fortytwo points

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Despite all the time spent reading CSS, Windows networking, and Eckhart Tolle books I've still managed to squeeze in some video gaming here and there. When the Battlefield Heroes servers came down for maintenance recently however, my routine was interrupted and I had to find something else to enjoy. Along came X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and I was relieved.

It's good to see Raven Software's kept their standards of quality consistent over the years, and Wolverine does not fail to deliver in the quality department. Thanks to the action-paced gameplay, you really get a feel for what being Wolverine could be like, and holy shit is it awesome (most of the time).

"5 Awesome Video Game Consoles That Never Made it to Market" by Gamal

"There's nothing I love more than not having to work to add content to my own site, so today is just as much a treat for me as I hope it is for you. Enlightening us about some of gaming history's most depressing hardware flops is Gamal, fortytwopoints newest contributor, so please welcome him to the party. Let us weep together about what may have been and hopefully we will be inspired to do it better ourselves in the future. -Unfather"

>O<>O<

Since the late 70’s, gamers all over the world have had their own specific wish lists of what they wanted in a console. From how their dream console should have looked and what features that console should have had. It’s natural to dream up the ideal piece of technology that could cover one’s own specific needs and very often, those needs show up when there is a particular disadvantage in one or all of the consoles that have already been released. Who the hell would want a PS2 when you could have had a PS3?

===

The Phantom, by Phantom Entertainment

Expected Cost:

Never officially announced but just to make ends meet, they'd have to charge $700 for the console

Why was it awesome?

Kotaku Discusses the Art of War; No One Becomes a Better Warrior For It

I think I've made it clear in the past that Kotaku is one of the few gaming sites I respect and today they've set out to solidify that opinion further. Owen Good's batted us another homer with his insightful piece about art direction in combat-oriented video games and claims "leaps in game presentation have typically corresponded to some kind of combat themed game". Considering the advances in photo-realism games like Call of Duty and Tom Clancy's Latest-Game-About-Special-Force-Guys-Doing-Special-Forcey-Things have helped usher in, it is an opinion-cum-fact that is difficult to argue against.

Good takes the time to interview members of Guerilla Games, Gearbox, and Infinity Ward to get their opinions on the subject and they all offer great insight into the process of designing worlds for these types of titles. Some lament the duty of creating realistically accurate environments while others embrace it, but it is great knowledge for those who think they may want to make a war game themselves. You can read the piece on Kotaku by clicking this link:

Kotaku Feature: "The Art of War" by Owen Good

They never fail to surprise me with a topic I am not sure I would have thought of myself. If you consider yourself a gamer and have not already, then I highly suggest you join their site.

Plus, Fleshbot is a part of the Gawker Media Network as well (parent company to Kotaku), and you're probably already a member there anyway, aren't you?

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

-Unfather

Flashbang's Blush flOws like Spore (the fun parts, that is)

It's sometimes surprising if not downright amazing what social networking can do for you. I really only joined Twitter to compliment fortytwo points with some real-time updates and I never thought it would actually lead me anywhere I cared to be. This parts not surprising, but I was wrong.

As I investigated my few followers in an effort to determine how crazy they must be to have taken an interest in my Twitter account, I found that one of them (at least) probably isn't an individual. Instead, they turned out to be a gaming service.

Now, this is exactly why I never did and really still haven't gotten into the whole web 2.0 hoopla. You're a less valuable community when someone starts using your channels to hawk their wares in what will probably be an apparently objective manner. It's not wrong to sell shit through creative means, but it is wrong to think that someone's your friend and to friend them as if they actually were. Take a look at Tila Tequila. No one in the world actually likes her and yet she has millions of online "friends". Am I the only one who finds a service that facilitates this kind of madness unappealing?

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. may be Rightful Heir to Ace Combat's Abandoned Throne

I don't know how it happened, but some where in my gaming career I became a massive fan of aerial combat games. The first Ace Combat is probably what won me over but it's still a surprise whenever I consider it. I mean, I loathed Top Gun the movie and the game before I ever even knew what that word meant, and frankly, my poor opinion of the license stands after having given it additional opportunities to prove itself. And have you played the theme song in Guitar Hero III yet? If repeating the same 5 goddamned irritating chords in an irritating pattern doesn't make you want to smash someone's expensive HDTV with a plastic instrument, I don't know what will.

 But discussing popular culture in the gay community is not what this site is about, so I apologize for digressing. Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. by Ubisoft's Romanian division is the newest flight combat title to grace our respective consoles and I have got to say that, by the demo, it's pretty damned good. Here's some gameplay footage I shot myself so that you may consider it without all the bullshit quick-cutting marketing departments like to use:

Tripbase's Stunning Videogame Locales Full of Strong Picks

I've been lazy about posting but surprisingly the site is growing despite me. Let's just cut through the excuses and explanations as to why this is and get to the happy ending though, shall we? I just had to clean dog S off the thankfully-hardwood floors and my patience has thinned a bit.

To calm myself down I decided to spend a little time gawking at the scenic vistas in Tripbase's nostalgic gallery of video gaming's best environments, and it may very well have saved the dog's life. Anything that acknowledges American McGee's Alice at the start is a worthy distraction, and it's accompanied by other strong choices like Fallout 3's wastelands, Assassin Creed's Middle Eastern landscape, and Oblivion's bloom-bleached, sheep-stained hills.

The choice-picks for me though have to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Shadow of the Colossus, the latter which you may not have seen coming but will likely understand. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one of the first games to make me feel as if I truly was where I was supposed to be (post-explosion Chernobyl), and Shadow of the Colossus benefits from enemies that act as the levels themselves, making for an experience that will be unique until God of War III hits shelves.

The descriptions are lacking unfortunately so if you have not played these games, the references may mean little to you. But if you have, it will spark many fond memories of better games past. You can check them out for yourself here:

Tripbase's Stunning Videogame Locales

Now we have an excellent list of ideas to reference/steal when we make our own games, right?

-Unfather

Dawn of War II: So Much More and Sometimes Less Than Expected

The Warhammer universe is one rife with conflict, turmoil, bloodshed, and as far as I can tell, little else. Story-lines never seem to consist of more than some hero selling out to another race and then being taken out in a valiant self-sacrifice by the protagonist, all while alleged millions die in the war. Perhaps that is why the tabletop game is as popular with pasty Mountain Dew-spazzes as it is; it requires little consideration of else other than combat. While Orks, blood-thirsty space marines, and xenomorphs aren't a recipe for scoring a date in even the most desperate situation, they do make for a great video game, and Dawn of War II for the PC proficiently proves this.

Relic's latest effort is a drastic shift from the original Dawn of War game but it is strongly in the vein of their close-combat tactics style. The game is much better for it too, I should add. Joining a unit called the Blood Ravens as their Force Commander, you are a soldier who's record in battle is tremendous and who can literally crash through stone walls at will. Atypical to every plot in the 40K universe ever, the combined forces of the vicious Ork tribes, the hyper-advanced Eldar, and the terrifying hordes of the Tyranid are upon you, and you have been tasked with putting a space boot up their asses or die violently trying. And I do mean violently:

Off With Her Head: Good Games Shouldn't Make You Feel This Bad

I have a million and seven excuses why I haven't been posting regularly lately, but this wall of half-lies and somewhat-truths I've constructed could not contain my desire to spread the word about this game.

(A special thanks to Play This Thing! for sharing this)

Bob Clark of The Designer's Dilemma blog recently developed a simple title called Off With Her Head for the Global Game Jam, and it's arguably of greater moral depth than almost any game in existence. Off With Her Head places you in the shoes of an executioner for a King, and you have the unenviable duty of convincing all the kingdom's women to either join the royal harem or die beheaded at your hands. The women of this land are all so beautiful and marry so quickly that even the realm's own men often go unwed, His Highness included, and the King has had enough. You will either help him resolve this problem in the most despicable manner possible, or you yourself will share their fate.

Recent Site Changes

In order to get out of doing any real work, I've been tweaking the design of the site lately and trying to get things to look the way I want them to, rather than the way they have to. Today I made some huge strides in this regard. Some of my favorite changes include:

- The Calendar has been removed from the sidebar and given its own navbar button. It pained me to do this as I wanted to keep it on the front page, but it just wasn't working. I plan to put it back as soon as I can, potentially as a footer. Let me know what you think of this

- Navbar now has text roll-overs so that there's some feedback when you mouse over them

A Delayed Far Cry 2 Review

I know I'm about 6 months too late for this but I've been buried in higher-priority releases and haven't had the time to give Far Cry 2 a proper review. That probably turned out to be a good thing because I've been absorbed by Ubisoft Montreal's jungle crawler for the last week. Looking back, I have to wonder how it was so easy to glance over this excellent experience the first time. This is truly a better game than even some of the largest blockbusters last season.