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BRYAN HARPER
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FEATURED POST
Spidern
Casually: Mega Man gets some Soul(Eye) and Castlevania: God of War?
I take Castlevania: LoS for a spin and shed some light on SoulEye's chiptunes. Oh, and Mega Man 2.5D's real. For real. I'm keepin' it real, really real.
Sunday, October 10, 2010 | Comments (2)
POST BY THIS AUTHOR (9)
Vvvvvvg
VVVVVVoluptuous
You are in a dark room, surrounded by spikes, spikes and more spikes. The only exit is top-left, several meters above you. What do you do? Reverse gravity, of course!
Wednesday, October 06, 2010 | Comments (0)
Priceheadstone
Death to Boxes
Rapidly approaching the age where you won't really be touching the games you buy anymore? You betcha.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 | Comments (0)
Getsitscottpilgrim
My Heart Says Maybe, But Your Price Tag Says No
There must be a way to get these kids to buy more of our games... but what is it? It's impossible to tell how we could POSSIBLY SELL MORE COPIES OF GAMES, other than to sell them for less... hmm...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 | Comments (14)
Guns
Devil May Still Be In High School
Dante's having a really, really bad hair day. Oh, gawd, I really hope nobody notices, I honestly had like, two minutes to get to the bus or I'd have to walk to exorcism school... Embarrassing!
Thursday, September 16, 2010 | Comments (0)
2guys_1title
Microsoft: This is Only the Beginning
This psychic warrior puts his two cents in on the future of Microsoft's Campaign of Disappointment. XBL price hike? Brother, that ain't the half of it.
Thursday, September 02, 2010 | Comments (1)
2guys_1title
Dear Sony: I Want to Want a Playstation 3
The Console Wars drag on for what seems an eternity. This wandering vagrant recounts the glory days of the Playstation 2 and tearfully describes the traumatic way the Playstation 3 alienated him from his own kind.
Monday, August 30, 2010 | Comments (0)
2guys_1title
PC Is Short For Pirate Candy
Did PC gamers ruin a good thing by pirating games?
Friday, November 20, 2009 | Comments (20)
2guys_1title
Casually: Gloss sucks, and what the hell is "dramatic progressive action"?
Thursday, August 20, 2009 | Comments (13)
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COMMENTS BY THIS AUTHOR (442)
On Jay Henningsen's  5 lessons other MMOs should learn from Star Wars: The Old Republic
"It seems to me if you enjoyed KOTOR at all... and honestly, if you don't find yourself too enamored with MMOs in general, TOR would be a pretty good entry into the genre, and something you could enjoy.  As to whether it's worth $60 plus fifteen a month, that's speculative and depends on how quickly you can clear the content you wish to play through.  Could be worth it.

Just keep in mind it's more WoW than it is KOTOR."

Friday, February 17, 2012
On Jay Henningsen's  5 lessons other MMOs should learn from Star Wars: The Old Republic
" 

Just a few counterpoints. 
 
1. Story-  While I will agree a couple of the roles have much more compelling storylines, the others feel devoid of life in comparison, making the choice to sink time into creating something that is NOT a Sith Warrior rather silly, which is something you shouldn't be doing.  When considering a new player, who is unaware that a few of the storylines are, in actuality, complete snore-fests, what precedent does that set?  They abandon the game thinking that this is, in fact, what the entire game is like.  Equal time should have been spent making the other choices much more, for the lack of better terminology, epic; the disparity between choices is somewhat staggering.  I was disappointed that such a promising feature had such mixed results.
 
3. Companions- I find this to be rather counterproductive in an MMO environment, which is where this game certainly falls short.  Playing with yourself is fun and all, but at the core of the game we have a system that encourages solo play, taking the (M)assively (M)ultiplayer and setting it neatly in the background.  A severe majority of the game is spent solo, something I could get from, say, Skyrim, for a one-time $60 installment and not get charged monthly for it.  Which is saying nothing about the modding community... 
 
4.  Professions- I could see casual gamers enjoying this, but the fact of the matter is, a profession is supposed to take time.  It is supposed to be a time sink.  When you're done with your progression and have nothing else to do, professions are a metagame where you can make a meaningful contribution to your server's free market and, most importantly, actually have to spend some time doing something else other than slicing things up, especially when you're out of things to slice.  I may groan at gathering materials, but there is a reason that I'm being made to do this in other games, and that is to print Blizzard more money. 
 
Republic has definitely streamlined what it perceives to be shortfalls of other MMO games, but I feel it has a lot to learn from its predecessors about what being an MMO is all about.  PvP is uninspired to the point of whole teams actually stacking up to take turns killing themselves, player interaction is minimalistic, and black and white story nudges can't take away from the ultimate reality that the game needs a bit more soul, and needs its core components to mature a bit more before it can be taken seriously as a competitor in the MMO market. 
 
Which is fine.  The game's still in its infancy; it has plenty of time to grow into something more people want to invest in.  And if you like playing with yourself and being led by the hand from start to finish with minimal objectives to stand in your way, Old Republic's probably going to suit you just fine.  There's plenty of WoW-esque fun to be had, at the expense of feeling less... massive.
 
I honestly think I would have enjoyed this game much more offline.
Friday, February 17, 2012
On Omar Yusuf's  Beyond the crosshairs: Audio cues and how to shift the player's focus
"For me, a game that kept the soundtrack fresh enough that I was keeping tabs on it until the game finished was Mass Effect, something that hadn't happened to me to the best of my knowledge (other than a kickass battle theme here or there in an RPG).  I realize that now (and maybe before without me knowing) this is your typical sci-fi fare (Tron's soundtrack seemed to borrow heavily from those heavy-synth leady-bass tracks, God bless Daft Punk) but at the time, it was new and unexpected.  I still hold Mass Effect's soundtrack to be one of my all-time favorites.  Not something I would listen to outside the game, but definitely something that helps make the experience in-game."
Saturday, January 14, 2012
On Samir Torres'  Puzzler: Identify the save points
"DeathSpank uses an outhouse.  Pretty close."
Thursday, January 05, 2012
On Samir Torres'  Puzzler: Identify the save points
"Boffed the last five.  Where's Travis Touchdown's toilet?!"
Thursday, January 05, 2012
On Jasmine Maleficent Rea's  Look at this weird Doctor Who LCD handheld game
"Best Who intro ever."
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
On Sam Alegria's  Is Sonic Generations a game fans will want to play?
"I got the PC version for $30 when it launched, and for some reason they didn't include Sonic in that version.  I would imagine playing Sonic on that and then going back to the 2D stages for the game would be a bit jarring, because it's NOT as smooth as the original, but it was still cool they included that in the console versions.  Nice touch."
Saturday, December 03, 2011
On Sam Alegria's  Is Sonic Generations a game fans will want to play?
"I was incredibly PLEASED at this offering.  Now, mind you, I didn't mind the werehog levels in Sonic Unleashed because the action stages were so completely and utterly satisfactory that it seemed worth it, something Seven Rings came close to doing, but didn't pull off for me (you know what they say about drowning in a desert).

 

Sonic Generations just took ...EVERYTHING I liked about the 3D AND 2D games and put together one of the finest Sonic presentations I've seen since Sonic & Knuckles.  The only thing they could have done better would have been to slap Sonic CD in the package.  

 

Incredibly excellent soundtrack mimics old-school tunes remixed with new-school touches for the 2D and 3D segments respectively, and it's a LOT of fun hearing the newer tunes toned down in an old-school remix style, and vice versa for the old tracks updated.  Music's more than half the experience for me, so the game might be seen through rose-colored glasses, you might say.  I fell in love in the first stage.

 

Any game that can take a level from Sonic '06 and make it fun deserves 13 gold stars, honestly.  If you liked 3D sonic even a LITTLE bit, you owe it to yourself to pick this up.  The stages are a blast, and the challenges weren't annoying in the least.  There's a good handful of hours of play here.

 

It's still not Genesis smooth, but since the developers seem to be completely unwilling to step back to 2D on modern platforms, this is going to be as close as it gets.  And it's close enough."

Friday, December 02, 2011
On Daniel Sims'  Ubisoft: An example of how not to tackle PC piracy
"I've already decided to hold off on Revelations until it gets heavily discounted.  I have no qualms paying full price for a game on the PC if it launches with its console counterparts, but intentionally withholding a PC release due to ...what, thinking launching a PC game the same day as console games somehow hurts sales? ...is something I will never, ever support.  Until then, I'll just play on my roommate's Xbox copy.

 

Sorry, Ubi.  You coulda had $120.  Now you'll settle for $60 and some change."

Friday, December 02, 2011
On Rus McLaughlin's  Stop annualizing games!
"No offense, valid points, buuuuut it feels like you already wrote this article up once this year."
Thursday, December 01, 2011
On Rus McLaughlin's  Metacritic isn’t the problem. Gamers are.
"I've purposely never let reviews decide if I wanted to buy a game or not.  Or pre-release hype, for that matter; when Assassin's Creed came out, I'd seen videos and read stuff, and nothing I had seen interested me.  I heard "Prince of Persia's spiritual successor" (and mind you, I like Prince of Persia.  A LOT.) and saw the pretty graphics and said "Meh."  It wasn't until a good friend of mine told me how AMAZING the storyline was, and how they had cleverly interweaved fictional conspiracy theories believably into an actual historical timeline, that I decided I would give it a shot.  It ended up being amazing.

 

I've bought about eighty bajillion Sonic games and collections on all their platforms because I KNEW Sonic, as a series, always had at the very least PLAYABLE history with me (Sonic '06, you are retconned.  You never happened) so I knew when Sonic Generations hit the PC, I'd be picking it up, since that's where I got my first Sonic fix.  Sonic had built a relationship of trust with me, and I rewarded that with a chunk of my paycheck.

 

Reviews are fine.  They are opinions.  When they become not opinions, but something that affects an aggregate score (ESPECIALLY when those scores are manipulated; 3/5 does NOT equal 60%, nor does 4/5 equal 80% when taken out of context) and THAT is being contested, we have problems.  I like reading opinions, but if I had my way, we would just take numbers out of the equation and simply... I don't know.  READ reviews.  Imagine that."

Thursday, November 17, 2011
On Samir Torres'  Puzzler: Identify the video-game robots
"Missed the last three; those were rough!  You whipped [that ninth one] outta nowhere, f'real.  Dude looks like a Belmont."
Thursday, November 17, 2011
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