Mirrors Edge Has been Won!

Adding to my reviews I didn't get to, is Mirrors Edge. I've been really excited for this game since it was announced. I loved the art style, I love Dice, and I love the first person view. So basically it was a certified winner in my mind even before it came out. I wish this game would of did better so EA can do more sequals and so maybe Namco could bring back Breakdown which was another first person action game that didnt sell very well even though it was an amazing game. Like Breakdown, Mirrors Edge is an amazing game that everyone should experiance. I feel the game didn't sell so well since everyone knew it was a short game and when they could pick good games like Fallout 3 or even Resistance 2 for the same price with plenty more game play. Though its a shame that its so short (8 hours) it really would of been more of the same just dragged out another 5 hours, if they extended it. So before I get into the review I wanted to talk about the specs of the game first since this is important to some people. Mirrors Edge runs on a heavily modified version of the Unreal  3 engine and looks great even on the PS3 which I played it on. The games doesnt support DTS which is a bummer since the last few EA games supported that on the PS3. Its only 720p so once again you 1080i only players are left out on the PS3 version. So the game has a very forgettable story, you have to find who set up your sister and a few other things that would spoil it. Though the story is weak its told through very unique looking cut scenes between chapters. The game runs very smooth even though a few parts in later levels you will stop right in the middle of gameplay to load which is pretty ridiculous. On the PS3 version there is a install but its like 500MB so its not the worst. There aren't many jaggies and no texture pop-in which is a HUGE plus in my book. One of the things I really like are the controls, which are very unique. You use the shoulder buttons for all of the important stuff like jumping and ducking, etc... The game is very immersive and you'll find your-self playing it for hours. If your afraid of hights you might not enjoy this game all that much. One part in the game you have to jump from a zipline to another zipline in mid-air off of two skyscrapers and my stomach just dropped, I was shaking from a videogame knowing if I don't time this right I will plumit to my death. Somthing this game does that many others try but don't succeed in is the feeling you get when getting chased. Though no game will really get it right since in real life if you get caught your dead, there are no do-overs. So unless a game is you die and you have to start all the way over, you won't feel the complete need to survive. When you finish the game you really feel like you did what you needed to do and thats it. If this wasn't from EA I wouldn't think there would be a sequal since it didn't sell real well and they didn't leave you on some dramatic cliff hanger.  I would say buy this game now at the full $60 just to support Dice and the support of original IPs but really the game is perfect for a $40 price tag.

9.8       

Resistance 2 Has been Won!

  I beat Resistance 2 in the begining of January and just haven't got around to reviewing it. Resistance 2 picks up right where the first one left off but like 90% of other shooters the story isn't a big deal and for the most part uninteresting. Resistance 2 seems to be stuck in the past where you are on a very strict path and you really can't do anything any other way than what they want you to. Which isn't too bad but it would be nice for them to have a few paths even if they all merge into the same area. The biggest difference between this and the first one is the scope of the game. Everything is ginormous when there is a big monster chacing you or one just attacking your whole squad you really feel like if I stop shooting or running that big bastard is going to tear you up. Before I get real in depth I'm going to talk about some specs. The game runs in 720p there is no other option so no love for you 1080i only people. The sound is pretty amazing and incorprates DTS surround sound which I think should be the standard with all PS3 games. And don't forget the multiplayer! 30vs30 deathmatches, 8 man co-ops, and many other objective based stuff like capture the flag. The co-op isn't really co-op and its kinda sad because it would of been fun to run around the single player with 7 friends. The co-op is basically defeat all of these people and press a switch or destroy some thing and watch out behind you because people are coming and basically repeat this a few times per level. It may sound boring but is very team oriented and is a lot of fun to play with some friends or even complete strangers. It has a Call of Dutyish level system in the co-op where you get upgrades and some power ups like hold more ammo, give more health, etc.. All parts multiplayer to this game is buttery smooth even in the bigger 60 player matches and in co-op you could have up to probably 80 or so enemys on the screen at one time. Its insanity, its a lot of fun, and its completly lag free! Back to the sinle player. The game starts out extremely slow and they make Nathan Hale sound like such shit and a wannabe bad ass. Pretty much for 30-40% of the game is run into this room and hold off the chimera untill there all dead and really any shooting game where you run out of ammo after every fight is pretty much shit to me but luckily the game returns to its roots towards the end and makes me love it again. The game makes such a right turn in the later half of the game and makes it really engadging and Insomniac does some pretty neat things. This isn't really a spoiler but at one part you have to run from these crazy ass bee things. You cant kill them and they kill you instantly! But when your getting chased the sound getting louder behind you as you haul mad ass towards the door is crazy and when you notice your out of breath from a videogame it shows they did there job at immersing you into the experence. Plus the ending is probably the biggest "holy fuck" in a video game. I wouldn't say Resistance 2 is as good as it could of been and I feel there taking it the route of the Ratchet and Clank games on PS2, where they add just so much stuff they take away from what made it great but we'll see what happens for the next one. Overall fun game and is really worth the $60 being the single player is around 12-15 hours and the multiplayer is endless fun.

9.5    

Oh My its a Goulash!

This post isn't about food. Its about all of the stuff I haven't posted about rolled into one post. So the big thing a wrote a post about but I never posted was my game of the year award. I felt I didn't really play enough of the games released to say which was the best, but the more I thought about it I decided Metal Gear Solid 4 is my Game of the Year. Since this game is pretty much my favorite of all time I don't think any other game could top it this year or in a really good while so I felt I could make a definate decision on that. I also figure that is was a year for games that start off slow. Resistance 2, Fallout 3, and Fable are a few games that are very good that start off pretty slow but pick up as you go along (I knew of other games but I had a brain fart :-/ and I cant remember) I would say if MGS4 didn't come out this year Mirrors Edge would of got my Game of the Year. I think there were a few flops through the year mainly toward the end of the year like: PlayStation Home, it is not a flop for Sony since they made over a million dollars in it but if it wasn't for me being in the beta I would of been probably a little more unsatisfied. Next is Little Big Planet, it has a lot of potential but its plagued by long loading times and I find it hard to make some things that should be easy to make. Maybe I need to spend more time with it. The next two are Microsoft related and I guess you can't really consider one of them a flop but it pretty much was, I would say the NXE and Gears of War 2 were flops. The NXE adds much eye candy but it is even harder to find things and there are sub menus galore plus its not even up to the XMB yet which still stands as UI king! Gears of War by sales can't be considered a flop by any means but the number of people playing it and the lack of Game of the Year awards is probably not how Epic wanted it to be. It shows Microsoft pressured them to get it out to compete with the PS3 onslought that would of occured if it wasn't there. I believe I bought 29(?) games this year 2 on the 360, 23 on the PS3, 1 on the Wii, 1 on the DS, and 2 on the PSP.  I think all of the games I bought on the PS3 were released in 2008, 1 360 game in 2008, and 1 PSP and 1 DS in 2008. I hope to get more 360 games and a few PSP game and hopefully I can add the PC to this list by next year. A few things I look forward to in 2009 are Windows 7 (love the beta), maybe a new PSP, the slew of games, and I really hope the 1UP guys and the many developers that got fired/layed off find new and better jobs here soon!

Zune Leaving the Soical?

Well CES is about over and something during the Microsoft Press Conference really caught my eye. I thought that this would be the time where they announced some cool new kick ass Zune features but basically all they did was ackknowledge that the Zune existed. In the press conference Steve Ballmer said how software was becoming a main focus and how the market for dedicated portable media players is declining.. So either there planning on a iPod Touch competitor or there talking about forgetting the Zune, which I hope not since all of my music will probably go bye bye.  I guess we'll find out here soon since the spring update is coming soon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The Plan..

Over the past few months I've been looking for a computer perferibly a laptop but I wasn't ruling out a desktop and a netbook. So for awhile I was stuck on a Macbook which is an amazing laptop but, I started thinking how my life pretty much revolves around Windows. With my Xbox 360, Ps3, Zune, etc.... it wouldn't of made much sense to switch to a Mac as in it wouldn't of been cost feasible since I would be in Windows probably just as much if not more than OSX. So then I switched to a Dell XPS One which is the equivilant to a Macbook Pro plus it had a TV tuner among other things that I liked a lot and it came with a Dell Mini 9 for $100. Then they stopped the deal with the Mini 9 and it was kind of a no deal. Then HP/Voodoo droped a bombshell, a desktop that is sleek, sexy, powerful, and wouldn't cost as much as a DaeWoo. As you may know I'm talking about the HP Firebird 003 with Voodoo DNA. Costing only $2100 for the top configuration sans monitor :-(  but still a good deal non the less and I wouldn't need a small power plant in my basement to run it. I think this is the first time I actually could tell where a company was coming from on one of there products, Rahul Sood is right gaming PCs have gone crazy, I mean having four graphics cards and hell even two processors is crazy especially when you get into the killowatt range. With the Black Bird and the Voodoo Omen going missing it shows Voodoo/HP is going into a different direction. Thus the sexy Firebird was born. Since the Engadget leak that showed off the Firebird I really couldn't stop thinking of it, it was exactly what I wanted. The Sexyness of a Mac (even sexier) with the convienance of Windows.  I really felt kind of bad when engadget spoiled it since this would of been one hell of a nice CES suprise! Though enough was concealed to keep me eager till CES to find out more. So back to the plan. I'm going to get a Firebird 003, not just because I like the machine its self but I like Voodoo's community, I find it amazing that Rahul Sood is out browsing blogs answering questions on their products when he really could be saying "hey go fuck yourslef" or not say anything at all. Anyway the monitor I'm going to get is a Acer P244wbii. It's one of Acer's top monitors, it's a 24" 16:9 HDCP display which will play nicely with the Blu-Ray drive packed into the Firebird. Oh and of course at 1080p resolution. I think its a good choice it has a 2ms response time which is good for gaming and has two HDMI inputs and includes one HDMI cable for simple hook up to the Firebird. The monitor is just a tad over $300 which is around what I want to spend. Next up is the speakers 

and I wanted some that would take advantage of the 

intergrated Sound Blaster X-Fi card but the few I want are out of the price range I want to spend on speakers at the moment. Not that Im settling with these since they are good speakers they just 

weren't my first choice. Since Creative makes the Sound Blaster card I thought it would be a good idea to check with them first and since I don't want 5.1 speakers at the moment, the Creative 

GigaWorks T40s  seem like a very good option. I like that you can control the bass and trebble right from the speakers its self. Since my surround sound I have likes to be extra bassy, I like to have control over it. I think thats it that goes with the Firebird. All of this is right around $2500 but even with all of this it doesnt solve the problem of not having a laptop. So with that I'm going to keep it in the HP family and get the Mini 1000 Mi series 

which is one of the best netbooks out right now. It runs a HP made shell over Linux which I can live with till Windows 7 comes out. I'm going to get it fully loaded 2GB of RAM, 10" screen, but I'm going with the 16GB SSD drive since there are no moving parts and I will upgrade it later on if it becomes a issue. So there it is, the plan for the perfect combo, a powerful desktop a great laptop all under $3,000.

PS.. either spell check isn't working on two browsers or I spelled everything right so yay for me.

Zune Conept

As a big fan of the Zune, I can't wait untill they come out with an iPod Touch competitor.So I made up a concept of what I would like it to look like. So here it is..
 

So here it is. It is a similar design to the iPod Touch but with the Zune flair. These are basically pictures of the UI up top is what it looks like in vertical mode. and below is what it looks like in horizontal mode.. I think it looks nice and is basically what I would want out of the Touch Zune.