Nuclear Monster

  • Same plot as Robocop 3.

  • Do you miss being extremely frustrated with your video games?

    If so, then Mega Man 9 is the game for you.

    Unlike Capcom’s other recently released throwback title Bionic Commando, Megaman 9 retains the exact look and feel of its predecessors on the NES. While that graphical style is compelling, it also serves as a warning to keep those who were bad at the original games away. Fortunately, this demo is available to everyone who wants to take the game for a test drive on the 360 and PS3. WiiWare users have to suffer the indignity of purchasing a game only to find that they can’t defeat the elephants on the concrete man stage. I suspect that playing the game on the 360 will suffer due to the smushy d-pad on that platform.

    Though you should still buy the shirt, even if you don’t get the game. Boxart will never be this cool again.

  • Or in any source engine game, just bring down the console (press the ` key, next to the 1 key) and enter:

    cl_downloadfilter "nosounds"

    Enjoy the lack of idiotic beavis and butthead sound effects!

  • I purchased Bad Company the day it was released for $44 (after tax) at Circuit City thanks to a gift card from a GTA 4 purchase and the register jockey was kind enough to immediately apply the gift card (thanks CAG!) I would have received for purchasing Bad Company. Here are my notes from my time with the game so far. I’ve completed the Single Player campaign and spent several hours in Multiplayer.

    Single Player:

    • The unlimited Health Stabs are a refreshing change from either picking up health kits or hiding behind cover and waiting for your “shield” to recharge. Basically it works like this: Get hurt, hide, stab, step out, fire, get hurt, wait for stabby-stabs-mc-stabberson-the-recharging-stab needle to recharge, stab again. Excellent!
    • Also, I like the term “Health Stabs”.
    • PIcking up a weapon + secondary weapon at a time is great. The SMG + Underslung Grenade Launcher or LMG + Grenade launcher is great. Even better is the combo of a Pistol and a Sniper Rifle.
    • The Single Player is buggy as all hell, at least on PS3. A lot of the problems seem to be in or around vehicles. I’ve gotten into cars only see drivers pop-in behind the car and float (while in a “seated” position) through the rear hatch and then into the drivers position. During the first level.
    • At least some of the bugs seem to be fixed after the demo.
    • During one level at a harbor my cohorts exclaimed “GOD DAMNED LIBERALS!” while shooting at some mercenary or whatever. This is awesome.
    • The soundtrack in the vehicles is awesome, it isn’t a GTA 4 cross-section of the music universe, nor is it a Burnout-style fist full of jammy jams. Instead it is a small sample of good and simple music. Good job on this one.
    • The 7 missions in the game are fairly free-form. While you have to reach certain points along the map, the Battlefield style changes normal shooter gameplay into a wide open experience.
    • The Single Player gets better as you proceed.

    Multiplayer:

    • Gold rush is fun, and I guess I have to continue waiting for Conquest – the main mode from BF2)
    • Ranking up is a little bit faster so far than 2142, and much faster than BF2. I still like this style of ranking up more than Call of Duty 4’s since it provides you with the choice of what you want, as opposed to some distributed standard.
    • Multiplayer is also buggy. I’ve had the sound buffer completely lock up and produce a repeating sound. Exiting back to title didn’t end it. Only exiting the game and re-launching did.
    • The Multiplayer Squad feature before you join a game is great. The constant problem with BF2 is trying to stay on the same team with you buddies. In Bad Company you join up with your buddies before you go into the game, and then the game keeps you together.
    • Stats exist on the Bad Company website, however I don’t believe there is a way to publicly link them. Or if there is, the method isn’t obvious. (The URL I use to view my stats is generic, blahblah.com/myprofile)
    • Sniping is fluid for the first time in a multiplayer Battlefield game. There are clearly set up places for you to go and snipe, that aren’t overexposed, and can be countered if players attempt to.

    General Issues:

    • The Find all Five thing. EA I have to tell you, your friend isn’t the retail chain, it is the player. Why must one of your marketing schemes depend on an outdated scheme (pre-ordering) in order to get all the weapons.
    • Character control just feels poor. I’m not sure why, but it does. It is like the character isn’t really in the world. This lack of immersion is intensified whenever I see a corpse floating in some weird position after I’ve sniped it from halfway across the map.
    • Limited destructibility in environments. Some pieces of the level are just immune to destruction. This is probably so some mission details won’t be destroyed. However it breaks the immersion each time you figure out that something you were trying to go through simply won’t. The illusion works best when you don’t think about it.
    • Unfortunately, bullet penetration almost never works vertically. That is to say, if an enemy is on a thin floor above you, you cannot kill him through that floor. Meh.
    1. Urban Dead\'s logo arises from its graveUrban Dead: This older massive has been around since the July of 2005. In which you play the part of either a post-zombocolypse Human or Zombie Corpse. This game has a decidely non-graphical approach which is closer to MUDs of yore. The only graphics provided by default are the city map and the logo. Various extensions for browsers exist to add graphics for those who are, shall we say, imagimpaired, or simply desire something else. At start, the human players can choose from a variety of classes in addition to the races mentioned above. These effect the initial abilities of the players, which can later be modified (regardless of race) with skills. Even the choice of race is a transitory one; at any point Zombies can — with varying degrees of difficulty depending on skills of both humans and the target zombie — be revived and turned into productive members of the living society. Even then this opportunity to live can be aborted by player-killers, other zombies, and the free will to jump from any building.
    2. Ikariam: While Urban Dead seems to exist mostly to harvest the joy of the game from a player and doesn’t attempt to charge for any gameplay elements, Ikariam‘s three-tiered overworld exists to generate revenue for the developers. Though it also happens to be a fun civ/populous-style omnipotent hand-of-god game wherin you build little colonies to collect resources on islands and venture for war or peace with others in alliances. In another stark contrast to Urban Dead, Ikariam’s interface is graphically rich and even the sliders you use to choose what amount of goods to send to another colony is customized. This makes up for the fact that you’re just twiddling numbers to provide for your colonies and that your interactions with other players can be limited at first.
    3. PMOG: Contrary to the onomonopiedic title, pmog has nothing to do with pogs.  Instead it stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Which is disappointing as you might wish for an online Pog trading simulation. It also consists of user-generated content more than any other web-massive I’ve played. The user interface consists largely of a stripped-down toolbar for you to utilize at any time while you’re browsing the internet. Ah-ha, now you see, that is the passive part. This game has character classes, but you don’t choose them. Instead they are provided to you by the system based on your actions. What are these actions? Well you can make missions, kind of mini-webrings, linking sites together. These consume the “lamp post” resource which you can refill at the in-game shoppe. Though you still can’t buy pogs, hm. You can also drop mines (which are defended with armor) , or attack those who drop mines with St. Nicks. Of course you can also put out one way portals between sites. For example, I just put one down from souceforge.net to icculus.org. That portal was named: “Perhaps you’d like a little bit more soul.”