The Sunday Ramblings are back! Currently, The Trailer Jockey is going on a little adventure through his Xbox 360 Bucket List. With a limited amount of titles worth purchasing at full retail for the Xbox One, it only makes sense to play through what I haven't experienced yet. This list consists of both classics that I should have played by now, and promising titles that didn't seem to live up to the hype it created. Deus Ex: Human Revolution generated generally positive reviews, but it flew under the radar in the US, only shipping 800,000 copies.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Cinematic Trailer
Big scores with small sales usually means you're in for a treat! A few hours controlling Adam Jensen, however, made something abundantly clear: I was really bad at this game. DE:HR focuses very heavily on stealth... you can shoot your way through the game, but the amount of extra experience gained from being silent and non-lethal was far more fruitful than going Rambo on everyone. That said, there was a lot of surveillance and timing needed to be successful at the stealth part, the AI was surprisingly competent in becoming alerted if you made the wrong move into their vision cone.
Stealth is a patience game, and that is a game that I truly need to learn how to play. I would pop out of cover too early, not take the time to monitor guard movements, and blatantly sprint around corners into security cameras. Not exactly the pinnacle of a master of silence. The moment a guard would catch a whiff of you, there were two choices: backtrack through the level and hide until he gave up, or wait behind a corner and hope you can activate the quicktime melee knockout before he raises the alarm. Of course, I wouldn't want to go back and wait, which turned into having to clear out a lot of rooms with gunfire.
This made enjoying the story of the game extremely difficult, but that's completely on me. Could I have talked myself into focusing and digging into the deep story to create interest? Absolutely. Would I have pulled more and more hair out every single time I had to backtrack? You bet your behind. I gave up after about ten hours, there's only so much the body can withstand.
Dues Ex: Human Revolution - Stealth Trailer
Gamers are a tough crowd, and admitting weakness to a mass amount of super nerds is a message board's equivalent of a shark smelling blood in the water. A cruise through reddit will quickly show just how seriously they take their games. Say the wrong thing, and you're offering yourself as tribute to a ruthless slew of insults and curses. But the reality is we're all human, and there might be a game every now and again that really just stumps you.
Phew, that felt good to get off my chest. We'll be hopping back onto the bucket list train this week, along with the introduction of weekly trailer wrap-ups! Oh, and this whole site may look different soon. Big things happening over here!
Have something you want to ramble about? Have a game you wanted to love but couldn't because you were god awful at it? Leave it in the comments below!
Of all the lubrications I've heard of, spit is not one of them
Video courtesy g4tv.com
Interning at G4 means there is a small TV sitting behind my cube with the channel on for as long as I'm there. This means I have the pleasure of watching X-Play (at least the days that it's on) and Attack of the Show every day that I sit at that desk. Seeing the interview of the day on Attack was Mickey Rourke, I was pretty happy about it. He was amazing in the Wrestler and now he's a general badass in Immortals (other than the movie sucking). I thought we were in for a good interview.
Imagine my dismay when within the first minute of the segment, I was regretting even bothering to turn around, but what I saw from there somehow kept me hooked. Mickey was quite possibly one of the biggest, most stuck up jackasses I had ever seen on television.
Kevin Pereira does his best to get Mickey to talk about HIS upcoming movie, and his first question never actually gets answered. Rourke is too busy talking about how little he worked on the movie (8 days of work for 40 days on the set) and fired off awkward sexual innuendo at the female hosts. He even went so far as to spit in his hand when being introduced to the females, calling it lubricant.
I'm sure there's no way the crew of Attack could have known that Mickey was going to be so rude and idiotic, but if this isn't a new thing for him then how the hell does he still get interviews? Someone needs to pull this guy off the stage with the old wooden cane before he can do any more damage to his reputation.
I will be humming this all week, and I apologize in advance
The creativity of people will never cease to amaze me. I am a firm believer that video game music can can easily be one of the best parts of the game itself. And in some unfortunate circumstances, it is the best part of the game (I'm looking at you, Tetris). Some songs have become staples in the video game community, and have even propelled themselves into the mainstream in some cases. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has one of those theme songs that have become a staple in the community, and this choir has definitely taken notice to it.
They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and if that is so then the composers of the Brawl theme should be blushing their faces off. This is perfect, a beautiful arrangement and honestly it could have been the real theme if they added some percussion to it. This isn't their only cover on the youtubes, you can check out their page at http://www.youtube.com/user/VideoGameMusicChoir.
What's your favorite video game theme song? Got any cool covers or medleys that are worth listening to? Leave it here!
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is the fifth series to get the Lego treatment, following ports of Indiana Jones, Batman, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. The game follows the events of all four Pirates movies, starting from the first scene of Curse of the Black Pearl all the way to the end of On Stranger Tides. The style is widely similar to the feel of all of the other Lego titles, telling the whole story that the movie did in a goofy, kid friendly manner with some slapstick humor that even adults can enjoy. Most major scenes from the movies are done Lego style, with no actual dialogue but sound effects and goofy jokes galore. It’s definitely an aspect of Lego Pirates that shines.
The HUD while in combat
The gameplay in Lego Pirates is the biggest sign that the game is made for a younger audience; mash X to attack, jump around with A, switch characters with Y, and use a character’s special attack with B. The camera is essentially stationary and stays with whatever character you’re playing as, but there are certain points where you turn a corner and the camera doesn’t follow.
The captain goes down with the ship
Each lego representation of the characters are very well done, they all have the look of the movie with the obvious block form of legos. The only one that didn’t look right was Elizabeth, it’s pretty tough to get Keira Knightly correct in lego form. The rest look great, especially with Jack Sparrow who runs around with his patented flailing arms, and he’s even voiced by Johnny Depp himself!
You switch between characters depending on the special trait that is needed (for example: Jack Sparrow can use his compass to find hidden items, while Bill Turner can throw axes to hit targets and access special areas). The female characters can double jump to reach certain points, some characters have hammers to fix broken lego objects, and others have explosive weapons that can destroy otherwise immovable objects. Being able to switch between the characters to move through levels is a fun strategic concept, but it can get very bogged down when there are more that three characters to switch between. You can control as many as 8 people at once and it get’s very confusing to switch between all of them especially when you have enemies attacking you.
A scene from At Worlds End
Lego Pirates is by no means difficult, but there is enough hidden content to make playing through every movie worth it, noticing what you miss and have to go back and uncover along the way. The Lego games are a completionist’s dream; the “Free Play” mode is unlocked when you finish a chapter, and you can use any character you’ve unlocked on the free run through. The Port is possibly the best part of the game: you can check your progress on each movie, find hidden cheats and buy them using lego’s you’ve collected, and unlock other wings of the port after collecting enough golden bricks.
All in all, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is a solid Lego title that suffers from a few small issues. If you’re a fan of the movies and can handle the toned down violence, then this is a title you should check out.
Another Blizzcon is in the books, and there is plenty of news to talk about from the past two days. Some good, some bad, some really really ugly (and some cute and cuddly). I reviewed the three big trailers debuted during the conference, but here's what I thought of the games as a whole.
World of Warcraft: Kung Fu Panda 3
The Mists of Pandaria trailer
Fans of the most popular MMORPG on the planet were thrown for a loop and a half at the announcement of a new expansion pack: The Mists of Pandaria. The expansion will come with most of the familiar additions; the level cap will be increased to 90, there's a new world to explore, and a new race/class to play as.
Pandaria looks like a very calm, tranquil Asian countryside, inhabited by the meditative yet ferocious Pardaren. The Pandaren are, you guessed it, WoW's interpretation of giant panda bears. If this makes you groan, then you may want to stop reading. The new class which as far as I know is only playable with the Pandaren, is called the Monk. The Monk uses attacks that are very fist and martial arts based. If you haven't put two and two together, they are essentially a race of kung fu pandas. I find that hilarious and very intriguing to play. Others have sworn off the game all together because of this choice. What side you're on is truly up to you.
Oh yeah, the Pandaren are also a "neutral" race, which means they will be beating the crap out of each other in the name of the Horde or Alliance once they get out of the starting zone. That's really weird to me.
Starcraft II: Don't burn bridges. It will come back to stick tentacles through you.
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm trailer
I was very impressed with the Starcraft 2 announcements over the weekend, and its new expansion looks like it will add a lot of good content to the highly anticipated (and successful) RTS. The new units for each faction look totally awesome and there's a host of new characters that will force the single player story forward.
While the main appeal of Starcraft still lies in the multiplayer (it's a headlining game on the Major League Gaming circuit) there is still a slice of SC players who play for the single player campaign, and Blizzard has done a great job of making sure they stay satisfied. Be on the look out for more Heart of the Swarm info in the upcoming weeks.
Diablo 3: It's happening! It's really happening!
Black Soulstone Cinematic trailer
It's official kids: we have a release date! You can all get your sweaty gaming hands on the third installment of the series on February 1st, 2012. That is assuming that it doesn't get delayed and pushed back any further.
The biggest news surrounding Diablo wasn't necessarily anything about the game (you can read my critique of the cinematic trailer they showed and how much it rubbed me the wrong way here) and more about its release deals. If you buy an annual subscription to World of Warcraft starting as early as right now, you get instant access to the beta of Diablo and the game for free upon its release.
I view this move as two different things. First, it's an awesome deal for people that play a lot of WoW and are planning to get Diablo as well once it comes out. For more casual players of the game who aren't sure how much time or money they are going to have on their hands come February (me) it's more of a leap to go after it. The exclusive in-game mount is always a nice perc, but worth tying yourself down to two games for a year? That's yet to be decided.
Talk to ya!
So that was Blizzcon 2011. There was some hands on opportunity for DOTA 2 and Titan along with a performance by the Foo Fighters, but thanks to my lack of income I got to cover the conference from the comfort of my own home. Which games impressed you? Which games had you running away covering your ears and screaming so you couldn't feel the pain? Like always, leave it here.
Last week, the female hosts of Attack of the Show wrestled in oatmeal in the name of good TV. I was there to witness it.
Kevin, our male host and instigator
Candace, contender number one
And they're off!
They needed some help remembering what a marble looks like
Well, you get the point
Sara wins!
I'm sure mom is very proud
And of course, the ceremonious water to the chest
As fun as it was to sit in the audience for this and be on TV during a nationally broadcasted show, I couldn't help but feel awkward for the whole stunt. It's probably because I knew that my mom would watch this because I'm on TV, and this isn't exactly something I would expect my mom to enjoy. Imagine my surprise when she informed me that I should have told the hosts that the oatmeal is good for their skin.
But all in all it was a fun time, the show is run really well and what nerd doesn't dream of two attractive women wrestling around in oatmeal? I can't wait to go back and see AOTS in studio again. You can watch the video of the event here, I'm in the bottom left of the crowd in the teal shirt. Jockey, out.
Good evening to everyone and welcome to round two of the Sunday Rambling series. Today I feel the need to ramble a bit about the never ending duel between Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 and how it is literally tearing into everything I do.
Battlefield 3 comes out on the 25th and Modern Warfare 3 just released an epic trailer detailing the upcoming single player story. I have watched this trailer many times on my computer and even posted it on the Jockey site, but it's starting to creep into my social life. When I was at a Mexican restaurant tonight, I actually stopped the conversation to point out to my friend that the same trailer was on the TV playing behind us. I can't listen to any of my favorite hip hop artists anymore because all have their songs have been used in your trailers.
What I'm trying to say is, just stop these crazy marketing campaigns with one another and let your product do the talking. Or just come out sooner so I don't have to wait. But more importantly with all of this hype you're putting around yourself, know you've set the bar very high and we expect an almost perfect game out of you.
What do you think, are games advertised so hard that it makes the game seem disappointing in its shadow? Or are we just unhappy unless we have the perfect game?
