Something I found on Metafilter Illusion of Gaia and my cousin David .

Michael, bring this to Dan and crush his will. Muahahahahahaha!!!

I fear the dark powers at play here. On Friday, I received a mysterious visit at my office from Jeff and Mike, asking if I had received my game yet (obviously a sympathetic visit in response to my previous post). Jumpy and nervous, they refused to actually come in, as if afraid to cross the threshold. Mystified by my negative response, they quickly rushed off leaving me to ponder the events. Was this some sort of clairvoyance of bad vibes, or perhaps just the Red Bull coursing through their veins?

A short time later I went to my mailbox at the behest of Jeff, perhaps expecting some treats from the Praecis Bake Sale. What I found, though, was no cookie. The faint odor of brimstone assaulted my nose as I neared my mail slot, and with trembling hands removed the unmarked package inside. No sooner had I picked it up than the theme song from COPS began pounding through my brain. A quick slice of my knife freed the beast from its confines, and Bad Boys: Miami Takedown was thrust upon my soul.

I did not have a chance to load it up this weekend, but rest assured that I will feed this wretched abortion of movie merchandising the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch faster than you can count to 5 (3, sir), I mean 3.

Thank you, Mike.

I challenge you to Fistiforks!!!

I know, I know, I should be trying to finish Knight Rider. It’s just that Knight Rider feels like work and I’m overworked enough these days. That’s why I’m playing Halo 2.

The other reason I’m playing Halo 2 is because it kicks ass. So far it’s much better than the original. They’ve managed to keep the feel of being in a giant environment while giving you a better sense of purpose and direction. The original Halo had many moments where I drove around the map not sure what the hell I was supposed to do until I happened upon a path that led to bad guys. Halo 2 does a great job leading you in the right direction with clever level design and sometimes with your allies or even the enemy themselves ducking into a doorway; leading you to where you need to go. There are no tedious, repetitive levels like the library nor have there been pointless “drop down, kill everyone, then get back on the ship” levels. There are more weapons, the abilty to “dual wield” two guns at once (though I hate that you have to drop the second one everytime you switch to your alternate weapon), more vehicles, more enemies, more everything. At the risk of spoiling (hey, it’s been out for four months now), you even get to play as one of the Covenant!

One of my favorite things is being able to see the scope display when you’re just holding the gun. Very slick. Check it out here.

What can I say. Believe the hype; buy an Xbox and play the game. Anything to add, Jeff?

Chewbacca & Zaalbar are ewoks compared to this guy

I’m working on finishing as many games as I can before Chaos Theory hits next week, and the latest to eat the bomb is Star Wars: Republic Commando. Much like the recent Clone Wars cartoons, this game is supposed to provide the bridge of what happened between Episodes II and III. However, you will find no lightsabers here. No use of the force. No special effect that only serves to unintentionally highlight the underlying flaws in the script. Wait…what? Ummm…anyways, Republic Commando puts you in command of an elite squad of clones who are    called           in              to
        ……..              ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Ok, so the story’s not that important. Things are going on, you move from stage to stage for one reason or another that has little to no bearing on anything. This is not KOTOR. The important thing is that, although you won’t really care what your motivation is supposed to be, this game is a lot of fun to play.

The mechanics of the game are simple enough…you’ve got your Halo-style health/shield setup, your Metroid Prime-style visor view, and you command your squad via context-sensitive action points. This is not in any way a Tom Clancy game. You send your to men specific action points around the rooms and levels in order to maximize their effectiveness, you can’t just have them set up anywhere. While this may feel like a dumbed-down form of play at first, it fits in perfectly with the style and the number of enemies. No Tom Clancy game has ever thrown tangos at you like this does, so you do need to strategize which points you take advantage of. Do you set up multiple sniping points or try to send Delta-40 to capture the turret? Who’s going to blow that droid dispenser? There is a great balance between commanding your squad to complete tasks/kill enemies and taking part in the action yourself. You also set standing orders to govern squad movement and aggression.

Everybody into the Pinzgauer!

The AI more than holds its own in terms of firepower, tactics, and personality. These guys had me laughing my ass off on more than one occasion with their banter. More importantly, I never felt like I had to tell them what to do. They are just as capable as your character in every way, even going so far as to warn you if you’re the one doing something particularly stupid like standing out in the open getting shot at. Unfortunately, this is also a flaw because these guys are supposed to be experts in their fields that together make up an elite unit. If that’s the case, why can my demolitions expert hack into a terminal just as quickly and efficiently as my technician, who is an excellent sniper in his own right? The specialization seems to have been set up, but not really implemented.

The few problems are not substantial enough to impact on the fun factor. The general gameplay is strategic but fast-paced, and you can tailor it to your play style a bit. If you prefer the “do-it-yourself” approach, you can go in guns blazing and your team will cover you pretty well. Alternatively, if you’re the commander who likes to hang back, issue orders, and provide support when necessary, you too will have a blast. I’d say that the single-player only lasts about 10-12 hours, and there’s nothing branching or extra beyond a harder difficulty level to go back for, but I think I’ll go back anyways.

After Chaos Theory, that is.

Well, Satan, you did hell proud with this one. Very high marks for presentation. For now, I’ll just lay the presentation on you guys. Gameplay will come in the next post.

Get back to work, dammit!

With Secret Satan supposedly in full swing, I thought a tracking post might be helpful to those of us who’ve yet to receive or to have their victim receive yet. In Tim’s first post at the beginning of the month, he said that he’d sent out a month earlier and that Jeff had likewise shipped weeks earlier. Personally, I shipped 1st class weeks ago, so it definitely should have arrived by now.

So far we have 5 confirmed shipments and only 3 confirmed receipts, so I’m curious as to the extent of the problem. If I have to scour the bins for another brown nugget of a title, I’d like to know so that I can find something even more horrifying for the extra trouble.

Try to keep any responses spoiler-free if secrecy still exists between minion and victim.

UPDATE: We are up to 7 confirmed shipped/hand-delivered and 7 confirmed received.

I’ve been satanized. Ryan pimp slapped me with a game called “Whirl Tour” for the PS2 which, I have to say, looks awful. I can’t make game reports yet, but here are my first impressions:

1) It involves extreme sporting. On a Razr scooter. I generally find that anything invoking an extreme sport also invokes extreme crap, particuarly one that involves a six month extreme fad.

2) The main character is a roadie for a band. This game must suck so much that you can’t even be in the band, you have to be a roadie for the band. I anticipate the game play to involve handing out towels (extremely) and picking out the green M&M’s.

3) It advertises “30 hot music tracks from hip-hop to electronica.” Wow! Hip-hop AND electronica?! Putting those two together is sheer madness!

Damn you and your gaelic doubles, you brigand.

Is it getting hot in here or is it just that giant fire?

Fable ate the bomb this morning and I’ve already started my fat, evil, and gay quest. This game has a lot of innovations, gay marriage being one of them. It ranks up there as one of the most enjoyable RPGs I’ve played. I wish it had more character development though. The story seemed rushed and I didn’t really feel emotionally connected enough to my family to care when they were in danger.

The combat is interesting. It’s much more complex than most Zelda-type games and it’s cool how much harder it is to fight with heavier weapons. It can be tedious at times, but not too bad. Each foe has a distinct fighting style to adapt to. Being able to take boasts on quests like “finish quest without getting hit”or “finish quest with no armor” gives you the ability to set your own difficulty level.

Overall, a decent 9 game. Not nearly as inspired or detailed as KOTOR, but worth replaying and paying full price for. It also has the best musical score I’ve heard in a long time; video game or otherwise. Really gorgeous stuff.

I’ll write more after I’ve experienced the evil, fat and gay angle.