Gameflying Through the Summer

So I kept my word and I joined the rank and file of the Gamefly customers a few months back. If you are unfamiliar with how Gamefly works, it's simple; think Netflix with video games. For just $25 a month you can rent up to two video games at a time and hold them for as long as you like. To Gamefly's credit, the service works great. There is a wide selection of games and they get them to your door really quickly. Here's the problem I've had with Gamefly. All of the games I've rented (except for Call of Duty 4) all have been between mediocre and down right shitty. I guess the reason is because if the game is great, I would buy it anyway.

So for the last 3 months, I've spent almost $80 to have the joy of playing some crappy games. Here is a quick review of them ranked from crappiest to not so crappy.

SoulCaliber 4 (Xbox 360)

This is seriously one of the worst video games I've ever played. To be fair I'm not a real fighting game kind of gamer. But this game is just awful. You can play as one of a bunch of generic fighters that wield just huge ridiculous weapons. You fight through a a bunch of other generic fighters and then for some reason, you fight a boss and the game ends. It takes all of ten minutes and all you had to do was hit the Y button over and over again to win. What a waste of time. And look, I'm not searching for incredible realism or anything, but when a monster of a man hits a 4 ft 10 inch woman over the head with a sword the size of a Jeep, I'm expecting a little more than her to jump back up with only 10% of her health depleted.

I've also heard that this game is great to play against someone else. But these battles just turn out to be who can hit the Y button the fastest. It just plain sucks, and adding a Star Wars character to the game doesn't help it at all. Avoid this game at all possible costs.

The Simpson's Game (Xbox 360)

I'm a huge fan of the Simpsons which is why this game isn't completely awful. The game puts you in control of all of the Simpsons family. The game plays like an episode of the show where Bart finds a copy of the Simpson's game and by reading the manual he and his family get video game powers. From that point forward they find themselves in funny situations where they have to use their powers to save Springfield. Throughout each story they constantly make fun of the video game industry. I was laughing hysterically each time I stumbled across a "video game cliche" and would unlock an achievement. "ooh, an exploding barrel. How original." You even get an achievement for pressing the start button. Classic.

But that is pretty much as far as the game goes. The actual game play is pretty boring and repetitive. It's just a standard platforming game, with basic puzzles and boss battles. And the story itself is so splintered that there really is nothing that keeps you pressing forward in the game. After playing the game for a few hours, I felt like I had seen everything this game had to offer and I sent it back to Gamefly. Too bad too, because there were some pretty funny scenes, like a stage where Mr. Burns wanted to cut down an entire red wood forest to make one extremely expensive toothpick.

Lego Indiana Jones (Xbox 360)

I think you pretty much know what to expect out of this one. It's Legos and it's Indiana Jones. It's really a can't miss, except it kinda does. First of all, this is a great family game. It's a great game to play with kids and parents alike. Kids will get a kick out of the Legos and parents will love the Indiana Jones nostalgia. They pay a great amount of fan service to Indy fans as well. You'll play all the classic scenes including the fight with the big bruiser from Raiders of the Lost Ark who got a little too close to an airplane.

The only real issue I have with this game really isn't with this game at all. I guess it's with the Lego games in general. I feel like I've been there and done that. It seems like I've done all of these puzzles before with the Lego Star Wars games. It's the same push this block here, dig up these blocks here, put these pieces together there and a door opens which you get to go to another room then repeat as necessary.

Also, Indy's whip is completely useless and feels very tacked on. I mean you'll walk onto a screen with just your whip and 7 Nazis with guns will come running from the other side and kill you before you can even get to them to hit them. It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

I beat the Raiders of the Lost Ark stage and I might go onto The Temple of Doom, and again I might not. The game is fun, but I always seem to decide to do something else than continue playing it.

Resident Evil 4 (Wii)

Besides Call of Duty 4 this was by far the best game I've rented from Gamefly. Although the graphics are definitely last generation, it's still genuinely horrifying to play this game. I haven't played this game long, only like 4-5 hours, but the story is deep and involving. It's a game that at only $30, I could easily see myself picking up to own.

Basically, you play as a cop who is in search of the missing President's daughter. You get a lead that she is being held in this eastern European village in the middle of nowhere. So when you go to investigate, you realize the villagers are completely homicidal and there are degrees of horror everywhere. The atmosphere they create is excellent, and there are scenes that are so exciting that when they finish you really want to take a break and relax.

The only downside is the controls. Using both the Wiimote and nunchuk controllers to move and aim and fire is very awkward and I've found myself dying many times because I just can't seem to get the controls right. In fact, after a few hours of playing the first time, I found my arms hurting because of the awkward position I had them in to use the weapons I had.

But it's a good game for the Wii which is rare, and it's the only game out of the bunch I have any desire to actually own which is even rarer.

I'm not sure if I'll continue my Gamefly membership. There are a lot of good games coming out over the next couple of weeks and if my schedule remains as busy as it has been there won't be much time to play. If my time is limited in playing, then I would rather play a good game then rent another crappy one from Gamefly.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

The Gamer is Back...sort of

Hello devoted readers (all three of you). The 30 Year-old Gamer is back for a quick stop over into his blog. It's been over two and a half months since I stopped back here and I would like to say that a lot has happend over that time the but the honest truth is it really hasn't. At least nothing has happend in my video game life anyway.

Over the past two months my video game life has consisted of renting games from Gamefly and playing them pretty irregularly. In fact, a few days ago I was able to play for about four hours and it was the most I had played in at least four weeks. So it really hasn't been that I've neglected my blog (although I have), it really has more to do with the fact that I haven't played any real games.

However, there are quite a few topics that are on my mind as of this moment about video games, so I decided to stop back by my blog and jot a few of them down.

Now, I promise you the reader (all 3 of you) that I will stop by here at least once a week for a quick or long note to let you know what's up in the video game world, or at least give you my perspective on it.

So, I apologize for being away, but I'm back...for now anyway.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

30YOGamer Top 5: Favorite Video Games

We really truly are in the middle of the dog days of summer. There really is nothing to talk about in the video game world except rumors and opinions on video games that aren't going to be released for months. And since I don't really feel like doing that at all, I think I'll start a new type of entry into the 30 Year Old Gamer blog called "The 30YOGamer Top 5". It's exactly what you think it is. Every so often, I'll just give you my opinion of a top 5 list of something. This week, why not start out with the biggest list of them all. The 30 Year Old Gamer's Top 5 Favorite Video Games.

Now I've played a lot of video games in my life. My video game life started before the original Nintendo was released. The first system I ever owned was a Commodore Vic 20. I wanted the Commodore 64, but my parents wanted me to learn, so they got me a keyboard the size of a Buick that could play Frogger and it was called the Commodore Vic 20. So, I've played a lot of games and I think that these 5 games have probably had the biggest impacts on my video game life, and thus make the Top 5.

#5: Outrun (Arcade)This was the first land mark, mind blowing game I've ever played. I was probably 8 years old and my parents would take me to this restaurant in a neighboring town where they could kick back a few bottles of wine. (yes, you read that right.."a few") So, while they were "relaxing", they would give me $10 in quarters and I would go over to the Outrun video game and waste the night away.

This game was revolutionary at the time. It was a stand-up machine with a steering wheel where you drove a convertible cherry red Ferrari Testarosa (still one of my dream cars to this day) and with a blond riding shotgun, you raced through 6 very hard timed levels and tried to go from one side of the coast to the next. There were two cool twists. The first was that if you drove off of the road, the steering wheel shook violently. Now I know every game does that now, but back in 1986, this was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And the other very cool thing was that at the end of each stage there was a fork in the road where you could go left or right and depending on which road you took, the next stage was either harder or easier.

It was on this game that I fell in love with video games and when my parents asked me a year or so later if I wanted a Nintendo Entertainment System or a Sega Master System, I chose Sega because they had Outrun and I played it for years, and that's why this game is easily a Top 5.

#4: John Madden Football (any system, any year)Its about 4 years later and I've now graduated from a Sega Master System (8 bit) to Sega Genesis (16 bit) and I feel like the coolest kid in the school. It was around this time that a small company (at the time) called Electronic Arts made the best sports game of all time, John Madden Football. Before this game, the benchmark in football games was Tecmo Bowl. That game used real players names and real teams, but it was nothing like this. Instead of moving side to side on the screen you went from the bottom to the top of the screen allowing yourself to see up field and pass to open receivers. The game had a full roster of players on and off the field. It was the most realistic sports game I had ever seen.

After the success of Madden, Electronic Arts quickly went into every other sport creating the very awesome NHL Hockey, PGA Golf, and Celtics vs Lakers Basketball. They went through probably the best marketing campaign I've ever seen. They would show you clips from various sports. They would show the football hitting an upright of a goal post, or a hockey puck hitting the post. They would show a three pointer and a dunk. And then they would show you everything again, but this time in their various video games. They would end the commercial by simply saying "EA Sports. If it's in the game, it's in the game."

I bought every single one of them.

Since then I've played probably 10 seasons of Madden, two seasons of baseball, three full hockey seasons, and one entire PGA season. I've probably owned 5 versions of Madden between then and now and it looks like I'm about to own another one in a couple weeks. Any game that's so good that you have to buy over and over again year in and year out has to make my Top 5.

#3: Metal Gear Solid (Playstation)

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this game was just revolutionary when I first played it. I'm in college and when I'm not drinking at the bar, I'm studying or playing cards. My game playing time was limited to only the best video games. So when I tell you that this game was so good that I played it all the way through three times, it's saying something.

I won't go into the details about this game here, as I already did in an earlier blog. But let me just say this. I went to my local GameStop a couple weeks ago and asked them if they had a copy of this game in a used bin somewhere. I figured I could pick up a cheap copy and play it on my PS2. The guy looked at me with a very strange look, like I just asked him where his Commodore Vic 20 games are. He basically said that I should look on Ebay for that game. The next day I did just that and the only copy of the original game I saw had a current bid of $18. Here's a game that over 10 years old and I've played and beaten it three times being sold for about $20, and I seriously considered placing a bid. Yeah it's that good and a definite Top 5.

#2: Goldeneye 007 (Nintendo 64)Oh my God what a great game! I know what you are thinking. "Didn't you just tell us that all video games based on movies suck?" Yes I did. However, this is the one huge glaring exception. This game is considered the father of first person shooters on a console system. Up until Goldeneye a first person shooter was only on a computer. You would use your mouse to aim your weapon. However the Nintendo 64 was unique in that it had the first analog joystick for a console. This made the whole experience much better.

Now the single player game was identical to the movie. Scene for scene you basically ran through the movie. Normally, since you've seen the movie this would suck. But since this is a James Bond movie the whole experience was pretty cool. It was very cinematic and just a joy to play through. But where this game really shined was in multiplayer.

Multiplayer games weren't really all that popular around this time. The only competitive multiplayer experience was really if you were playing a game like Madden. However, this game allowed 4 people to run around an environment and shoot the crap out of each other for like 5 minutes or 25 kills, which ever came first. In college, this game was like crack. People would line up around someone's room and wait for their turn to play. We had entire nights revolved around Goldeneye tournaments. The top two players could stay on the game and the bottom two would have to give up their controllers. Whoever could play the game the longest would win. It was fantastic. We would break the controllers long before we ever got tired of this game.

It would easily be my favorite video game of all time except for...

#1: Halo 2 (Xbox)

This is a true story. About three years ago I visited a friends house to play some poker. Before we started to play, my friend decided to show off his Xbox and this game called Halo 2. I had only heard of the game and I heard some good things. We played the game for a couple hours and I immediately fell in love with it. That weekend I went straight to my local GameStop and bought a refurbished Xbox and Halo 2 with the Halo 2 strategy guide. Over $250 invested for one video game. Looking back....still an excellent decision.

This game is that good. You've probably heard a lot about Halo and the Halo franchise. For gamers, this game represented everything that was great about games. You could play the game yourself, or you could play the game cooperatively with a buddy. Myself and the 30YORoomie beat the game in a weekend. When we finished, we just started right over again. And then there's the online multiplayer. We called up my buddy who first showed me the game, and started playing him online. His time with the game and experience showed from the very beginning as he would run around and hunt me and my roomie. It was ugly how bad he would beat us, and it didn't matter. That's the true sign of an excellent video game. It's kicking your ass and you are having so much fun you don't care.

When Halo 3 was released last year, I was one of the first in line with my preorder. Just ask the 30YOGF. I don't think she's ever seen me as happy as I was skipping out of my local Best Buy with my game in hand. I know that both Halo 2 and 3 were very hyped, but I don't care. I love them both and am happy to call Halo 2 my favorite game of all time.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year Old Gamer

What's Up With Wall-E?

Yesterday during my daily visits to gaming websites and blogs, I came across this little piece of news. Apparently the video game "Wall-E" based on the hugely successful movie, is not nearly as successful. After one month of release, the video game has only sold 114,000 copies. That's not a good number. For comparison purposes, Guitar Hero Aerosmith which has been out just as long, has sold about 500,000 copies. And if you remember from one of my earlier blogs, GH Aerosmith is not very good. So the question is "What's Up With Wall-E?"Well, it's not the character. Wall-E is awesome. The movie is fantastic. It is one of Pixar's best. It's right up there with Finding Nemo and the Incredibles. Wall-E was very successful in the theaters making over $200 million since it's release. And it can't be the marketing. Wall-E is backed by Disney, which is just the biggest marketing juggernaut in the history of corporate America.

No, the issue with Wall-E is a lot more fundamental. It's a video game based on a movie, and these games just aren't very good. You can look back at prior video games based on movies and see they also weren't very successful. Last year we had a lot of video games based on successful movies and all of them failed. Games such as Transformers, Spiderman 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean all were gigantic failures.

There are a few reasons for this. The first is because the game developers are basically handcuffed when it comes to the content of the game. The movie studios have very strict guidelines when it comes to licensing their content. The video game has to stay very true to the movie. Take Wall-E as an example. The first 20-30 minutes of the movie, Wall-E is stuck on a completely deserted Earth collecting trash and trying to clean up the planet. Now in the movie it's very entertaining due to Wall-E's reactions to everything. Now try playing a video game where you just move around an empty wasteland picking up trash. Sound even remotely interesting?

The second main reason for the issue, is the game is too closely related to the movie. You just spent $8 dollars to go see the movie which you just enjoyed. Do you really feel like shelling out another $50 to play through the entire movie scene by scene? I mean you just saw the freaking thing, you know what's going to happen next. There's no suspense and no reason to play the game. Without having ever played the game, I'm betting Wall-E falls in love and finds his way into space. I know, because I've seen the movie.

The final reason why video games based on movies aren't very good is because the game play is not very good. The games aren't very innovative and they are very glitchy. There's nothing worse than moving Wall-E around Earth and he accidentally gets stuck on a pile of garbage he can't get out of, because the developers didn't beta test the game thoughougly. Now, it's not their fault. The game developers don't have a lot of time to create the game. They are given their instructions from the movie studio maybe 6 months before the game has to be released. And in that 6 months, they have to create the game and then test out all of the glitches before the game is released the same time the movie is. Remember, the game has to be released at the same time as the movie. I mean there would be no market for the game if it was released 6 months after the movie.

And I feel bad for Wall-E. He's a great guy and deserves to be treated better than this. I would have no problem playing a completely original Wall-E adventure. But that would take too long and too much money to create and publish. So unfortunately Wall-E is stuck in a very mediocre game that is being marketed to idiots who don't know any better. But now you are not one of those idiots. You are a more informed gamer, just like the 30 Year Old Gamer.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year Old Gamer

Monday Morning Review: Army of Two

I picked up Army of Two a little reluctantly a couple months back when it was first released. I had won an online poker game where I won a $25 Amazon gift card and decided that I would use my new found money to purchase a new video game. My decision was between Army of Two for my Xbox 360 or God of War for my PSP. With a little encouragement from my roommate I decided to go for Army of Two, and I have never regretted it.

Army of Two is made by Electronic Arts in an effort by the company to get away from everything sports. It's about these two guys who work for the Army and decide that it's stupid to go where the are told for a reason they don't understand. So, they quickly realize that it's much more rewarding to work for a private security company and go around the world and fight for apparently the most honorable thing in the world...money. That's right, you play two guys who are hired mercenaries and travel to the biggest war zones in the world and basically kill bad guys.

Let's first start with the bad things about this game. The story, while enjoyable, is really stupid. The story revolves around the trend of privatizing our military. Where apparently our army fails, these two guys can come in and clean up with very little problems. uh...right. The enemies that you fight in this game couldn't be more stereotypical, and that just goes to show how stupid some people really are. There is literally a scene where you are on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan and you are being attacked by suicide bombers. These "suicide bombers" are men with beards and turbans on their heads running straight at you with explosives on their chests and their arms in the air screaming something in Arabic. Shoot one in the chest, and they explode long before they get to you. It's embarrassing how stupid this looks. Especially since the cut scene just before this shows footage of September 11th. To think that our military is facing anything this stupid on the ground in the Middle East is insulting to them and us.

Ok, now that's out of the way, onto the good...the gameplay. You play as either one of these two mercenaries and either the computer or another buddy plays as the other guy. The first time through this game, I played with the 30yoRoomie and it was a great experience. I personally love playing games cooperatively. It's a great feeling where you two have to work together to overcome an obstacle. And in this game, it's absolutely imperative that you work together.

First, there is a system in the game in place called Aggro. What Aggro basically means is that the computer enemies will focus their fire on the guy who's firing the most. So say for example, you are playing with a friend and while you are taking cover, your friend decides to run straight out in the open firing at anything that moves. Well the computer enemies will then focus their fire on your friend cutting him to ribbons, and leave you completely alone. Sometimes in the game that's a strategically important option. If for example you need to flank around a machine gun nest, then your friend can run around like an idiot. While everyone is focused on him, you can easily sneak around behind everyone and shoot the machine gunner in the back of the head. It's pretty cool.

The second time through the game I played with the computer as my buddy. In most games like this my biggest complaint is that your computer buddies look like they are doing a lot, but in truth they are hitting nothing, and it's up to you to kill all 562 enemies while your computer buddies are just hanging back. Not in this game. If the computer is your AI buddy, you can bet he's kicking just as much ass as you. Don't feel like going into a room first? No problem, send the computer guy to do it. You control all of his actions. Tell him to charge, hang back, regroup, kick ass, or stay low. It's all up to you, and for the most part he's very responsive. It's very innovative game play and it's a joy to play.

The game moves along at a very quick exciting pace. Just when you start to really get into the game and enjoy it, it's over. Army of Two will take about 20 hours to beat. The game and cut scenes look brilliant and the story is enjoying, except for the times where it's stupid to the point of insulting. Either way, for those of you who liked Gears of War and other hardcore shooters, this game is very enjoyable and worth a look.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year Old Gamer