play a game all the way through and have a discussion on the games flaws and also where the game does well.

From the start a question has arisen in my mind, and that is this, was there a fuss over the content that is in Bully? Admittedly I have not done my research, but the question stands. I find the content in Bully to be far more disturbing than that of any GTA or Resident Evil or any other game which has been put on the controversy cutting board. I don't know what dictates what makes us feel disturbed and what doesn't but I have a feeling that in this particular case it has something to do with kids, and their portrayal as sadistic and twisted.

I am only 12 percent done with the game according to the progress tracker in the game, but I still feel that this game has the potential to be a game that really makes me question the way I feel about violence on some level. I am not however going to condemn the game just as I wont condemn a film such as American History X for putting something in front of me that I may not feel comfortable with.

As far as the game mechanics are concerned I have had a little trouble with the camera, but in the games defense it is a little more dated than games that I have been playing recently. I am enjoying the games story and am interested in seeing where the it is taken. I am also excited to see where the direction of the character is going to be taken. For me it is hard to feel comfortable playing as a character who is a bully, I feel as though it again has something to do with the social constraints placed upon us in society that tell us that children are supposed to be innocent and when that constraint is then lifted I feel that audiences might be a little apprehensive to do the things that are asked of them.

I also have recently finished watching Noise featuring Tim Robbins and William Hurt. The movie was decent.

Tim Robbins plays a man who can no longer take the noise in his city, this drives him to a boiling point which makes him take on the persona as the Rectifier. His mission, to destroy all car alarms and let the owners of the vehicles know that they have not only wronged him but have wronged society. I feel as if the progression of his character lacked something for people to connect to. I mean I guess a hatred of noise, but I don't feel that was a connection that would make people want him to win against William Hurt's character, who is only looking to put the Rectifier away for a long time.

The movie borders comedy and drama not doing either very well for very long. I enjoyed the movie strictly for entertainment, but yet again, I feel that it didn't really have any depth to it. If I had to rate it, I would have to stick it in the C+ B- range.

On that remark I would like to echo so many who have come before me. Ratings are purely Relative. I am subjected to material and I rate said material based on how I feel towards it. Therefore opinions and ratings should be taken with a grain of salt. The reason they exist is for advertising if anything else. If you say a movie or a game is an A+ people can put a finger on that. They can have a sense of what they should expect. Then the people who hate the game or movie complain for a while at how the critics have some bias or some other such non-sense. The point of a review is to try and give people a general idea of what they are going to be getting themselves into before they exchange their money for goods and services. The best way to read reviews is to find one or two people whose opinion generally matches yours and that you like to read so that you can actually read something worthwhile while learning about a particular medium. Conversely you could read someone who you like to read but whose opinion completely differs from yours.

Well, that's the rant for today and it feels good to be writing again...even if no one is reading me.

Death of a dream

Last post I talked about my optimism of being a Games Journalist, if you can call it that. I have however looked at the job market and the way things work and am probably going to study History and maybe just keep my writing as a hobby. I will continue to review games and the like but I have unfortunately seen that life doesn't always give you what you want.

That being said. I am still working on Half-Life 2, I am also working on Oblivion which I finally understand which will make Fallout 3 REALLY enjoyable. Something I really enjoy about gaming is the joy you receive when you finally get a game that everyone raves about. On the other hand it is frustrating when you see why a game is terrible and everyone likes it.

Well Hopefully this all works out and if you are out there and you are looking for your dream job and it's looking slim I would recommend keeping with it even though I might not.

Sucked back in

With the closing of 1up.com I thought that I would no longer want to pursue a career in games journalism or journalism as a whole for that matter. Jokes on me, I can't get away.

1up's closure has hit the gaming community pretty hard. I for one thought that I might be a teacher or something, but I continued to look at gaming sites this past week and I realized that I can't get away. The draw to do what I love is still there and if anything I no want to work harder in order to create something like old 1up's caliber.

On a side note, I started playing Half-Life 2 for the first time and I am starting to enjoy it. I can only handle it in limited spurts only because I am a baby and things get pretty hectic so I have to take a breather. It is amazing that the game still after all this time looks so good.

Holidays and 1up

The holidays came and I now am in a predicament, I have a new computer. This is amazing because I now have the ability to be a PC gamer it also is now harder than ever to decide what games I would like to spend my days wages on. Doors have been opened and although I hate to have to complain about too many games to play it is exactly the situation I am in.

I just recently cruised over to 1up to check some news and have mixed feelings on what I have learned. The 1up network has been bought by UGO which at first glance looks like IGN which is probably my least favorite gaming site. I hope that 1up can maintain it's integrity and provide users with gaming news.