EXTRA LIFE CHARITY MARATHON - GIVING BACK TO THE WORLD

In my 30-something years of life, I've played a lot of video games.  They've brought me a lot of joy and happiness, inspired me, let me visit exciting and fantastical worlds, told me amazing stories, and allowed me to vicariously live exciting lives.  It's given me a lot.  However, I've never really known how I could give back with gaming, until now.

GAME-A-WEEK - HOME

Home.  A tiny one-man indie game that bills itself as a "unique horror adventure".  Well, I love horror, and I love indie games, and it's better to be unique than be just another cheap knockoff, right?   Sounds good to me...I think?

X-MEDIA WEDNESDAYS - RATCHET & CLANK COMICS #1-6

It's been a long week here in the Cranky household, with car troubles, job interviews, and games to catch up on.  So for this week's X-Media Wednesday, I needed something light, something fun.  And so I turned to comics.  Specifically, comics based around one of my favorite action platforming series from the PS2 era, Ratchet & Clank.  I have loved almost all of the games (we don't like to talk about All4One around here...), so how did the comics measure up?

GAME MUSIC OF THE WEEK - 3/12/13

Today's game music of the week comes from one of my favorite brutally hard indie games, The Binding Of Isaac. This is generally considered the theme of the game, and it's a big part of why I fell in love with it.  This music really sets the dark, disturbing tone of what's to come.

BREAKING FREE OF THE CONSOLE WARS

Since the dawn of home console video games, there has always been war.  Bitter rivals competing head to head for your living room space.  There were minor skirmishes early on, with Atari vs Commodore, and the NES stomped the Sega Master System into the ground.  The first real war erupted when the Super Nintendo went head-to-head with the Sega Genesis, and it was bloody.  Lines were drawn.  Friendships destroyed.  Controllers broken.  Blast processing overhyped.  In the end, the Genesis held on and fought the good fight, but the SNES eventually won.  Since then, every generation has had its console wars.  The past few years have mostly seen Sony and Microsoft in an embittered Cold War, with Nintendo ineffectually waggling its sticks around at them, menacingly. 

The problem is that we as gamers and consumers never really had options.  A console is a long term investment, a heavy chunk of change that would last you 5-7 years.  You could pick a side and become a raving fanboy (or girl), you could save up your money and buy multiple consoles, or you could just opt out, build a gaming rig, and become a PC gamer.  Either way, there was nothing in between.  There were very few alternatives to the mainstream, and those we had either flopped pathetically, or just became short-lived beloved oddities (We love you and miss you, Sega Dreamcast).  Even these oddities were an expensive investment.  We never had anything cheaper, smaller, or more convenient. 

Until now.   

NEW FEATURES AND AN ATTEMPT AT A SCHEDULE

So, welcome to the end of February.  So far, the Game-A-Week posts seem to be doing well, but I notice that I've made a habit out of only posting that throughout the week.  I want to post more, offer more content. Frankly, I'm still kinda balancing this blog, the Youtube channel, and the Twitter, and realizing just how much work is involved here.   But I want to keep putting out things for people to read and enjoy, so I'm introducing a few new features and some modicum of a schedule.  

Feedback is not just encouraged, it's practically begged for here.   Let's take a look!  

VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - DANCE OFF!

As I stated in my Game-A-Week review, the animations for the dancers in The Asylum, the goth club featured in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlust, were fairly accurate.  The girls danced like a lot of actual goth girls in real goth clubs.   Except for one guy...

So I had to throw this video together.

GAME-A-WEEK - RECETTEAR, AN ITEM SHOP'S TALE

So, after the relentless brutality and unsettling violence of last week's Hotline Miami review, I decided to play something a little lighter and fluffier.  I chose Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.

What the fuck was I thinking?

NPC AI, AN OFT-OVERLOOKED DETAIL

For the past week, I haven't so much been "playing" Far Cry 3, as much as "rabidly devouring".   I have barely touched the main questline, but I've already crafted everything possible, found over 60% of the collectables, done most of the side missions, and unlocked most of the map.  It's a freakin' great game, and I'd be lying if I said otherwise.   However, it has a lot of glaring flaws that I think almost stand out even more because the rest of the game is so well-crafted.  One flaw in particular has actually become something of a fatal flaw for a lot of modern video games, in my book.

The AI and dialogue for non-combat NPCs is dumb as shit.

THE CRANKY OLD GAMER EPISODE 2 - 10000000

Hey kids, it's your ol' Uncle Cranky here with a new video for the Youtube channel! This week I am giving you a brief overview of a new indie title on Steam (also available on iTunes for Apple devices), called 10000000.

Fair warning, I've also started fiddling around with Windows Movie Maker, so enjoy some "professional" video effects at the beginning! Having header art and a logo gave me a taste, and now I'm hooked on making things look neater. Next thing you know, I'll actually have THEME MUSIC! Maybe. Someday.

Anyway, enjoy!

EDIT:   I stand corrected. In this review, I stated "I don't know that I would really play this much on the PC".   I was wrong.  I was so very, very wrong.  This game is like fucking heroin, and I have been completely unable to put it down all week.  I bought it on my iPhone and play it at work, or while I'm on the couch watching a movie.  It's addictive as hell, and I've absolutely fallen in love with it.

GAME-A-WEEK - KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RECKONING

When it was announced that Big Huge Games and 38 Studios were pairing together bestselling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and toy designer and Spawn comics creator Todd McFarlane to make an epic fantasy RPG, the buzz was huge.  But a turbulent dev cycle, a massive change in scope from a MMO to a single player experience, and the hugely publicized collapse of Studo 38 after the game's release have put a pall over the game's reputation.  But once you push those factors away, how does Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning stand on its own merits?

THE CRANKY OLD GAMER: NOW WITH VIDEO!

It's official, I now have a youtube channel to complement the blog.  I'm still experimenting with recording, editing, and compressing videos right now, but I have a first video up and running.   It's not the most exciting video on its own, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Check it out, subscribe, and I'll keep working on putting up videos!

R.I.P., THQ

For those who haven't read yet, once-massive game company THQ has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and been delisted from the NASDAQ.  While they may not be dead yet, this is essentially like saying "The doctors have pulled the plug, now we're just waiting for nature to take its course."   Now this great lumbering beast that has been churning out games since 1990 is breathing its last breath.


I'll kinda miss em.   I guess.  A little.

AND SO IT BEGINS

Just a quickie update here.  Kaylei Bristol, writer/reviewer for Attack Initiative and a very dear friend of mine, has picked the first game for me to play and review from the list. 

She has chosen Bulletstorm.  Or as she so eloquently phrased it, "You need the game with all the dick jokes in the world to be your next game."

I'm already two or three hours into the campaign, got some piping hot screenshots ready, and am forming my opinions.  Tune in Monday for the first review of 2013!

THE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION, PART DEUX

Wanna help control the content of this site, and keep me on my toes?   Here's how!

2013 - A NEW APPROACH

So I'd be shocked if anyone's reading this anymore.  My life has become a rollercoaster of chaos, as has Ryan's (my cohort with the North-South Geek Show).  We keep promising "This isn't dead!" and then not following through.  It's not for lack of trying, and not for lack of wanting to, we just can't make our schedules mesh due to the complications of Real Life.  When I'm free, he's working, and vice versa.  

So for now I am focusing on this blog, something I haven't done much of lately.   I have made a commitment to myself.   Like many PC gamers who have Steam, I have a terrible habit of buying a bunch of games when they are discounted, and then never playing them.   I have well over 200 games on my list, and have only actually played maybe 1/4th of them.   So each week, most likely on a Monday, I will play a new game, and I will do a preliminary review of it on Tuesday, and a follow-up review along with the next game on the following Tuesday.

These won't all be hot new games, or AAA titles.  Some might be much older games.  Some could be indie titles.  Some could be AAA titles a few months late.  I'm kind of broke, so realistically the only way I can do AAA titles right away would be if it was something I was really chomping at the bit to play (like the upcoming Bioshock: Infinite or GTA V).  There could be some console games in there, but to be perfectly honest, I'm like 90% a PC gamer.  

Either way, a weekly schedule will keep me going on this blog, and it'll give me an excuse to chew through all of those unplayed games I paid hard-earned money for!

HOLY CRAP WE HAVE A HEADER!

Hey look!  Instead of just text saying "The Cranky Old Gamer" and a profile icon of Fallout's Brotherhood Of Steel, I actually have a real header with a cranky cartoon of me!  

Major thanks go to Josh Vilchis and his awesome designs!  Dude's never met me in person or even seen a picture of me, and yet he perfectly captured my "annoyed" look with that little cartoon. 

So seriously, if you need some design work done, shoot him an email and check him out!   Fantastic work, Josh.  Thank you so much!

BORDERLANDS 2

Holy crap, I love this fucking game.

That could ALMOST be the whole review right there.  Almost.  

LATE TO THE PARTY - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SHADOW OF CHERNOBYL

Welcome, Stalkers, to the Zone.   An irradiated, desolate place filled with mutants, murderers, and militia, where death is invisible, and even the air can kill you.  Some come to the Zone to control it, some come to save it, while many others come to profit from it.  Some come to discover the truth behind the myths and legends.   Most never return.

Welcome to Chernobyl.

COMING BACK....AGAIN

I'm not dead.

This blog?  Not dead.

The North/South Geek Show podcast?  Not dead.

All just dormant due to chaos.  Ryan and I got everything going, and then shit hit the fan in both of our lives, and we both had to move and sort of re-situate our lives.  I'm now in a different city, with a different job in a different field.  It's been a hell of a readjustment.  The biggest downside in regards to this blog is that I haven't had a lot of time for gaming, but I'm trying to make time.  Mostly all I've been playing have been casual things like Minecraft (stupid 1.3.1 update, sucking me back in), along with some older titles like Darksiders and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow Of Chernobyl*.

But I promise you dear readers, we've merely put these projects on the back burner.  They're not dead.  Ryan and I have been talking about new ideas, new structures, new formats.  Life gets in the way sometimes, but we're bound and determined to make this thing work.

Thanks for stayin with us.


* - Seriously why the hell did I wait so long to play this game?  It's awesome!