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).

Pandemic and EA's The Saboteur Brings Us Back to WWII; Nazis Groan

I've certainly made no effort to garner EA's The Publisher's good will in the past, but despite my ill comments I am willing to accept that they frequently have their hands shoved into the warm, beating chest cavities of great developing partners. This time it's Pandemic's heart that is at risk, yet I can't help feeling like, maybe this time, it will be for the better. Having access to pockets that deep should certainly help a little...

Pandemic have built themselves a sound legacy with Full Spectrum Warrior, Destroy All Humans! 1 and 2, and the Mercenaries games, yet they've never really exploded into the zeitgeist with a smash hit that the community just can't stop talking about. They seem to have an excellent talent for creating engrossing worlds and genuinely likable (if not sometimes hollow) characters, so hopefully their latest efforts with Saboteur for the Xbox360 and PS3 will change this.

You play as an Irish racer who decides to fight his own war against the Nazis after they kill one of his friends. The protagonist was inspired by William Grover-Williams, a war hero for the French Resistance during WWII, and your most important weapons are infiltration and sabotage. Using them, an arsenal of period appropriate lead-spitters, and your own cold, murderous hands, you set out to reclaim portions of occupied territory for the native people.

"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?

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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

Extended Viewing with Halo Wars: Other People's Reviews

I haven't played the full version of Halo Wars yet and quite frankly probably won't any time soon, but I did offer my two cents about the demo with a review that you can see here.

The gist is that while it's functional, I'm not a fan.

But of course like most people in the world, I'm a fucktard in many regards, and if you just swallowed my view without a counter-opinion, well, that might just make you one too. So, to not help propagate exactly what I created this site to fight against, I've come across a few video reviews of Ensemble's latest and final effort and I decided to post them up here for your consideration.

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:

GTA IV: The Lost and Damned Review: It's Nice to be Killing People in Liberty City Again

Shallow games seem to be all the rage these days. It's as if we're finally getting what we asked for (good gameplay) and now it's biting us on the ass, or me at least because I actually care about character development. Gears of War 2 is fun but it's about as emotionally compelling as a canceled soap opera, so it's nice to return to the warm cradle of a good plot-line from time to time. I suppose that's why it's been so good to be back in Liberty City's arms again these last few days.

Rockstar's latest car-jacking riot comes in the form of exclusive  downloadable content for the Xbox 360 that goes by the name of The Lost and Damned, and it's a primarily biker-themed affair. I'm sure you've heard of it by now but unless you're willing to drop 1600 Microsoft points sight-unseen, you may not know if it's worth your time. New motorcycles, weapons, and mission objectives are nice, but is there enough here to justify spending twenty of your potentially hard-earned dollars on? Fortunately by most standards the answer is a resounding yes, and I believe it shows The Lost and Damned is just the start of GTA IV's great expandable potential.

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

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.