Pork Chop Sandwiches

It's time to type a blog, and chew bubble gum....and I'm all out of gum.  I'm not going to spend a lot of time mentioning the updates, as they are pretty much self explanatory this time around.  Instead, I'm going to get right down to business of kicking some ass, and business, is booming.

This time: It's personal... *cough* What I mean is, this time I'm reviewing a game 12+ years in the making.  The titanic of the game industry resurrected from the dead sinking ship of the development company 3D Realms only to be rescued  into the light of 2011 by Gearbox Studios.

Title:

Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Developer: 3d Realms

Triptych Games

Piranha Games

Gearbox Software 

It's so hard not to draw something...obscene every time you get a pen...Sorry, kid.

I was very excited to get my claws on this game.  For me, as for many other gamers, the Duke is a shining mushroom cloud staple of video game character portraits.  In today's gaming, memorable characters are, sadly, far and few between, as they start to mesh and melt into each other.  It's really hard to point at a console or generation of games outside of the confines of Nintendo and sega and pick out highly memorable protagonists.  That is not to say that they don't exist entirely, but in the 2000's, the protagonist is usually "impersonal military commando" or "bleak monotone anti-hero".   The return of the Duke brings back what it really takes to be a "character" and not just a controller juxtaposition into a game.  It takes a boardgame playing piece and adds much needed personality into the otherwise too often inanimate object.  This swath of personality is indeed brought easily to life by the voice actor Jon St. John who has been the voice of Duke since the beginning, which is always a nice touch of continuity.

Boom, right in the bean bag!

Speaking of continuity, if there has been one thing that the entire Duke Nukem series has done, it's been pushing the envelope in the next direction for games of it's time.  In the past, it was about getting gamers involved, mixing shooters with platforms, and mixing a great deal of comedy and player interaction into a sometimes boring and monotone release schedule.  Like anon on 4chan.org, DUKE DELIVERS.   The plot is rather simple, it is one of those things that really doesn't need something entirely complicated.  Aliens are on earth, aliens baaaaaad, kill the aliens. In this game, Duke Nukem Forever, the envelope isn't just pushed, it's shoved into some horrible places and hung out to dry in the unforgiving sun.  If you are easily offended, have a weak stomach, have a strong religious moral code, are bland, have stomach or liver problems, easily swayed into right wing propaganda, are at risk for heart attacks, or are pregnant, use of this product is not advised.  Duke Nukem Forever is not for everyone.  Side effects include but are not limited to fever, malaise, eczema, dysentery, morbidity, lack of impotence, neurotic tendencies, sudden couch potato syndrome, dizziness, diarrhea, loose bowel disease, a foul mouth, lack of soap,  hand cleaning OCD, Alien feinting sickness, sudden urges for streaking and public nudity, the overall feeling of being sticky or just plain filthy and need a hot shower followed by a cold shower, and the desire to just be a bad ass.  

To be honest, I loved every moment of this game.  It is another prime example of how video games are just meant to be "fun".  That not all games have to follow the same line in the sand.  Even though it was a shooter, it wasn't the stereotypical military shooter, and I ate it up like candy...delicious, delicious candy.  It brought back the "shooter problem platformer" that was all the rage in the late 90's.  Most of the criticism on this game is that it's sexist, foul, and dated.  The first two are correct.  It is VERY sexist, it is ENTIRELY foul.  But to be brutally truthful, IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!  It's not Duke Nukem if it isn't shocking, if it isn't for the squeamish. I have not seen a game come so close to being rated "AO" since one of my all time favorite games "Conker's Bad Fur Day".  It was actually delightful.  It shows that video games don't all have to be made for 12 year olds, but in fact, can have adult themes and comedy that is really pushed passed the usual hum-drum that comes down the tubes.  The fact that it does all of this but in such a way that made me laugh and sit there, holding my controller in disbelief, is what makes a Duke Nukem game.  As far as dated, I will get to that in a short while.

Sequel like a pig!

For now, I want to mention a few other things that I really enjoyed with this game.  Among many things, it flowed very nicely.  The levels were well planned out, there were so many things to interact with and just simply "do".  The themes were well put together, the game was very nicely polished, and well, after so long in development and developer hand changing, it should be.  The one liners were well written and well timed.  The boss fights were challenging, it was a very nice progression of difficulty.  Enemy types were well used and well dispersed throughout the game.  There were quite a few times where I was sitting in disbelief yelling out "Oh Shi-! I can't believe I just saw that!!".  The quick time events were very well timed and not jammed down your throat.  The platforming element of the game was well planned, well timed, and were not the bane of my existence (What I mean by that, is in a lot of games these days, it seems that the enemies and bosses can't hurt you, but a 3 foot gap will ruin your entire day.  To me, that seems ridiculous.  The jump puzzles should be just as challenging as the level itself, and it really takes some skilled programming to make it juuuust right.  And Duke Nukem Forever, was just that).  Although there were not that many different types of weapons, they were designed in such a way that they didn't step on each other's toes.  I had a tough time trying to decide which weapon to take and which ones to just "leave" there.  They all had their place throughout each level, the shear implementation of great thought of the placement of where things are was incredibly nice to see.  It was fun to see the tell tale touches of Gearbox here and there with the many many references, themes, and jokes, that touch base on today's popular culture and recent video games.

Come on, Duke, show us your "Big Gun"!

Now believe it or not, I don't have much bad things to really put down for Duke Nukem Forever.  It boils down to a few small details.  The biggest of which is the physics engine.  That is where the game is dated.  That's the only place where the game is dated.  "But N00basaurus Rex, what about the graphics?" you ask.  Ah, but the graphics are so polished and rendered just so, it's very HD and cell shaded.  The graphics, fit with the game, and believe it or not, the effect is overwhelmingly positive (In fact, it would be easy to argue that the graphics are probably better than a few games that have come out in the past couple of years, if not at least on par).  But the physics engine is a little clunky, not enough to be game breaking, but enough to be noticeable.   Collision detection is a little slow for reactions of objects when impacted by other objects, but once again, not too slow, just ever so slightly noticeable.  Mainly because we all have been a little spoiled in technology as of recent in the past 5 years.  The fallacies of the physics engine is passable, because it works.  It may not be perfect, but at least you don't have to worry about being killed by a stationary bridge.  The other major thing, was loading.  Every section of every level had to be individually loaded.  It reminded me of the playstation 1, to be honest, where you had to start a game, get up, go for a snack, come back, and wait another 30min for things to get started.  Now, it wasn't really that bad, but it did take forever here and there.  Other then those couple of qualms, some of the "get to pont b from point a" portions became a little cumbersome, some of the "grab a turret" battles took a little longer that it should have, and a few more execution animations would be nice (specific ones for specific enemies would be nice, other than the standard boot kick or uppercut).  And that's pretty much it, believe it or not!  This game, was epic.  The mini-games were enjoyable and fun.  Air-hockey was a blast!  And how can you NOT like a whack-a-mole style game named "Alien Abortion"?

FIRE ZE MISSILES!

Rating: 8 As Duke Says, "My Balls, Your Face!"

Tap, Destroy Target Atifact

Hey digital warriors, it's been a short while since my last post.  Lots of things going on that's been keeping me from my usual gaming rituals (including travel, a con, money, new job, new apartment, and lots of other life changes).  Along with that, more changes to the blog as you might notice (such as text update, a mascot drawing that's very near completion, and even a mobile version of the blog.  Open the page via smart phone, TAKE A LOOK, it's spiffy!) , everything is and still will be changing. But enough small talk, ON TO BUSINESS!

I'm usually not the type of person who gets wrapped into anything with the word "collectible" in the name.  Granted, I played a couple card games in highschool and earlier, but mostly only socially.  One of those "all the cool nerds are doing it" moments that flared up and quickly ended.  It hasn't been until recently when a good friend of mine has moved into my local vicinity, all afire with one of these games in toe.  So I chiseled my old deck block out of the granite tomb where I buried my highschool, and brought it and it's out-datedness to the light.  That is, only till I found out that there was a new Xbox 360 Arcade Game Magic 2012.

Game:  Magic 2012

Platform: Xbox 360 Arcade

Developer: Wizard of the Coast
Rating: 7 Stacked

This is one of those games that dole out exactly what it promises.  That promise is simply this: There will be cards, there will be a game, it follows the rules of the physical game, you can play by yourself or others.  It's you or yous vs another or anothers.  The game is spiced up with little animations here and there, a semi-interactive hud.  There was a previous game, that had a lot of the same, however this is that game + a little more.  Nerd Alert:  Here's where we get to the grit and sticky.  Decks as strategy themselves.  Now, I'm not going to list any deck specifically, as that would take out a lot of what that game is all about.  On a personal note, speaking more about Magic The Gathering the physical activity, the people are what draw me away from it.  Much like Halo, much like Call of Duty, much like old World of Warcraft, much like Risk, people, as a group entity, have a bad habit of becoming too immersed in these things and start to "know too much".  I just don't like to play with people that know every card, that manipulate every bullet pixel, that have walked everywhere on every map, know every stat, every combination, blah blah blah blah blah blah.  For me, most of these kinds of games (not as much the FPS's) is discovery.  Especially World of Warcraft, most of that game, I don't care if I win the PVP relm, I don't care if the party wipes, I just want to "see" everything.  In Magic The Gathering, I enjoy the creativity of decks and the little tricks of the trade people come up with.  But when it just gets to the point of unbalanced stompyness, I frown.  And by "unbalanced stompyness, I mean the "oops, your dead on turn 2".  If I play a game, I want to PLAY the game.  That is, I have enough turns to let you experience my stuff, and I have enough turns to experience your stuff.  Simple as that.

This game suffers from a little bit of a lack of muchness, a problem that plagues quite a large number of games in recent times, but really, it's not by far.  This game needs a few more decks, one or a couple more randomly changing "map/level" lay outs (since it's just a table, some table-graphic changes would be nice), maybe some BGM options other than just 1 (I'm not sure if you can turn it off or not, as the one song isn't "bad" per say, just gets tiresome after a couple hours of it).  And a few more graphics and particle effects would be great.  A suggestion I shared with a friend when playing Co-op, which I highly recommend, is that since there are a few "Legendary" cards, some animations pertaining special to each one, like waving tentacles, or avatar like effigies climbing out of the card or something.  However, these are all trivial matters as the game can more than stand on it's own legs, and everything else would just be nice.

I think what really surprised me, was that they brought strategy back to the card games, albeit through a virtual platform.  My general experience was that I hold cards in my hand, then loose in confusingly strange and poorly explained manners.  I have found myself a little ruthless with a few games (some vs computers, and one astounding victory over a person....my bad, holms).  I have crashed my xbox by doing 1025 damage ending the game putting the opponent at -1015 in one turn).  The funny thing, is that the game crashed, AFTER the damage was done, not during.  As soon as the "you won!" page faded, it just couldn't load the next zone, oops.  I'll give you a hint on how I did it, the Deck was multi-colored.  Co-op is delightful with another human being.  Leaning over the couch to discuss how to royally screw over who your going against reminds me of conspiracy theorists who are excited about their next plan of attack on the veil that covers the people's eyes on the sinister purpose those little plastic tips on the end of shoe laces are actually for.  Co-op with AI....is mostly good.  Every once and a while there are little hiccups where it will target the wrong card with an ability, or it will not realize that you want to double up on blocking one creature and instead pull back or switch targets (computer A.I. likes to "chump", which is just throwing canon fodder to block and not kill).

For an 800 point Arcade game that can provide hours of strategery and conspiracy theorist like fun, I'm very delighted with this game.

Rating: 7 Stacked