During my 14-year hiatus from fighting games, I missed out on some of the genre’s biggest franchises. Since I’ve come back to the scene, I’ve caught up on Street Fighter Alpha I and II, as well as Marvel vs. Capcom 2. However, the biggest fighting game I’ve yet to play is Third Strike.
That is, until now. Street Fighter III: Third Strike is available now on PSN, and will be available on XBOX Live tomorrow. I’ll for sure pick it and see what I’ve missed all these years.
The original Portal has already cemented itself as one of the landmark games of this generation. Though it was originally positioned as an add-on to the Half-Life 2 Orange Box that could be beaten in about 3 hours, Portal has taken on a life of its own thanks to its revolutionary game design that does something truly new. Critics loved it, fans bought into it in droves and elements of the game, such as in-game lines and ‘the song’ have worked their way into popular gaming culture. While it’s sequel may not have the cultural cache as its predecessor, the game is still one of the best of the year and it sold extremely well.
Portal is without a doubt, a must-play game if there ever was one this generation. With that said, I’ve been ducking this game for years. I tried it in passing once, but I made the mistake of trying it out on my brother’s file, when he was over half way through the game. Needless to say, I was immediately overwhelmed and thought I was too stupid for Portal. Only recently did I put my initial impressions aside and try the game from scratch.
It is unfortunately, a fairly well-known fact that the online video game community is not the most pleasant place in the world. Especially in the competitive gaming space, where there are no shortage of people spewing hateful epithets from their mouths, or sending over colourfully-worded text messages to others about others’ in-game behaviour.
During the last few weeks of playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, I’ve received an abnormally large amount of hate messages; way more than I ever did playing Street Fighter. I don’t play Marvel to infuriate others, but for whatever reason, the player base seems to either really hate me, or are just a talkative bunch.
I thought I’d share some of the messages I’ve received with you just for kicks (and to expose some of these jerks who really should behave themselves). As much as I’d like to expose their gamertags, I have censored those (and any coarse language) out of respect to the message senders and to my readers. Anyway, here’s a taste of some of the worst messages I’ve received through XBOX Live of late.
When I think about my time in the arcades during the early 90s, I think about two games: Street Fighter II and X-Men Arcade. While Street Fighter II has since appeared on every home video game platform known to man, X-Men Arcade lived and died in the arcade. Unless you still have access to an arcade cabinet, there hasn’t been a (legal) way of playing this game ever since it first appeared in the arcades.
For the rest of us, we can finally now play X-Men arcade on the PlayStation 3 or XBOX 360.
Having first played Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad, I had no doubts going into the XBOX 360 version that this was going to be a good game. However, I did have a few concerns about how the game was going to control. The game lends itself perfectly to touch screen controls, which just isn’t an option on the XBOX 360.
I was also curious about the multiplayer aspects that PopCap Games incorporated into the title. Would multiplayer just be tacked-on or actually add something meaningful to the mix? My brother and I played through a quarter of the game recently to find out.
There seems to be a lot of artsy/high-concept games hitting of late. Games like Braid, Flower, Echochrome and P.B. Winterbottom have really pushed the boundaries of what a game can look and play like. I have nothing but respect for those developers who are actively trying to move the medium forward. However, none of these games have personally appealed to me. I’d much rather watch these games for a few minutes than actually play them, mostly because the gameplay elements don’t appeal to me.
Limbo was just released on XBOX Live Arcade and is the latest in artsy-high concept games. The black-and-white aesthetic is amazing and is matched by equally awesome atmospheric sound. But will it turn me away with gameplay that doesn’t appeal to me? I tried the demo and I’m here to relay my thoughts to you.
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.
Sonic has had a hard knock life ever since his heyday on the Genesis. He had a ton of problems transitioning into 3D (which most people say the Sonic games never really pulled off well), he’s been held back by stupid sidekicks, his old games have been shoddily ported to every platform imaginable, his new games have been riddled with gimmicks, and he’s even been subjected to bestiality. Eww.
Last year, the original L4D rocked my socks hard as the ultimate zombie game. Gathering up three of your friends and attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse made it one of the best multiplayer experiences ever conceived. However, many also felt the game was a bit light on content.
Just one year later (and to the surprise and dismay of some) Left 4 Dead 2 arrives in stores with five new campaigns, four new survivors and a bevy of upgrades. For the most part, I feel like Valve has this down to a science.
