http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php A current listing of cheap video games, video game sales and video game deals: CAG en Mon, 20 May 2013 07:25:35 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=23626 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:54:09 GMT So I was going through my old blogs when I came across this one. It's a tale of a young man sharing the tale of his first date with a new lady. It's a long read but one that is well worth your time.

]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=23626 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=21044 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:52:23 GMT Not sure if this was an error with CAG or something but earlier today CAG Necrojustice posted a... Not sure if this was an error with CAG or something but earlier today CAG Necrojustice posted a nice blog about a first date followed by a great response by CAG Crapasaurus. Just happened to still have it cached on my system so I took a screen capture of it and here you go...

]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=21044 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=18030 Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:53:32 GMT After watching the Giant Bomb Quicklook of this game many months ago I couldn't wait to add this to my buddy's Gamefly queue. Low and behold the day is here. After months of waiting for what had to be the most requested game in Gamefly's history, I give you my buddy's timely review of...

Rogue Warrior
by Crapasaurus Rex

I recently had the pleasure of playing Rogue Warrior. Now a lot of people might claim that Rogue Warrior is just another poorly executed first person shooter. But fuck those motherfuckers.

Rogue Warrior transcends the modern shooter genre by securing an A-List Hollywood actor to voice the main character, Dick Marcinko. That's right - Academy Fucking Award Nominee, Golden Cocksucking Globe winning actor and all around Baddass, MICKEY MOTHERFUCKING ROURKE!

Rogue Warrior is set in the mid 1980s, with the Cold War still raging (as much as a cold war can rage). Dick is sent in to track down a North Korean missile program, that turns out is tied to the USSR. It's too much for the pencil-dicked fucks back in Washington to handle - and they told Dick to pull out. But Dick doesn't pull out! The only way for Dick is hard and fast, head first! That's how Dick gets the motherfucking job done!

As a shooter, it's mediocre. There's no one part that was particularly good. I did like that there were no bosses; just plenty of enemies that were all killed by a head shot. It was remarkably short (Dick was in and out in about 5 hours) for a shooter, and with no multiplayer component, there really was nothing left to do in the game because replaying it was pointless. (Technically, there is a multiplayer game, but there was nobody online playing it.)

I can't just judge it on the graphics (good), story (poor) and gameplay (average). Mickey Fucking Rourke, my friends. A lot of people can tell an imaginary Colonel that the situation is a complete goat-fuck. But I doubt any of them would say it with the passion and skill that Rourke managed each and every time he said it.

Also, the best part may be the end credits. While the creds are rolling, and some music is playing, all of Rourke's best lines are being spoken with gusto. Brought a tear to my motherfucking eyes.

3 of 5.

PS - there is a little bit of language in this one, so parents - keep your kids the fuck away from this game. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=18030 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=17597 Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:54:44 GMT So yeah I had given my buddy way to many half-way decent games to play from his gamefly queue so it... So yeah I had given my buddy way to many half-way decent games to play from his gamefly queue so it was time again to give him what I thought would be a REALLY shitty game. Well, he has recently finished playing it however he had been posting his impressions throughout his time with this game so I will present them here for your reading pleasure.

Also, should you be interested this is a link to his blog.... http://crapasaurusongames.blogspot.c...f74301f21a1877

Deadly Premonitions - Gameplay
Oh, fuck, it's a Japanese game with shitty graphics and shittier controls. Bets on how soon before a tentacle shows up?

For fuck's sake, it's another one of those "pick up everything because you may need it for a ridiculous puzzle" game. I just crashed my car, I'm being soaked by rain, I just found a freshly mutilated dog, and I follow a phantom into a shack. So what do I do? I pick up a can of pickles. Fuck you, Japan!

And now some bent-over backwards, no-eyed ghost person is called a "Mysterious Shadow." It's neither mysterious nor a shadow. Fuck!

Jesus, this game keeps getting worse. Not only are there save points, but it seems you get only one save. So if you fuck up (like, say, playing this game) you're fucked. And the save point is a pay phone. What the fuck is this, the Matrix?

Fantastic, I just found a lollipop on a filthy, rainy wooden path. Better take that for later. Now I realize that homeless people with those shopping carts full of crap are just playing a Japanese game.

I am the best FBI agent ever. Not only do I have a 9mm FBI custom handgun, but I thrust my badge into everyone's face like I want to punch them with it, even if they already know who I am. Plus, my hotel room in some small town has the biggest bed in the world. It's like a king-and-a-half. A bed worthy of my awesomeness.

And I can change my clothes. I'm surprised there is no schoolgirl outfit.

I am walking around a hotel, entering vacant rooms with impunity, and stealing every can of pickles or package of crackers I can find. At least they make it clear that I'm batshit fucking insane.

I love mundane stuff. While there is a shitty driving bit in this game, at least I have turn signals and wipers. This is what I wished GTA IV had!

Holy fucking shit. Every street has a name that's only good for the block it's on. A street can be four blocks long, and it will have four names. Once it intersects with another street, it's name changes.

I have a silent but deadly premonition about this game.

I don't know what to make of this game. It's obviously survival horror, but it throws in so much other shit I can't figure out what it was thinking. There's a race for driving a car. And winning gives you money. You can fish, for fucks sake.

Holy shit, I'm starting to enjoy this game for how bad it is. Maybe it's a mockery of the survival horror genre? ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=17597 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16958 Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:41:17 GMT As you will see in my buddies review he completed this game months ago. Somehow I glanced over it... As you will see in my buddies review he completed this game months ago. Somehow I glanced over it however I suggest you not make the same mistake.

Also, please feel free to suggest other Xbox360 games for him to play. As you know, I control his Gamefly queue....

SUNDAY, JUNE 27, 2010
Darkest of Days - Review
My dearest Clementine,
I find myself out at the Battle of Antietam. The day is dark. I have but a Springfield Musket and a six-shooter. There is a lot of smoke, and I long for the day when I will return to my home and can court you properly. I can hear the musket fire and see the sky growing thick with smoke. The day is growing darker still. Oh, my darling, my tulip, I have so little hope that I will survive. But what hope I hold onto is that I will one day return to your arms. At least my weapons will reload without me. It is a strange technique they taught me when I signed up. I can discharge my musket, and then begin to reload, and then immediately switch weapons to my sidearm. I can shoot the sidearm until it's empty, and start to reload that too. I can then switch back to my musket before my six-shooter is reloaded, to find my musket loaded and ready. Truly it is a remarkable thing. But goodness, the sky is even darker. Why, this may be the darkest of days. I have so much to tell you when I return, about how the memory of your face kept me going, how your letters warmed my heart when the nights were cold. And how I became a time-traveling super agent. So many things. If only I get through this battle.
Yours forever, Morris


When I was a wee lad, I used to play paper-and-dice role playing games. (Ah, who am I kidding, I still do it and I'm creeping up on 40.) So I'm a die-hard nerd/geek/awesome guy. And I think my favorite RPGs was something published by Pacesetter Games, called TimeMaster. If the name wasn't a giveaway, it's a time traveling RPG. You play a character of your choice, who is "saved" just before your death, to join a secret group called the Time Corps. Since you are 'historically' dead, you act as an agent sent to write historical wrongs created by either renegade time travelers or a time-traveling alien race. It was very complex, very though provoking, and overall a fascinating game. It required a LOT or work, though, like research and such, and I think that's why the game died out and my friends didn't play it with me. (There were many lonely nights of me sitting around a card table in my mom's basement, with three empty chairs and me, drinking a "Near Beer" and waiting patiently to play a rousing session of Timemaster. And I know that one day, after time travel is invented, I'll fix that, and I'll instead remember a rousing session of Timemaster played in my mom's basement with historical figures sitting in those once empty chairs, like a deleted scene out of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's going to happen. Fuck you, it IS going to happen!!!

So anyway, Darkest of Days is a time travel shooter game that involves you yanked from history just before your death at Custer's Last Stand, and you join Kronotech, a time travel preservation force. I had a Nerd-On about two minutes into the game. You travel through the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and a kinda unexpected fourth time period that I'm not going to spoil, because I thought it was a nice treat at the end, and you try to write the inaccuracies of history.

Missions are pretty straightforward and simple, but they're not bad. I heard a lot of lousy things about this game, and I disagree with them. It's not a great shooter, but it's good, and there were a lot of things I liked about it. I liked using historical weapons. Something about a flintlock single-shot musket that lets out a lot of smoke made me feel all fuzzy inside. The WWI and WW2 weapons were more standard fare, and for the most part the futuristic weapons you got to use were not very different from every other shooter. There's something nice about the limitations of the old-fashioned weapons that breathed some life into this game for me.

I think my favorite part of the game was that it had some courage. It held to the standard that the goal was about preserving history, regardless of how bad that history was. It would have been very simple to have you fight as only a Union soldier or an Allied soldier in WWI, because they're the standard "good guys." But in this game, you ALSO have to fight as a Confederate and as a German, so it breaks the common rule of only being with the "Good Guys." You don't ever help the Nazis win a battle, though, so it didn't REALLY push the boundary, but it was refreshing to see that the game kept to its message.

The voice acting was a mixed bag. Dexter, your constant companion, was pretty good and had some great curses ("fuzzy shit balls" was my favorite). But the rest of it wasn't much to write home about, and "Mother" just sounded plain stupid and poorly done. Controls were standard shooter, levels were big and well designed, and the sounds seemed authentic to me. I farmed some achievements and got myself 675 points playing through the game on easy, and had I decided to play through it on Normal I would have walked away with another hundred.

Darkest of Days gets a 7. I was going to give it a 6, but I remembered the Horse Puncher achievement, and that's worth an extra point for plain awesomeness. They set up for a sequel, and I sure hope there is one. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16958 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16855 Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:46:53 GMT So yes, my buddy has gone on to review several games from Gamefly and I have not been great about... So yes, my buddy has gone on to review several games from Gamefly and I have not been great about reposting lately however when I read this one I nearly crapped myself. What follows are the lunatic rantings of a mad man who is reviewing a game before he even plays it based merely on the title. Enjoy...

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010
Pimp My Ride - PreReview
I can't imagine being more excited about a game than I am about Pimp My Ride. I'm so thrilled that it's on its way from GameFly that I'm going to review it before I play it; that's how sure I am that this game is going to be awesome. I'll add an edit at the end if I need to correct any part of this review (not that I expect it to happen).

Every so often a game comes along that challenges gaming conventions and puts a whole new spin on the entire game genre in which it resides. Pimp My Ride is one of those games. I can't even accurately describe what it is; it's a simulation-design-racing-fighting game? It's such a myriad of concepts and gameplay one might suspect it falls flat on its face, accomplishing none of its lofty endeavors. Instead, it is a seamless flow of crime-drama, resource management and action that completely envelops the player.

In Pimp My Ride, you play an up-and-coming pimp - no surprise there. Being the entrepreneurial type, you decide to move away from the traditional prostitution racket and cash in on a growing trend; people having sex with cars. Unfortunately, you don't have any real money. So when the game starts, you have nothing but a junker and an Internet connection. Fortunately for you, that's enough, and within minutes you are driving out to meet your first client.

I don't want to spoil the story (which is surprisingly compelling), so I'll just mention the highlights of the game:

1) Upgrading your pimp hand was ingenious. When you start out with nothing more than a leather work glove, you can't really do that much damage with a swing. But later on, when you get the "Pimp Gauntlet," you can really smack the shit out of a fender when your cars don't bring back enough cash. Of course, the more you smack around your cars, the more you have to pay an under-the-counter mechanic to fix them back up. Then again, he's usually willing to reduce his fees if you let him oil his drive shaft, if you know what I mean.

2) The management part of the game was very detailed. From choosing who's going to be in your stable ("garage") of hooker-cars (called "rides") to establishing which need to get body work, it balances details and enjoyment very well. Picking a new "ride" to be a part of your garage usually involves finding that "ride's" pimp, and then putting up one of your own rides in a race; winner takes all. If you're lucky, you walk away with a new "ride." That first racing win unlocks an achievement, "Stinky Pinky Slip." Likewise, choosing which "ride" would benefit more from getting a new grill or a larger hood ornament is a strategy in and of itself.

3) Finally, the graphics. It's nice to see when a game doesn't shy away from an M rating. If you're looking for hot cars willing to take a fuel injection, this is your game. They have cars for any taste (even those with both automatic and manual transmissions, called "trannies"). You can set each "rides" prices for whatever action they get (tailpipe fun costs extra, of course). You can likewise train them to be better at some skills than others. My Oldsmobile Cutlass didn't look like much, but she really knew how to work her gashole.

This game captured resource management, strategy and racing in a way that no other game ever has. It's easily earned a 5 out of 5. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16855 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16572 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:14:04 GMT So whatever...I hate you.....Now read my buddies timely review of Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol... So whatever...I hate you.....Now read my buddies timely review of Alpha Protocol.

Alpha Protocol - Review
My most recent game is Alpha Protocol, which puts you in the character of Michael Thorton, a new recruit to an ultra-clandestine government spy agency. You are tasked with track down some highly technical missiles used by a terrorist organization to blow up a plane, and to find out how the terrorists got the missiles in the first place. It's an RPG, allowing you to tailor your character to your gameplay style; you can go in guns blazing; you can skulk around, or something in between. The long and short of it is that Alpha Protocol is a 3rd person spy-shooter RPG with good gameplay, a surprisingly complex story and cast of characters, and a name so stupid it hurts the entire genre.
I had a good time playing Alpha Protocol. I didn't expect much from this game, having not read any reviews or heard much about it at all. But I've never found a spy game that I thought was good (barring, of course, the No One Lives Forever games, but they were really just shooters in a new costume), so I hadn't gotten my hopes up. But I'm glad I played it. I just wished it had a better name. It sounds like the guys in development that had to come up with the name for the game/spy organization just slapped a Greek letter onto another randomly generated word. I mean, seriously - "Alpha Protocol?" "The First Set of Rules?" The very first approach to a situation is to send in a super-spy to blow the fuck out of things? I mean, if you're going to try to make that work, maybe the "Omega Protocol" would be better; you know, when you don't have any other options, send in the Omega Protocol superspy to blow the fuck out of things. I don't want to dwell on the name too much, though. It's one of my biggest complaints, though.

The game play in Delta Pretzel was generally good but overall mediocre; what I mean is, nothing was remarkable about it, and in certain specific areas it was less than I hoped. Stealth gameplay was, in my experience, shitty. I am fan of stealth games like the Thief series and such, so it's not a matter of patience with me. I just never felt that I was stealthy, and with the exception of the training exercise, I couldn't pull off a mission in this game without resorting to gunplay no matter how stealthy I tried to be; sometimes within two seconds of the level starting I had alerted guards heading my way. Granted, after a few levels I decided to give up on stealth and restarted the game as a shoot-em-up guy, but I feel like with a spy game stealth should have been either easier or more intuitive than what they had.

Likewise, the cover system in Omicron Dirty Teacup was crap. I frequently had to move away from the wall I wanted to use for cover in order for the cover system to allow me to "snap" to it. I mean, why would I want to use the wall I'm right fucking next to as cover without first walking out into the open.

Finally, the last thing I really didn't like was that the conversations were very long and detailed; while that's generally a good thing in my mind, it had some irritating flaws. For starters, you can choose one of up to four conversation options at different points in the conversation, frequently to establish your tone but also to enact specific effects. However, the choice for these is on a timer, so you have to make sure you're not looking away, say like reaching for a drink, or you may miss the opportunity to steer the conversation in the direction you want. And if for some reason you want to move quickly through the conversation, you can use the "fast-forward" button, which speeds up the conversation while held down, but must be re-initiated when the dialogue switches speakers. So if the conversation has a dozen transitions, even if they're just one word sentences, you'll have to keep hitting and holding down the trigger again and again.

That being said, Sigma Pile of Magazines To Which My Wife Subscribes had a refreshingly complex story and some very memorable characters. One in particular reminds me of a psychotic "Brucie" from GTA IV, and the e-mail received from this character were fantastic. The game also made me feel smart; no matter what dialog choice I had, the game responded in a way where my choice was framed in the best possible way. At one point, I extorted money from a guy, and the game made it clear that this selection was not only reasonable, but also clever; I just wanted some money, but here I was setting up a very cunning trap.

All in all, Upsilon Ten-Year-Old Fujifilm Digital Camera That Still Takes Pretty Good Pictures But Which Is A Bit Too Bulky For My Taste is a fun game that feels like a first outing that can only get better. A sequel could really refine the bad areas and expand the good ones, and would be a real Grade-A game. But they're not going to make a sequel, apparently, so the people who decided that should kiss my skidmarks. So much lost potential.

7 out of 10. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16572 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16422 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:26:38 GMT So, instead of forcing my buddy to play more shitty games from his gamefly queue I loaned him... So, instead of forcing my buddy to play more shitty games from his gamefly queue I loaned him Singularity which I enjoyed a good amount. He was hesitant to write a review because he didn't rent it but I was able to convince him and because of that we all have this little gem.

Singularity - Review
Singularity was not a game I was that excited about playing. The same company had put out Wolfenstein, and that game sucked the turds out of a donkey's ass. But my friend who loaned it to me was very positive about the game, so what are you going to do?

I was pleasantly surprised with Singularity. It doesn't really break new ground, which is a complaint that a lot of people make about games. Frankly, I never really understood it. Wolfenstein (the REALLY old one, not the newest piece of crap) broke new ground with the effective invention of the first person shooter. But pretty much after that, they're all effectively the same thing. Sure, the introduced jumping, better graphics, better gameplay, and much better stories, but for the most part, they're all the same basic game. Things like 'cover,' and 'bullet time' are cool , but they're still basically bullshit pieces of eye-candy to make the game feel different. So use the "doesn't break new ground" term as loosely as a 25 dollar hooker dressed as Mystique at a comic convention.


Singularity gives you some fun toys to play with. They are all based around "time manipulation", which really doesn't make much sense they way they have it work, but I'll put aside my physics nerd attitude and just say it's clever and enjoyable. Aging soldiers to dust is fun; reverting boxes to a "larger" state in order to lift up a door was a treat to discover. And none of them beat making a sphere inside which time slows to a near halt. If I had to pick one thing that made this game worth checking out, it's that power, called Deadlock. Properly used, it can not only freeze enemies in time so that you can launch a shit-fuck-ton of bullets at them which will all hit more or less simultaneously, but you can also use it to slow pursuers, form an effective shield against incoming bullets, and manuever around your enemies to flank them or shoot them in the back.

The story is a bit weak, and the "time travel" between 1950s and modern day Russia has a lot of holes in it, and it never really grabbed me so that I wanted to read all the notes or what-not. But it had pretty good environmental and visual effects, and I jumped at least once. Monster (sorry, mutant) design ranged between clever and ridiculous. Seriously, why is it that giant monsters always tend to be invulnerable except for the big pulsating pimples that grow out rapidly and seem to be direct lines to their most important organs?

Anyway, Singularity gets a 7. It's a fun first person shooter that you've seen before, but with a couple clever additions to make you smile. I don't know how multiplayer is; I didn't care to play it.

PS - If you keep dressing like that, you're asking to be raped by a pack of Mel Gibsons. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16422 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16359 Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:39:12 GMT I have kinda let myself slip when it comes to posting my buddies reviews and for that I apologize. ... I have kinda let myself slip when it comes to posting my buddies reviews and for that I apologize. Now, what I did not slip with was effing with my buddies Gamefly queue and moving Onechanbara to the top of the list. You will soon see that he was not pleased with me....

Onechanbara - Review
I knew when I decided that I'd play everything I could get from GameFly that I'd be playing shitty games. And I knew there would be some games that were so bad that I couldn't bear to spend the time to finish them. And I guessed a majority of those games would be Japanese. There's just something I can't get into with most of the Japanese games I've played. My buddy recently brought Onechanbara to the top of my queue because he had fallen a bit short on his monthly dick quota and decided to ratchet it up by forcing this game on me.

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is a game that I am finding it hard to describe. Terrible is up there with possible choices. Two Girls, Onechanbara was a great way to sum this game up, and I can't take the credit for that. But what I can do is further that comparison beyond just an awesome catch phrase. For those of you who are not familiar with the reference, it refers to Two Girls, One Cup, an Internet phenomenon of the most vile kind. I have now played Onechanbara and seen Two Girls, One Cup, so I feel I can make a pretty fair comparison. The game has scantily clad over-sexified anatomically impossible and incorrect women hacking up zombies with swords. The video has two apparent lesbians shitting into a cup, playing with that shit, actually eating the shit, and then vomiting the shit into each others mouths for good measure. One of these two made me look away from the screen in disgust and wonder what the fuck is wrong with people. The other one was Two Girls, One Cup.


The game is designed for twelve year olds who have never seen boobs before and have never had access to the Internet. I know they claim it's about hacking zombies to death, but the fact of the matter is that they put more work into writing code to make gigantic boobs bounce like rubber balls than they did on a story. The game starts with a shower-scene movie with side-boob, for fuck's sake. The fact that they fucked it up and made unrealistic physics for the jubblies doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, the only thing that surprised me about this game was that, by the time I had quit, I had not run into a tentacle monster that threatened to rape the character.

The game is a misnomer, too, because only one of the three characters actually wears a bikini. That is, until you make them a new costume in the Dress Up option. That's right - you can dress up the characters in different costumes for them to be half-naked in. It's a pubescent's fantasy.

The story was something about a corporation figuring out how to raise the dead and zombies crawl burst out from under stone cobbled streets and asphalt. Either the largest number of cops, lumberjacks and plumbers were previously murdered and buried under the city secretly, or the corporation also figured out how to arm these zombies before they leave the ground. I can't count how many zombies burst from the streets carrying pipes, chainsaws and guns. So fantastic - the one part of the game that's not based around tits, and they fuck it up. Zombies don't use shotguns. Period.

Combat was very irritating. To kill certain zombies, one is required to use something called a "cool combo," a ridiculously difficult series of button pressing (one button only) with varied timing which I could never pull off, even in the practice mode. So when you get to a part where you have to kill one of these things to progress, you're kinda fucked if you can't pull it off. Now maybe I didn't need to kill this monster; I don't know. What I do know is I found a key and wandered back and forth several times through multiple maps that I had already been in trying to find the door that this key opened. The lack of a practical navigation system made finding the next location unbearable. After wandering around for 20 minutes only to find my way blocked by a monster I couldn't kill was the last straw.

Onechanbara gets a 1. That's the lowest I've ever rated a game. Nobody should play this game. If you need to see fake boobies move around, try the INTERNET.

(Yes, I edited this post and added more content. I just wasn't satisfied with explaining how shitty this game was the first time around.) ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=16359 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15706 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:39:52 GMT So after giving my buddy crap game after crap game to play and review it was time to give him... So after giving my buddy crap game after crap game to play and review it was time to give him something I was always a little curious about and heard was relatively good. So on with my buddy's timely review of...


Afro Samurai - Review
by Crapasaurus Rex
There is a God of Monologues, and his name is Samuel L. Jackson.

I had heard Afro Samurai was a good game, but beyond that and knowing that Samuel L. was a voice in the game, I had no idea what it was. I didn't know about the comics, or the cartoons, until after I was well into the game and SLJ told me there was a TV show. Sure, he broke the 4th wall, but who gives a fuck?

The story is about a samurai who was was given the unfortunate name "Afro" by his father. And he's out to find a pair of headbands that may or may not be magical, and also to avenge his father's death. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense why they'd focus on these headbands; vengeance was much more reasonable.

So the game is fun to play. Easy to use controls, a "bullet-time" mode where you can cut bullets in half, and just plain savage brutality. The game knows it's gory, and it revels in it. (Not only are there achievements for separating people from their parts, there's actually a mini-game where you try to cut the right parts off of people. The graphics are cell-shaded style, but very attractive at that, and the movement, kills and overall feel are very entrancing. There were a few jumping irritations in the game, and at times the camera is a real pain in the ass. I've never been a fan of platforming, but the game does a pretty good job of keeping the entertainment value high.

The game does have some cutscenes you can't skip, and a checkpoint save system that is fantastic up until the times where it isn't. I'd even give the game a decent replay value - I strongly considered playing it a second time just to try to get better at combos and earn more skills. In the end, though, I decided I'd wait to buy it until its cheaper.

So the game gets a 7. It's a solid game with high entertainment value, even if the plot is ridiculous.

Nah, I'm just jerking you off. The game has SAMUEL L. JACKSON in it, narrarating the whole game. And I'm not talking like a sentence here at the beginning of the level, and a couple lines at the end. He must have recorded somewhere between 45 and 60 minutes of lines. He is constantly talking, mocking you, and bringing to your ears awesomeness that can only be compared to a sonic orgasm. All the pleasure, and none of the messy tube socks.

You may think I'm being asinine, but I can say without a doubt that Samuel L. Jackson's voice is the most entertaining voice work I've ever heard in a game. I'm including GLADOS in this comparison, and I fucking LOVED Portal. But Portal didn't make my vagina leak.

When Samuel L. Jackson tells you, as you make a wrong turn while following a female through a forest, "Damn, Afro - you've been chasing Justice for so long you've forgotten how to chase pussy," the game automatically becomes a winner. He's drops the word "bullshit" before you even hit the START button; that's how awesome he is in this game.

Afro Samurai gets a 9. Hands down, it's a great time. SLJ's narration is well worth any of the frustrating minor issues with this game. I would have his voiceover's babies. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15706 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15310 Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:09:11 GMT I would sooner be shit on by a vomiting crack whore than play a God damned Cabela's game but I'll be damned if I won't make my buddy play one. He has been raised on MMORPGs so he has the ability to slog through crap for days on end convincing himself that he's having fun. No game could better recreate the feeling of being shit on by a vomiting crack whore than a Cabela's game so on we go.....

Cabela's Trophy Bucks - Review

I like first person shooter games, but I'm not as good at them as I would like to be. For a long time, I chalked it up to natural talent. But recently I've stumbled on another theory. I need to kill other game in first person shooters BEFORE I go out to hunt the most dangerous game. And so I added to my GameFly Queue every Cabela game I could get my hands on.

Cabela's Trophy Bucks is kind of like a cross between the worst types of shooter and hunting simulator. It makes you anticipate things like stalking and use of clever hunting tactics, but it just boils down to a low-grade shooter. There is almost no real strategy to this game. The levels are relatively large, but only a few require moving more than a couple feet. Shotguns have a tremendous accuracy at far range. Some animals become invulnerable for reasons I don't understand - I think it was weapon conditional (that is to say, the turkey can now only be shot with a rifle, even though it's running on the ground in front of you and you've put three rounds of buckshot in it).


The game mixes up hunts between deer, birds, and small mammals. Which is fascinating to me, because I didn't realize I'd rented Cabela's Grab Bag. I thought I was going to shoot Trophy Bucks. More than half of the missions involve non-deer.

As far as stalking, you're given various animal calls (which lure out one or more animals) and scent covers/lures, which have the same effect. Movement is tricky in this game. Not because it alerts the prey, which it does, but because you can frequently barely move in this game. I've run into so many invisible movement-stopping rocks that I can't imagine that this game was playtested. So not only do you not need to move much, what little you do to make chase is hamstrung by the poorly designed ground architecture.

Frequently, a mission involves a herd of deer walking around and you have to kill as many as you can before they flee. Rather than stealthy tactics and quick shooting, it scored more points to charge them with a shotgun and shoot them at as close to point blank range as I could get. I shit you not. Not like the hunting I remember.

Auto-aim became a problem when I had a distant target at a slightly higher elevation than a closer target. Since accuracy was rarely important in this game, having the auto-aim hit the closer target often allowed the farther, more valuable target, to escape.

Levels didn't repopulate with animals except for arcade levels (where endless streams of animals run past you, the way they do in real life) and so frequently I found myself wandering around a level long after all the game was gone, just waiting down the 90 seconds that remained on the clock.

You get ratings for each hunt, but you can't go back to past hunts to try to improve your score without starting a new game. You can replay a mission any number of times up until you accept your score, and then you're hosed.

Overall, it was not a good game. I had fun, but mostly because I was laughing at how bad the game was. It's not the worst game I've played by far, but I don't recommend this game. In 1998, there was a PC game called Carnivores where you hunted Dinosaurs. It's a much better hunting game. You'd think in 10 years they'd have evolved a bit.

I'm giving the game a 3. It had too many bugs to make the 6 hour, 96 mission game fun, and making the animal corpses vanish while I'm in the middle of teabagging a 12 point buck just adds insult to injury.

PS - Yes, your hunting dog is invulnerable to point-blank shotgun blasts to the head in case you feel like going all Old Yeller on him. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15310 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15294 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:40:33 GMT So after forcing my buddy to play through Monster Jam (yes, I'm a dick) I figured I would give him what I heard was a relatively decent game to play during his quest to play every Xbox 360 game he can get from Gamefly. That game is Saw and away we go...

Saw - Review
I liked the movie Saw. I moderately liked Saw 2. And then it went down from there (although I have not seen 3 or 6). I figured a movie tie-in game would be pretty lousy. Turns out, I was happily mistaken.

Saw is an enjoyable game. I think of it as a survival horror game. By throwing you into a dilapidated insane asylum, it sets up an atmosphere that is very thick. Unlike some games, it's not too dark (except for one small part that you don't even have to experience) and it relies more on visuals and sounds than leaving you blindly scrambling for a pinpoint of light.


When I played the demo, I was disappointed, because I thought it didn't make sense to have people in there that you'd be killing with bats, knives and even furniture. But when I played through this game, it all made sense. It was nice to play a game that, even with the pre-existing structure that is the film series, was able to weave its tale and action without feeling like it was throwing aside its source material.

The traps were right out of the films, starting with the reverse bear trap which I still think is one of the more horrifying Saw gimmicks.

And the use of traps as puzzles to be solved works so much better than some of the things I've seen in survival horror games (including the recent Silent Hill: Homecoming). The game is set up so that I know exactly why I'm turning a steam valve, instead of just turning a valve because it's there. Plus, it's nice to know why only a few of the doors will open - you're in a giant deathtrap that is designed to funnel you in one direction. I know that objectively it doesn't matter whether there's a story-based reason for railroading gameplay, but I can't tell you how irritating it is to be in a horror game and going through someone's house and finding out none of the doors can be opened until I've picked up a weird artifact. Call me crazy, but if the game makers can convince me that the fart they just blew up my nose is actually the smell of fresh bread, I'll get hungry for a sandwich.

None of the puzzles were too hard, although a couple of them flirted with pissing me off. I didn't need any outside help, and really felt like I had earned the 950 achievement points I gained through my playthrough (and thanks to a last-moment checkpoint, the game allows you to experience both of its endings without forcing you to play through the entire game again.

I put about 12 hours into this game (although I could be off by a couple hours in either direction, I really wasn't keeping track). With the exception of a few curses, I had a really good time playing the game, and wish that other survival horror games take serious note of how this game was structured. With only one boss battle (which was one of the cursing moments), it was nice to see the games difficulty ramping up only as far as more complex traps and more dangerous environments. I'd have gotten pissed right quick if I ran into a normal guy and had to hit him 20 times with a nail board to drop him. Even as the game gets to its end, every non-boss villain can be dropped in about two well placed weapon swings.

Okay, I've pretty much been talking this game up like I want to fuck it, so let me be critical for a minute. For a cop (you play the same character Danny Glover played in the first Saw movie), you are pretty pathetic at self defense. And combat defense was very weak. I know it's not an action game, but I still felt that it wasn't worth trying to dodge because of how crappy the mechanism was.
And some of the environmental hazards were more than was necessary. I hated that every so often, if I stopped paying attention, I'd suddenly get my head liquified by a hidden shotgun and have to reload my checkpoint. (Side note - I also kind of loved that I really needed to pay attention that carefully. It was a love hate relationship to be sure.)
And I hate checkpoints. But they came frequently and before anything planned to be bad happens.

The graphics were good (character models were mediocre), the sound was excellent, and the environmental gimmicks (like footsteps from above accompanied by falling dust) were exceptional. Gameplay was moderate to good (and excellent as far as most survival horror goes) and the story was not nearly as bad as one would expect from a movie spin off. If you don't have a moderately strong stomach, I'd stay away from this game, but I've seen more gory things in some recent shooters (AVP, for one).

All told, I'm giving this an 8 of 10. If you like survival horror games but haven't played this one, do yourself a favor and rent it. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15294 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15271 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:42:33 GMT So, let the misery continue. As you probably know if you follow this review/blog my buddy has... So, let the misery continue. As you probably know if you follow this review/blog my buddy has given me complete control over his Gamefly account. This means that I determine which games he gets next. What's awesome about this is that Monster Jam, yes the horrible monster truck game we have all seen countless times in the used crap corner of our local Gamestops, was available to rent and I'll be damned if he wasn't getting it as soon as possible. What follows if another great review of a shitty game from my buddy. So on we go with my buddy's timely review of...


Monster Jam - Review
Sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! It's MONSTER JAM!!!! For one day only, enjoy FIVE FULL HOURS of car crushing, house smashing, engine roaring MONSTER TRUCK MADNESS!!!! MONSTER JAM!!!! MONSTER JAM!!! MONSTER JAM!!!! From 10:30 AM until 5 PM, with a 90 minute break for food (lunch, Lunch, LUNCH!), it'll be non-stop racing and crushing and smashing!

Featuring the awesome power of MONSTER MUTT! A monster truck so ridiculous you think it has to be some sort of satire of the entire Monster Jam subculture by tacking floppy ears and a tail to a monster truck! But you're wrong, Wrong, WRONG, because Monster Mutt is a REAL MONSTER TRUCK!!!!!

(That's right, folks, the first image I ever embed into my blog is a monster fucking truck.)

What is Monster Jam? It's a racing game with MONSTER TRUCKS!!! Even though Monster Trucks don't really race, not in the real sense, they sure as hell race in MONSTER JAM! And not just race! They crush construction sites, airports and shipyards! Why? Because it's not a MONSTER if it's not destroying things people like! Racetracks around the desert, the pacific northwest, and the midwest, full of sights and sounds are the tromping grounds for these BEASTS!!! And then there are the ARENAS! With Car Crushing, RAMP JUMPING, SHIT SMASHING FUN! FUN! FUN!!!!!!!


Can you design your own Monster Truck, so that you can tweak its power, handling, mass and awesomeness and then put it up against famous Monster Trucks? No, NO, NOOOO!!!! And best of all, this game is boring, BORING, BORING!!!!

Okay, I've got that out of my system. I admit freely that I don't like driving games. This is a weak version of a driving game, because it doesn't seem to know what to be. I guess they decided that Monster Trucks crushing cars in an arena was not interesting enough for a game, so they added full track racing for these trucks. Here's the thing, though - if you're thinking about making a Monster Truck game, but you think that making a game where you drive Monster Trucks and do what Monster Trucks do is too boring, then DON'T MAKE A MONSTER TRUCK GAME. They way the races were set up, they have you crashing into and rolling over obstacles with no consideration for mass or center of gravity. Never once, no matter how tight I turned, did my car flip. And I can smash through a fucking airplane's jet engine without skipping a beat, but then hit some carboard boxes and go spining out of control. I would think that if you're making a game about Monster Trucks, whose sole purpose in life is to CRUSH SHIT, the one area that they'd have spent the most time on with things like physics and gameplay would be the part where you CRUSH SHIT. Not here.

So basically, it's a mediocre game that didn't get even its core elements right. Controls were very simple, physics were bad, and gameplay was boring. What frustrated me the most was the lack of training. I picked up on racing immediately, but the arena matches require you to score points by performing stunts. There are apparently something like 15 different stunts you can perform, but I'll be damned if I figured out more than 8. Stunts like jump, crush, smash, wheelie, and I have no idea what else. The game never trains you do perform any stunts, and the game doesn't provide even a partial list of stunts. So I find myself in an arena where I'm not going to get the required 3rd place minimum score without performing at least 10 stunts, and I have no way of finding out what they are! I can't even find out what they are online, because nobody gives a turd about this game. So I found myself robbed of an achievement, and kept out of going to the Championships, because this game refused to add a stunt list. Fuck you, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!!!! ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15271 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15157 Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:53:50 GMT So every once in a while my buddy gets control over his own Gamefly account and yet somehow he... So every once in a while my buddy gets control over his own Gamefly account and yet somehow he stills gets shitty games. Sure he could have gotten a known quantity like Fallout 3, no, he picked Beowulf. He's an idiot. So, on we go with my buddy's timely review of...

Beowulf
I've complained about checkpoint saves before. I don't really get them. They could be something that's just a decision made upfront when designing code. They could be a later decision. I don't know. I don't make games. I just play them.

I don't like games that save only through checkpoints. They're better than save-points, but far worse that "save whenever." But even though I think all games should be "save whenever" games, I respect and am okay with "save whenever except for when you're in the middle of a mission." I'm cool with that. You don't want me to be able to save in the middle of a battle - okay, fine, as long as I can save just before it starts, and just after it ends.

So lets get to Beowulf. In case my subtle nature confused you, Beowulf has save points. And since my tone doesn't always come across through my writing, I'm pissed at the game for this.
It's a game based on a movie, which already is a strike against it. And it's a game based on a movie that took a great ancient epic and turned it into a special-effects show and did some damage to a perfectly good story. I never saw the film, but I brushed up on it using Wikipedia, and so I can tell where it got things wrong and how the game came up with its lousy ideas.

This game should never have been made. The epic of Beowulf has a great warrior, along with a bunch of redshirts, who gets into three fights. He kills Grendel with his bare hands. He kills Grendel's mom with an ancient sword. And then he, in his old age, kills a dragon. That's it. There are themes and shit throughout the tale, but you don't really give a sack of nuts about that, so lets just deal with the raw facts. Now, the movie COULD have gone this route, but it had to throw in some computer-generated Angelina Jolie nudity and screw up the themes, but it kept at least two of the three major battles intact.

The game said, "whoa, hold on a minute. This is going in the wrong direction. A movie made out of an ancient epic has to have MORE battles, not LESS! I know! For every battle the movie keeps, we'll have 10 in the game. And for every battle the movie drops, we'll have 50! It's battleriffic!" Graphics are good, gore is mediocre while trying to be "all that." Combat is standard, sound is good, and overall controls are fine.

The real flaw in Beowulf is the critical error in design. No, not the overreliance on button mashing to bring about a grapple kill. It fails in not knowing how to place checkpoint saves. As a player of games, I'd think that a great place to have a checkpoint would be after a five minute battle. As far as the game structure goes, it would make sense, because at the end of each battle, a scorecard goes up and shows you how you did (brutality versus heroism, which to me aren't diametrically opposed, but I guess I'm not stupid enough to get the subtleties). So in the several seconds I'm waiting to look at my point tally, you'd think the background could be saving away.

See, I'm a casual gamer. Not as casual as some. My wife is very understanding and recognizes that playing games is my one true vice and my primary entertainment mechanism. So I might put in 10-15 hours a week playing games. But what makes me casual is that my time is erratic, and sometimes I have less than an hour to play on any given day. And when I'm playing games, the last thing I want to have to do is spend 20-30 minutes fighting in FIVE battles before getting to a sixth battle and getting stuck in a situation where I couldn't complete the sixth battle before I needed to go to sleep.

I had a feeling that what I am about to describe was going to happen. Two nights before, I sat down for an hour, loaded up my game, found myself at the start of Episode 2 of Act 2 (61% of the game complete). I was sure I had gotten further than this, but played for a while anyway, replaying things I had already done. 15 minutes in, a friend jumps online and I figure I'll play some Bad Company 2 with him. By now I know there is no manual save option, but I thought "oh, well, it's only 15 minutes). I quit out. Fast forward two days, and now I'm loading up Beowulf again. Loading up to Episode 2, Act 2. I decide to plow through the game for the hour I had to play before bed. How long can it be before a checkpoint, right? Well, I fought for about 30 minutes and got through five different battles, plus the running between them. And that brings me to a bigger battle than the others. And this one is giving me trouble. Maybe I'm tired; maybe I suck donkey nuts, maybe the game is fucking stupid - I don't really know which combination of these is the recipe for me not getting the job done, but nevertheless, each successive failure takes about 5 minutes. Well, after 5-6 attempts, I need to go to sleep. I'm pissed, tired, and no longer having fun.

So I test the game. The test is simple. If I quit the game and then promptly reload it, where do I start. If I start at the beginning of the large battle I kept failing, I go to bed and try again tomorrow. If I start off at the beginning of Act 2, Episode 2, the disc gets sealed in the GameFly envelope and sent on its merry way. As soon as I saw the Words "Episode 2," I was ejecting the disc.

Don't fuck with me, Ubisoft. You did a great job with Assassin's Creed 2, but shit like this game should just plain humiliate you. Beowulf gets a 2 because for all its good qualities, a console action game should not make you feel like a prisoner. That's what MMORPGs are for. Since I never got past Act 2, I think it's appropriate to score this game a like amout. 2 out of 10. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15157 http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15133 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:59:41 GMT So, my buddy has given me free reign over his Gamefly queue and without hesitation I added Golden... So, my buddy has given me free reign over his Gamefly queue and without hesitation I added Golden Axe: Beast Rider. Why, you ask. Because I figured this game would suck and I love punishing him. So on we go with my buddy's timely review of...

Golden Axe: Beast Rider Review
I don't like not finishing games. I certainly don't like reviewing games that I haven't completed. And I should have been able to finish Golden Axe: Beast Rider. I didn't, though, and I blame the game.


At first, I liked the game. It captured that arcade feel of a side scroller, but translated it well into a 3D environment. All the standard fare you could possibly want - hordes of enemies, two attack buttons, a couple combos, and a plot that really doesn't matter what they are telling you. Normally, I love plot, and tearing plots apart, but I knew that plot mattered in this game about as much as it does in a driving simulator. Death Adder, a big bad guy from the series, has followers in your homeland that kill your fellow warrior women, and then you have to recover the shattered pieces of the Golden Axe so that who gives a fuck. Just show me guys to dismember.

Beast Riding was pretty stupid - you can't even attack with your sword, so you're stuck casting spells and attacking with the monster attacks. Whatever. I think I'd have preferred Golden Axe: Walker to this. But no big deal. At least the monsters you ride looked interesting.

Two things that amused me. First off, you run around with a sword all the time, carrying it in one hand, and you don't have a scabbard for it. It's like you never thought to yourself, "it might be nice to hang this on my back, or slide it through the tiny bit of cord I'm calling a belt on my "ceremonial" slutty native outfit. Nope. So that's kinda ridiculous.

Second is the "level design," which really isn't about the levels as much as it is about the thought behind the design. I don't know which medieval fantasy architect came up with the doors on this thing, but I figured out the solution to all your Death Adder problems. The next time you defeat him, put him behind one of these doors. See, the only way to open them is either smash a little skull pillar, or park a big monster on a weighted platform. {Note - neither the platform nor the level will be anywhere near the door.} Just don't leave a sword around and don't put him in prison with a Beast, and he'll never be able to get out. Problem solved. You can then start a whole line of Death Adder - Sudoku games that shows him sitting in his cell playing mindless games.

Decent graphics, decent sound, several gory kill moves. Combat was simple (but not always easy, even on normal. Apparently all the bad guys drank from the Pool of Glowing Colored Attacks, so that every move they make practically screams at you which defensive maneuver to make. I still got hit a good deal, but it wasn't for lack of them not trying to make it look ridiculous. Uh-oh, it's a blue attack - better parry! A whirlwind of green, yellow and blue, and sometimes my sword lights on fire if I wait long enough, and what could have been really fun combat turned into something that less than it could have been. Still, for a while there I was thinking I might even buy a cheap version of this game, because the mindless combat was still somehow entertaining.

Then I got to the City of the Dead. And at some point in this series of levels in the city, I came to what appeared to be a ledge I had to jump over. This was novel - it was the first time in this game that you had to jump over anything. I've had to jump down a half-dozen times already, but never over a chasm. So I jumped. I didn't jump far enough, fell into the chasm, and died. Crap. Restart challenge. Fight back to spot. Jump again. Fail. Shit. Repeat. Try a running jump this time. Fail. FUCK! Restart challenge. Return to jump spot. Running jump again. Fail. FFFUUUUCCCKKKK!!!! Restart. Return. Don't jump - instead spend ten minutes searching around for another passageway, or a button, or something. Nothing. What the fuck? Return to jump location. Run and jump, waiting to the last possible second to hit the jump button. Hit jump button too late. MOTHERFUCKER!!!!! SON OF A MONKEY FUCK!!! Restart. Return. Get to spot. Run and jump, with perfect jump timing. This time I'm going to make it and FUCK MOTHER COCK BITING ASSFARTCOCKDICK!!!!

Turns out, as I found out online, you have to run, jump perfectly, and then execute a "knockback attack" while in the air to get you across. After two tries, I finally got it. But it's too late. I'm pissed off now. I've spent close to an hour to get across a jump. The concept of jumping over deadly areas was never introduced prior to this, so the game didn't give you any practice for this. No big deal, except that because of this, they never introduced the concept of extending your jump by executing the knockback attack while jumping. So they wait until you are at least 2/3 through the game, maybe even closer to 3/4, and they put in a secret special move that is required to continue. Even the guy who wrote the walkthrough I used admitted that it took him a while to figure out, so I know it wasn't just me. This is serious, serious bullshit.

So I got past that point, and can continue on, but now I don't want to. Which sucks, because I'd still be playing it now if it hadn't pissed me off so much. If I could save where I wanted instead at the start of each level only, it might not have been so bad, but when you have to play for 5 - 10 minutes to get back to a place only to die because they throw a pile of bullshit in front of you is just fucking insulting.

I got very few achievements because they're set up for replaying the game. I think I"m only out about 100 to 150 of what I would have gotten had I kept going through the game, so I don't feel that bad, but then again, less than 300 points for a single player game is a bit of a ass-biting move anyway.

Golden Axe: Beast Rider should have gotten a 6. But it just couldn't jump over that chasm, so it's stuck at 2. ]]> miqspot http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15133