Category: Features

So Many Games It’s Like Being Strangled With My Own Hand

evil-dead-handHaving more money and less time on my hands than when I was younger has led to me a terrible dilemma: too many games, not enough time! I have games from two Christmases ago that I have yet to even play, let alone beat.

Thanks to my newly purchased Wii from Eddy, the unplayed games total just got bigger. It spans 4 different systems, 2 different generations and that doesn’t even include classics from the Virtual Console and PSN! Plus, I have a one game subscription to GameFly that usually gets played more than the games I own! I seriously am putting an end to any and all game purchases (except for PSN and Virtual Console…a guy’s gotta have something new to look forward to) until Christmas of this year. By then, I hope to have made a few dents in the Wall of Games I have sitting in my room, laughing at me. Quit laughing at me!

I know that I will not come close to getting all these done by Christmas, but I want to have some of them out of the way. Problem is, Killzone 2 and Call of Duty 4’s online multiplayer keep distracting me! Plus, I have movies and books that I want to enjoy…I am seriously stressed. So what I do when I get overwhelmed is I make a list and as I complete the items on the list, I get to cross them off. I am very OCD this way, but it feels really good.

So here is my list, broken down by system:

Playstation 3
Resident Evil 5
Killzone 2
Fallout 3
Call of Duty 4
Elder Scrolls III: Oblivion and Shivering Isles
Civilization Revolution
Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds

Wii
Mario Kart Wii
Super Smash Bros Brawl

DS
Dragon Quest IV
Dragon Quest V
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Contra 4
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy V
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates

PS2
Final Fantasy X-2
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

PSN Games/PS1 Classics
Suikoden
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Syphon Filter
Calling All Cars
The Last Guy
Super Stardust HD
High Velocity Bowling
Pixeljunk Monsters
Age of Booty
Lumines Supernova

Virtual Console
Super Mario 64
Super Mario RPG
Secret of Mana
Super Punch Out
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King
Contra III
Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse
Breath Of Fire II
Super Metroid
Super Castlevania IV

Current GameFly Game:
Super Mario Galaxy

If time is the fire in which we burn, as was once famously said, then my fire is fading fast! I have hours and hours of gaming ahead of me and it’s time to get organized and kick some ass! So I will be periodically updating you guys on my progress or lack of progress, hopefully the former. Soon as I finish Super Mario Galaxy (25 or so stars to go), I will try to play some Killzone 2…but the online is so addicting that it’s really hard to play the single-player mode!

Eddy also has a backlog as does every gamer these days. Here’s a look at his:

360
Fallout 3
Penny Arcade Episode 2
Dead Rising

PS3
Killzone 2
Valkyria Chronicles
LittleBigPlanet

PSN/PS1 Classics
Suikoden

DS
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VI
Chrono Trigger

PSP
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Final Fantasy Tactics

Now, that is a very reasonable list. I envy him. Looks like Final Fantasy is on everyone’s list of games to get through. I think you really have to be in the mood for that. The problem we all have is that with games like Oblivion or Fallout 3, you can beat it, sure, but never really complete it. And so you keep coming back to it and let other games sit on the shelf. That’s why I stopped playing Madden. Never got around to my other games.

So that’s our sob stories, what does your gaming backlog look like and how do you go about thinning the herd?

Review: Halo Wars

hw-1Halo Wars was first introduced back at X06 with all the hype and subtlety of a flash grenade blinding your senses. Since then, the FPS turned RTS game has seen numerous delays and revisions before finally hitting store shelves in March 2009. So, was it worth the wait? Did the game live up to the Halo brand? How well does this console RTS play? Let’s talk about that.
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The Upward Trend In Video Game Reviews

video-gamesWhen I was younger, reading a video game review in a new magazine or on a Web site was one of the most exciting experiences I could have as a gamer. To finally find out if the game I had been waiting for was worth playing was a moment of fear, excitement and trepidation. However, most of the joy has left this ritual in the last generation. Why is that? Because I already know that the score is going to be about 7.5 or above. It’s set in stone.

You see, these days, our perception on good video game reviews has changed. While the scale is supposed to theoretically range anywhere from 0 to 10, most often, the scale seems to start at about 7.5-8. As a result, what used to be a good score for a video game has changed, and expectations are through the roof for every AAA title. The real question is this: when did an 8.5 become a “meh” score in gamers’ minds?
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Generation Gap: Video Game Stories

51hz0r4pdnlA while back, I asked what video games you fell in love with  in terms of story. Not surprisingly, most of your responses centered on games in the more recent era. This is an obvious trend because in the old days, games did not need a story to exist. But now, we need motivation, cut-scenes, back-story and lots and lots of twists. Too many, some would say. Like me. I think that people’s love for game stories depends on when they started playing.

See, when I was younger, stories in games were very basic. Some games didn’t even try to have one! Endings were short, usually text based. Hell, people were stunned by Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’s FIVE minute ending. Minds were blown, heads exploded, etc…Since I have been playing games since about 1986 or so, I have a different perspective than someone who started in 1996. I play the game for the GAMEPLAY. If a game has a great story, awesome, but it’s only a bonus. If a game has poor gameplay, I don’t care how good the story might be, I am not playing it.
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GamerSushi Top Six: Video Game Twists

Here there be spoilers…

Games are an interactive medium and therefore it can be very easy for games to play tricks on us. Lead us in one direction, only to change the whole game around on us a few minutes later. Some twists have to do with the plot, others with gameplay. These can leave us cheering, reeling, or just plain dumbfounded in the wake of their awesomeness.

For instance, Metal Gear Solid 2 pulled a fast one on gamers worldwide when it turned out that Solid Snake wasn’t actually the protagonist. Likewise, Chrono Cross flips everything on you by suddenly swapping the identities of the game’s bad guy and good guy.

So sit back as GamerSushi unveils its first “Top Six” feature, as we look at gaming’s best plot twists.
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Has This Gen Lost the “Wow” Factor?

n64One of the defining moments in my life as a gamer happened at a locally owned video game store down the highway from my house. I remember I used to walk there every day, simply to see what used games I could pick up, or what new games they had on display. The owner even let you put in whatever you wanted so you could try it out right there.

One day, I walked up to the counter and saw a game I had never seen before: Super Mario 64. I was fascinated. Watching my favorite plumber fully realized in 3D was like nothing I had experienced. I waited in line and didn’t leave the store for another hour as I shot myself out of cannons and ran around in the lush green Mushroom Kingdom. I remember leaving the store that day fascinated, bewitched even by this game that had simply floored me. I was wowed.
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Keeping It In The Family

sopranos_lMore and more it seems that gaming is becoming a pasttime for the entire family. Thanks to the Wii, we can even get the grandparents involved, although my grandma did play Top Gun, Contra and Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers with me when I was sick one day. It was cute to see her play Top Gun. She even shot me down once or twice!

In my family, gaming has been around since I was born. My mom and dad both played on the Atari and Intellivision. My mom used to reset the game if she died anywhere on the first 3 levels of Pac-Man! She also loved Burger Time, a game where a chef runs over lettuce, tomatoes and other parts of a sandwich in order to drop them to a platform below the level and complete the sandwich, all the while being chased by a couple of hot dogs and a pissed off egg. That egg always was the hardest to avoid.

My dad also had a Commodore 64, which was very big in gaming. He was one of the first people I ever heard of who invited his friends over just to play games. My uncle and him would play this horrible football game, with lousy graphics and control, and sit there and talk trash and argue and have a great time. It was fun just to watch them. He has a PS2 and still plays PC games, to this very day.

My older brother was once a loyal console gamer. We discovered Final Fantasy together and had a great time playing Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance on the PS2. Now that he has kids, his console days are over, as they play the Wii and he sits all alone in the corner, playing World of Warcraft non-stop. It’s kind of sick. My little brother just got a PS3, so we play online against each other all the time. I hooked him on Final Fantasy and he introduced me to Suikoden, a PS1 rpg that is amazing. Go download it on the PSN, it’s like 5 bucks. Before all that, he mainly played Pokemon, which I gave an honest try and just could not get into it. Not after having played epics like Final Fantasy and the Legend of Zelda. My older sister just plays the Wii, although she had a GameCube and Nintendo 64 and always played any Mario games that came out, like Tennis or Golf. She ignores most other games, which is kind of typical of a girl gamer.

So you see, gaming has been a part of my life since I could ever remember. I have played every system from the Atari to the Wii and my family has been there to for me to leech off and try new things. I am the only one now who is really into gaming, but I prefer to think of myself as the last man standing, rather than the last one who refuses to grow up.

What about your families gaming history? Do you still play together?

Are You Ever Too Old For Gaming?

old-gamingA few years ago, my youngest brother asked me a question in front of my dad about a new video game coming out. Before I could respond by saying that yes, I was excited about its release, my dad interrupted by saying “Eddy’s too old to do things like that anymore”.

You see, as long as I can remember, people have been telling me that gaming is for kids, or that I’m too old to still be doing it. I don’t quite understand the way this works in people’s brains, but for some reason, spending my time reading a book or watching TV would be far more acceptable socially than playing an RPG or tea-bagging a dude in Halo 3. Ok, kidding about that last part (mostly), but you know what I mean: people view gaming as a kid’s hobby that you “grow out of”, given time.
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Wii Fangirl Rant

(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of a Wii fangirl that wii_gift_17Anthony made up for the purposes of humor and irony. They do not reflect the views of GamerSushi.com. In short: it’s a joke!)

You know, being on top isn’t easy. Having a Nintendo Wii is so rewarding, yet exhausting at the same time. In between my playing the most popular video game system in years, I constantly have to defend myself against attacks from the “hardcore” gamers. These mouth-breathers, so busy bathing in their bloody games full of filth and cursing, seem to think that the Wii is a lesser system than their giant boxes of boredom. I mean, the PS3 is so large and bulky that if a leopard came at me, I could kill it! And I’m an 11-year-old girl!

There are so many great things about the Wii that these hardcore gamers can’t see. By the way, I may be young, but I know “hardcore” is a type of adult entertainment found on the Internet a lot and for most of these people, it’s as close as they are ever getting to a person of the opposite sex. And plus, look at my amazing grammar! You don’t see such good spelling anywhere on those hardcore message boards, do you? See what I did there?

A lot of these people talk about how dumbed-down Wii games are. What a joke! “Super Smash Bros Brawl is so easy! Just hit ‘A’ to win!” Well, Smarty-Pants, try it. Hit “A” over and over and see what happens. Super Smash Bros Brawl is a game of intricate strategy. You have to do more than hit “A”. Often, I have to jump to get items, dodge attacks and mash ALL the buttons in order to win! And even that doesn’t always work. So if you are having problems winning at this game, maybe you aren’t as hardcore as you think you are, tee hee.

The other game they like to cry about is Mario Kart Wii. They use some term called, “Rubber-band AI”, which means the game actually tries to help the people losing. What’s so wrong about that? When I first played, I beat my big brother 3 times in a row! I made an amazing comeback by getting Blue Shells, Bullet Bill and a TON of Mushroom Turbo Boosts! I went from 12th place to 1st in half a lap! He was so mad and he said a lot of very bad words about Nintendo. So you see, that’s why I think rubber-band AI is so good because my big brother needs all the help he can get!

Another thing they don’t like are Friend Codes. But Friend Codes are made for pretty little girls like me! They protect me from all the evil guys I see on “To Catch A Predator” and that hang out at my bus stop offering me candy. So now, those guys can’t get to me online when I want to make Miis of myself and all my friends! Plus, even the non-creepy guys always want to talk to me and they like to curse when my brother plays Halo, so I am glad I don’t have to deal with them.  Nintendo seems to think that everyone online is a pervert, so who needs them?I have real friends in the real world, I don’t want friends online. That’s what WebKinz and Myspace are for!

So for all those hardcore gamers out there that seem to hate on the Wii and us younger gamers who have fallen in love with it, I would like to say one thing: get a life! Just because you have great graphics, diverse gameplay, accessible online gaming and lots of games who’s favorite color is brown, doesn’t mean that you have it all. I have the Wii and when Nintendo releases the Wii 2 in a year or so, with graphics that are slightly better and a touch screen you can stick over your TV screen and play DS games on, you will be even more jealous than you are now!

Top 10 Downloadable Games

When I finally hooked my PS3 up to the InterGoogle, the first thing I did was jump on the PSN Store. I had heard about some great games and I was really looking forward to seeing what they had to offer. Downloadable games are a cheap way to get quality games, not to mention old classics and new, experimental games that would never see a retail release. So here are the Top 10 games you can get on the PSN Store, XBox Live Arcade and the Virtual Console. I have included classics, exclusives and multi-console releases.
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Myth of the “Killer” Game

dark-cloudFanboys and the media just love to start trouble. Fanboys we can understand, they just want to see their console succeed and all others fail. Why, I have no idea, but thats their moronic role and I have to live with it. The gaming media, which I am beginning to think is pretty juvenile sometimes, should know better than to manufacture a story. But they do all the time, with their unrelenting hype.

Dark Cloud was widely called a “Zelda-killer”. First, I don’t know what that even means, since it won’t stop Zelda games from being made. Trust me, as good as Dark Cloud could be, Nintendo will still make more Zeldas. I loved Dark Cloud, but I bought a GameCube just to play The Wind Waker. So it didn’t really kill anything, did it? Second, the two games are really nothing alike, apart from the green hat the heroes both wear and that it is an action-rpg. Dark Cloud was a dungeon crawler with a focus on stamina and weapon maintence. You only explored one dungeon at a time and rebuilt a town using items found in the caves. Zelda is much more open and epic, with the focus on exploring and puzzles.
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GamerSushi Asks: Rate Your Skill?

goldeneyeI remember back in the day, Goldeneye was the console multiplayer game of choice. Granted, that might have been because it was the only console multiplayer game, but even still… When it came to seeing who was the best at video games, Goldeneye was the game that we busted out.

And I owned at it. Seriously. Something about that game really stuck with me, and I just got it, really understood the way it worked. The funny thing is, I have still to this day never met a single person that could beat me at that game. Except for my brother.
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Review: Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

dqiv5Before there was Final Fantasy, before there was Mass Effect, there was Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior previously). Dragon Quest was the RPG that focused on gameplay, grinding and consistency. It left the cinematics and mind-blowing graphics to other JRPGs, focusing on creating a fun world to explore with awesome monster designs and old-school notions. It’s actually more popular in Japan than Final Fantasy is. Shocking, no?

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen was previously released in the United States in 1992. On the NES. If you were wondering why you never played it, that would be the reason. Sad to say, its also my reason. But now we have the DS release from this past October. Bringing the game into the new century with a few tweaks here and there and updated visuals, this is a must have for any RPG gamer.
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GameCop Vs LameCop #5

GameCop vs. LameCop is a feature where Anthony and I argue about video game issues, playing the role of either the GameCop or the LameCop as we do so. We switch roles each time. The GameCop has your best interests as gamers at heart, while the LameCop is just what he sounds like: a total loser.

This week, we tackle several issues including GTA IV’s DLC dong, Resident Evil 5 and the problem with reviewing video games too early.

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GamerSushi Asks: What Would it Take?

gamersushiasks2In every area of our lives, we’ve got limits and boundaries. Places we’ve decided for some reason or another we will never go. This turns out to be true even in the realms of video games. We tend to separate out between things we like and don’t like, things we are willing to try, and things we would never touch with a ten foot pole.

In “What Would it Take”, we ask you questions about your predispositions towards video games, and what it would take to get you to broaden your horizons, or move to a new realm that you’re not currently familiar with. Feel free to give as much or as little response as you want, we’re definitely interested in hearing why you game the way you do, and what’s keeping you from crossing these lines.
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GamerSushi Asks: What Remakes Do You Want?

10259finalfantasyviiorige5Remakes and ports of older games is really starting to become a trend in gaming. Square Enix alone must have a whole team dedicated to retreads of their older games. With the PSN’s PS1 Classics, Xbox Live Arcade and the Virtual Console, retro gaming has never been stronger.

But there are ports and there are remakes and there is a difference between the two. A port is simply porting a game from an older system to an existing system with little or no changes to the actual game. A remake is updating the graphics, translation, adding new story or gameplay elements and things of that nature.
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5 Things Hurting the Video Game Industry

One look at my entertainment center or my favorites in Firefox reveals that I am in love with video games. It’s really not that hard to hide. On top of being in love with the games themselves, though, I am also madly in love with the culture of gaming and the history behind it.

Looking forward to the future, I continually fall in love with this lifestyle even more. However, there are a few trends that are starting to emerge that I am simply not a fan of. While these ultimately won’t break gaming, they are definitely detrimental to the overall community. Here are 5 things that are currently wrong with the video game industry.
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Why Are Gamers Such Crybabies?

crybabyI am a man of passions. I mostly love things more than life itself or hate them with a fury that borders on the wrong side of psychotic. But even I am taken aback by the wrath that seems to regularly appear from gamers on the Internet. Perhaps it just that the Internet has given these people a voice. Or perhaps gamers are the biggest bunch of babies this world has ever seen.
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Gaming and Religion: Why Not?

megamanAs a storytelling medium, there is no doubt that gaming has come a long way. From the early years of navigating pixelated plumbers on to the revolutionary cut scenes of the late 90’s and finally to the high definition narratives of today, gaming is truly growing up in more ways than one.

While there are those out there that will always claim that gaming is not and can never be art, or that gaming can in no way tackle deep issues, I propose that those people have not been emotionally moved or impacted by a game before. Even though gaming is still an adolescent in terms of its medium, some great strides have been made in storytelling that place video games right alongside some of the best books or Hollywood blockbusters.
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