xbox 360

“You” Suck at Making Best-Of Video Game Lists

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Normally, I am not one to argue a “best-of” list in any serious manner. Due to the subjectivity behind these lists, there will never be a definitive list that everyone can agree on. The “best-of” lists that are the worst are the ones voted on by “the people”, because regular people make the worst choices.

In spite of that, people love to make them anyway and argue about them till the cows come home. Recently, Guinness announced its top 50 video game franchises, as chosen by you. Snap judgment: you suck. If you would like to read the full list, I advise you to hit the link. Otherwise, continue to read as I highlight a few key spots and add snarky commentary.

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Game Design Talk: Gap It Up

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I’m still playing (and for the most part) enjoying Skate, which I’m playing at a very leisurely pace. While it’s a lot of fun to just cruise around the world and bust tricks, there are some very awkward design choices that can annoy the heck out of you when you play Skate. The inability to walk can be infuriating due to the way the world is designed. Bystanders always seem to get in the way of your objectives, which leaves you skating into them more than you would like. But I wanted to talk about one very specific case of poor game design that drove me nuts.

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Closing Thoughts on de Blob

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When I first wrote about de Blob, I was really digging it. I loved the visual and audio presentation. The gameplay was really fun and easy to pick up. The second time I wrote about it, I voiced what was (and still is) my biggest problem with the game: its pacing. Now that I have beaten de Blob, how do I feel about this sleeper hit?

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Pick Up Post: Indestructable

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After a year of damn-near uncontrollable anticipation, the sequel to my 2009 game of the year is now in my house. I was actually so excited for this, I was at Walmart at 7:00 AM buying this game, even though I wouldn’t get to play it till after work. After putting in about 20 hours this week into it (and waking up this morning with an arthritic right hand due to all the fighting action) I can positively say this game is good. In fact, it’s SUPER (sorry).

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One More Try: Mirror’s Edge

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During a lapse in my gaming itinerary, I decided to pop Mirror’s Edge back into my 360. Last time I wrote about this game, the game tried really hard to make me not like it. The game succeeded at that. I still love the premise of a free-running first-person game, but I stopped at the end of the second level in frustration, after dying roughly 50 times.

After a few minutes in the training level, I thought I was ready to go. What the training mode didn’t prepare me for was encountering trial-and-error gameplay and crappy combat.

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Stranglehold: A Video Game B-Movie

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During a time of economic instability, relatively high prices for new games and a number of high-quality games to choose from all major platforms, the market doesn’t really show much love to decent or middle of the road games. You can be an avid gamer on any system and own 30 games; all of which are AAA titles. If a game is not on the level of a Modern Warfare 2 or Halo, gamers nowadays with discriminating wallets can easily leave your game to rot in the bargain bin.

Stranglehold was one of Midway’s last attempts at creating a AAA title. It featured fast-paced third-person shooting, was inspired by John Woo’s “Hard Boiled” and even starred Jet Li as the protagonist. However, in a market crowded with great shooting games, not even John Woo and Jet Li could save Stranglehold from being a mediocre game at best and a sales flop.

In spite of its shortcomings, my experience so far with Stranglehold gives me the impression that this is a pretty decent video game equivalent to a B-movie. It has its flaws, but for the right person at the right price it could still be a good time.

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Game Design Talk: The Money Play

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The first time I remember finding a “money play” was in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. After a few fights with Rocksteady, I figured out a cheap way to beat him without him ever touching me. If you’ve ever played this game, you probably figured this trick out, too. If you don’t, the image above shows how to do it. If you’re perched up on those boxes with Donatello and attack down, Rocksteady will just eat your attacks until he dies with no way to fight back. I was only six years old when I figured that out. Before I ever took the time to think about how video games worked, I had already figured out how to exploit the system.

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Daigo Vs. Justin At the Super Street Fighter IV Launch Party

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Last night, I was feeling a bit under the weather and I passed out the moment I got home. As a Street Fighter IV enthusiast, this kind of worked in my favour as I woke up just in time to catch the Super Street Fighter IV launch party taking place in the west coast.

The main event was a must-watch for those who follow the scene, as it featured two of the top Street Fighter IV players, whose rivalry has led to arguably the best Street Fighter matches of all-time. When they did battle last night, they went back and forth and finished with probably the craziest ending possible. Click through to watch the final round!
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Hori EX 2 Was An Epic Fail

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I’m not new to this whole video game hardware failure thing. It’s frustrating every single time. Going into this, I knew I was getting an entry-level arcade joystick, but the relatively positive reviews and the trusted Hori brand name led me to believe that I was getting a “good enough” joystick to start with.

So much for that thought.

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Metacritic and My Video Game Collection

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Hate it or love it, review aggregators are becoming an increasingly important service for consumers of just about anything. In the video game space, people like them because it gives them a quick and quantifiable way of knowing what games are good and what games suck. The counterpoint to those people are those who don’t feel that aggregates tell the whole story and put an emphasis on a number rather than the context from which that number is derived from.

I’m not here to choose sides. Out of boredom and curiosity, I decided to take my XBOX 360 and Wii game collection, full retail games only, compile all of their Metacritic scores and see what the results say about my game stash. I must preface that this is far from scientific and that my collection has changed since I compiled these numbers.

With that said, lets hit the results.

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