Confessions of [+_ _ A B]utton Masher

A few weeks ago, LordRyuujin and I went to a fairly new flea market called Front Porch of the South. Upon seeing the name you would think it would be just a bunch of southern antiques (farm tractors, beer bottles, a pitchfork) and you'd be wrongly discriminating us. Its a typical consign flea market with private booths open to the public. Not a bad place. Here's the results....

I have had this game for less than a week, and I've already broken the skateboard controller.


This game is an absolute waste of time, money, and effort.
When you create a peripheral, its supposed to work. Plain and simple. But when that peripheral can't recognize one motion from another, then you have wasted everything. If there ever was a failed experiment in new ways to play video games, its the skateboard controller. I think we can all blame this for being the tipping point in the "too many add-ons" argument for video games these days.

To be bluntly honest: it doesn't work. During my less than 20 minutes playing around with the game, I didn't make it through the training before breaking the board. I was able to do more just by turning the board in my hands than by standing on it and attempting what it was trying to train me to do. The motion sensors in the skateboard are either too sensitive or do not respond at all. Attempting to do an ollie wil…

(As always, pictures taken from Gamespot.com)
A few years ago I posted a blog on several gaming communities titled 2D Fighters (and my problem thereof). To date this has been the single most viewed blog I've ever had with over 1200 views on GameTrailers. The topic of fighting games is a big one and in most cases one that rarely brings out flamers unless you proclaim one game is better than another. Pretty much all fans of fighting games can agree that they take skill, timing, knowledge of character combos, hit detection, and a little bit of luck. All of these are things that I don't have yet I still like to play them.
Every now and then I dig out Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and play 3rd Strike when my cousin's kids come over. I'm trying to teach them to play Ryu/Ken but they can't get the hang of the quarter-circle.

I'll give you a minute to pick yourself off of the ground from laughing so hard about that one: they don't know how to do the quart…

Its that time of year again, where we look back on one of the most successful failures in video gaming history. A system, that even to this day, has games still being made for it. A pioneer console of the online network, MMORPG, DLC, and ease-of-creation with Windows CE. While everyone was waiting patiently for a PS2, there were some loyal DC owners and Sega fans that refused to give in and let their system die. When Sega finally folded, they still couldn't get the DCs off of the shelf. Sony was putting that much harm into them and since then Sega seems to have been unable to get almost anything right. (I'm looking at you, green-eyed Sonic...) I'm short on words, time, and attention span and since I've already posted in the past about Remembering the DC, I also talked about the underground homebrew scene, gave some facts, etc. Last year I gave mini-reviews of my (then current) DC game collection. Lately and honestly I haven't felt drawn to write anything new in th…

From Eddie Lebron, the mind that brought us the live-action Mega Man fan film. Finally, my childhood hero of the SatAM cartoons makes the jump to the real world.

And yes, that is Jaleel White as Sonic.

And I nerdgasmed.

Also: my birthday's tomorrow! I'll be a quarter-century old.
Another year, another E3. I know this is starting to sound like one of the first blogs I wrote on this site and that's for a good reason: E3 2011 looks to be the year of sequels, remakes, and ports. I seriously think the games industry is running out of new ideas for new IPs.
The news is fresh from Konami's press conference: HD remakes of the original Metal Gear Solid games, Resident Evil, and Zone of the Enders. Woop-de-doo. Someone might be wondering why I'm so critical of Metal Gear Solid and I can hear the fanboys getting mad right now. Allow me to clarify why I dislike the whole MGS universe: fanboys. Because of the outrageous nature that some fanboys go through, it makes me want to have nothing to do with any of it. From what I've gathered, the MGS universe is a convoluted story centered around Solid Snake... no wait Big Boss... no wait Old Snake... Raiden?! It can't make up its mind who it w…

(All images are taken from Gamespot.com, even though the community is traitorous.)
Divinity 2 Main Theme


Divinity II is an action-RPG set in a world that shares many ideas from medieval and fantasy stories that you would come to expect from a mass-produced fantasy novel found in a bookstore: dragons, knights, guilds, magic, swords, etc. It's cliched, but its done well. A bit of humor every now and then with a few references to pop culture, such as Power Rangers (it must be seen to be believed) means the game doesn't take itself too seriously without breaking the 4th wall.

The game takes you through the world of Rivelon as either a Hunter, Warrior, or Mage/Priest. Skills from these different classes can be combined to give you an upper hand in a fight. Want a Ranger that summons undead? You can do it. Want to customize skills for a paladin? It can be done. Actions are mapped to the face buttons and d-pad so attacks and healing items can be changed on the fly.…

In case those of you who have missed the news (or rumors, rather) about Nintendo's next console, there's a lot of speculation about what's been codenamed "Project Cafe." Many are saying it will be more powerful than the PS3, others are suggesting that if this is true, then Nintendo will be trying to win back the "hardcore" audience. After having guaranteed success with the Wii, many people might be drawn back to the company itself.
What I'm interested in are the controllers: what will Nintendo do this time around? Will it be motion controllers again or something beyond, something similar to Kinect? Or will they go back to regular old button mashers? From the mockups I've seen, particularly the one from IGN, it interests me. You can read the whole article here.

Able to stream games from the controller? That would make it its own handheld, and Nintendo has saturated the market with those. (On a different note: RIP Nintendo DS Lite.) But I instead im…

(Images taken from Moby Games and IGN)
When a game refuses to follow the button presses of the player and instead decides what's best for it, it makes for a really terrible game. Playing a game should be fun, not tedious. Its hard NOT to compare this game to the Pro Skater series but it is easy to pick it apart piece by piece and quickly discover what went wrong. I remember being impressed by the demo for this game on a Playstation Underground demo disc years ago. Today, after just one hour of play time, I realize that this game has shattered my good thoughts of it. The game can't even be edgy when it comes to skateboarding, a sport known for having some hardcore people. Amidst the skating craze of the early 00's it should have been easy to tap into the culture.

Grind Session follows its own rules and ends up alienating the player multiple times through inaccurate or incomplete button presses, terrible physics and gravity, broken skating lines, mediocre tricks and skaters, a…

My friend and I go on a journey through the backroads of Alabama for flea market hunting, only to find... two games. Google maps + GPS = lies! All lies! *Just realized the outro card got cut off. I don't know why but It says "Next trip, we're staying in Georgia. Athens, baby! Thanks for watching."

Last week I posted a video about my own flea market retro hunting adventure. I went with my family and came away with what I initially thought was a good haul, but after second-guessing, I reasoned it wasn't all that great. Here's the video for those of you who haven't seen it.
My friend, Lady_Fi, caught the retro hunting bug and wanted to go with me yesterday to a flea market in the next state, the same one I went to last week. This time I was strapped for cash and couldn't buy much.

We walked around for a few minutes but only found the occasional sports game. My friend picked up Billy Hatcher and Viewtiful Joe though. We headed over to the infamous reseller's table and found out the ugly truth....

(This next part, I don't intend to sully her name, whatever it may be, but I intend to post as a warning to anyone going to Lee County Flea Market: if you see a woman at a table with a lot of games on it, just walk away.)
This woman is a sniper. She sho…

After seeing the Retro Hunter's videos, I caught the bug and wanted to go to a nearby flea market and do a little hunting of my own. After the cold winds, dirt, and lack of food, I realize I may have came up empty-handed after all.