Geek vs Life

One of these games will most likely eat Jon’s time, one of these will eat Krash’s if he can get it, and 2 will be fighting to the death to try to wrestle my minuscule amounts of spare time away from the Orange Box. Guess which ones? Oh, and remember, kids, release dates are tentative. Just ask anyone at your local chained video game store.

OCTOBER 15, 2007

Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground (Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, DS)
Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360)
The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (Xbox 360 retail version)
Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis (Wii)
Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day (DS)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Trading Card Game (DS)
Bee Movie Game (DS)
Seven Kingdoms: Conquest (PC)
Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (Wii Virtual Console)
Metal Marines (Wii Virtual Console)
Gate of Thunder (Wii Virtual Console)

Today started so easy. Get out of the relaxation chamber, listen to the oddly friendly computer voice over the intercom, throw my coffee cup and the radio into the toilet, walk through a fiery gate ripping a hole in space and time to escape my glass prison, put a box on a giant red button, and enter the elevator right after my fillings are vaporized out of my head by a wall of energy. And now, here I stand staring down a hallway with beams of red light shining across hunting for me, all the while small robotic laser guided egg shaped machine gun turrets are asking me nicely where I’ve gone and if I would please come back out. What exactly did I sign on for, and why am I a girl?

Ok folks, sorry about the length of this one. It’s a really long list. A couple of things of note: Super Smash Brothers has been delayed until January 24th (and, yes, Sonic the Hedgehog is in it. Fanboys delight), Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 out there in November (yes, it’s as funny as it looks), Alvin and the Chipmunks (wait…what the….?), Mario Kart on the Wii is for Spring ‘08 (thankfully, that isn’t the title), November 20th sees Final Fantasy XII come out for the DS (and I’m going to lose Jon for a few days), Dimentium: The Ward (really creepy, especially for a DS game), and…is that Assassin’s Creed down there on the DS in February? Who would have thought?

So, with this in mind, here’s the bloody long list, that doesn’t even contain VC releases:

I was a child of the 1980s and 90s. And, like any child of the 80s and 90s, my video gaming world revolved around two names: Nintendo and Sega. Or, more accurate to the mind of a child, Mario and Sonic.

Ah, those… fond… memories of schoolyard arguments, over who was better than who, and who could beat who. How many now-20-somethings dreamed for the day when they could finally prove, once and for all, for all their friends to see, who was better: Nintendo’s lovable plumber, or Sega’s blue speed demon?

Well, my friends, the wait is finally almost  over. For when Super Smash Bros. Brawl hits Japan in January, and the US… sometime later… You will finally be able to pit these video game icons against each other.

Want more? Like, maybe a video? Head on over to the article on IGN.

Last year I saw a video that made me more excited about a game than I had been for a very long time. A man, with a very strange gun, shooting holes in reality, jumping through hyperspace, and solving puzzles. This game was Portal, part of the Orange Box from Valve. It, along Team Fortress 2 (already available if you’re on a PC and you’ve given up on most physical retailers), and Half Life 2: Episode 2, will finally be available for fully unlocked download as of 10/10/07 shortly after midnight.

Indeed, a couple of things to keep in mind, if you’re going to be locked away on your computer shivering with anticipation for these juicy games.

1. Everyone and their brother is going to be downloading this. Now, you can preload them to save some time and frustration because the Steam servers are fully packed and thus a download would be impossible at the time. Just be patient.

I must have hit my head funny or had the worst case of deja vu ever. My visor reset as the gravel fell from above, a brief blip as the video uplink established itself once again. The ground below me started shaking as the sky suddenly dimmed.

“Incoming Scarab,” the voice over my intercom announced. I looked up at one of the gargantuan four legged beasts that had caused so much destruction in the past towering over me. Balls of unstable supercharged particles erupted from the mouth of mechanical creature, while a small group of alien warriors fired at us. I looked over at my partner in the battle, raised my plasma cannon, and ran in to join the fury.

I have to admit that in the past, I have really disliked Halo. Perhaps more because the controls seemed off, or the people that generally played it. Yet, this time around, I’ve totally enjoyed myself. I haven’t had this much fun playing with friends since the days of You Don’t Know Jack.

I was sadly underwhelmed by the Simpsons movie. I’ve been sadly disappointed by the current staff of writers for the show who’ve found it neccessary to stoop to the Adult Swim level of humor to keep the show “fresh.” (No insult to Adult Swim intended. But this is the Simpsons, man.)  Now EA has put out the sneak peak trailer for the new Simpsons game set to hit the Playstations, Wiis, XBOXes, and handhelds of civilization on November 1, 2007.

 Is this the final and last hope for this franchise to redeem itself?

I’m not one to get excited about video games, me being one of the few people at GvL that do not worship at that altar of the gaming gods, but I like to play a good, clean fun game now and then. This looks, (crosses fingers), like more of a throwback to the good-natured platformers of yore that I still enjoy every now and then.

I know my body aches, but the synthetic adrenaline pumps keep it going regardless of pain. I hear the walls teeming with creatures, and until my visor throws up a digitally enhanced view of the room around me, all I can do is react to the sound. The temporal space between the door closing behind me and my systems gathering all the available information around me is less than a rabbit’s heartbeat, but with my heightened biochemical levels it seems like an eternity.

I raise my gun, attached to my arm so long it truly is an extension of my body. I knew that I’d be giving my right hand to be one of the greatest bounty hunters in the universe, but when I signed up and saw the blueprints for my body armor I simply had to laugh at the irony. My visor flashes, and the visible spectrum is amplified. I was wrong. It wasn’t teeming with creatures. It was only one. One huge dragon-like creature flapping its wings, kicking up dust and debris all around me. It grabs me, crashing through the floor, dragging me down thousands of feet.

Can you feel the tension rising as Halo 3 is approaching? Will it be more like Halo or Halo 2? Halo was a game that stood on its own, Halo 2 was an excuse to launch multi-player gaming. Granted, both worked fantastically.

Only a few weeks till the launch which GVL will be covering from Bellevue at the Bungie release party.

To tide you over, watch these two flicks. I debated on the merits of posting these because of the gay-bashing jokes, but then remembered my times in multi-player and how unfortunately that’s how they speak. Sad, very sad.

Anyway enjoy!

Well, I’ve had almost a week to play around with the game now, so I think I’ve figured it out well enough to review it.

First off, my experience with the Mana series is fairly limited. While I have seen (either on the shelf or in action) Secret of Mana and Sword of Mana, I have no experience with Final Fantasy Gaiden: Seiken Densetsu (aka Final Fantasy Adventure), Legend of Mana, Dawn of Mana, or Children of Mana. Seiken Densetsu III (not released in the US), however, I have extensive experience with.

I am a swordsman, my sword is my weapon and my honor is my pride. I forge throughout the land to reunite the three kingdoms into one nation. I must eliminate enemies by the thousand to reach my lofty goals, but a wise man once said, that peace cannot be forged without a little blood.

I move ahead, making my way from one area to the next, vanquishing my enemies. They fall before my blade. Without a moment of respite, I move to the next area to repeat the same task. The evil generals send legions of their men after me but they fall so quickly on my sharp steel. When finally I reach my adversary, he barely put up a fight and I slay him to conquer his land. One more piece is mended to reform my broken land…

I always dreamed of layering on the padding and lacing up the skates before walking down the long corridor that would lead me to the ice. The deafening sounds of the crowd as I made my way to the ice. The pride of wearing the red, white and blue of my hometown Montreal Canadiens. It is the same dream that thousands upon thousands of children have every year as the join a little league hockey teams across Canada and Europe(and is some few and far between US cities too). We all grow up wanting to be the next Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky or Patrick Roy. The sad reality is that few of us attain that very lofty dream.

For those who have failed in reaching the adulation of milions, there is always garage leagues or street hockey. Or then again, you know, videogames. Welcome to EA Sports NHL 08 where you can reach your couch bound fulfillment without risk of losing any teeth.

A few months ago the latest iteration of the Pokemon hit stores for the Nintendo DS. It has two versions: Diamond and Pearl. For those that have missed the general Pokemon plot, it goes something like this: “Gotta catch them all!” The anthemic slogan from the show is the pretty much the plot of the game. Yes, there is some small details that go into the mantra of a game. For example, you have to collect badges to move into the next area of the game. You have a rival, who is try to do the capturing first and you must beat him to the capture. There is a slight plot of other trainers wanting to do nefarious things with their captured pokemon. And that’s about it.

Let’s start off with some basic game info:

Name: .Hack//G.U. Vol. 1 Rebirth, Genre: RPG, Publisher: Bandai, System: PS2

Everything that I really loved in the original .Hack series is still in the new one. The game has the ability to totally immerse you in a fake world and yet it feels like the story is talking directly to you. The original game did have its flaws though: a confusing interface, bad party customization, a poor command system, and the inability to use more than one weapon. You just had to got over them.

With the new series, the problems have been solved! There is no more need to get over a slow and confusing interface like in the original game. In .Hack//G.U., the story line is just as vivid as in the original, but it seems to pull you in even more than the first one ever did.