No Dethklok game? Brutal.

In a move that would likely be described as “The Most Brutal Game Cancellation EVER” by Nathan Explosion, Joystiq is reporting that the Metalocalypse: Dethgame has been… well, killed. Over a year late, it’s not that surprising that the license got yanked away from the developer. Too bad. I would have loved beating a briefcase full of guts over someone’s head. It would have been brutal.

Metalocalypse: Dethgame bangs it’s head no more (Joystiq)

Ugh.

My response:

Yay.

That is all.

Is it ironic when a TV is watching a person? Just throwing that out there.

Well, due to my final push to max out pointlessly on Modern Warfare 2 after 3 “rage retirements“, I completely forgot that this add-on was being released. If you purchased Alan Wake you should have a token available for a free download of the Special Episode 1, which continues the story immediately after episode 6.

If you enjoyed the game, you’ll find plenty more to enjoy here. Full of dialog, cinematic events, and even another music track, the episode is just as lengthy and well-paced as any of the game’s original episodes. I was expecting a half-assed re-cropping of earlier levels, but instead got surprised around every corner, as terrified as ever of the fate of Alan Wake.  I won’t spoil any of the narrative, but it needs to be said: The ending is a gripping as ever, and now we have to wait to see the plot continue.You just have to make it through one incredibly bad Verizon pun at the beginning, and one more glaring shot of how amazing their phones are. Get this add-on, and enjoy! (For renters or tokenless folk, I believe the cost is 500 MS points or so, so there’s no excuse.)

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After 100′s of hours of research, I’ve come up with this handy pie chart. I think you’ll find it’s quite accurate. Carry on.

Made right here if you feel like making your own.

Addictionz

Ah, Puzzle Quest. The ridiculously addicting original is still a top 5 favorite XBLA title of mine, so when the sequel was released, I immediately had to play it. (Galactrix doesn’t count, because it sucked.)

Read on to see how PQ2 lives up to it’s predecessor.

The Good

PQ2 keeps things basically the same gameplay wise. Choose your character/class, and begin your journey to utter domination of the land. The same basic concept of the battles remains: Match skulls for damage, use your spells, wear some armor and jewelry for added defense or other bonuses. In other words if you played the original, don’t expect any drastic gameplay changes. This is relatively a good thing, however it runs into a bit of an annoyance due to one of the few things they did change. More on that later.

One change you’ll notice right off the bat however is the new “blocking” that occurs based on your defense rating. This seems to have been added to heed the blow of those oh-so-annoying cascades the “cheating AI” seems to get once and a while. It cuts the damage in half, which can be good or bad, depending on the battle. Fighting giant packs of rats with a rating of 96 will take an annoying long time to beat, due to almost every one of your attacks doing only half the damage. (There are spells to knock down defense, I suggest using one.) Conversely however, you’ll find your own blocking to save your ass on more than one occasion.

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The other new addition are the action points. The are collected to use your weapon. You can either use a 2-handed weapon or a one handed weapon and use a poison or potion in your other hand. Both need these action points to use, and they make a nice addition to your awesome spell set-up.

The enemies range to the usual mundane rats and skeletons to the bosses, a few of which will seriously piss you off. For the most part though, with the right set-up you’ll easily take care of them. The game’s only true monster is the Green Dragon, a badass with over 1000 life that will provide the game’s only real challenge. (and a nice 30 pt achievement for your efforts.)

The Bad

I’ll start here with the story. It’s ridiculously simplistic and linear. Combine that with an annoying new navigation system, and you’ve got my only real problem with this game. If you played the original, you remember basically alot of freedom on a large map, tons and tons of side missions, collecting from overtaken cities, and so-forth. Most of that is gone in PQ2. In fact not a single mission can be replayed, so once you’ve beaten the game, and it’s handful of side quests, well you’re done. That’s it. (You can do a quick battle instead of the quest itself, which let’s you fight big bosses over if you wish.) The level cap is 50, and if you do even half the side missions, you’ll reach it well before the last boss, who’ll (at least in my case) you’ll destroy w/o any effort.

Remember learning new spells by solving cool puzzles? Well those are back, but there’s only a handful. Which leads me to the game’s biggest disappointment: The mini-games. These are ridiculously lame, and you’re forced to suffer through them more often than not. They’re boring, easy, and grow stale fast. (I played through on Normal, maybe Hard difficulty makes them more challenging, I don’t know.)

So while sticking to the same basic gameplan works in general, the change in navigation and linear aspect kinda hurt the game’s overall enjoyment. It’s still PQ, which means you’ll still be addicted to leveling up and trying out new spells, but it’s just not anywhere near as fun as the original.

Hi Rez: Addicting as the first, some nice changes to the battle system.

Low Rez: Too linear, lame-ass mini-games. Way too easy once you level up.

Verdict: Definitely buy if you liked the original, just be prepared to miss some of its fun.

7.0/10

Hasta la Bye Bye

Well, that just sucks. After months of no news, the bad news came out today: 1 vs 100, Microsoft’s foray in to massive multiplayer Xbox Live trivia, is no more. No more live shows, no more canned “extended play” shows, no more anything. It’s hard to understand the decision, since Microsoft touted that over 100,000 were online playing the game simultaneously during the beta. Perhaps it was too expensive to maintain? Too difficult to produce? We’ll probably  never know. But I know that I’ll never forget my experience in the mob, and the great times and competition in the game.

Projection of a retro 40's Russian film explaining the game's environment. Hmmmm.

Wow. I was starting to think Activision  was becoming a money hungry, shit shoveling monopoly. Then they publish another title from Raven Software, who are the brilliant minds behind Prototype. Click the jump to hear how amazingly original this game is, and why you should reserve your copy right now!

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The game starts with a crash on a small island... Hmmmmmm.

I never heard of this game before I saw it at Wal Mart, with the 360 version having a limited offer of a free copy of Prototype with the proof of purchase. I wasn’t aware that the game was doing so bad with sales that they’re giving it away, but I guess the other 12 games set in New York must have gotten more attention. That’s too bad, since that game kicks ass, and a purchase of this gem of gaming means getting 2 games for the price of one!

The entire game is set on a small island on Katorga-12 (pronounced ka-tor-ga twelve), and play as a Captain of a secret military operation to spy on this secret deserted Soviet island from the post WW II era. Immediately after the game’s intro starts you’re struck by an EMP blast and are separated from your squad mate. After this, you watch a projector of how the island is used to mine a new element called E99,  a superelement that the Russians used to plan world domination. It’s awesome how even though there are burned corpses and dilapidated buildings all around, there’s always a working 30mm film from 50+ years ago ready to watch. Fuck, it’s even wound up and ready to go!  How fucking convenient is that?!

After an interactive flashback, you accidentally change the course of history by saving the life of a man in a burning building, ala The Butterfly Effect. You then get a gun and use it to shoot out a padlock, and learn to duck after the game forces you to duck to continue through a narrow passageway. Then you discover how to open containers and collect items that are flashing; the E99 mineral, which is used to upgrade yourself, “once you figure out what to do with it”.

Then, you discover notes laying around. You know, pieces of paper that have relevant notes of the situation gone horribly wrong on the island, and how the E99 mutates humans into “flesh eating monsters”. Again, it’s nice that in the gaming world, pieces of scrap paper can manage to sit outdoors for 50 years and never blow around. In addition to these unique plot devices, they have another means of fleshing out the plot for the player:

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……..Ready?

Are you fucking serious?

Yeah, tape recorders. They all have English speaking Russians logging  on a tape recorder their imminent death, and usually scream “No, NOO!” before the tape ends. It’s bone chilling, since I’ve never, ever seen this done in my life. Ever.

After reuniting with your squad mate you end up getting into a firefight with the Russian military or some bullshit. Not only do you now get bigger guns, but ANOTHER awesome addition to the FPS genre:

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…….Ready again?!

POWER SIGH!

YES! A sniper rifle! And THIS ONE allows you to slow down time when you’re scoped in, too!  And I might be wrong on this, but the Russian voice actors spewing their commands on their end are almost certainly the exact same people that voiced the SpetzNas in Modern Warfare 2. Seriously!

While the game honestly isn’t that bad, I really am starting to think that it may well be honored with my newest title. While Raven Software’s last game got my coveted “LEAST BORING GAME OF ALL TIME” award, this one stands to be “THE MOST HACKNEYED GAME IN EXISTENCE”!

Could there be anything that this game has that could tip it away from having  grounds for a lawsuit from Irrational Games? Yes, it has one saving grace: You use manipulative powers with your left hand, and weapons in your right hand. Oh wait, that’s a ripoff from Bioshock too. Hmmm. Oh, it has a woman that ends up helping you. And she has a BRITISH accent, which means she’s smart!

(For clarification purposes, the following paragraph is now free of sarcasm)

So like I said earlier, it’s not a bad game, really. After a slow buildup of your powers the game’s grotesque violence and neat-o special effects can be quite satisfying. The graphics and sound aren’t up to par of a lot of the present games out there, but the difference is negligible. The only issues I spotted during the campaign were the tons of abilities that you want to work into combat, but are located all over the controller. This is NOT a game designed for newbies to first person shooters, but at least they won’t end up sighing ten times in the 1st hour from the ridiculous plagiarism that’s going on either. It’s something that you can plow through with a rental and become duly amused, but if you’re looking for a more stimulating FPS experience I’d say Wolfenstein is a much better game at the moment.

Oh, and for all those poor saps that bought this game for the Prototype deal:

HI RES: Some of the time manipulation tricks can be fun to use, particularly a AOE ball that you use to stop the time of anything within it. That’s cool.

LO RES: Absolutely, positively the most unoriginal major release ever to be a witness. Almost worth checking out just to see how bad it it, like a B movie.

Verdict: A rainy day rental, at best. Steer clear of the deal and buy Prototype off Ebay instead.

I think this should be in CoD too. The oh-so-annoying vuvuzela that blares during the “once every four years people suddenly watch soccer” World Cup could do some serious damage.

Thank you, and happy E3 speculation.

102 keys. Not an Eigenharp.

So no sooner than I post that no picture of the new Rock Band 3 Pro Guitar peripheral exists, Destructoid goes and blows out crazy details on the game modes and the instruments. Their articles are excellent and well worth a read if you’re getting fanatical about the game (instruments here, game thoughts here). Those of you who are lazy (IE: Our beloved fans) read on.

That guitar above is the new Mad Catz pro guitar. It has 102 buttons on it. No shit. And 6 strings. And did you know that it can also be used as a MIDI guitar? If you have a computer with MIDI software on it, you can rock out. It’s not cheap however (DUH). Try $149.99 MSRP. Here’s the whole deets:

Introducing a new level of realism to the rhythm music genre, the Wireless Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar Controller is designed for use exclusively with Rock Band 3, allowing gamers to accurately replicate a real guitar when playing Rock Band Pro mode in the game.  Featuring 17 frets along a button-based neck, the Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar includes a 6-string strumming area which allows for discrete picking of each string and a touch-sensitive string box which allows players to mute or ‘cut-off’ notes when pressed.  In addition, the Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar operates as a fully functional MIDI guitar, with the MIDI output connector providing compatibility with MIDI software sequencers and hardware devices while standard console-specific gaming controller buttons deliver seamless console integration and navigation of the game menus.  The Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar allows for left or right handed use and can also be used to play either lead or bass parts of the game in Rock Band Pro and standard game modes.

Hit the jump for more pics, as well as (GET THIS) a real guitar you can use in pro mode.

So, that’s the Mad Catz Fender. Pretty shit-hot, no? I mean, palm muting… nice. But, perhaps you’re saying to yourself “Gee, $149 is a lot. I should just get a damn guitar at that point…”. Yeah, that’s a valid thought. So, Mad Catz and Fender are gonna do just that. Behold, the Fender Squire Rock Band controller.

Yes, a real guitar!

Yes, that’s a real guitar, that has the requisite electronics in it to detect your hand positions and what you’re fretting and strumming. No details at all yet on pricing or availability, but you’d look pretty bad ass at your next party showing up with that thing in tow…

Finally, click the image below for a ginormous picture of 4 lane Rock Band 3. Note the tab-like notation on the fretboard for pro guitar. You’d practically be playing the song at that point…