Recently I’ve reconsidered the notion of starting an Eat My Bomb podcast. My new job came with the perk of a longer commute and I’ve turned to podcasts to fill some of the time in the car. Now that I have had a chance to listen to some of the available video gaming podcasts, our mission is clear: Make a video gaming podcast that doesn’t suck donkey dick. Pretty much every gaming podcast I’ve listened to is little more than a microphone sitting in the middle of a room full of disorganized nerds. Topics tend to jump sporadically from “Dude, you know what’s so cool?” to “Nintendo’s controller is dumb because….it’s dumb.” Brilliant. Thus I feel it is our duty to create the Eat My Bomb video gaming podcast, a short show with good production values, good commentary, and much less nerd. Hollah back in the comments or in the forum about what you’d like to hear on EMB Radio. I’m willing to sacrifice a few more hours of sleep to make this happen.

Disgruntled….TO THE XTREME!!!!

It was the last legs of a drunken dinner with my wife and two friends Jon and Matthew last Monday night. The evening was entering that lull where conversation thins out, but you don’t want to go home yet so usually some sort of entertainment is introduced. Usually if you turn on the TV, it’s “We better get home” time. Board games are slightly better, but when alcohol has been consumed they seem inadequate (unless it’s Cranium which seems to mix fine with booze). We started playing Mario Kart 64, a tried and true good time for four people in any state of inebriation. Unfortunately, we only have a reasonably sized TV; about 24″ if I recall. This used to be an acceptable television to have, but now has been demoted to the “bedroom tv” category in most stores. I’m one of the few people who don’t want the TV to totally dominate the living room like some electronic elephant, but it kills me to play four player split screen games on it. Actually, I don’t think I’d ever be satisfied playing with 1/4th of the screen regardless of its size. It’s too distracting and you can always cheat a little by peeking at the other screens.

Anyhow, I remembered that my copy of Halo came with a demo for a party game for Xbox called Fusion Frenzy. It’s a four players on one screen party game from Blitz Games (yes, THE Blitz Games - the people who brought you Bad Boys II…) I had played it years ago by myself against bots and had written it off as a piece of crap, but thought we should try it out with four players. I was pleasantly surprised…

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It sure as hell beats asking this guy.

I think we’re more or less in agreement here, as indicated both by past conversations and current Winter Games lists, that there’s nothing quite like a good adventure game. Whether it’s solving well-thought out puzzles, following an intriguing storyline, or laughing at the hilarious dialogue (Lucasarts, where have you gone?), nearly everyone can find something to like about this genre. However, unlike other game types whose difficulty is based on button-tapping skills, when an adventure game gets hard it’s usually all mental. No matter how furiously you can click that mouse or pound those keys, no amount of dexterity in the world will help you if you can’t figure out in what order to pull the levers or if you still don’t know how to solve the 342nd in-game implementation of the Tower of Hanoi in disguise. The Catch 22 is that it’s traditionally very difficult to look up help without giving away the answer to the puzzle, which is the equivalent of playing through an FPS in God mode with infinite ammo…sure you can enjoy the story and the scenery, but where’s the fun? Where’s the challenge?

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Its done, the adventure that is Far Cry has been fed & put to bed. With some gentle coaxing I have completed the first item from my Winter Games list and I’m glad to see it to completion (even if I did come in second to Brixtone).

Far Cry was one of the many games I have convinced myself I HAD to have, only to install it and never get past the first few levels. It has survived being uninstallled twice because I knew that deep down under the beautiful graphics and campy acting was a gem….at least I hoped I knew.

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There’s an interesting article over at cnet about the potential for the taxation of vitual items. Afterall, if you can sell your character or your items or your gold for real cash, doesn’t that imply that playing WoW is a profit making venture?

One of the unfortunate upshots to my initiation into the coven of WoW players is an unusual and dangerous arms race. It turns out no one wants to be the guy who gets surpassed by the newb editor. When I was challenged yesterday to hit level 25 before bedtime, a vision of the future began to crystallize in my head. It was a dark future, a future in which EMB editors slaved away like drones at the altar of WoW, determined not to end up as the low man on the totem pole. Work, sleep, personal hygiene - all secondary considerations in this dystopian future of gaming. With that potentially odorous future in my head I chose to step away from the brink and end the nuclear one-upsmanship. It turns out I’m less Kennedy and more Khrushchev.

This doesn’t stop me from going to town on other games, though. In that glorious spirit I bring you tidings of Dragon Quest VIII from Square Enix, a game which can only be described as “pleasureable.” When I bought this game the teen behind the counter delivered the cryptic message, “Dude, that’s old school.” I’m beginning to fathom his slangy praise; indeed, this game is old school. In fact, when I started playing this game it felt like someone had taken the grand dame Dragon Warrior and rebuilt it with a quality 3D engine. It’s really a lot like the old NES and SNES games that I loved growing up. There are other things to praise about this game thus far, but the one that pleases me most is the speed with which the game plays. Some games have given in to the temptations of elaborate mid-combat cut-scenes - making combat an arduous marathon - but so far Dragon Quest has resisted that siren call.

I’ve also been impressed with the production quality of the game. The score is fully orchestrated (by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra), the voice-actors don’t sound ridiculous (except that they’re British), and the art-work and design are all by Akira Torayama (of Dragon Ball fame). Now that our reviews page is up I’ll discuss this game in more detail later on, but stay tuned for updates as I go along.

No, goddamnit, my name isn’t Goku!

Joint Operations, Ghost Recon, and UT 2004. Great games so cheap.

Some of you remember my Console Gaming on the Cheap article. Well now I’ll be briefly covering cheap PC gaming since I’ve built a PC gaming machine.

What I’ve discovered is that there are a ton of great games out there that are only a couple of years old that can be found for fairly cheap prices. This weekend I stopped by the local video game store to see if I could pick up a few classic games (new in box games) for fairly cheap prices. I asked them for three different titles, figuring they would only have one or two of them. It turns out they had all three!

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My diaper is full of rage

As of last Tuesday, Far Cry is in the bag. Now that I’m done gaming for spite, it’s time to start knocking off some Winter Games. First up on my list is Messiah. This game was created by Shiny, the same folks who brought us such greats as Earthworm Jim, MDK, and Sacrifice. Getting the game to run on Windows XP was something of a struggle, but the internet helped me get my game on.

Messiah is set in an all-too-familiar dystopian future ala Blade Runner and Deus Ex. The world is coming apart at the seams and darkness/evil/depravity is on the rise. You play the part of a cherub sent down to put shit straight. While you can scurry around in cherub form, the real beauty of Messiah is the ability to possess humans. You can jump into an NPC’s back and take control of that character to do your bidding. If you see a bunch of soldiers blocking your way, just possess one of them and stroll right through the crowd. In cherub form, you have no defensive abilities but you can fly a little ways thanks to your stubby wings. For that reason, possessing an NPC is the only way to engage in combat. And the baddies are awfully surprised when one of their own turns around and starts to spray them with lead.

I haven’t seen enough to comment any further on the game’s story line so I’ll have more of that for you next time. Gameplay leans more toward action-adventure than just pure combat and like the finest French champagne it’s vintage dated. The visuals and sound were a knockout when Messiah was released (still pretty good by today’s standards) and the usual tongue-in-cheek feel of a Shiny game is going strong in Messiah. See you next week with more commentary on my divine journey.