What a Year For Video Games

The last time I remember getting this excited about all of the great games coming out was the golden age of the SNES heyday.

I've had a chance to play through most of the titles that made my list this fall and I haven't been disappointed yet.

It seems like everyone's buzzing about Half-Life 2 Orange Box, and with good reason. Half Life 2 is one of the most solid and entertaining games ever made. The game itself is actually 3 years old but somehow still manages to outshine most of its contemporaries. The story is intriguing and complex, but not overreaching. The voice acting and facial animation are so fluid and natural that you don't really notice them until you view them in comparison to newer games like Halo 3 and wonder why the rest of the game industry is still 3 years behind Valve (Half-Life 2's creator). Visually the game is gorgeous with its dynamic lighting, particle-filled explosions, realistic textures and shading. Aurally this game outshines anything I've ever experienced - the sound of weapons firing is somehow more visceral than in any other game I've ever played. Ambient noise in most games feels like an afterthought, but here it powerfully and convincingly draws you into the story. The controls are the best I've ever used in an FPS. They seem tuned perfectly for the XBOX. And if Half-Life 2 wasn't good enough by itself, the Orange Box comes with two more "episodes" to the story - each is about 5-6 hours long, giving you essentially an entire new game. The set also includes one of the most original twists on an FPS that I've ever seen - the puzzle solving adventure, Portal. Portal was a complete surprise and even at only 5-6 hours long, it provides enough problem-solving fun to be worth nearly the price of the whole set by itself. If you only get one game for your 360, it should be Orange Box. By far the best value and most fun. I have little interest in the PC version of this game because I don't like Steam, or more the the point, I don't like the idea of not being allowed to play an offline game without an Internet connection and a spyware account. From what I'm hearing, the PS3 version has some noticeable flaws that the PC and 360 versions do not, but I don't have first hand knowledge of that.

Super Mario Galaxy was a riot. As addictive, fun and challenging as any game in the Mario proper series, Galaxy truly takes everything Nintendo has learned from its previous games and improves on it. As with any Mario game, the worst part is getting to the end, finishing every challenge and realizing that there is no more. I spent a good 30 hours with this gem and finished it begging for more. The game seems to perfectly balance the needs of both first-time gamers and long-time veterans without resorting to things like difficulty settings. Nintendo provided enough low-challenge stages to allow unskilled players to complete enough of the game to defeat Bowser and enjoy a sense of accomplishment. At the same time, they provided enough challenge and incentive for veteran players to feel the same sense of accomplishment by getting all 120 stars and getting the special ending - and, believe me, some of those bonus stages are nearly impossible. This game has more story than most of the games in the series. Personally, I preferred it when Mario games left most of that to the imagination, but that's hardly an unbiased observation. The controls were natural, and although the gravity twisting and dramatic perspective shifts (like walking upside down or on the side of an object instead of on top of it) were a bit disorienting at first, after an hour or two, I felt perfectly at home with them. My wife really got a kick out of using a second Wii-remote to help me gather stars and stun enemies. Graphically, it is beautiful. I'm using the best setup available - component cables connected to an HDTV and playing the game in progressive scan mode, so your mileage may vary, but overall it's very impressive, with brilliant use of color and dynamic lighting. The music wasn't quite as memorable as that of its predecessors. It was standard fare, but I enjoyed the remixes of older tunes moreso than any of the newer material. Maybe I'm just getting crusty in my old age. Overall, though, I'd say that this is a definite must-have for Wii owners. Hopefully Nintendo will start bundling it with the Wii and we'll have come full circle to the days when the system shipped with the premier Mario title.


Assassin's Creed kept me entertained for a good 35 hours. Let me start off by saying, do not buy the PS3 version of this game. If the PS3 is all you have, just skip it - it's not worth ruining an otherwise thrilling experience with horrible frame-rate and lighting problems. I can't believe that some quality assurance team looked at the 360 and PS3 versions of this game side by side and thought that the PS3 version was okay to unleash on the public. Ubisoft must have expected that the positive press over the 360 version would muffle any complaints from the poor shafted PS3 owners. If someone tells you the difference isn't that big, then they have no idea what they're talking about. So, this impression is on the 360 version which I was lucky enough to replace my nasty original PS3 purchase with. The game had a very procedural feel to it - from the way that the story progresses, to the objectives, to the crowd behavior. I've seen some reviewers trashing the game for being repetitive, but I don't see a problem with vaguely repetitive tasks as long as they're fun. Plus, most of the repetitive elements are optional anyway. Stealing a page out of other A-list titles like Symphony of the Night, or Metroid Prime, you start the game with all of the powers and abilities available, and then you lose them. As you regain each one, you are compelled to appreciate its place in your arsenal, and this provides a natural learning process. By the end of the game, you'll be using nearly every one of the skills you've learned as instinctively as the main character should. Visually, the game is gorgeous. It has set a standard by which I'll judge every 360 and PS3 game in this generation. The controls are fluid and responsive, and the story is very interesting, if a bit predictable. When the game starts, you are presented with a disclaimer of sorts saying that the game was created by members of a lot of different faiths. After discovering the more controversial elements of the story, I have to admit I was offended by some of the fictitious implications about Christianity, or more directly about Christ himself. Not being a Muslim, I cannot surmise whether it is nearly as offensive to Muslims. It's a good thing I don't get my theology from a game. As laughable as that notion sounds, the frightening reality is that the same people who lent credence to The Davinci Code will probably adopt attitudes from the story in this game.

Mass Effect was, in many ways, a disappointment. The game has greatness in its soul, but it can be very difficult at times to see past its gaping flaws and shortcomings to really enjoy it. Graphically it's very pretty, and thank God Bioware added an option to remove the annoying film grain effect. But for all of its beauty, the game is extremely glitchy. After a while you learn to tune out the minor jumps and pops as the camera struggles to follow you while the game is loading - and it is nearly always loading something. About 10 hours into the game, the inventory system becomes an annoying and unintentional mini game because your inventory is limited to an anemic 150 items. The problem isn't so much not having enough space, it's sorting through the equipment and deciding what to keep and what to sell or melt down. Looting is automatic - once you kill someone, any loot they were carrying just becomes part of your inventory. Unfortunately the game will allow you to exceed the 150 item limit, say during a firefight, and not tell you until you unwittingly try to open the equipment menu, at which point you are mercilessly forced to melt down all of the new loot (and newer is almost always better) to get your item total beneath the 150 item threshold. You are unable to cancel out of this screen until you have melted down everything you just got. Very poor design choice. What's worse, there's no way to look at your entire inventory on one screen unless you're at a vendor. In order to assess your inventory you often have to dig three menus deep to see what's available. This may sound petty, but it actually becomes an immensely annoying chore that distracts from the fun of the game. The side games are also extremely repetitive. There are basically two different layouts used for buildings and bunkers for the side quests, and aside from the junk scattered throughout the rooms are exactly identical in every respect, from the layout down to the color of the soil visible through the glass tubes connecting identical boxlike rooms. Every ground mission is basically the same wash-rinse-repeat operation. Some of the skyscapes visible from the planets are quite beautiful, but there is otherwise very little variety. Leveling up is basically identical to Knights of the Old Republic, except there seem to be fewer abilities available to each class, and the Dungeons and Dragons style descriptions of abilities are replaced by somewhat more straightforward terms. The combat is decent and neither impresses, nor leaves room for complaint; I didn't find anything particularly satisfying or annoying about it. Its faults aside, however, the music and story are the areas in which Mass Effect really excels. The main story arc of Mass Effect is extremely entertaining and there are a few "wow" moments culminating into one of the best "last two hours" I've spent with a game in a very very long time. Filled with dramatic synth, the music often reminded me of 80's sci-fi like Terminator and created a very unique mood throughout. When the action heats up or is about to heat up, the tempo and volume rise slightly to get your blood pumping and it's a very effective tool. All in all, Mass Effect was a good game, and the ending makes up for its shortcomings, but only just. It could definitely have used more polish, and BioWare shouldn't have been so frightened of spanning it across two discs. RPG players not only don't mind this, but we sort of like it. I suspect that a good deal of the incessant loading has something to do with the compression required to keep the size down to one 9GB disk.

Crysis was the best option I could find for testing out my new PC. My machine specs read like the recommended system on the Crysis box, but the game still wouldn't run at full speed with the settings on high. The game requires some obscure November update to DirectX that evidently didn't garner its own version number, nor was it something the developers thought they would need to include with the game itself. After the obligatory hour of installing and hour of troubleshooting that always reminds me why I avoid PC games like the plague, I finally got Crysis up and running. Another twenty minutes of tweaking controls and switching to 64-bit mode and I actually had the game working rather passably with my XBOX 360 controller. My impression of the first half of the game was pretty meh. Nothing really stood out from any other FPS I had played, except maybe the fact that the designers do not share my opinion that vehicles should be fun or easy to use. The suit functions are neat, but the stealth mode is really the only one that's really useful, and it is so limited that it was more difficult than fun to use. But after a while I fell into a rhythm and it started to get fun. At about the halfway point in the game, the gameplay changed radically and for the better. (Spoiler Alert) When gravity went bye-bye in the bowels of the alien complex, I really started to have respect for the game. It was unique and fun and challenging, visually and audibly stimulating and spooky all at once. Unfortunately that section only accounted for about a quarter of the entire game. The last quarter of the game was spent on unimaginative, contrived missions and frustratingly limiting vehicular combat. I could have forgiven it but that was also the quarter of the game that seemed most unfinished, as evidenced by numerous glitches that forced me to reload previous saves and replay the same section just so I could move the game forward. Important events would just simply fail to happen. The crown jewel of this glitch fest was when the game gave me a shiny new gun to kill the end boss with that just mysteriously decided not to work on the end boss. I had to back track nearly 90 minutes into older saves, spending over 2 hours playing through the same set of events over and over until I found a save prior to whatever glitch made the magical gun decide not to fire. Maybe most PC gamers are okay with beta software like this, but I'll stick with 95% finished games on my consoles, thank you very much.

It's the Tarubots vs. the Deceptarucons!

The heroic Tarubots, Optimus Porum, Aizenhide, and Bumbletsuki are pitted against the evil Deceptarucons, Megatulik and Taruscream.

Windurst is the battleground, The Managon cube is the prize and the stakes are Vana'diel itself!

Don't miss Tarusformers - Their War, Our Windurst!

New Music: The Showdown - Temptation Come My Way

It has been some years since I've been as excited about a new release as I have about The Showdown's sophmore release "Temptation Come My Way". Stylistically the album is a bit of a turn from their first album, "A Chorus of Obliteration". This album focuses more on the melodic elements that they did so well. A hint of the death-metal influences still remain, but only a sprinkling here and there. This release seems to be an amalgam of the band's favorite styles and although things like this are traditionally risky, it really works here. I've heard the core style called "Southern Metal" and I suppose that's as good a label as any. A mix of modern and contemporary metal, "Temptation Come My Way" is all over the map drawing deserved comparisons with Pantera and Metallica's Black album. In terms of refinement and maturity I'd say it's at least on par with Tourniquet's "Vanishing Lessons" - IMO the best album of its time. And unless I miss my guess I even heard an Oz Fox (Stryper) riff in there. As I listen, I'm constantly reminded of classics from Sacred Warrior to early Guardian while being pounded in the ears with Disciple and As I Lay Dying.

Lyrically they are as practical and in-your-face as ever. I don't think I'd call them a ministry band, but their Christian beliefs, patriotism, and strong sense of family are unabashedly on the front line.

Evidently the first track "Fanatics and Whores" which promises to bring the hypocracy of certain televangelists "down around that self-serving smile", was controversial enough that the record label altruistically decided to omit the track from copies to be sold in certain Christian Book store chains. Under the guise of protecting theological integrity they have commited the sin of greed. The bottom line is that any faith so fragile that it could not stand up to such honest criticism, or hearing the word "Whores" does not deserve preserving and if the music is contrary to solid Christian principle, the label should have declined to publish it altogether. But arbitrarily omitting a song on the basis of the word "Whores" or the subject matter of false prophets, is the worst kind of evil. This isn't about theology, it's about money, and I cannot stress enough how important it is to avoid such hacked-up politically corrected material. Don't buy this from a Christian Book store if the first track is not "Fanatics and Whores". Best Buy sells the whole version and it's a lot cheaper. I encourage you to read the lyrics to the song (you can find them on Google with a minimum of effort). I challenge anyone to tell me how this is less acceptible than the Bible itself in terms of language and message. Plenty of music has addressed the touchy issue of an internal audit of the Church - Steve Taylor for example addressed these matters several times with songs like "Am I in Sync", "I Want To Be a Clone", and "Guilty by Association".

The bottom line is that this is one of the best collections of music I have heard in a long time. "Temptation Come My Way" was two years in the making and has the genius and polish to make it a reference by which all metal to come after it should be measured.

Rocky Balboa

As most children of the 80's I grew up with Rocky movies. Corny as I would later come to consider them, they were fun and inspirational and carried a message of hope and perseverance that I believe resonated with most of America at the time. I'm speaking of course, of the first four Rocky movies. I did not see Rocky V until a year ago, and when I did finally watch it, I realized why. Rocky had been done to death, and V looked like just another chance to cash in on name recognition. Although I didn't see it when it came out, I do remember seeing interviews with Sylvester Stallone back in 1990, and even back then interviewers were posing the question "Isn't this going too far? Aren't you running Rocky's good name into the ground by churning out mindless sequels." I remember Stallone's answer at the time. He basically answered that the Rocky movies had been the story of a man's life and his dream and each represented a different stage of it. So, no, this wasn't going too far. That being said, Rocky V was an awful movie, so chock full of cliches that it stunk of "cash-in". After a swan song like that, I was surprised to realize just how intriguing the idea of another Rocky movie sounded to me.

My curiosity was undeniable - what could another Rocky movie possibly have to offer the world? The filmmakers either had something great going on to counteract the bad taste left in anyone's mouth by V, or they were banking on my curiosity and/or memory loss to trick me into going to see another bad movie. Fortunately for me, they had something great.

I've heard a couple of explanations for why this movie was not called Rocky VI, but it is my personal belief that this movie was intended as a replacement for Rocky V as the end of the man's story.

From the start, it paints a believable picture of a retired present-day Rocky Balboa. The story walks you through some of the twilight years of a man who speaks few words and doesn't speak them clearly, but still manages to dish out some unexpected and poignant wisdom on life and love and happiness. His body looks tired and worn down, but his spirit is willing.

A computer simulated fight between Rocky in his prime, and the reigning heavyweight champion, Mason "The Line" Dixon and that willing spirit eventually drives him back to the ring. The concept may seem overly ambitious at a glance, but the movie is very quick to point out parallels in real life that make it more believable. Evidently a statistical computation done in the 60's between Mohammed Ali and some boxer that was retired at the time (boxing fans, please don't hate me, I don't remember his name), showed that the older boxer would have won. And, of course, the Foreman vs. Holyfield fight where George Foreman came back to fight in his 50's nicely parallels Rocky's post prime aspirations.

Visually the film isn't anything special, but then it really doesn't need to be as it is the story that compels you to keep watching. The camera work is faithful to the older movies, with a few dramatic slow-motion and freeze-frame fade-outs. Rocky's signature theme song makes a couple of appearances, once as a remix and a final time as a beautiful rendition of the original. After all these years I can think of few scores with such widespread recognition that can inspire quite as well.

Throughout the film, Rocky experienced flashbacks, and although I can't say I'm an aficionado, it appeared that his flashbacks were limited to scenes from the first four movies, almost as though the filmmakers wanted to skip over that painful chapter or pretend it didn't happen. This is partly why I believe this film was intended as a replacement for V.

From Rocky's struggle with old age and ridicule to return to the ring to the climactic fight scene with Mason Dixon, the movie was engaging and even suspenseful at times. I actually found myself tensing up as Rocky would take a hard knock, nearly cheering with relief as he fought back.

The film somehow managed to maintain the charm of the prequels without falling into the trap of taking itself too seriously. A few well placed jabs at itself, and a comical cameo by Mike Tyson kept things fresh and believable.

The movie is very family friendly with a minimum of rough language and nothing sexually objectionable. I don't personally believe that there is anything wrong with violence - in fact I believe that prohibiting violence is a fundamental flaw in most societies that call themselves civilized - but that is another discussion. I mention it here to give fair warning that I may not be the best judge when it comes to violence. In my personal opinion, the movie could have done with more violence, but since it did have slightly more violence than a Care Bears movie, you might not want your fragile children watching it. Yes, that was intended as sarcasm.

All in all, no one could have hoped for a better conclusion to this story. Anyone who liked Rocky could not help but be pleased by this final chapter, and even some of those who despised the sequel-heavy story will be delighted by the freshness here.