As the oldest child on my mom’s side of the family, I learned very quickly that I would have an influence on my younger siblings and relatives wheter I consciously tried to or not. Before my younger brother could ever get into playing toys, he got a hold of a Gameboy and a Super Nintendo controller and never looked back. At the time, I figured it was just the kid thing to do, but those early days of playing Super Mario World really did change his life.
call of duty
Call of Duty: World at War Pushes Me to the Brink
Call of Duty: World at War was a game that, even after Modern Warfare 2 blew my mind, I had no interest in going back for. It had two major hurdles: it was a World War II shooter and it was made by Treyarch, whom I’ve been lead to believe made the “not-so-good” Call of Duty games.
Well, I decided to give World at War a shot when I saw it on sale at a price I couldn’t refuse. Did it earn a Purple Heart, or make me wish I was killed in action? After finishing the solo campaign, I would say a little from column A, a little from column B.
Game Design Talk: Taking Control Out of My Hands
(SPOILER ALERT: This post will discuss major plot points in Modern Warfare 2 and Prince of Persia)
The terrorist scene in Modern Warfare 2 has been dissected from every conceivable angle by now. Odds are if you’re a fan of reading niche video game blogs like mine, you’ve probably played this sequence and have already come to your own conclusions about it.
For the record, I hate it. I hate it for a number of reasons, but for the sake of this discussion, I’m only going to get into one reason why I dislike this scene. I don’t hate it for the fact that you get to shoot innocent people. I applaud Infinity Ward for leaving that option open. However, that entire scenario is fundamentally broken because of the people you can’t shoot.
Only The Strong Survive
I’m at the pre-game Modern Warfare 2 screen. With my Scar and heartbeat sensor attachment in hand, I watch the clock tick down till we’re Oscar Mike. I think this time will be better. The game begins, and I take a few steps forward. I see the red dots pop up in the distance. But before I can even begin setting up, my lifeless body hits the floor. The kill-cam shows the view from my murderer, shooting me through iron sights using a machine gun from over 100 yards away. Damn it.
Mapathy is an Expensive Condition to Cure
For those of you playing Modern Warfare 2 and are looking for some new maps to play on, Infinity Ward supposedly has the cure for you. The Modern Warfare 2 “Stimulus Package” contains 5 maps, two remakes from Modern Warfare 1 and three brand new ones.
I was hyped to get new maps for this game, and until I heard the price, this seemed like a no-brainer to me. But dude, 1200 Microsoft Points for 5 maps? Two of which aren’t even new?
Modern Warfare 2 Boot Camp
Over these past few weeks of unemployment, the game that has monopolized my time is Modern Warfare 2. Having played multiplayer for just over 24 hours, a lot of that was “not fun”. I say that in the sense that for every time I killed someone, I died about 2.5 times. There were games where I would kill two people and die 20 times.
Heavy Rain and the Potential of Truly Mature Games
Over the past year, I’ve been following any media I find on Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3. At first, I only knew this as the game that introduced me to the concept of the uncanny valley. And even though the game’s Quick Time Event based gameplay doesn’t excite me enough to buy a Playstation 3, I really hope this game sells well because Heavy Rain means a lot to the future of mature games.
My “Game of the Year 2009”
With the year winding down, many gamers have been discussing the best games of 2009, mostly to debate which game should be honoured “Game of the Year”. I think it’s impossible for any media outlet or any individual person to make a list that will make everyone happy. However, what I can do better than anyone else is speak for myself. With that said, my choice for “Game of the Year” is not the be-all-end-all opinion you have to believe in. Feel free to give me your picks for “Game of the Year” and “Game of the Year” nominees.
Modern Warfare 2 Review: All is Fair in Love and (Modern) War(fare)
During the early days of the World War II shooter (early 2000s), controlling a character from first person and shooting dudes was not really something I wanted to do. After games like Perfect Dark and Goldeneye sucked away hundreds of hours of my life, there wasn’t really anything out there like it that I wanted to play. None of the FPS games of that generation appealed to me and I couldn’t get a handle on playing these styles of games using dual analog sticks. Yes, that means I even missed Halo 1 and 2 in their prime. In the case of Call of Duty, I couldn’t handle a dual stick FPS and I didn’t want anything to do with WWII. Both of those elements combined for a series I had 0 interest in ever playing.
In Third Person 
