Avengers Assemble!

The past couple of months have been tough on my gaming career. Getting married and all of the extracurricular activities associated with it have taken a major chunk out of my free time. As we speak there are a pile of video games at home that I'm partially the way through and would love to finish if I could just find the time. I guess that's the major challenge of a 30 Year-old Gamer, finding the time to play. You have to prioritze your games and the one game out of all of them that I put ahead of the rest was Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.I picked up a copy of MUA2 (as I'll call it for short) back in September and although it's a relatively short game it took me to November to finish it. The game is set in the Marvel universe and consists of all of the major Marvel characters that you are well familiar with thanks to the movies, such as Wolverine, Iron Man, Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, etc. If you read the comics (which I admittedly do regularly), then you will be familiar with the story line. The Marvel heroes have been messing up lately. In the process of defeating the bad guys, they've caused a lot of collateral damage. In one major incident a few hundred people died which caused the US Government to create the Superhero Registration Act. It forces all superheros to register with the government and give up their secret identities, if they don't they become outlaws. This causes a split right down the middle between heroes for the act and those against it. This causes a Civil War between the forces of Iron Man (Pro-act) and Captian America (Anti-act).

I love this story and the game does a great job following along with the story. You actually get to choose if you are going to side with Iron Man or Captain America, and your choices have a huge affect on the outcome of the game. Potential allies will become enemies and missions will change considerably. In this regard the game is a lot of fun.

MUA2 isn't without it's flaws however. If you've played the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance from a couple years ago you are going to have a major feeling of deja vu. It's basically the same game. If I was in another room and told a friend to put either game in my Xbox and go to a random stage, I would have a hard time figuring out which game I was playing. It seems like this could be a straight copy and paste from the prior version. Also, the game is repetitive. You are going to be doing the same thing over and over for 6-8 hours. It's a good thing what you are doing is a lot of fun, or the repetitiveness would be brutal.

Finally, every character from the Marvel universe is in this game. I read a Marvel comic every night and I've never even heard of half of these characters, nevermind know their backstory. At times it feels like you need a PHD in Marvel history to get all of the nuances of this game.

Despite all of that, the game is a lot of fun and it's family friendly. You can let your little 30yo Gamers out there play the game without any worries. It's about as violent as Lego Star Wars. You can team up with multiple people and cooperative destroy bad guys. It's a lot of fun.

Overall, I enjoyed playing MUA2 a lot and will probably play through it again making different choices. That is if I can find the time after the next 4 games I have to play.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost

This past summer was the slowest summer of gaming that I can remember. It was brutal. Absolutely nothing came out that was worth playing. I haven't posted anything to the blog, because frankly there was nothing to talk about. There was however one game that I took a chance on, and I really enjoyed it, Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

Ghostbusters didn't receive a lot of press. It was released, and people generally liked it, and then no one talked about it ever again. I played Ghostbusters for about 4 - 6 weeks. I didn't play it relentlessly. It was just a casual gaming experience and it was great.

You play as the 5th Ghostbuster. You are a rookie and your job is to use the new experimental equipment that Ray and Egon have invented. Right when you join the team, the whole city goes to hell. Apparently the worshipers of Gozer are back and they brought reinforcements. You spend the game fighting ghosts along side the original team and revisit all of the famous movie landmarks, like the Sedwick Hotel, and fight some of the famous movie ghosts, such as Slimer and the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man.

Overall, the game is great fun. What really adds to the fun of the game is the writing and the voice acting. All of the major movie stars from the original are back to lend their voices to the game. Bill Murray is classically brilliant as is Harold Ramis as Egon. At one point in the game you are travelling through a hell version of Central Park where Winston says, "This isn't like any Central Park I remember." And Egon comes right back and says, "What? You still have your wallet?" Classic. These lines were used throughout the game.

The gameplay is nothing you haven't seen before. It's a classic run and gun type game from the Gears of War / Resident Evil genre. It starts to get a little repetitive and during the more intense scenes is a little crazy. When you have 5 people firing proton packs at a dozen ghosts flying around the screen, it's a little hard to not "cross the streams". The boss fights are kinda cool, but it's a little cheesy when the bosses have big glowing "hit me here" spots on their bodies.

Overall, the game was a lot of fun and was a great way to pass the time through a very boring summer. I'm sure the game will get lost during the holidays with all of the other new releases, which is sad, because it was a good fun game. And at the end of the day, that's all we really want out of our games.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

What a Slow Summer of Gaming

Wow has it been a slow summer of gaming. Here we are in the middle of July and there is nothing really to talk about. There are no new games out there and it doesn't look like anything interesting is going to be released for at least another month. So here are just some quick notes about some things that are going on in the industry.

Bioshock 2 Delayed Until 2010

It was announced earlier this week, that the sequel to one of the best video games I've played in the past 5 years has been delayed. Bioshock was a huge hit two years ago for the Xbox and the much anticipated sequel was originally scheduled to be released this holiday season. Apparently due to quality issues, they have decided to delay the game until the 1st half of 2010.

I personally think this is a good thing. There will be plenty of game to play this holiday season and this fantastic game could get lost in the mix. And it would be very disappointing if they released this game and it was buggy and sucked. What a let down that would be considering how fantastic the first game was. If it means that they need another 6 months to get the game right, I can wait. I think more publishers should care more about the quality of their games and do this. Besides the first Bioshock was released during the spring and it did fantastically well. There is no reason this game can't do the same.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 to be Released July 28th

I don't usually play Xbox Arcade games. They are usually throw back games and when I do play them, I realize how dated the games are and after 20 minutes I usually don't play the game ever again. That won't be the case with Marvel vs Capcom 2. This was an arcade game that I played til my fingers hurt in college. It pit the best Marvel characters vs the best Capcom characters from their games. You wanna know who would win in a fight between Iron Man and Mega Man? Now you can find out.

This game will get an update in graphics and controls and be released for the Xbox Live Arcade on July 28th. I can't wait. I'll be there the day of with my arcade fighting stick and taking Ryu apart with Wolverine. It's going to be awesome!

My Nintendo Wii is a Paperweight

What seemed to be just a no-brainer when I first bought the system, the Nintendo Wii has done nothing but disappoint. Have they even released a game in the past 6 months? My Nintendo Wii sits there underneath my TV begging for me to play with it. But every time I get an hour or two to play games, I always turn on my Xbox. This is very disappointing, because the Nintendo Wii had so much potential. But I feel that the games are just not that deep and get boring after 30 minutes of playing. Maybe my feeling will change as I fight through the dog days of summer, but right now, my Nintendo Wii is a lonely lonely system.

Those are just some of the things going on right now. Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

Everybody Was Kung Fu (Street) Fighting!

For those of you around my age, I don't have to tell you how much of a phenomenon Street Fighter 2 was for the arcade. It was simply the last hurrah of the now defunct video game arcade. Back in the mid-90's, Capcom released a game that was so simple to play, but hard to master, that it was incredibly addicting young teenage gamers around the nation. Every arcade or mall had one and for each game there was always that one kid who was awesome at it. Kids would line up for their chance to beat him. I was not that kid. I was the kid who waited 25 minutes to put two quarters in the machine just so "Street Fighter Scotty" could embarrass me in front of everyone. The game was simple. You would choose a fighter and then fight against one other fighter. If you beat the fighter you would move onto the next round and play a harder fighter. After 8 rounds, you fought the big boss and then you beat the game. Controls were easy. There were three buttons for punch, and another three buttons for kick (light, medium, and strong). Each character had different moves and a different combination of the buttons would make each character perform a different move. Here's the rub though. Anyone in the arcade could walk up to the machine and challenge you by putting in 50 cents. If they beat you, you were bounced from the machine and the winner would take over your progress in the game. The game became so popular, the actual single player game never finished. It was just a line of challengers.

It's been over ten years since those glory days, but last month Capcom brought them all back with the release of Street Fighter 4 for Xbox and PS3.

This game is a great advancement for the series. And while the basics remain the same, the game is much deeper. For starters, each character now has "Special" and "Ultra" attacks. These are meters that fill up at the bottom of the screen throughout the fight. If you fill your meter and can hit your opponent with one of these attacks, look out. That guy is screwed. The graphics have the full high-def treatment which make the game look outstanding.

What really makes this game standout is the online features. You can completely recreate that old arcade feeling by opening up your game to challengers. You just start your game like you normally would and then randomly "A New Challenger has Entered the Arena". Your game stops as a random player from Xbox Live now challenges your game, just like the old days. Awesome!!!

There is one major drawback to this game and I have to mention it. If you want to play this game somewhat seriously, you need to buy a new controller. The game was originally designed to be played in an arcade. That means an arcade stick with 6 buttons. Some of the major moves require you to hit three buttons at the same time. While that's easy as pie in an arcade, you practically have to break your thumb to do it with the Xbox controller. These arcade fighting sticks are $60 extra on the cheap end and as much as $140 if you want a professional stick that they use in tournaments. So that means this game could cost anywhere between $120 to $200 to get the full experience from. I'm not sure about you, but that's a lot of dough to drop on a single game regardless of how good it is.

I ended up buying the lower end arcade stick and I love it. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good video game. Perhaps I just wanted to recapture some of my youth. Or perhaps I just wanted to kick the crap out of complete strangers on line like Street Fighter Scotty used to kick the crap out of me over 10 years ago. Either way, I can see this game staying in my active rotation for a long time to come.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer

I Chose The Wrong Game

I've always enjoyed Christmas. And I think that getting presents for me is a pretty easy deal. I usually give everyone a suggested list of the games that I'm interested in and they go out and get them. Last Christmas, there were a lot of video games on the market that I was interested in and I couldn't give the entire list to everyone, so I had to eliminate a few. In particular, there were two role playing games that seemed very similar, Fable 2 and Fallout 3. I had to choose one over the other. I had heard some pretty good things about both games and so I made a tough decision. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong game. I chose Fable 2.Now don't get me wrong. Fable 2 is not a bad game. I just don't like it. It's a simple as that. I could give you many specific reasons and break down the graphics, the game play, etc. But at the end of the day, I found this game incredibly boring.

Here's a quick background on the game. You play as a small boy (or girl) in this medieval land. You get called up to the castle and meet the prince where he unexpected murders your sister and tries to murder you. You escape but it takes like 10 years to recover from your wounds. Now you are set free on a path of revenge and redemption. You go out into the land and are faced with choices on your quest where you can be either good or bad. Depending on your decision, your appearance will change as will the environment around you.

Now I like video games and I try to give every game I own every chance to win my affections. Fable 2 I gave two chances, there won't be a third. In both chances I came across the same problem. The story forces you to stop playing the storyline and forces you to do other things in the world. It will say things like "you aren't renown enough to continue." Basically, you have to do more side quests to become more famous before some priest will entrust you to continue on with the main story line.

Here lies the problem. I don't want to do the side quests. They are stupid and a waste of time. And you don't know where the side quests take place. So you have to roam through the open land following some yellow trail like Dorothy fighting off birds, beetles, robbers, and every thing else in the land to play the stupid quest. Two weeks ago, I had a little time before dinner to play the game. When I sat down, the 30 Year-old Fiancee asked me how the game was. With my head in my hands, "I played for over an hour and I've done nothing. I'm literally nowhere farther in this game than I was 90 minutes ago."

That, to put it bluntly, sucks. This game is trying to be bigger than it is. It tries to show you that this world is full of life. You can get a job as a blacksmith to earn money. Or you can get married, buy a house, and have some kids. But who cares? If none of that gets you any closer to revenging your sister's death, why do it. What a waste of time. And those "moral decisions" that the game markets? Pointless as well. It doesn't matter if you slaughter half a village in cold blood. The moment you make a joke in public the remaining villagers forget what you've done and think you're a swell guy.

No, I'm done with this game. I don't have much time to play video games in my life, and I'm not wasting another minute of that time doing nothing within the land of Fable 2. This game was awarded "Game of the Year". In my opinion, it was the most disappointing game to see my Xbox console in 2 years.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer