All Geared Up!

Tomorrow will mark the one week anniversary of the release of Gears of War 2. It's a hallmark event. I'm so in love with this freaking game I think I might pick up flowers on the way home tomorrow and give them to it. But before I get into the game and my ridiculous obsession with it, let me first back up by telling you about it.

Gears of War plays like a modified first person shooter. You spend most of the time running around in a third person perspective (camera behind the main character), but when you get into combat you can zoom into a first person perspective (camera inside the main character's head) for more accurate shooting. This whole process works very smoothly. This of this game like a brother to Halo 3. And if Halo 3 is the honor student of the family going to an Ivy League college, then Gears of War is the older badder brother who joined a motorcycle gang that runs guns to Mexico.

Make no mistake, this game is not for the kiddies. It's for all of the 30 year old kids out there who still get a kick out of ridiculous violence.

The story is basic, but it works well. There are a bunch of monsters called Locust that come from underground and are wiping out humanity. You play a bad ass named Marcus Fenix who is a cross between John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and The Rock. He fights in the army and is a one man wrecking crew. The story is about the humans taking the fight to the Locust and there are cool plot twists and enough story to keep you interested throughout the game.

But the true joy of the game is the combat itself. It plays almost exactly like the first game where you have to hide "in cover" behind walls and debris to protect yourself from enemy fire. And there will be plenty of enemy fire. There are a lot of enemies and they are all tougher and smarter than the first game. The weapons you get to defeat them vary from flamethrowers to grenades, and from bow and arrows to sniper rifles. Of course the star of the show is the main weapon which is called the Lancer. It's a heavy machine gun with a chainsaw for a bayonet. If an enemy gets too close then just rev that baby up and cut the guy in half.

I've played the game about half way through the story mode, and it's very well done. The game does a great job of pulling you in and out of the game and into cinematics very well. You feel from the very beginning that you are in for one hell of a highly produced ride, and it doesn't disappoint. The characters and voice acting is great. And the visuals of the game are of course some of the best on the system. But the bottom line is the game is just a ton of fun to play.

Oh and there's the online multiplayer, which is just as much fun if not more so than the story line. Playing online actually takes some real strategy. You just can't run around and shoot everything that moves or you will die a quick gruesome death. They've added plenty of new modes and each of them is excellent.

I actually picked up the Limited Edition version of the game. It's $10 more and comes with some fun features like a behind the scenes disk and picture book. But to be honest, I spent the extra ten bucks for the bigger box. This game is excellent and deserves the extra recognition on my shelf with my other games. Don't get me wrong, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a great game, but it's no Gears of War 2, and no one walking into my house should ever confuse the two, and thanks to this box, no one ever will.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

Politics and Video Games

Today is Election Day for this great country of ours and it's a day that I've always enjoyed. It's a day where as Americans we put our voices to work and we show the entire world it is possible for us to elect a leader without bloodshed. It's truly a time where we can be proud to be an American and I hope all of you out there do go out and vote today. Now, I'm not here to talk about politics, and that's a good thing. There are enough of those people out there. I'm here to talk about video games. However, it is possible to talk about both.

Now video games are not a major political issue, nor should they be. There are plenty of other issues that are facing the world that are just a bit more important. However, the major issues that are facing the world do affect the world of video game directly. Specifically, the economic crisis that is facing the nation.

Right now it can be said that we are in the middle of a recession. The only question is whether it will be a minor or major one. Regardless of the answer, the impacts will directly affect the video game world. It can be said that independent smaller companies have created some of the best original video games ever. Whether it was Goldeneye created by Rare, Half-Life created by Valve, or Grand Theft Auto created by Take Two, it is the independent creative smaller developers that have led to some of the most break through video games we enjoy.

However, in this current economic crisis, it's these companies that are most at risk. It costs a lot of money to develop a video game. There development and production costs, as well as marketing and distribution costs. If a game is not completely proven with an embedded customer fan base, it may have a hard time securing financing for development. That leaves these smaller companies out in the cold.

Looking toward next year specifically, I feel that we will see more and more big company video games. It will be more Electronic Arts and Activision. It will be more Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles and spin offs. It will be more Madden and NFL Head Coach. And if it doesn't turn around quickly expect to see titles like Halo: The Early Master Chief Years and Gears of War: The Cole Train Chronicles. It will be more retread of old games than anything you've ever seen.

So whoever gets elected today, listen closely to their policies to help the smaller and mid-size companies. If these companies don't receive some relief, the next 18 months could be some real bad times in the video game industry.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year Old Gamer

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