Opinion ~ Sonic Unleashed

Okay, so you may consider this a bit late, but I've simply been too busy with other stuff in my life to game like I used to. Trust me, if I wasn't as busy as I've been, I would have gotten this game the second it was released.

I'm a huge fan of the Sonic series. The first video game that ever really grabbed my attention was Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the first game console I had was a Sega Genesis ... with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog. It was most of my life growing up. I stopped following the series so religiously at Sonic Adventure, mostly because at the time the thought of Sonic going 3-D almost offended me. (Now, of course, I love the Sonic Adventure titles.)

For those of you who have played the stupidly-named 360 title, Sonic the Hedgehog, you can understand why someone would have the low expectations I had for this title ... until I played the demo.

For whatever ridiculous reason, it was the end of January when I finally played the demo to this game, and holy crap, was I surprised! Could this be the new Sonic title I've been waiting for? It was so fast-paced and didn't seem buggy in the least. It was so surreal. "Could this really be happening?" I wondered.

"I mean, Sonic the Hedgehog (360) wasn't as bad as everyone said, but it still was pretty crappy. Still worse, though, were Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Heroes. Can I find anything about this game to complain about? I mean, this is just one of the hedgehog levels. Will the werehog levels be as bad as everyone was saying?" (Yes, I was at least a little informed about this game before playing the demo. I'm not completely out of the loop ... yet.)

Since I was at a friend's house, I put down the controller after playing the one daytime level once through, and decided I was to buy this game. The very next week, the game was in my hands ... thanks to money I had set aside for Street Fighter IV. (I still can't believe how sudden that move was ...)

Anyway, upon playing the game until I got to a werehog level, I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to play the ultra-fast-paced hedgehog levels for the time being. "Oh, well," I thought. "At least I have more of them to look forward to."

So, on with just getting through the werehog level it was.

* a while later ... *

"Whoa! This is actually pretty friggin' sweet. Sure, it's Dynasty Warriors meets Prince of Persia, but it's pretty awesome."

I was in a button-mashing frenzy. X, X, X, X, X, X, X ...

... X, Y, A, X, Y, X, X ...

... X, X, X, X, A -- "Whoa, waitaminute ..."

All I saw was me in mid-air before slamming to the ground. Without even really knowing for sure what had happened, I joked to my friend by saying, "Shoryuken!".

"Oh, well. Maybe I'll figure out what it was that I did." X, X, X, X, X, X, X ...

... X, Y, A, X, Y, X, X ...

"Wait, I think there's a command list somewhere ... Wait, here. 'Skills.' This must be it."

When my eyes came upon the name of the third move on the list, I stopped. I don't mean just my body stopped moving; I mean my heart, my brain, and everything stopped simultaneously. I ceased to function at all as I slumped to the ground into a ball of nothingness.

"Sho-hog-ken: Y, Y, A"

What ... the ...

Seriously. The move I had done was actually called the "Sho-hog-ken." Sonic places a claw above his head just before jumping, then crushing his enemies below.

"Sho-hog-ken." I just can't believe they went there. "Sho-HOG-ken." Couldn't they have gone with the more obvious (at least to English speakers) "Hog-dou-ken"? Guess not ...

Anyway, the werehog levels aren't all that bad. In fact, they keep me entertained, and add a bit of variance to the gameplay that makes the hedgehog levels that much more awesome. Now, if only the hedgehog levels weren't over in a few minutes when the werehog levels take about a half hour, I'd be 100% happy with it. If I don't get sidetracked by Street Fighter IV (which I probably will ...) I'll post a follow-up to this soon. If I do happen to get to Street Fighter IV first, rest assured that there will be a follow-up post to this. I guarantee it.

(By the way, take the time to pay attention the opening cinematic. Even if you don't care about the story, look at how amazing the graphics are. It's ridiculous.)

Rhetoric ~ Sonic and the Black Knight

Normally I'd rant on a topic such as this, but seeing as this screwed my mind beyond repair, I'll just do this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_and_the_Black_Knight

/facepalm

Rhetoric ~ That Blasted D-Pad ...

If you've read any previous blog posts of mine, you've probably noticed that I have an extreme dislike for the D-Pad on the 360.

Why?

Well, if you've ever tried playing Street Fighter on XBLA, you've probably realized that throwing a Hadouken at will is far too difficult of a task using the D-Pad on the 360's controller. I think I can get a better success rate on my Hadoukens on an NES controller. Even just going through menus on the dashboard can be painful at times. No one should have to stand for that. Why are we having problems in this generation of consoles on something that's been around for decades? It's ridiculous.

With Street Fighter 4 only a week away and Tekken 6 releasing ... um, hopefully before the Apocalypse, I'm seriously thinking about modding the D-Pad to at least one of my 360 controllers. After doing a lot of research (by a lot, I mean seven minutes during my break at work) I've decided that this will be the method to attempt:

http://www.ufighterx.com/guides/videogame/360dpadfix/360dpadfix.htm

Of course, while the controller's apart, I might as well paint it or apply vinyl to it, right? That's something I'm still undecided on. If I actually get off of my sorry behind and do this, perhaps I'll let you in on the progress, although knowing me, it's pretty doubtful. (Please get off your butt, lazy 'tard, and fix your D-Pads ...)

Anticipation ~ Street Fighter IV

I'm all over this like a Shoryuken to Sagat. Seriously.

Capcom seems to be acting as if Street Fighter III never happened, which is probably for the best. If you haven't been looking up screenshots and videos to this game, you owe yourself far too much to imagine.

The game is like the Street Fighter EX series in that it's rendered in 3D, but is played like a 2D fighter. The real difference here is that Street Fighter IV doesn't suck. It feels smooth like good old Super Street Fighter II Turbo did, and it does, in fact, look like that's the game from which this gameplay is based. What is new to Street Fighter IV are the "Focus Attacks" and "Ultra Combos".

By pressing MP (Medium Punch) and MK (Medium Kick) simultaneously, you can perform a counter move called a "Focus Attack". You can make a focus attack stronger by holding MP and MK longer, which can cause your opponent to crumple to the ground, allowing you to get a free hit. Hold MP and MK even longer, and the focus attack becomes unblockable.

The "Revenge Gauge", instead of filling when you attack, fills as you take damage. This gauge powers your "Ultra Combos", which are just like Ultra Combos in Killer Instinct, or old Level 3 Super Combos of Akuma, Sakura and Skullomania, just long, cinematic combos. Not much more to explain there.

An achievement list for Street Fighter IV has been released. Check it out.

This game will be made available for the 360, PS3, and PC. Again, a fighting game I'll want on 360 ... except for the 360's horrendous D-Pad. Seriously, why are there so many games coming out that make me hate the 360's directional pad more than I already do? The good news is that there will be Street Fighter IV controllers made ...

... by Mad Catz.

Seriously, why Mad Catz? They haven't made a single good product since their PS1 controllers, but that's another story altogether.

Also, arcade sticks are being made for the game. They look pretty sweet and are made ...

... by Mad Catz.

All right, seriously. These things had better not suck, because I'm probably going to buy one. I'm really starting to think I should just buy a PS3 and not worry about these D-Pad woes.

Anticipation ~ Legends of Zork

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>introduce post

Hello, sailor, and welcome to my first blog post in too friggin' long! If you haven't gotten any references yet, I shall turn you into a mallard! Yozozzo!

For those of you who were just threatened to have to waddle the rest of your lives (and didn't happen to bring a mirror or any other shiny object along with you) I am talking about Zork.

Zork, originally MIT hacker jargon for an unfinished program, was one of the first interactive fiction computer games. If you've ever played any of those FMV point and click adventure games, think of that, but with absolutely no graphics. That's right, the original Zork games were in pure text. You were described your surroundings and what items you could interact with, and you typed instructions to the game like "go west" (which could be shorted to simply "w") or "kill troll with sword". Being purely text, the games had a certain charm because you had to use your imagination. Infocom, the company that made the Zork games, made a slew of these text adventures, including Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

After the phase of text adventures, Infocom was bought out by Activision. The last Zork game released under the Infocom name also happened to be the first adventure graphical game in the series, Return to Zork.

Return to Zork was actually the first game in the Zork series that I had the privilege of playing. It was a CD-ROM based game, which at the time was, believe it or not, state-of-the-art. The opening cinema starts out showing the familiar white house and drops you off just outside the Valley of Sparrows that was. This game was notorious for punishing the player extremely harshly for doing things he/she didn't even realize was wrong at the time. The first screen can even render the game unbeatable if you don't dig up the bonding plant with your knife. If you cut it, it dies, and if you miss it, you can't tell your jokes later at the comedy club. As unforgiving as this game was, it was a huge enough part of my childhood for me to care about the Zork series today.

Activision made two more Zork games afterwards, Zork Nemesis, and Zork: Grand Inquisitor, the former of which, I never got a chance to play, but I understand it's Zork with a darker twist to it. Z:GI was over-the-top silly, and a blast to play. This time you're given a name (well, sorta). Known as "Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Culturally-Ambiguous Adventure Person" (AFGNCAAP for short) you're given a spell book, which adds some pretty cool dimension to the gameplay. The game's puzzles aren't as ridiculous and unforgiving as Return to Zork (thankfully) and you're given a goal early on in the game. Obtain the Coconut of Quendor, the Cube of Foundation, and the Skull or Yoruk before Mir Yannick, the Grand Inquisitor.

Zork: Grand Inquisitor was released in 1997, and Activision has been wasting its rights to Zork until this very month. Legends of Zork has been announced to be a casual browser-based MMO. Check out the game's official webpage and sign up for the mailing list to know straight from the source when the game is ready to go.

Opinion ~ Guitar Hero: World Tour, pt. 1

Wow.

I started off playing this thing with a couple friends, me on drums. It took a while to get used to the two cymbals being the second and fourth columns, leaving the first, third, and fifth columns for the pads. Before I mention any more about that ...

HOLY CRAP, THE PADS HAVE BOUNCE TO THEM!

I can actually play these pads almost exactly like a real drum. They feel like practice pads. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I had a little trouble with the green pad needing to be beaten to death to respond sometimes, but other than that the experience was amazing. I played the things for upwards twelve hours yesterday.

The guitar, simply put, is plastic sex. The strum bar feels like that of the original Rock Band guitar, but still clicks like all other unmodded Guitar Hero guitars. The huge bridge-positioned back button is great for control over star power usage to ensure hitting paths, but the start buttons sometimes accidentally get hit, which is not cool, but I imagine they'll move those away from the back button next time.

As far as the charts, guitar parts now have offset holds, meaning you'll have to hold one fret button down while playing other notes. Bass charts now have open notes, which are displayed like kick pedal hits on the drums and played by strumming with no fret buttons held down. Drum parts have accented notes, but I'm always hitting the drums hard enough to hit them.

The music selection in this game is amazing. Playing drums, though, makes me hate the Willie Nelson song because the entire song (until the last few measures) is just 16th notes on the snare. Also, I could've done without No Sleep till Brooklyn, but of course, I'm biased. I hate The Beastie Boys.

Rhetoric ~ Tekken 6 ... now on XBox 360?

I'm not sure how I feel about this one.

I don't own a PS3, but planned on getting one before Tekken 6 came out. (Tekken is my game, after all.) Well, now I feel like I don't have to worry about it as much, because it'll be on a console I already own, the XBox 360.

Sure, I can get my achievements from it now, but the D-Pad on the 360 is ... horrendous. Pressing forward on the pad can result in moving forward, jumping forward, or crouching forward. It's just way too sensitive. The Playstation controller is much better suited to fighting games, which is why I'd truly rather even have Soul Calibur 4 on the PS3 as well ...

Well, apparently Microsoft is working on a new controller with an improved D-Pad. One can only hope the pad will be as responsive as Sony's D-Pad.

I'll probably end up buying it for both consoles since I am a fanboy and all, and I am looking forward to the gamerscore boost. (Please, Tekken 6, don't suck on the 360 ...)