When I began this blog it was just another review site amongst millions full of ranting and raving. Maybe I had an extra point to add but generally it’s just the same ole crap slapped on a superior interface. Yes, superior.

Lately I’ve noticed in my conversations about games and such I tend to lean towards the art and design direction of the overall package. Considering my background as a designer I didn’t find this out of the ordinary and since I do so enjoy talking about things that I love I figured I’d move the direction of this humble site towards the artistic side of things. Maybe we’ll re-brand as I PLAY PRETTY GAMES or something silly like that.

In other news, after many grueling weeks of work I treated myself to BORDERLANDS. I have a lot to say but I’ll give you the gist of it . . . I love it.

Is it just me or is someone else out there tired of FPS’s shooters being the only games to utilize multiplayer gaming? I’m sorry but they are generally pretty boring if you ask me. The game themselves take about 5-8 hours to complete and unless you’re an achievement whore, have NO replay value. Instead you start with the online playgrounds filled with folks that have essentially made it their job to know these maps and use it to wipe out the noobs and faint of heart. If you’re a Dad, like me, you don’t have hours to waste on learning to keep up through a hail of gunfire, thus we need something new. I hear tell that professional FPS gamers take the time to run through the maps on their own just to learn the layout and learn where to run for weapons first.

That my friend, is a whole new type of lame. It also proves my point—it’s not just skill that keeps you going but how well you know the maps. Solution, if you made an FPS that could auto generate new maps for MP the learning curve gets tossed out leaving it up to your skill alone. This could lead to better pairings as well as having potential for making squad v. squad combat interesting again. Time to move off FPS’s and move on to what I love, RPG’s.

I keep coming back to this, Borderlands did something that no other has—they took the M out of MMO and made a fun shooter/dungeon crawler hybrid for the masses. Again, we’re back with the shooter . . . I see no reason why someone couldn’t adopt either a Baldurs Gate style of combat or go with a more action oriented RPG (to pull in those FPS and button masher folks). As it stands, no one seems to be moving into this market, meanwhile my soul will continue to cry on the inside.

The Game Jam took it’s toll on my two weeks ago and I found myself in the unique position of being too tired to accomplish anything. Well, that and my son caught a nasty bug from daycare thus transfering it to myself a couple days into the week. Every try to care for a 11 month old while your stomach is being ground away with naseau? It is as awesome as it sounds.

But you don’t care about that, I promised info and I intend to deliver.

The game jam was truly a unique experience for me as I have no real ties to the game industry other than playing their product—this time I gave back. While my role was a bit more subdued than I had hoped, it was nice to know that I actually COULD do art for games. Could it have looked better, sure, but for less than 24 hours of actual working I think it looked pretty damn good! Additionally, and I don’t want to brag but my type skills actually came in handy and our game had a fairly kick ass logo/title screen. Type is good people! Can’t have a kick ass product with some generic looking Helvetica screen.

Team Awesome (my default team name) was composed of three programmers, three art folks and one reserve art guy that happened to bring mixing equipment with him and thus became sound-guy. One of my cohorts pretty much summed up the experience and I pretty much agree with everything he said except fo the technical shit that is, frankly above my paygrade nerd-wise—so in effort to save space I’ll just link his post here.

My emphasis, we needed someone in charge of the art. I think we did a fantastic job considering the three of us had TOTALLY different styles and I’m fairly good at mashing my own shit in with other folks work but at times it was a touch chaotic on who was working on what.

I like structure ok? Regardless, we pulled it off and it was pretty god damn fun. I still disagree with some of the mechanics but whatever. I’ll let it slide. I’ll post a video with commentary in the next day or two, just need to gather my thoughts a touch.

Moving on: Mass Effect 2. Yeah, I fucking got it and have since played the living shit out of it. Currently on my second play through on INSANITY level and trust me when I say it’s hard. No metaphor needed, just crazy hard. I have LOADS of things to say about Mass Effect 2 but to whet your appetite a little I’ll just say, no more driving, it’s essentially a shooter now, shotguns REALLY suck unless upgraded and even then they still suck, Sniper rifle ftw, graphics blow my mind, load times are a pain in the ass (especially when you die tons on insanity), good v. evil thing is fixed, oh yeah . . . story = fucking amazing.

Phew! Need a breath after that wall of text! As I said, LOADS to say and that paragraph didn’t actually hit on EVERYTHING I would like to talk about. For now this’ll do, night folks, time to go get my ass handed to me 80 more times by three very pissed off Heavy Mechs.

I’ve begun my fight for the lost (and finally know what they are talking about) but sadly I’ve had to part from my precious Mass Effect 2 for the weekend, as I am taking part in the Global Game Jam of 2010! I’m super excited to be doing art and intend to film, photograph and ask a question or two of the fellow jammers.

It has been nearly three years since I last touched foot in the fair city of Boston and very little has changed—including the construction. Still, I love this town, even more so that I’ve learned of the ultimate geekdom that fills it’s halls! Seriously, table top games a plenty, gamers and game programmers abound—I feel like I’ve died and gone to geek heaven.

More to report later; supposedly there will be a live feed of the jam and I will post a link for all of those interested in taking a looksie from time to time—or not, as it will most likely be boring as sin to see.

We’ll roll tonight/
to the computer byte/
and for those about to jam/
we salute you!

Yeah, I’m THAT lame.

I don’t know who the lost are exactly but I’m sure as shit going to fight for them! this post is all about, if you couldn’t guess from my recent mental focus, Mass Effect 2.

First off, I apologize.

Second, if you haven’t checked out the latest video on the Bioware/Mass Effect 2 site, I recommend checking out the following link: http://masseffect.bioware.com/media/video/328/

Third, after watching said video I can’t help but want to go out and kick some serious ass.

Fourth, on Friday I was blessed with the most amazing of emails as shown below.

Yep, that’s right folks, it’s fucking coming!!! I originally thought it wasn’t going to arrive till I was already off to Boston for the weekend but I was wrong. As much as I can bitch about EA, the fact they, yes they, sprang for 2nd day air is awesome! I looked over at Mrs.VGA tonight informing her of this—the sigh that followed nearly made me laugh up my beer. Poor girl, she probably needs me to hit the road next weekend more than I do.

Fuck me, it feels like Christmas!

Dragon Age: Origins is one of the finest RPG’s of it’s genre—it has it all: betrayal, sex, blood, battles . . . weird satanic looking things and of course, Dragons! I’ve played through Dragon Age two times since acquiring it racking up a total of 90 some odd hours of gameplay and I’m still not bored. All in all, a very satisfying game but then while jumping along the Bioware website I noticed a new release…the first expansion to Dragon Age titled ‘Awakening’. At first I thought to myself, wow, first major expansion to the game, and then I saw the cost and I nearly vomited in disgust.

$40. That’s right, it’s the cost of a retail game while lacking the completion. Et tu Bioware?! You JUST released Dragon Age about three months ago, what the hell?! From what I can tell, they haven’t improved anything and there are no fixed mechanics to console systems; just a few gimicks mixed with left over voice recordings

So what DID they add? I’ll start with the brand new Origin.

You can now begin your adventure as an Orlesian and opt to play through the grand adventure again or just do the origin and bail back to one of your own characters that you are able to import and continue on from. Honestly, I think they should have gone with the Qunari—being the first Qunari to join the Gray Wardens would have been vastly more interesting instead of some French dude that hails from a land already established with orders of Gray Wardens. But hey, what do I know.

I can almost see the story now, Duncan shows up begging the Orlesians to send some Gray Wardens as they are all but extinct in Fereldan; they in turn raise their noses into the air and tell him to ‘piss off’. They eventually succumb sending with Duncan a fresh, potential recruit that currently cleans their chamber pots as he annoyed the head master due to an accidental spilling on the master’s favorite robe.

Talents: supposedly they have added new talents and skills to beef up as well as raising the level cap that isn’t supposed to exist anyway. Thanks Bioware.

I just don’t get it, why are they doing this? It’s not like Mass Effect 2 isn’t coming out in two weeks to pad their first quarter earnings. It makes me feel like they are pulling a ‘Blizzard’ on us with releasing a product that was unfinished and only part of the grand scheme of game they WANTED to release. Perhaps greed got the better of them and some jack ass from EA convinced them that they could make a fortune splitting the game and pretending that they had developed new content.

As much as I love Bioware and Dragon Age—I have to take a stand. I’ve been hurt too many times Dragon Age, Wrath of the Lack of Lich King was the final straw in my truly lame-o expansion purchases and I’m going to make an example of you! Don’t bother showing up with flowers apologizing! It won’t work this time! I … am … a POWERFUL, LIBERATED GAMER and I’m NOT taking it ANY-MORE!

Generally I am against mixing languages in sentences as it generally sounds like giber-glish; especially when it is phone conversation. Assassin’s Creed 2, well, this seems to be the exception to my rule. The dialog in my opinion, is actually ENHANCED by this adding that touch of the proverbial pesto to the bland dish of the original Assassin’s Creed. Some thirty hours of dialog and playtime later, I find myself uttering the occasional phrase plucked from the game. Unfortunately I cannot say that this has been the best eduction, for most of these words tend to be of the, shall we say, colorful variety.

You may have noticed my language is of the adult variety; that’s me. I’ve always said that you can’t trust a person that doesn’t curse at least a little bit, they’re obviously hiding something. This may be my philosophy but let me tell you something, when you have a kid, this goes completely out the fucking window—now it hasn’t happened yet but I’m fairly certain The Next Gen here is going to utter damnit by the age of four (just like his Mama except not in Dutch). I’m said some pretty horrible stuff in my time but for some reason, this will actually make me feel some kind of shame. Porca Vacca!

With any luck, AC2 will help me teach TNG how to swear in Italian and thus the rare Italian speaker will be offended and everyone else will be none the wiser! Mainly I find myself saying things like, “Fa bene”, or “Requiescant in pace,” which are by far the most common things you hear tossed into the language, but I couldn’t help but be curious about the multitude of swear words I’ve encountered in this game, like I said, I live colorfully. Enter Google.

That’s where I saw . . . it!

Only my warped mind, revolving around the badness of Bayonetta this week would notice, nay, be drawn to the following information. You’d have to be blind to not realize that Bayonetta was created solely as digital jerk off material for gamers; not me obviously but somebody. Anyway, Bayonetta was published by SEGA, now supposedly, in Italian, SEGA references to male masterbation. Go figure.

Obviously, I have problems, but how funny is this! More disturbing if you think of the company; perhaps Italy had itself a little laugh at their silliness in yet another one of SEGA’s awesome naming brainstorm parties.

As far as my gaming goes, I’m almost complete with the main story line of AC2 and man has it been a wild, as well as dramatic ride! Ubisoft did a fantastic job and I find myself with the unique need of playing the living hell out of this game—collecting every god damn thing in it. So stay tuned. I’ll get there, I promise.

When I heard this name I thought, “you’re fucking with me, right?”

Apparently not. There I was, minding my own business and sobering up from an evening of celebrating the new year with my yearly viewing of South Park: The Movie, being bombarded with ads for Gallagher’s 2000 ( a strip club that doesn’t yet realize it is 2010 ) when I see it.

I’m going in for the keee-eeelll / I’m doing it for the thriii-illllll / blah—blahblahBLAH-DI-BLAH . . . BAYONETTA.

At first I was stunned, has Gallaher’s 2000 gone all Second Life on me? No, this is a game, in fact it’s several but this out goths them all. Seriously, I thought  Devil May Cry was retarded and then I saw Bayonetta’s high-heeled holster smack down on the ground after getting a great shot of her leather-clad vag. No joke.

I just can’t get over that name! Seriously, who fucking had the brilliant idea to name this Bayonetta? It must have gone something like this:

FIRST GUY: What the fuck are we going to call this thing?

SECOND GUY: Ummmm, Devil May Cry 5: Still Crying? [Turns back to playing Call of Duty]

FIRST GUY: No we can’t do that! This game has a sexy goth chick, not that emo-tard, Dante! We need something sharp, sexy and uncommon.

SECOND GUY: [Focusing on his game still] Ummmm, Demoana?

FIRST GUY: That’s Gargoyles dipshit!

SECOND GUY: Riiiiiight. Oh! Oh! Oh! Check this out! I’m totally slicing up this fucking noob with my bayonet! Bayonetted beeyotch! YEA-HAAAA!

FIRST GUY: Bayonetta?

SECOND GUY: No, Bay-o-net-ted.

FIRST GUY: THAT’S FUCKING PERFECT! Bayonetta! We can’t lose!

SECOND GUY: What the fuck just happened here?

As far as the game is to play, sadly I can only go by what I have read as I have no intention of wasting money on this piece of crap. If I want to swing around blades in a whirlwind of bloody fury, I’ll just boot up God of War and avoid this angel and demon shit that refuses to leave our games/movies. Point being I’ve heard, completely unverified but seemingly accurate, there is: little to no story, limited collections to attain, linear gameplay, no online capabilities and one ending. Wow, geez that sounds about as awesome as getting glass in my foot.

Did I mention she summons demons with her hair? Yep, she does.

I . . . I can’t go on ranting on this, seriously, it’s making me ill. This is almost as bad as hearing some dude say, “Black Sheep was way funnier than Hot Fuzz,”. Honestly, I couldn’t possibly make this stuff up—anyway, to cut this short, I’m fully prepared to eat my words on this one if proven incorrect but I doubt I am. Bayonetta, buy at your own risk but keep that stank ass cheese away from my system!