Cactus I.V.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

Kane and Lynch is a game probably most famed in the gaming community for being the game that potentially led to the firing of Jeff Gerstmann, former game reviewer for Internet monolith Gamespot.com. Gerstmann was let go directly following a poor review of the game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. Gamespot and parent company Cnet have not commented on the reason for Gerstmann’s termination. The reason Gamespot cares if the game gets a poor review is the fact that it is being paid to advertise the game on its site, and a poor review makes for poor advertising.

If that is in fact the reason Gerstmann was fired, it could be the beginning of a dystopian world where game reviewers will have to be less honest, where reviews will be tailored by advertising companies to sell product, regardless of quality. In short, Big Brother will be watching, and telling you exactly what games to play.

Fortunately, the cactus has flown under the radar of such advertising tactics, and while that means we don’t get paid so much, it does mean that we have something that reporters haven’t glimpsed since the day of Walter Cronkite, and it’s integrity. Also, lumbago.

So how is Kane and Lynch? It’s a very ambitious game and has a lot of high aims, but it feels either rushed or lazily produced. But before I go into specifics, let me tell you briefly about my personal gaming experience.

I love Co-op games. I know the Internet is quickly replacing good old two-player adventuring, but there is something very satisfying about sitting down with a friend and working together to knock back a game. It’s fun. So when I played through Kane and Lynch, I asked my friend Jimmy to tag along and help me with my work.

I played as Kane, a mercenary who was caught after a job went wrong. Jimmy played as Lynch, a paranoid schizophrenic who occasionally blacks out and murders the hell out of people. Together we went on a quest to retrieve some missing money we had to give to the terrifyingly named group “The 7.”

There were parts of it that were very fun. Jimmy and I continually had each other’s back, reviving each other whenever mortally wounded (if either character dies, the game restarts from the last checkpoint). But there were some aspects of the game which we found not merely difficult, but a little ludicrous.

For example: We had just kidnapped a big crime lord’s daughter in exchange for urgently needed money. Kane (I) went low to meet with the boss and get our money, Lynch (Jimmy) went high with a sniper rifle to cover me. While covering me, Lynch had a violent blackout where he inadvertently kills our hostage, which proves troublesome as a bunch of angry thugs start shooting at me as a result.

Here’s the problem: Before the game can move forward, Lynch has to take out two snipers who are trying to kill me. However, one is so far away that Jimmy cannot see him except when the muzzle of his sniper rifle fires, killing me.

We replayed the sequence 20 or 30 times, each as frustrating as the last. How could Jimmy shoot something he couldn’t see until it was too late, and then only barely? After the 30th replay, I broke down and consulted the Internet (like a failure would) to see if there was some trick to killing the sniper. There was. When playing campaign mode (not co-op, single player), you play as Kane and the A.I. plays as Lynch. Simply hide in a building and order Lynch to shoot the baddies. That’s it. The only way to kill the snipers is to have the game do it.

We didn’t accept that, and replayed that one segment a further 20 times, Jimmy shooting randomly in the vicinity of where we knew the sniper to be until he got a lucky shot and hit him. It was one of the most frustrating moments in video game history. Then I played on and stumbled onto an equally frustrating glitch about 10 minutes later.

As I said, the concepts behind Kane and Lynch are pretty groundbreaking, but they aren’t executed particularly well.

Another simply phenomenal concept stems from the online play, aptly dubbed “Fragile Alliance.” You and a team of four to eight criminals must break into a bank or jewelry store or some place of value and steal as much as possible. You then escape and split the loot amongst yourselves. However, at any point during the gameplay, you or one of your teammates can decide to keep all the money for him or herself. So, you (or he) simply shoot the rest of the team in the back and take off. However, any team member betrayed in such a manner can respawn as a police officer, whose job is to take his former team members down.

It sounds like a really cool concept and was probably the chief draw for me when I picked up the game. However, there was something less than satisfying when I actually played through the missions. Maybe I’m too used to Call of Duty 4, which is wonderful all the time. Third person shooters add a layer of separation that make everything seem less immediate.

The end verdict is Jeff Gerstmann was pretty much dead on with his review, and it sucks that he had to pay such a price for honesty.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

No More Heroes, a game released for the Wii by Ubisoft earlier this year, has gotten generally good reviews. It has been hailed as the Kill Bill of video games, and in certain ways, that’s a pretty accurate way to describe it. When I think of assassins fighting assassins and ridiculous amounts of blood, my mind also goes to Kill Bill.

However, after playing the game myself, I became torn. In many ways, the game exemplifies the best and worst qualities of gamers and gaming. Let me explain.

You are Travis Touchdown, the 11th top ranked assassin in the world, with a strong desire to be number one. So you and your trusty beam sword must hack, slash and eviscerate your way to the top.

The game has two basic modes of play. When going on missions, either to kill higher ranked assassins or to earn money in order to pay for the privilege to do so, the game has an early arcade style quality to it, which is in no way accidental. The levels are very linear, with lesser enemies standing in the way of a boss at the end. Swinging the wiimote to and fro is an enjoyable experience, which is rewarded with showers of blood and money.

However, in between the missions, you are allowed to explore the city where everything takes place in sandbox fashion. It’s here where perhaps the biggest flaws in the gameplay are apparent, especially in the physics engine when, say, driving your motorcycle around town. Everything is awkward, clunky, and seems forced.

That isn’t what tears me about the game, however. On the one hand, the game is made for people who grew up playing side-scrolling arcade action games like Double Dragon. It keeps that style while adding in some blood and gore, since that’s what “mature folk” want. I like it a lot when contemporary games can tip their hat to classics in such a big way.

My problem though is, while playing the game, I run into a lot of aspects that I, one) know are dumb, and two) know that most other gamers will love. Playing the game occasionally made me little ashamed to be a gamer.

The entire plot has been praised as “High-concept” by IGN and other big-wig review sites alike. Personally, the outline of the plot sounds like a ton of other fighting games. A guy with an all-American douche bag name fights his way to the top and becomes number one. Yes, there’s a twist at the end, but there’s always a twist at the end. And what’s the number one most overused twist? I don’t want to ruin anything, but think about it, take a guess, and you’ll probably be right. You seem like a smart kid, Internet.

Like I said, I really did enjoy playing the missions, the bosses were enjoyably quirky and if you are a hardcore gamer, you’ll probably love it. But make no mistake, it is a gamer’s game. To those dabblers out there, may I suggest a rousing round of Mario Party 8?

That’s it. If I’ve offended your delicate gaming sensibilities by not agreeing with everything you think and say, let me know! Comment or email at your convenience.

-Andross

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

It occurred to me, a month too late, that I never picked a best game of 2007. Though the New Year has already come, I feel it would be remiss of me as a gamer, nay, as a human being, if I didn’t weigh in my thoughts on the issue.

When I first applied to the cactus for the post of video game correspondent, the game had just come out a couple of weeks earlier, and I remembered immediately wanting to write about it. But the world was busy, Jack Thompson was up to his old tricks and a slew of new and exciting games were just around the corner. But I will put it aside no longer. I will give it the recognition it deserves (and admittedly has gotten a lot of already).

The cactus award for best video game of 2007 goes to The Orange Box.

Now, this might seem unfair to all the other games out there, after all, The Orange Box is effectively five games rolled into one package; however, each of these games are incredible individually. If Valve (the production company for The Orange Box) had been so inclined, they could probably have packaged each game separately. Let’s go through them, however, and see what makes each one so awesome.

Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2

These three games make up the majority of The Orange Box, some of them making a return appearance for the 360 (Half-Life 2 originally debuted on PC and the original Xbox). It follows the exploits of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a scientist who finds his world turned upside down following the Black Mesa Incident (an accident that thrust the world into a dystopian state).

In many ways, the Half-Life series refined the first-person shooter,and has won over 35 Game of the Year awards from various institutions (not including ours, which I assure you is very prestigious). It has provided significant advances in game physics, graphics, AI, animation, and sound engineering.

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is a strictly online game where teams compete in both capture the flag and checkpoint capture modes. Players can choose from nine classes to play as, ranging from Spy and Engineer to Pyro and Soldier. It’s as simple as that, but it’s one of the most enjoyable online games alongside Call of Duty 4. Need further proof? Check out — here, here, here and here. ’Nuff said.

Portal

This is the cherry on top of an incredibly delicious ice cream sundae. Portal, though short, is one of the most well designed, written and executed games ever. You are a test subject, stuck in the Aperture Science labs and left with one charge, to test a new weapon. GLaDOS, your computerized guide, promises you cake once you finish testing the weapon. However, as you progress further through the tests, you begin to suspect that something is amiss. Crazed rantings scrawled on the walls claim that the cake is a lie, but the computer insists that all is well, despite how the tests seem to be getting more and more dangerous…

Witty, endearing, and cleverly put together, Portal alone could win best game if only it were a little longer.

And there you have it. Cue the Fanfare; Best cactus Game of 2007 goes to The Orange Box. Let it not misuse the awesome power we have bestowed upon it.

Comments? Questions? Feel like your game was robbed? Let me know by commenting or sending me an email.

-Andross.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) acts as the guiding light for parents by rating games according to appropriateness, like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) but for video games. The ratings rank in the following order: EC-Early Childhood; E-Everyone; E10+-Everyone 10+; T-Teen; M-Mature; AO-Adults Only; RP- Rating Pending.

Any game controversy is generally focused around games rated M. Mainstream video game consoles won’t carry AO titles, and generally anything T or younger is pretty mild. Many parents feel, however, that games rated M should not be sold in stores. Pretty much all of the major retailers (including Best Buy, Target and EB Games) have a policy not to sell M-rated games to children under 17.

However, with every game capable of online play, the ESRB rating comes with the following warning: “Game experience may change during online play.”

In one of my first columns I reviewed the game Call of Duty 4 and made, let’s call them sweeping generalizations, about online gamers being, well, douchebags. Recently, my Xbox 360 broke down, and I shipped it to Microsoft so it could fix it with its very extensive warranty. When I got it back, I received a free month of Xbox Live as a consolation for going so long without the 360. Intrigued, I popped in the game, hooked up an Ethernet cable and let rip.

The game is incredibly fun to play online. Honestly, it exceeded all of my expectations. However, the voice chat throughout the game and in game lobbies matched my expectations exactly. Despite the M rating, I did here a couple pre-pubescent voices over my headset, which concerned me greatly, especially the due to the graphic nature of the conversations between other gamers. I have gone to the effort to transcribe, verbatim, some of the things I heard said between other games.

Disclaimer: The following bits of dialogue in no way reflect the views or opinions of the cactus or its contributing staff. The Xbox Live names have been changed.

[.][.]xjaxxVagetax: (singing) You’re beautiful!

[.][.]xjaxxVagetax: (singing) You’re beautiful!

[idk]DarkEnforcerz: Man, shut up.

[Brog]killa vanilla: Hey, xjaxx, is your tag supposed to be boobs?

[.][.]xjaxxVagetax: Yeah! Boobs are awesome.

[Brog]killa vanilla: You know boobs aren’t square, right? Have you ever seen a boob?

[.][.]xjaxxVagetax: I’ve seen your mom’s boobs.

[Brog]killa vanilla: Man, don’t talk about my mom. Ima f*ck you up with your square titties.

That was fairly mild. Much more concerning would be this:

[PwN] MaDHaCkS: This n*gger ate my watermelon.

Devonshyr: Seriously?

[PwN] MaDHaCkS: Yeah, just came in and ate that shit.

Devonshyr: No, I mean, black guys and watermelon? I thought that was a stereotype.

[PwN] MaDHaCkS: Naw man, I f*ckin love watermelon. What should I do?

[Pmz] Unknowing: Cut ’em. Pop ’em.

Devonshyr: Yeah, those are your options.

[PwN] MaDHaCkS: I could get a noose and hang they ass an.. an.. paint they toenails all sorts of colors and shit, like f*ggots.

I can imagine that the ESRB probably has a tough time with online games, since they obviously have no control over what other people say. While it’s true that Call of Duty 4 is already rated M, it raises questions about popular Teen rated games that have an online play option. If a game is popular enough, it will certainly attract douchebags, making the gameplay inappropriate. The best example? World of Warcraft.

I’m not saying any online game should be rated M, I’m just pointing out that, no matter how hard we label and define in order to protect children from hearing bad words, an 18-year-old can still go to a G-rated movie and say whatever the hell he pleases.

If you have any comments, or just want to swear gratuitously at me, feel free to comment or email.

Andross

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

When I rented NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, I expected it to be a whimsical romp through an enchanted land of dreams. It wasn’t. The game displayed…

I’m sorry. I’m having difficulty judging this game, and the reason why is a pretty simple one: I’m not ten years old. Very little in the past has distinguished me from children, but this game may be the first. Clearly, the game is designed for children to play, the controls are so basic and the characters and plot are so obvious with their feelings and conflicts. The plot itself is handled (like the gameplay) in an episodic nature, but the episodes are short, almost as if designed to hold the attention span of a child. What I’m trying to say is that, as an adult, the game did not appeal to me at all. However, I recognize that children might fall all over it.

You are given the choice to play one of two characters, either William Taylor (an aspiring soccer player with father issues) or Helen Cartwright (an aspiring violinist with mother issues). They are asleep one night, dreaming about their respective career paths and parental figures, when everything is plunged into a nightmare and they are transported to Nightopia, a fanciful fun-filled land of wonder. There, they meet Nights, a hero who they merge with to fly around and fight Nightmaren, evil minions of Wiseman the Wicked, ruler of the land of Nightmare who wants to take over Nightopia for himself.

The gameplay is rudimentary at best. When the protagonist isn’t merged with Nights, they run around like a basic platform game, but they don’t actually do anything except run over to Nights and merge with it (Nights is kept as androgynous as possible and not assigned a gender). Once they’ve merged with Nights, the third dimension is taken away and they embark on a stunningly two-dimensional flying quest where they have to fly through rings, collect gems, and run into bad guys.

I guess one of my biggest problems, as an adult, with the gameplay is that it’s too simple. Video games have advanced at a stunning rate; the games we play now are so much more impressive then ten years ago. I remember the trailer for Final Fantasy 7 and being stunned by the graphics. Now they’re kind of a joke compared to the average game. Why after so many advances are we given a game on the Wii that seems better suited for the original Sega?

The frustrating thing is that there are a couple really good advances in the game. For instance, there’s a function in the game that links it to the weather forecast channel on the Wii and creates whatever weather the forecast channel predicts. What that means is if it’s raining outside your window, it’s raining in the game. That’s really impressive, but you’re still flying around a two-dimensional world collecting rings.

I don’t know, these things may seem appealing to those who haven’t played video games for awhile, and if you’re looking to get started playing games, maybe NiGHTS is a good place to start, but honestly, my personal interests lie elsewhere. My recommendation is to rent it first and see if it’s for you. If you prefer something more complex in your gaming experience, like a third dimension, then don’t even bother.

And that’s all. Feel free to comment or email if you know how to get back to neverland.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

I’m from Wisconsin (Milwaukee, specifically), and I have a certain level of pride in where I live. I remember checking out some magazine article a couple years back claiming Milwaukee to be the No. 1 Most Underestimated City in the Country. I wear that probably outdated fact like a badge of honor, and so when I hear about things like this — http://www.channel3000.com/news/14916807/detail.html — it distresses me.

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, let me sum it up. Wisconsin Senator Jon Erpanbach wants to institute a program that makes it so non-violent 17-year-old juvenile offenders are not tried as adults (they currently are tried as adults, but I assume that’s because processing tends to take so long that often they are 18 by the time sentencing comes around). In order to raise the funds, he is proposing a 1 percent sales tax increase on video games, his theory being that since it’s kids who buy video games and kids who don’t want to get tried as adults, it makes sense.

However, there’s a problem with the adult gamers, who see this tax increase as a form of harassment. Some assume that since the tax increase is being directed at juvenile offenders, this bill is just another attack on violent video games (it isn’t, as the money would only benefit non-violent offenders, but it’s easy to make the connection).

The real problem with the bill is Erpanbach assumes that video games are meant primarily for kids. If he would stop to check out some statistics, he would see that he is mistaken. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 69 percent of all heads of households play video games. Only 28.2 percent of all gamers are under the age of 18, so why should all gamers pay more? The cause is noble, sure, but there must be a better way to get the funds.

The last time a politician tried to put a tax on video games, it was a man from Texas who suggested a 100-percent sales tax on all games deemed violent by the government. For those keeping track at home, that $100-$120 for a next gen game. Yeesh.

There are also murmurs going around that Hilary Clinton wants to impose stringent video game taxes as well. Now, I’m not really following the election that closely since, well, I don’t really have cause to be anything but apathetic. Yet. However, despite my lack of knowledge, I’m skeptical about this alleged video game antagonism.

The Web site that originally posted the story is Kotaku.com, a self-proclaimed distributor of “gossip, news, and leaks for obsessive gamers” does not quote any actual source, nor mention any steps Clinton had taken to enforce any such taxes. Any other Web site talking about Clinton’s hatred of video games quotes Kotaku as its source, just proving that just quoting a source doesn’t make you right.

Since we’re talking about public-eye stuff, a class-action suit is being filed against Microsoft by several gamers who were enraged that Xbox Live had connection issues over the holidays. Xbox representatives apologized for the issues and offered that Live users download a free game from the system, but those filing suit claim that the outages represent a “breach of contract” between themselves and Microsoft.

I believe one of my first posts stated how I didn’t much care for the online gaming community as a whole because it’s filled with, well, douchebags. This is what I’m talking about.

I’m going to try something new. If there is a game you would like me to review in future posts, let me know and I’ll get on it (although you should note that my access to PC and Handheld games are limited).

So, as always, feel free to comment, suggest, analyze, subterlyze, analgate or bifurcate via comment posting or email. ’Till next time.

-Andross

By LISA SOKOLOWSKI
cactusiv(at)gmail.com

My brothers got Wii for Christmas. For months, all I heard about how fun it was going to be to play Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Games on Christmas morn — and I also heard how my youngest brother Mike was going to beat my other brother Joe at Guitar Hero 3.

My brothers are 18 and 22, respectively. My dad woke up super early one morning in October to brave the chill and stand on line for hours to pick up the Wii. He was on line next to a woman who was buying the Wii for her sons. They’re 8 and 12.

So my brothers got the Wii Christmas morning, and I opened a much quieter jacket and salt and pepper shaker set. Christmas wasn’t quite as exciting for me.

Since I wasn’t engrossed in playing a toy, I went to bed. At least, I tried to. As I put my head to the pillow, all I could hear was the Scorpion’s Rock You Like A Hurricane.

And Santana’s Black Magic Woman. Mountain’s Mississippi Queen. Alice Cooper’s Schools Out.

Songs my parents would have been blasting in their youth.

Except my mom was listening to Josh Groban, and my dad was listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was my brothers who were getting the crowd into hits from decades ago.

Later in the day, Joe came upstairs. “Hey Mom, did you ever think Mike would know the words to Mountain?”

This, mind you, was the same kid who was singing Sean Kingston’s Beautiful Girls, sans the radio, in my car on Christmas Eve.

It’s not that he’s musically diverse or anything. It’s all kudos to Guitar Hero [[apparently that’s what they teach you in college these days]].

Young kids — or, in my personal case, young adults — are gaining an appreciation for Black Sabbath, Poison and Pat Benetar, even if its only for one song of each.

The game isn’t filled with bands that had hippies as groupies. You can buy songs by bands like Senses Fail, The Sleeping and The Fall Of Troy [[all very good, I might add]]. You can battle Slash. If you really want, you can play a Tenacious D song.

The game’s actually super diverse and not very complicated [[I mean, even I beat Paint It Black on easy]], but I’ll leave that all to Andrew. I just wanted to give kudos to the game for being a Readers Digest on songs from the past 35 years.

There are some of us who know the songs from actual radio play, and then there are other like my 14-year-old cousin James.

His brother was playing Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and I was singing along.

“Do you know this song from this game?” James asked me.

No, James. I know Pat Benetar.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

Mass Effect has been, for a long time, one of the most hotly anticipated RPGs to come to the Xbox 360 since, well, I suppose Bioshock, though many people will argue that Bioshock is more a first person shooter than an RPG. This brings me conveniently and artfully to my next point.

There has been a shift in gaming, a combination of genres to make a new and ultimately satisfying genre. By combining shooters and RPGs, game developers add a level of depth that shooters have always lacked while adding a more pleasurable playing experience that many people complain RPGs lack. It’s the best of both worlds, and it’s pretty wonderful.

In essence, Mass Effect took an old system and improved upon it tenfold. Produced by Bioware (the company that made Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), it takes the same engine used by KOTOR and makes it significantly less glitchy and run more smoothly.

And it is an incredibly smooth and pretty game. You are _____ Shepard (you can choose the main character’s first name, as well as gender), a commander aboard the Human Systems Alliance frigate The Normandy. Humans, having discovered interstellar travel relatively recently, are low down on the racial hierarchy. Hoping to raise their status on the universal ladder, humans try to appeal to the Council (the ruling body of the galaxy) to allow a human to join the galactic Spectres (a special ops outfit that are above the law and answer directly to the council).

Of course, nothing is as easy as it seems. Right before Shepard’s initiation into the Spectres, another Spectre, Saren, betrays the others and goes rogue, making Shepard’s first official task as a Spectre to hunt down Saren and, consequentially, save the galaxy. Hurrah.

The writing for the game is, well, what you would expect for a high quality action movie. That said, compared to most video games, it’s phenomenal. I hate that it is comparatively phenomenal, but the world is how it is. Hurns.

Despite my own personal standards, the game itself is actually very enjoyable. The character development is well thought out, the combat system is the level of fun one would expect from a quality shooter. The plot moves along well, though… quickly.. I guess.

I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Mass Effect is a really good game. It’s been highly anticipated, and it’s earned the reputation it’s gotten. But there are things that did annoy me, and can’t withhold my frustration.

First, the plot of the game itself is much too short for an RPG. The actual main story can be completed in a sitting or two. With side quests, the game play can be extended by far, the only problem is this.

There is only one side quest, repeated over and over again.

Here’s the side quest. You get a distress call, or someone asks a favor, or something. You go to the planet to investigate in your six-wheeler, you analyze rocks and minerals, you kill people, and then you report back. There is almost no variation. The first four times I did this, it was ok. After the fifteenth, my patience was waning.

Over all, the game reminded me a bit of Fable. It’s an experimental game. It introduces new concepts, but it’s short. However, there are more games slated for the series, a trilogy, in fact. In the end, the game is definitely worth playing. However, it can be beaten in a rental period, so maybe it’s not something to drop $60 bucks on.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. As I lie here in my modest apartment wrapped in my brand new blanket and cuddling with my cat, Sgt. Kerplunkers, I can’t help but reflect on Christmases past. One Christmas specifically comes to mind, a Christmas that marked my induction into a very specific league of gamer, a Christmas where I embarked on an adventure that would affect me forever. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Pull up a chair (or a patch of ground), grab a cup of hot chocolate and perhaps a blanket to shield you from the winter cold. Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time in the year 2006, two rival video game companies were releasing their respective next generation consoles, the Nintendo Wii and the Sony Playstation 3. Microsoft had decided to release their system, the Xbox 360, a year earlier (which, it turned out, was a wise move on their part) leaving the two monoliths to battle out who would sell the most systems for Christmas.

The hype for both was incredible. The Ps3 boasted the most advanced processor of any console ever, promising breathtaking graphics and flawless gameplay. The Wii introduced a unique controller that appealed to gamers and non-gamers (or Gentiles) alike. The prices between the console’s differed as well, the Ps3 costing $600-$700, the Wii costing a mere $250. On the night of their release, both had lines around the block and sold out immediately.

Christmas had just past, I was reveling in my brand new juicer and a substantial amount of Christmas coin, when I got a call from my friend, Matt Bettine. “Andrew,” He said, “I need to get a Wii and a copy of the new Zelda.”

And here is where I learned firsthand about viral marketing. The second Bettine suggested purchasing a Wii, I felt myself infected by the same need. I picked him up and we began an epic quest, traveling all around the city of Milwaukee, checking Game Stops, Targets, Walmarts, and even (in our desperation) K-Marts.

I had a friend named Yoshi who worked at a Target in Oak Creek, a nearby suburb, and we drove down to visit him and see if he couldn’t pull any strings. By the time we resorted to driving all the way to Oak Creek, we were tired, unshowered and approaching hopelessness. Yoshi was working electronics when we approached him. I looked at the glass displays with the new systems. No Wiis, but I did perform a slight double take. Three Ps3s were sitting underneath a group of games behind the glass. “Why do you have Ps3s?” I asked Yoshi by way of greeting. “Do you have Wiis too?”

He looked furtively around and leaned in close to me. “The Ps3s sold out when they first shipped, but now no one wants them.”

“Why?” Matt asked. “Is it the price?”

“The price is only part of it. There aren’t really any good games for the Ps3. It’s basically a really overpriced Ps2 with less games.”

“What about the graphics?” I asked.

“They’re good, but people want more than just that. They want fun games. That’s why the Wii is doing so much better.”

I’m going to pause my story here, gentle listeners. For those Gentiles out there, you may be unaware of the war raging amongst gamers, specifically, Ps3 owners versus the world. People who have bought a Ps3 feel the need to justify their purchase, and therefore bash any opposing systems. I don’t own a Ps3, mostly because I don’t have the money to throw away on a system that doesn’t have any games I want to play that I can’t play on the 360. Maybe as time goes on, I get super rich, and the universe becomes a gentler place, I will pick one up. Until then, well, let me continue the story.

“So when do you get new Wiis in stock?”

“They don’t tell us.” Yoshi looked around conspiratorially “Although, I do know that UPS ships them, and we get all our UPS shipments on Wednesdays around noon.”

We thanked Yoshi and went on our respective ways, agreeing to meet back at the Target in two days, the last Wednesday of the New Year.

The days passed agonizingly slowly as I dreamed of playing Zelda on the Wii. I had never been a huge fan of Zelda before, but somehow, shrouded in the allure of the Wii, the struggle between Link, Gannon and Zelda as the three parts of the Tri-Force seemed monumentally important. Bettine and I met Wednesday and waited in my car by the loading dock, waiting for UPS to make its shipment.

The truck arrived and Bettine and I dodged inside to await what we were sure would be fresh new Wiis ripe for the taking.

We waited.

Three hours passed with no Wiis brought on the floor. Finally, I picked up the courage to ask an associate about the Wii shipments. “Sorry. Nothing new in.”

And so we left, two men defeated. New Years Eve was right around the corner, and we decided to move on. Matt went to Green Bay to be with his family, I went up to my father’s cottage in Oostburg to celebrate with my friends. There, I asked a girl to date me who would eventually end up being my fiancée. I did it partially out of attraction, but also partially out of a need to fill a Wii-less void. We spent a couple of days in comfortable, if backwater, nowhere before finally driving back to the city. On the road back, I checked my cell phone messages that I had missed at the cottage due to poor reception. Then, I heard the following…

“Andrew! It’s Yoshi. We got a shipment of Wiis in today. If you want one, get down here as soon as possible. I’ll try to hold on to one for as long as I can, but I can’t make any promises. Hurry up!”

I checked the time the message had come in. Two hours ago. I hit the gas and made my way to Oak Creek as fast as possible. I thought of Bettine, and faltered slightly. This was our quest, and it didn’t feel right finishing without him. I called him.

“Matt, Yoshi said they got Wiis in. If you want, I can wait for you. Where are you?”

“Are you stupid?” He asked. “I’m still in Green Bay. Go. Get the Wii, and I’ll kick your butt at Wii Boxing when I get back.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“Go for it.”

I pulled into the parking lot at Target and ran into the store. Yoshi was working in electronics and grinned as he saw me.

“One left.”

I bought it, a sense of triumph filling me. All was right with the world.

And that, children, is the end of my tale. One of the things I’ve noticed about some gamers is the need to quest. We know, probably due to the Role-Playing Games we play, that anything worth having is worth working for. The Wii is still difficult to purchase to this day. As for the Ps3, well, I haven’t looked at the latest figures, but the last time I checked, it was being outsold by the Ps2, the first time in history an older generation system outsold its predecessor for so long.

If you have any questions, comments or tales of your own, fell free to post them or email them to me. The next time I see you will be the year 2008. So, see you in the future.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

This is a nice thing we have going, Internet. I write down my opinions on various video games, deliver them unto your eternal bosom and you make them available for folk who need to be told whether said games are worth their time. However, a piece of advice is only as good as the person who gives it, and so I feel its time to own up and tell you exactly why my opinion matters.

Firstly, I did not own any of the original game consoles. I didn’t have a Sega, Nintendo or Super Nintendo. This does not seem to mark me as a competent gamer, but rather works against that premise. It’s true, my childhood would have been cold and bleak were it not for a stroke of luck. I had a friend who, from a very young age, received whatever system or game he desired and I spent many a day at his house playing Super Mario 3 or Battletoads together. I was fine with this arrangement, and, though I would’ve liked a system of my own, the urge was not overwhelming. This would change.

The year was 1997. Nintendo 64 and Playstation had taken the scene. My friend opted to get an N64 and became so good at Goldeneye and Super Smash Bros., that to this day his prowess is still referenced in hushed whispers. I had given up all hope of ever owning a console, stuck instead using my parent’s crappy PC to play generally terrible games. However, like out of a dream, I received a Playstation on Christmas morn, which I played literally into the ground. When the next generation of consoles came out of PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, I managed to finagle all three for myself.

Now that the newest generation has made its appearance on the scene, I have traded up the Xbox and the Gamecube for a 360 and a Wii. I have not gotten a Ps3, which will no doubt be a matter for a future post.

My experience with handhelds is limited to the brief period I had a Gameboy Advanced and played through most of the Pokemon games (seriously, they’re like video game crack), so along with a lack of posts about Ps3 games, you probably won’t see anything about handhelds.

Also, I have a MacBook, so the large majority of computer games I’d like to play (and there are a lot) I cannot without literally slicing my computer in half with a windows patch and opening it up to a bunch of freaky-weird viruses. Alas.

Next time I’ll write either on Mass Effect or my guff with the Ps3. Until then, leave comments such as “oh, how interesting” or “what a traumatizing childhood” or, “LOLZORZ”.

Whichever.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

Of all the classical fantasy series, I enjoy The Golden Compass trilogy (alternately known as His Dark Materials) the most. Phillip Pullman writes with a skill unparalleled by other “great” authors. He creates a world of richness and depth without boring them to tears like Tolkein; he contemplates deep theological and philosophical matters without being preachy and condescending like Lewis. His characters are as engaging as his plots, creating a lush drama where the fate of many worlds rests on the shoulders of two children. I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy these books.

So then the first book in the trilogy, The Golden Compass, gets picked up for a movie deal. This is a cause for a mixture of joy and trepidation because, while the cast assembled could not be a more perfect fit for the characters in the novel, the director is the same man who directed the first two American Pie movies, which does not inspire confidence.

This causes much controversy in America, specifically among conservative Christians, who have no problem with the novel’s existence (I assume because many of them are illiterate) but take issue with the movie, despite the fact that Pullman removed all religiosity for the movie edition specifically to avoid this sort of conflict. It should be noted that the vast majority of Christians boycotting the movie admit to not reading the book, relying instead on negative hearsay, despite the support the books have received from notable religious icons, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury (who, it should be noted, believes the book should be required reading in schools).

Whatever. I’m sorry I called conservative Christians illiterate. I just get so mad when people protest something without even knowing what it’s really about.

I’m writing about all this, however, to illustrate my personal attachment to an excellent series of books and an acceptable film adaptation. Which brings me to the heart of my ranting and raving, The Golden Compass videogame.

You have to first understand that the game is a second-tier adaptation, a game based on a movie based on a book. Before I continue, let me give a little background on the first book, just so everyone is on the same page.

The book opens on a world that is like ours, but different. People’s souls are physically manifested into daemons, which take on an animal form and cannot travel far from their humans. When you are an adult, your daemon fixes into a certain animal, which reveals something about your personality (for example, all servants have dog daemons). But before puberty, your daemon can shift and change shape, showing the potential of your growth.

Lyra Belacqua (later renamed Lyra Silvertongue) is the main protagonist, a small girl living in Jordan College in Oxford. Her uncle, Lord Asriel, is an important man conducting experiments in the north on something called Dust, an elementary particle that, for some reason, is only attracted to adults. The Church, which in this world has a totalitarian rule over the people, is also interested in Dust, beliving it to be the physical manifestation of Original Sin. Under the charge of Mrs. Coulter, they begin to kidnap children, taking them to the North Pole and performing horrible experiments on them.

Lyra’s adventure begins when her friend, Roger, is kidnapped and taken to the north. She resolves to find and rescue him and, with the help of seafaring nomads called Gyptians, she makes her way to the North Pole, enlisting the help of Serafina Pekkela (a witch), Lee Scoresby (an aeronaut) and Iorek Byrnison, (an armored bear) along the way.

Now, as far as the video game goes, it’s terrible. God awful ridiculous bad. However, I was mentally prepared for this going in. Why you ask? Because all video games based off movies are bad. It’s not necessarily because the people making them aren’t skilled (though I’m not ruling that out), it’s that the people making it don’t really care if the game is good or not.

Let me explain. You’re a Hollywood network executive who likes money. You have a big movie coming out that will probably net you a bunch, but you think to yourself, “How could I make even more money?” Simple. You put out merchandise. Golden Compass figurines, Golden Compass Christmas ornaments, even Golden Compass Uno decks. But man! There has to be a way to get even more money. I know, a videogame!

It is at this point a nervous intern pipes up, stating that it would cost money to make a video game. You, the studio executive, don’t like his lip and have him fired. Than you authorize an incredibly small budget for the game, a budget which generally barely covers advertising, which you justify by saying the game is just a big ad for the movie, or vice-versa. Now for the genius part, splice in some clips from the movie and release it a week earlier than the movie, so fans eagerly waiting for the movie’s release will have something to buy to tide them over.

My point is: Any game based off a movie is not made with quality in mind, it’s made to make money. To a certain extent, all games are made to make money, that’s what the entertainment industry is largely about. But the good games are the ones that have pride, that strive to be good. It’s an odd marriage between art and finance. If a movie is good enough and popular enough, it may inspire different games that may be of a better quality, like the MMO Lord of the Rings game, which I hear is not terrible. However, the game adaptations of the movies are always bad.

I wish it could be different. I wish writers were skilled enough, animators talented enough and executives generous enough to create games that act as compelling supplemental material, certainly something that doesn’t stand alone, but rather adds something new and fresh to the work in question. However, in my heart of hearts, I know that there is a fundamental law somewhere in the universe that states to change the medium of a great work (from book to movie, movie to game, or game to movie) is to diminish that work. Yes, there will be the occasional exception, but largely, that is just the reality of things.

If you have any questions or comments about the book, my hatred of all things financial, or if you just want to abuse me for my religious views (or lack thereof) feel free to comment or email. As always, I welcome all feedback, positive or negative.

-Andross

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

My dad and I are two very different people. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a pretty impressive guy, and certainly has earned the rank of urban folk hero among my friends, we just don’t see eye to eye on some things. Like video games. It’s not that he doesn’t like them, they just don’t really factor into his life in any way. So you can imagine how surprised I was when he told me, “Andrew, the Mario Brothers are hilarious.”

I was intrigued to say the least. I asked him why they amused him so, to which he replied, “It’s just a bunch of Japanese people making fun of Italians.”

I mention that because, although many themes and crazy mushrooms and such have been injected into the Mario games over the years, they haven’t really changed much.

Like most things, that’s not strictly true. Let me explain.

The first official Mario game (excluding Donkey Kong) was simply titled Mario Bros., and it involved two plumbers running around, jumping on each other’s heads, avoiding fireballs and stealing coins from each other. The first big change to the franchise came in the form of Super Mario, a side-scrolling jumper that was so popular it secured Mario’s marketing throne probably forever. After following up with Super Mario 2, which was similar to its predecessor (only on drugs), Nintendo released Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World. They’re both very good and cornerstones of my childhood, but all four Super Mario’s were pretty much the same game. Couple nuance changes, but basically side-scrolling adventures.

Then the true face of marketing reared its head, and Mario began appearing everywhere. Mario Sports, Mario Racing, Mario video board games, Mario RPGs and everything else Mario. That too has continued to this day.

Then the second big revolution in the Mario franchise was the release of Super Mario 64, which was pretty much a groundbreaking game, paving the way for three-dimensional platform games. They then released two more games along the same vein, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy.

Which I guess is a long, convoluted way to bring me to my point. I got Mario Galaxy, I played it, and I thought, “Hm. I’ve played this game twice before.” Yes, there are some small Wii specific tweaks (like the star bits), but otherwise, it’s basically the same game as Mario Sunshine and Mario 64. The plot remains unchanged from the first Mario to have plot. Bowser, or one of his subordinates, has kidnapped the princess. Mario must rescue her.

Really, the only thing that stood out for me is the sort of semi co-op play, where a second person can sit down and collect/shoot star bits with a second wiimote. It feels like it shouldn’t be all that satisfying to the second player, but it is.

There’s really not much else to say. It’s a fun game, but it’s not different from any of the other newer Mario games. I feel like Nintendo missed an opportunity to really mix up Mario with such a unique console to work with. Oh well, that’s life.

Feel free to comment if you take issue with my view of the Mario Empire, or if you find my writing style aesthetically pleasing and wish to buy me a meal. If that is the case, I like pasta dishes. Till next time.

-Andross

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

Black Friday was a giant let down. After what I’ve seen on the news in past years, I was expecting riots, brutal consumer violence, perhaps a burning Santa effigy or something. Nope, none of that. Sure, it got a little busy at times, but by and large it wasn’t any different than a normal day of work. It went against all my expectations.

Which brings me to Assassin’s Creed. This game has been one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year next to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which got pushed back to ’08 anyway. When I finally got my hands on the game and played through it, my feelings were so varied and conflicted that I had difficulty ordering them into anything coherent. In the end, I had to make a chart that could accurately describe my feelings, which I now present to you, Internet.

1. Eager Anticipation

I had preordered Assassin’s Creed from my local Electronics Boutique, and I was excited. I don’t check Internet forums too often, nor do I pay much heed to rumors, preferring to sink my teeth into a game without anything tainting the experience, so to speak. All I knew was that the main character, Altair, was an assassin during the Crusades and worked for a third party, wishing to bring an end to the war by killing Muslim and Christian leaders alike. That was it.

I had heard one other thing, which I now look back on as Cassandra’s warning of destruction, one that I foolishly ignored. In one forum, someone had posed the question, “Is Altair a time-traveler?” I thought the question ludicrous, and indeed, people responding to the thread agreed, such a thing was not only unlikely, but also dumb. I dismissed the entire idea and returned to awaiting what I was sure would be the gaming event of the year.

2. Crushing Disappointment

Before I continue, let me explain something about myself, a sort of disclaimer. I am a writer, and, as a writer, I tend to put a greater emphasis on the plot and dialogue of a game than the average gamer might. However, after hearing about the story accompanying Assassin’s Creed, some of my less plot-conscious friends agreed that the story behind this game could definitely be seen as a deal-breaker. That said, let me tell you what happened when I slipped the game into my console.

You begin the game not as Altair, but as a bartender named Desmond Miles who has been kidnapped by a shadowy corporation (again with those) in order to stick him into a machine called The Animus, which will allow him to relive the memories of his ancestors. I need to emphasize the fact that Desmond was originally trained to be an assassin, but ran away from being an assassin to become a bartender.

This was perhaps one of the largest in a series of unpleasant shocks. The entire meat of the game takes place in Desmond’s ancestor’s (Altair’s) memories, while the plot largely takes place in the present. But, the dialogue is so poorly written that it was literally painful for me to sit through it (which I had no choice but to do, as you can’t skip the cutscenes).

The worst part is, I didn’t need there to be any future machines or secret pasts or anything. I was totally psyched to enjoy a surprisingly historically accurate medieval game with stealth killing. Assassin’s Creed had me at hello, but then it just kept talking until it annoyed me.

3. Cautious Optimism

Despite my grave misgivings, I played on. Surely, such a hotly anticipated game must have redeeming values to make up its god-awful plot. Early reviews had mentioned a form of repetitive game play in between assassinations, but that honestly didn’t bother me all that much. Moving around in Altair’s world (or Desmond’s memories ::shudders::) was enjoyable, even if it did take a little suspension of disbelief to accept that a man could fall a couple hundred feet and be okay — so long as he landed in a conveniently placed pile of hay.

There were some issues I took with the gameplay. The fighting system seemed to require a little fine-tuning. When I killed 13 soldiers at once without any stealth maneuvers, I attributed less to my skill with a blade than to a poorly balanced fighting system. Altair is an assassin, not a berserker. However, all in all, things seemed to be looking up.

4. Extreme Enjoyment

Once I got some serious assassinating underway, the game took on a whole new level of enjoyment for me. My favorite parts were obviously searching for a way to get close to my intended target, including sneak-killing my way through a castle keep and less sneakily pushing my way through a crowd of guards to stop an execution. Everything seemed gravy to me. I even took a simpler pleasure out of some of the repetitive tasks, especially finding and scaling all the viewpoints used to locate objectives.

That’s another thing: Climbing and running over rooftops is really a fun experience, the sense that you can scale a wall just by finding the cracks in the stone and motoring up is kind of liberating. The freedom of movement given in Assassin’s Creed really is something that we should see in more games. It was well done.

Even the combat system seemed to balance itself out a little, though it still seemed a bit awkward. All in all, I found that the gameplay had pretty much redeemed itself.

5. Despair

Then the plot reared it’s ugly head. I had always found it strange that Desmond reacted to his kidnapping with indifference, but facts further revealed themselves, such as the corporation in question was a group of modern-day templars or the assumed death of the family of assassins that he came from or even the news of his own impending death once he stops being useful. These revelations compound how poorly written of a game it is, especially when Desmond reacts to each incident with… nothing.

He must be the most apathetic person on the planet when an exchange like this takes place: “You’ll soon outlive your usefulness Desmond.”

“Sure thing doc, let’s get to work.” Argh.

I’m not saying the game isn’t well researched. It fits into the timeline accurately, and it seems to be preparing for some De Vinci Code-esque mind blowing; it’s just poorly written. When I go online and look at reviews stating how good the dialogue is, it makes me want to cry. Games like Assassin’s Creed are the reason why the bar is not being raised for video-game writing. You throw in some line that sounds deep, but doesn’t actually mean anything.

Here’s an example from Halo 3: “I have defied gods and demons. I am your shield; I am your sword. I know you; your past, your future. This is the way the world ends.”

It sounds epic, but in the context, it’s meaningless gibber.

Things were looking bad. However, within the depths of my disgust shined a glimmer of hope. If this game could tie everything together in the end, and do so plausibly, I would be willing to ignore its glaring errors.

6. Bitter Resentment

Have you ever seen the end of the second Matrix movie? Keanu Reeves narrowly escapes the Matrix and is trying to escape in the real world, only to reveal that he has a new, mysterious power that only raises further questions. Yeah, that’s exactly how Assassin’s Creed ended, clearly paving the way for a sequel. The flaws of the game are the same, the perks are the same. So why am I bitter? Because I know that I’m going to play the second game. Assassin’s Creed was, in more ways than one, like an abusive relationship. I know it’s no good for me, but I will go back to it. I mean, it wasn’t all bad. The game play was really enjoyable, and the atmosphere was expansive — and, as far as the plot goes, well, I think if I try hard enough, I can change it.

No one understands Assassin’s Creed like I do.

And that is an accurate chronicling of my mindsplosion concerning Assassin’s Creed. If you disagree, have further questions or work for some kind of abuse shelter, feel free to leave a post or email me your objections, questions, or information on how to get help.

-Andross

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.com

Well, tomorrow is Black Friday, an event that has long passed me by unnoticed, save for the rather uninteresting news reports telling tales of pre-Christmas carnage. I am not really a shopper. True, I can happily wile away the hours inside a Game Stop or a Best Buy, but large events such as Kohl’s annual whatever off one-day only sale have never really caught my fancy. What can I say? I’m a dude.

However, this upcoming holiday season, I found that I have been inadvertently thrust into that most unsavory position: working retail in a mall on Black Friday. Now, I’m no whiner, I’ll suck it up and allow my spirit to slowly crack, but the whole thing has gotten me thinking.

Video Games are pricey, especially these days when the average game’s starting price is $60 and will stay that high if it’s good. Cheap games can be found all over the place, of course, but most of them suck. You don’t want to get someone a shitty gift, but you don’t want to break the bank either. What is a caring soul to do?

That’s what reviewers are for. We generally tell you what we think is good, and you take it under advisement. So I’ve set up, specifically for you, Internet, a list of various console and PC games that are both under 20 dollars apiece and amazing.

While reading this list, you may notice two things, one is the lack of handheld titles, and the other is the lack of next generation titles. There are no handheld titles because I don’t own a handheld, and therefore don’t feel I have sufficient expertise to talk about them. Check out the IGN or Gamespot forums for ideas on those. The reason there are no next gen titles is that all three systems haven’t been out long enough for the prices to drop on their good games. The only Wii games under 20 dollars now are things like Tamagotchi: Party On! No one needs that.

I assure you, however, that due to the backwardly compatible nature of these next gen systems, all games I recommend will be playable on the appropriate up-to-date console.

Sony

Shadow of the Colossus

With stunning backgrounds, incredible plot development and ridiculously fun game play, SotC is, without a doubt, of one the most underappreciated games in history. Desperate to revive a lost love, Wander must travel a forbidden and deserted land to slay 16 colossi, some merely as large as houses, others as large as skyscrapers. This game has something that no other game has displayed to this degree — faith in its players. This game does not spell everything out for you; it leaves plot elements vague, trusting that you will make the logical leaps. Just thinking about this game makes me want to play it again.

Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2

Though by no means unknown games, both have dropped prices since the release of the Ps3. Combining Square’s superb programming and Disney’s excellent storytelling, this game is an excellent example of how an action RPG should be. Sora teams up with Donald and Goofy to search a multitude of worlds for his missing friends, Kairi and Riku, encountering many familiar faces from Disney movies and Square games alike.

Star Wars: Battlefront II

I have, in my time, purchased four copies of this game. It is a thrilling third-person shooter that, in campaign mode, represents a revisionist view of the Empire’s rise to power ending with the victory to end all victories, the battle on Hoth. Wait, more happened after that? The true fun in this game lies in its multiplayer mode; split screen, online, or in a LAN, it’s all very fun and satisfying.

Nintendo

Nintendo Wii Points Card

Suggesting a gift card seems like a copout, but given the variety of amazing and cheap games found on the Wii Virtual Console, you’ll be glad you did. Unlike Xbox Live, there is no cost to using the Wii’s Internet service, so the only price you pay is what you pay for the games you download. And there are some great games, including (but not limited to) Super Mario 3, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Gunstar Heroes, Toejam & Earl, and (my favorite) Solomon’s Key.

Lego Star Wars 1 and 2

While it’s true that both Lego Star Wars were recently complied into one game and released on all next gen systems, it is actually cheaper on any system simply to buy the two games separately for an older console. In any case, these games are just simple fun. Particularly the co-op mode provides hours of unashamed regression to my… um, I mean, one’s childhood.

Tales of Symphonia

In my opinion, the best RPG offered on the Nintendo Gamecube, this game is definitely worth bringing to your Wii and checking out. It’s incredibly well detailed, using elements such as Character Titles or Battle Co-Op that haven’t really been used in any game before. Evil Half-Elves known as Desians are slowly taking over the world, and the only hope is the Chosen of Regeneration, Collete. The hero of the story, Lloyd, decides to accompany Collete on her pilgrimage, only to discover that nothing is so easy or simple.

Microsoft

PsychonautsRaz is a young boy who ran away from the circus to join a Psychic training summer camp with the hopes of becoming a fully-fledged Psychonaut. Tim Schaefer, the creative mind behind Psychonauts, has a writing style that is unparalleled in the video-gaming world. Not only is the concept funny and interesting, but the dialogue is absolutely phenomenal. Slightly reminiscent of Invader Zim, there is certainly some darkness in the game, but everything comes together for an incredible finale. I mean come on. A meat circus.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2

You may be noticing a pattern with the Star Wars games. There are a lot of them out there — and a lot of them suck. There are also some that are pretty good. The KOTOR games are the best. Delving back into Star Wars lore long before the Old Republic and some lame bullshit about midichlorians and how the force, a spiritual force that moves in all things is some form of bacteria, KOTOR takes place in a time where the Sith are everywhere, the Jedi almost extinct. Based on the D20 system which has robbed the chance of having sex ever from perhaps millions of men across the world, KOTOR gives a level of character development that is rare at best, complete with not only engaging, but also flexible plot and dialogue.

Stubbs the Zombie in “Rebel Without a Pulse”

Punchbowl is a futuristic utopia, combining all the family values of the fifties with robot servants! Everything seems to be going well until a terrible zombie bursts from the ground. Wait, I’m that zombie? I get to make a zombie army? And fight hillbillies? Excellent! Though it’s chief claim to fame is that it’s based on the Halo engine, this game has so much more going for it than its ability to borrow a format. A wonderful third-person mauler, Stubbs is one of the few games that successfully communicates satire on a large scale. Take that domestic life! Also, the soundtrack is surprisingly notable for such an unknown game, featuring such artists as Death Cab for Cutie, Cake and The Flaming Lips reprising all our favorite classic hits.

And that’s it. This list is not by any means all encompassing, and if you have any other good gaming gifts, post a comment and let me/the Internet know. Until next time, pray for me.

-Andross

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves(at)uwm.edu

There are a lot of great games that have been released this week, among them, Assassin’s Creed and Super Mario Galaxy.

Unfortunately, the time between their release and the deadline for this review is so short that I wasn’t able to play them thoroughly enough to write a good review. Next week, I have a special holiday shopping column planned, so I will review those two weeks from today. Nothing else good is coming out in the next two weeks, right?

What? Mass Effect is coming out when? Aww man…

I’ll give you a quick spoiler on Creed and Galaxy; they’re both amazing. Moving on.

When reviewing a first-person shooter these days, it’s important to keep three aspects in mind: the campaign, the multiplayer split-screen, and the multiplayer online play. As a rule, I don’t generally play games online. This may spark a large amount of distrust in many a gamer, but allow me to explain.

When given the opportunity to play an online game, I generally take it because I’m open to new experiences and interacting with people across the world while I play can be fun. I’ve definitely checked out and enjoyed World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2 (both fun games). However, the one thing I hate about online play, and specifically online play for first-person shooters like Halo 3 or Counterstrike is the collection of douchebags that play. It’s not that they’re bad people necessarily, it’s that they’re just really mean. They get so into the game that their adrenaline pumps through their systems, blocking out higher functions like rational thought and human decency.

Call of Duty 4 has a different sort of online play, combining elements from first-person shooters and RPGs, specifically the ability to level your character, which is an interesting concept. Really, COD4 does a lot of things that are interesting, but let me pull back briefly to the campaign setting, where all things must start.

A plot is being conceived between generic Middle-Eastern terrorists and Russian arms dealer involving coups and nuclear weapon detonations. What it all means is terrorists and, I suppose communists, are still the bad guys, American and Brits are still the good guys, and we will win because we’ve got moxy.

Interestingly enough, though several characters are playable throughout the game, the main protagonist seems to be a British soldier, as opposed to an American one, appropriately named John “Soap” MacTavish (because he’s so clean?). And amid a sea of detonating nuclear weapons, nuclear warheads being launched at the U.S. east coast and nuclear atomic super-monsters rampaging unchecked through downtown Tokyo (untrue), “Soap” seems to be the only soldier involved left alive, with the possible exception of mustache guy above, because… come on. Mustache.

Being used to the controls from Call of Duty 2, I managed to pick up how to do everything fairly easily. The game play is mostly smooth, although there are some visual glitches, especially in split-screen. Watching a person who was shot once and die twice is always an interesting sight to behold.

Speaking of the split-screen, it’s really fun. There are 10 classes to choose from, each with unique weapons and abilities. Usually, when a game is set up this way, there is at least one class that just isn’t worth playing or a class that is extremely overpowered, but they all seem pretty well balanced. Every player has a knife, and knifing someone is probably about the most satisfying thing in the world.

My only complaint is the use of “helicopter assists.” When a player kills three people in a row, he is given the option to use help from a helicopter. There are three levels of assistance, ranging from useful to ridiculous. My main problem with them is they provide a boost to people who are already doing well, like making the rich richer.

Back to online play. Not only can you level up your character as if it were an RPG, but you can also customize your class, taking special abilities and weapons from various classes that unlock as you progress and making them yours. The concept seems novel enough to warrant a try from anyone, but given the nature of this game, I suspect a high amount of internet douchebaggery.

All in all, Call of Duty 4 was an excellent game and a very well put together First Person Shooter, and although Call of Duty 2 will always have a nostalgic place in my heart, Call of Duty 4 is the superior game, as sequels (in theory) should be.

As always, post or email if you want to call me any of the following: wrong, right, boring, interesting, or a whiney n00b.

By ANDREW STEEVES
steeves@uwm.edu

[[Ed.’s note: You’re going to see a couple of these Editor’s notes in the next few weeks. We’ve got a few new columns, beginning with this video game column, which you’ll see every Thursday.]]
And the debate rages on. Sparked by the recent release of Manhunt 2, parents everywhere (led by the ever-vocal Jack Thompson) have lobbied around the clock to get the ESRB to give the game an “Adult Only” rating. It would be banned from the mainstream consoles, which refuse to run AO games. The game is currently banned in the UK, but was released on the 31st of October in the states.

Though the game has changed, the debate remains the same. Do video games cause violence in youths? There’s really no easy way to answer that question. The only sure way is to grab two children that have led identical lives, keep one as a control and expose the other one to violent video games,and check the results. The only problem with this is that no two children are the same, and no one is really sure what exactly causes violent pathology.

It does make a certain amount of sense that a child exposed to violence would tend to be violent, but it’s not uniform. There are millions of gamers who picked up Grand Theft Auto in their youth and have so far not killed anyone or stolen their car. Cause and effect aren’t so simple to the human mind.

The real tragedy in this whole mess is that Manhunt 2 really isn’t that good of a game. Yes, it’s violent. Yes, it’s shocking. But as far as games go, there are much better stealth games to play. Examples include: Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, Thief: Deadly Shadows and any Metal Gear Solid game.

Some background on Manhunt 2: You are Daniel Lamb, basic run of the mill nice guy who is in a bad situation, and you are doing only what you have to survive (like shoving a dom into an iron maiden). Accompanying you is the elusive Leo Kasper — who is in no way an aspect of your own psyche — who encourages schizophrenic violence. Together you maim your way closer and closer to discovering Lamb’s forgotten past and taking down the mysterious company that hunts you.

The game play is pretty basic. You walk around, hide in the shadowy areas, surprise kill as many people as you can and occasionally solve a puzzle using some of their parts. The story is, well, how do I describe it… Have you ever seen Fight Club? Take out any larger social statements, throw in a shadowy corporation (people still like those, right?), make the twist ending really obvious from the very beginning and add in a feature that lets you remove a man’s testicles with a pair of pliers. That’s entertainment.

Ready for the irony? If Jack Thompson and his army of super-moms weren’t lobbying so hard against this game, it could have passed the gaming community by as a minor blip, a graphic but ultimately unenjoyable game. By protesting the game, they are putting it in the spotlight, a place any game enjoys. Added bonus? Since parents are expressing their clear disapproval of the game, daring youngsters are now aching to find out what all the fuss is about. That’s right parents: You’re making this game more appealing to an experimental youth. And to be honest, I’m less frustrated by the fact that these children are being exposed to video game violence than I am by the fact that they’re playing a bad game for shock value alone.

To be fair, I do believe that Jack Thompson and his angry-parent army are acting for what they believe to be best. They truly want to cut down violence rather then push any religious or social agenda (as shown in Thompson’s break from Left Behind’s Tyndale Books after the publication of Eternal Forces, a game largely criticized for promoting religious intolerance against non-Christians). My problem is Thompson’s crusade against violent video games can be easily construed as an attack on me, a gamer. If violent video games cause violence, doesn’t that make me a closet psychopath? Even worse, since I play and enjoy these games, doesn’t that mean I condone violence?

Any true lover of books gives a small wince when they hear of a book being banned in this or that school. It’s the same for gamers and their games. The only difference is a lot of books being attacked were good, such as Fahrenheit 451 or Catcher in the Rye. Protesting Manhunt 2 is like protesting a Harlequin novel. True, no one is ripping out any spines in Harlequin books (I think), but there is sex in there, somewhere. Why not ban it? Because as things stand, not a lot of people really bother to read them in the first place.

I sense a strong surge of rage being sent to me psychically from some romance book loving person who (for some reason) is reading this.

More to the point, the reason most gamers don’t show much respect for Jack Thompson is that he doesn’t show much respect for them. In 2005, Thompson wrote an open letter called “A Modest Video Game Proposal” (making the allusion to Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal crystal clear to us illiterate gamers) in which he stated that if a video game was created in which the main character’s son is killed (indirectly) by violent video games, then massacres his way through the video gaming industry, he would donate $10,000 to a charity of Take Two’s (Rockstar’s parent company) choosing. Undaunted, a small team created a game called I’m Ok: A Murder Simulator, which met his exact specifications. He refused to pay the $10,000 stating that his letter was purely satirical. In response, famed gamers Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade donated the $10,000 in his name. In response to having money donated to a charitable organization on his behalf, Thompson threatened legal action. Classy.

On the flip side of the coin, I’m not really defending Manhunt 2. It is the definition of gratuitous violence. I don’t think it should be banned, but only because I don’t believe in censorship. Whether I like it or not, I’ll still defend it’s right to exist.

Although, I actually can’t help but wonder if Rockstar doesn’t work public outcry and ESRB fights into their promotional model. It certainly worked for their Grand Theft Auto series. All they need to do is find new ways to piss people off. The only thing left is, probably, for them to make a game from the viewpoint of a sexual predator. Ugh, that thought makes me queasy.

Well, that’s all I have. If you have any comments, disagreements, or blatant insults, feel free to post them on the site or email me. Thanks.

-Andross