You're Simply The Best! - Review of Mass Effect 2

The first Mass Effect was released a couple years ago at the exact same time as the first Assassin's Creed.  I was lucky enough to receive both of them for the holidays and so I had the very difficult decision of choosing which one to play first.  So I decided to play Assassin's Creed while the 30YO Roommate played Mass Effect.  In the original Mass Effect, you had several choices throughout the game to do a heroic action or to be a bad guy.  The story for the most part played out the same way.  My roommate played the hero in his playthrough of the game so when it was my turn to play I decided to be the biggest asshole in the universe.  It was hysterical.  At least until Mass Effect 2 was released earlier this year.

For the first time ever the sequel to a video game remembered all of the individual actions you chose in the first game and carried those actions into the sequel.  So if you killed a character off in the first game, they would still be dead in the second.  So guess who was remembered for being the universe's biggest asshole?  That's right, The 30 Year-old Gamer.

Well, I'm happy to report that by the end of Mass Effect 2, I had successfully changed my image back to the true hero that I really am, saved the universe once again, and had one of the most memorable video game experiences in a long time.  Simply put, Mass Effect 2 was the best video game of the year.

You play as Commander Shepard, and the impending doom of the entire universe is once again your responsibility to avoid.  To do this you must recruit a team of the baddest, smartest, strongest mercenaries in the galaxy for a suicide mission to the other end of the galaxy.  The game plays like a great episodic show on TV.  Each mission takes about an hour to an hour and a half to complete.  There's a mission to recruit each member and another loyalty mission for each member to become loyal to you.  This is important later.

Once you feel it's time for the suicide mission, off you go.  But be warned, if your team is not fully prepared, or if you made some bad decisions along the way, not all of your team will survive the mission.  I've talked to many people who have played this game and everyone of us has a different experience.  Some people of my crew who died, lived in their story and vice-versa making the story of Mass Effect truly unique to everyone who plays it.

Each mission is action packed and the voice over work is the best I've ever seen.  The graphics are stunningly beautiful as you fly across the galaxy from industrial planets to rural planets.  The universe that the developers have created feels real and massive.  And finally, the story is just captivating.  I simply did not want this game to end. 

You don't need to play the first Mass Effect to play the sequel, but I don't know why you wouldn't want to.  If the promised third Mass Effect is anywhere near as good as the first two games have been then we will be talking about this trilogy for decades to come.  Mass Effect 2, you are simply the best.

Until next time,

 - The 30 Year-old Gamer

The Old Arcade, Blew Every Dollar We Ever Made

One of the harsh realities of growing older is that some of the things you remember so fondly when you were younger may not be as great as you remember.  Some things just don't age well.  For example, have you ever seen an episode of the original GI Joe cartoon recently?  Man is that animation choppy and the plot is just stupid and physics just don't exist.  Someone can fire a missile at an airplane sitting on the ground and the pilot has enough time to open the canopy, climb out of the airplane, and run to a safe distance before the plane explodes.   Riiiiight.  Unfortunately, the same concept holds true for video games.  I found out this harsh reality recently when I downloaded X-Men: The Arcade Game on Xbox Live.

To say that this game was my favorite arcade game is an understatement.  When I was a teenager my best friend and I would pour over $20 in quarters into this game and play it until we beat it every single summer.  It was the video game that got me into comic books and I've been an X-Men fan ever since.  Arcades have basically disappeared and this game disappeared along with them.  I literally haven't played this game in over 15 years.  That is until, it was finally released this week on Xbox Live.

The game is simple enough.  You play as one of six X-Men characters and you have to battle the forces of Magneto through various levels beating up an army of bad guys and various boss villains until you defeat Magneto himself and save the day.  The cool part of the arcade game was that you could play along side 5 other people at once.  The game was huge and was the original widescreen game.  They pulled off the widescreen the old school way of putting two tv screens beside each other.

In the 15 years since I played this game, my fondness of it grew and grew.  I remember thinking this game was an epic adventure that took dedication to finish.  It was the game of ultimate teamwork where you played along side 5 strangers and only together could you defeat Magneto.  I thought it was a genre defining video game and couldn't figure out why they never released it to a console before today.

Then I downloaded the game...

My first sign of concern was during the download process.  I downloaded a pinball game earlier this week and it took over 300 megs of memory.  X-Men took only 42 megs.  Uh oh.

The graphics couldn't look worse.  Every character looks like they had too much fiber for breakfast.  And the story doesn't make any sense.  In today's comic books, Magneto and Prof X have buried the hatchet and are best friends.  The White Queen (Magneto's woman in the game) is now sleeping with Cyclops and is the X-Men's #2 in command.  And half of the other bad guys died in the comics over 5 years ago.  So why are we all fighting again?

Oh and this epic game of teamwork couldn't be more repetitive.  Press the X button to attack, repeat.  That's the game.  It gets pretty old very quickly.  And speaking of quickly, this epic adventure of dedication was beaten this afternoon in 27 minutes.

It was a nice walk down memory lane, but sometimes some things should stay fond memories.  I'll probably go back and play it again and just laugh at how silly the whole game has become.  Just because I was brought up in the old school, doesn't mean I don't appreciate how good the new school is.  I truly believe that we are in the golden age of video games and I challenge anyone to tell me that the games that they played 10 years ago are any way better than the ones out now.   Its ok to appreciate the memories of the old games, but lets play the new games instead and leave the old games in the past.

Until next time,

 -The 30 Year-old Gamer

Blinded By the Light - Review of Alan Wake

Everyone has heard of the game Red Dead Redemption. It's basically Grand Theft Auto on horses in the Wild West. The game sold huge numbers the week it was released. Which is why for the life of me I don't understand why the good people at Remedy decided to release their game Alan Wake on the exact same day. That week I walked into a Gamestop looking to buy a game and was torn between which of the two to buy. The teenage kid working behind the counter was giving me this hard sell or Red Dead, at which point he said something like, "I'm sure who ever your are buying this game for will love Red Dead Redemption." At which point I looked right at him and said, "In that case, I'll get a copy of Alan Wake." What a great decision, because Alan Wake is simply one of the best games of the year that no one is talking about.

Alan Wake is the story of a writer named (you guessed it) Alan Wake, who goes on a vacation with his wife Alice to the town of Bright Falls located in the Pacific Northwest. Think the town of Twin Peaks crossed with the town from Twilight. It's cold and dreary and everyone in the town is really nice but all very odd. Shortly after arriving at your rented lake house, Alice goes missing and Alan blacks out. When he wakes up, he's in the middle of the forest at night with the only his flashlight and gun to protect him. Here's where things get all higgledy piggledy. Alan gets attacked by all kinds of locals who are possessed by some kind of darkness and the only way to kill them is to shine the flashlight on them until the darkness disappears and then shoot them dead.

The story is absolutely great. It's engaging and you truely want to know what is going on in this town and what happend to Alice. The atmosphere is awesome. The use of shadows in this game are amazing. Light is your only safe haven and you find yourself frantically looking for it at all times. The idea of using batteries for your flashlight like ammo for a gun is ingenius. When you are running through the woods and the flashlight starts to flicker out because your battery is dying, you start to feel real terror.

Now I'm past the point of gory things scaring me. I don't get scared by the Resident Evil games or anything like that. But this game, with it's use of darkness, had me on the edge of my seat and jumpy the entire time playing it. One time, in the middle of the night, I'm playing Alan Wake and The 30YO Wife sneaks up behind me and says hello at which point I screamed which made her scream which made me scream louder. That's the sign of an engrossing game.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Alan Wake and beat the game in about 10 hours. There's two extra downloadable contents that are about an hour each, so overall your adventure with Alan is about 10-12 hours. The game ends with a cliffhanger leading us into a sequel. My only concern is because these guys got killed at retail by Red Dead Redemption, I'm not sure if a sequel will be greenlit. I certainly hope it does because Alan Wake was a great example of great story telling and engrossing game play. If you are looking for an intense thriller for a video game, look no further.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

The Return of The 30 Year-Old Gamer

It's March of 2010 and The 30 Year-old Gamer is living in a one bedroom apartment with his Fiancee, The 30YO Fiancee, in Hoboken New Jersey. We are two months away from from our wedding day and everything is going great. I'm sitting in my "man cave" which can best be described as a "man corner" because our apartment is so small. I'm playing online when a kid sees my gamertag and asks, "Hey 30YoGamer, what are you going to do when you get older? Are you going to change your gamertag or will you always be The30YoGamer?" I thought about it for a second when I replied, "No, I will always be The 30 Year-old Gamer."

It's now December and as I look back at the past ten months a lot of things have changed. For starters, The 30YO Fiancee is now The 30YO Wife. We no longer live in a one bedroom apartment in Hoboken. We bought a townhouse in Morristown New Jersey. My "Man Cave" has been disassembled, but is in the process of being rebuilt bigger and better than ever. My Blog was put on hold, because, well I simply just didn't have any time to get to it. But as I turn toward the New Year and look toward the future, I will get back into my blog and talk more about video games and the things I notice.

Because even though my life has had some major changes this past year, there are some constants that haven't changed. I'm still playing games whenever I can. I still think that video games are for everyone, hardcore and casual gamers alike. And I still believe that I can provide a unique perspective, the thoughts of a 30 Year-old Gamer.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

Too Many Good Games

I never thought I would complain about this. In fact, don't even call it a complaint. Call it a very good frustration. But seriously, aren't there just way too many good games out there right now?

This past weekend I had some time to play some games and I sat down in my "Man Cave" and looked at the pile of games I had to choose from to play and seriously had no idea what game to play. Going into the holidays I was playing and finished

* Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

* Halo 3 ODST

* Batman Arkham Asylum

I'll give you my reviews on two of those games in upcoming blogs. Right after the holidays I played and finished (because it's seriously very short) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. So that just leaves for me to play:

* Assassin's Creed 2

* Left 4 Dead 2

* Fallout 3

* Dragon Age Origins

That's 4 games that I want to play and beat, but don't have time to. And it doesn't even take into consideration that I still want to play COD multiplayer and am in the middle of my second season of NHL 09.

A very good friend of mine has been raving about Mass Effect 2 and how I absolutely have to pick that game up. I figured I would have some time maybe this summer after I get through these games, but oh no. Also on the horizon of games to be released that I want to play include Red Dead Revolver and Final Fantasy 13.

I'll tell you all about my reviews on these games but here's a hint, they are all good. I mean holy crap. I could lose my entire social life playing all of these games and am not too sure if I would regret it.

We truly are in a golden age of video games. I love it. Not sure how my fiancee feels about it though.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer