Thursday, February 28, 2013

An update on my video-game reviews and playthroughs

If you've been wondering what I've got planned for about the next year or so in terms of reviews and game playthroughs I created an entire page for it, with details on each game and a few conditions of what I need to do before I'll play them. http://blogdudesvariousreviews.blogspot.com/p/planned-lps-and-reviews.html
If you wish to suggest a game to me for an LP and review you can done one of the following:
eMail me @ BDVR@LIVE.COM with the title of the game and a few specifics, genre, platform(s), and a link to the Wikipedia, IGN, or other site detailing parts of the game, as well as a link to the Amazon.com or cheapest eBay listing you can find, or you can send a copy of the game to Blogdude@ 1801 Dolphin Dr, Gautier MS, 39553, and that will prompt faster response time on my part. Either way, please suggest games, I appreciate any help you can give me.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

PS4 update

They're advertising PS1 and PS2 emulation for the PS4, and they'll allow some kind of compatibility with the PS3. They're saying you can pick up almost any device and play any PlayStation game, from PS1 to PS4. Nowadays with most mobile devices you can emulate the PlayStation 1, from the PSP and PSVita to Nexus 7, that's just making something that's free paid unless they don't charge for it.

Look, I don't know about you, but I'm not bothered by having to put a game into the slot and power up. There's a reason why all my consoles are in a specific room, because I've got my favorite chair there and most other chairs are uncomfortable.

Wait WHAT!? You can press "Share" and RECORD AND UPLOAD!?" Okay, that's great.

Yeah, it's verified as PS4.

Calling the PlayStation Network the fastest and most powerful gaming network......

Saying that the PS4 is gonna be more powerful than anything else.... Not a good sign.....

Hellghast and Vectons fighting in a new game, although "Hellghast" is a name I've heard before, it's from Killzone: Shadowfall

The FMV they're showing for the new Killzone is impressive, but unless there's actual gameplay it could be just another game.

The graphical detail is amazing, I hope they show gameplay soon.

Okay, explosion..... Gameplay please?

Getting into FPS gameplay, looks like a futuristic shooter.

Holy crap, my headset's picking up sounds from the left and right alike, this game looks good.

So far just cover-based shooting and standard FPS stuff....

Impressive amounts of AI NPCs and hostiles on the screen, as well as an impressive amount of active fire.

Hope they let you fly the ship you're clinging to.

DANG that is one nice looking city.

QTEs to get into and out of the ship......

The hero just got captured and the camera zoomed out.

Okay, cars. Driveclub is what this is called. Team based racing, existed as a concept for ten years, the trademark is nine years old. Waiting for the tech to be available so they can make it.
Seriously? That's ALL that next-gen means! There are some of the best games of all time on GameCube or PS1!
Okay, app-based club and challenge management, just another gimmick to me.

First-person driving game with a bunch of detail and accuracy rendered to insane details, these guys are rendering EVERYTHING you can think of.

Are they gonna require you to press buttons to get in the car and to perform maintenance on it? That's what I like about Need For Speed, it never asks your to do that.
Okay, so far it just looks like another driving game with an online base that probably won't last too long, although Final Fantasy XI's still getting updates.

Sense of security, go on.

I hope you're leading up to something neat here dude, what's your name?

Okay, you're just ripping off X-Men here bro, a theory about people developing super-powers and how the world will react. PS4 exclusive, not helping yourself by it not being cross-platform.

Okay, dystopic super-human sci-fi game, I might just have to check that out. inFamous- Second Son is the title of the game, looks like something I'd buy, but they didn't show gameplay.

You DO realize that the PS2 was weaker than even the Dreamcast right?

OHHH, that's neat. Self publishing games for the PS4, NICE! That's good.

Nobody's laughing at anybodies jokes.

PlayStation 4

The PS4 has GDDR5 memory, and check this out:
The picture on the left depicts the new controller, and the "Light sensor bar", so it is as I predicted. Namely, Sony is copying Nintendo in a lot of ways.

PS4 will allow you to suspend play sessions much like the 3DS does

PS4 will have its own social network, like the Wii U which also interconnects to other social networks

You can use tablets, smartphones, PSPs, PSVita's, computers, etc to check on things in the game

PS4 will track what you play and what you use and pre-load content based on it

He keeps saying "ease of access, simplicity", better be better than the XROSS media bar

We move on to another guest speaker.
CEO of GaiKai is on now
Yeah right dude, the PlayStation opening was cool, and the games were good, but it wasn't better than the N64

You can find out when a friend purchases a new game, how will that work with physical games?

OH GOOD, you can play and choose to pay if you want or not with "Try it now", sounds good to me.

They're making a dedicated social network for games, MiiVerse much?

You can press the "share" button on your controller to show livestreams of your game, but isn't that what LPs are for? Anyways this feature isn't public, so it'll never replace YouTube

They're letting you ask friends to take over your game to help you via internet. Although there's such thing as PCs so you can look up walkthroughs and play it yourself
OH LOOK! They're advertising remote play and secondary screens. Wii U right?

They're saying the same thing that was one of the selling points for Wii U, except that you need a PSVita for it instead of a pack-in controller

They're saying the PS4 can be a server so you can play games with your portables

There's no backwards compatibility with PS3 games, so don't toss your PS3 onto eBay yet

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Torchwood

Torchwood is a 2006 spinoff of the legendary Science-Fiction series, Doctor Who. You'd never guess that was unless you've seen the specific episode of Doctor Who that they referenced in the first episode. The only reason I know about Torchwood is because I picked up the first series of Doctor Who one day I happened to be at the library and they started referencing Torchwood in the second series. It lasted four series. The first thing I noticed was that the first disc has only two episodes, the second has three, the third two, and unless I'm remembering wrong the fourth has Torchwood Declassified. They DO know that single-layer DVDs can hold 4.7GBs right? Why only have two episodes on the first disc and three on the second? Anyways, minor spoilers ahead and onto the show: It focuses less on the more interesting members of the cast, IE: Captain Jack Harkness, or any of Torchwood aside from one episode that was about Ianto's person struggles and instead chooses to focus on the buzzkill cop that graduated from the same school of closed-mindedness as Inspector Lestrade, Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, and Captain Tobias Gregson, Gwen Cooper. The show focuses on her, her life, her challenges, and not the interesting concept of a Doctor Who cop show. Torchwood tries to be Doctor Who with more dark and edgy, except it just comes across as forced and stupid. They were on a roll in the first episode, playing the alien technology for laughs and showing you some of their cool equipment. Then it goes downhill and starts being less enjoyable and less understandable. For instance, right after Ianto's (Who is essentially the butler) girlfriend dies and Jack's oldest friend is killed they begin implying things between the two of them that A) make no sense (For various reasons), and B) are never mentioned ever again. Torchwood attempts to re-create the heartstring-tugging emotional voyages that make Doctor Who so good and falls flat on its face. After some time they brought Martha Jones from Doctor Who to be on the show and she only lasted one series! Here's my thinking on this: "Oh, a spinoff of Doctor Who (which I love) with one of the most ingenious companions The Doctor has had on it? I can't check this out fast enough!" I was then annoyed by the fact that they wasted the chance to get me enthralled in the show by not doing things that should come naturally to a show like Torchwood, namely them investigating paranormal disturbances under the guise of a detective agency, playing Captain Jack's immortality for laughs, having the characters be relate-able and interesting and crossing over with Doctor Who more often. Then there's implied sexual things going on between characters that hadn't shown any interest in each other since THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW. The opening sequence lays down the premise of the entire show and then the show goes and blows the entire interesting premise to try and be a generic cop drama. I watched the first series until Episode Six: Countrycide, and shut it off when Owen was talking dirty to Gwen. Let me get into a bit of backstory, Owen kissed Gwen when he thought they were about to die, and then later it was implied that the two of them had slept together even though the characters weren't odd around each other, nor did they share meaningful glances. Funny thing, about the time I shut it off was when it was becoming painfully obvious that they were trying to be as dark and edgy as possible. About that time was when I was wanting to stick Resident Evil in my PlayStation and play it start to finish, that tells you how bad I found Torchwood.
All in all, the show is in bad need of a reboot, they can keep John Barrowman and really the entire cast of Torchwood, but they need to write it differently. Sometime in Series 2 they killed off most of the cast except for Gwen Cooper, the one that IMO really needed it.
Anyways, I'll watch the rest of the series online and get back to you on the quality of everything past series 1.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Death Note


Death note is a popular manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, I first heard about it in an ad for the boxset while I was reading Shonen JUMP! at the library, I looked it up in the system and checked out the first volume of the manga (As I do to see if it's any good before getting the entire series) and I finished it that day I was so engrossed in it. It follows the journey of Light Yagami, vigilante with a god complex and a notebook of death, and L, the detective on his trail from the beginning to the end. The manga is entertaining and engrossing, you'll never be able to figure out the twists as they happen, which is why I won't reveal anything specific here. Suffice to say that it's a great work of literature that is in every bit deserving of its popularity and is all wrapped up by the end, you'll wish it was longer and will be left wanting so much more.
Then there are the adaptions of the manga, an anime that follows the plot almost precisely and a movie trilogy that takes a few liberties with the story, they're all Death Note, and they're all entertaining. In theory Warner Brothers is adapting the manga into a live-action movie and/or series of movies, which as long as they follow the plot and take few liberties should be good as well. There was a prequel novel that I read that kept me guessing until the end, which I recommend you read as well, it's called Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, and is just as good as the manga.
There was also a "What if" sequel novel called L: Change the WorLd based on the third movie, it essentially adapts the events of the movie of the same name to the manga Death Note universe. The entire franchise is complex and entertaining, even if the movies didn't live up to the quality of the manga or anime.
There is also a trilogy of games for the Nintendo DS devloped by Konami as Japan exclusives, even though they would have made a ton more money with an international release. The first one is called Death Note: Kira Game, a strategy game where you take control of L or Kira and attempt to unmask Kira or destroy L respectively. From what I've heard it's a good game and if you know or want to learn Japanese then a Death Note game is as good a reason as any.
The second game is called Death Note: The Successors to L, which follows the second half of the manga and the story of Ls sons attempting to continue their fathers work and unmask the now infamous vigilante Kira.
The third game is called L: The proLogue to Death Note: Spiraling Traps, it is set sometime before the manga or anime and possibly parallel (Resident Evil 2 and 3 style) to Another Note, unlike the first two games it is apparently a puzzle game where L assists you, an FBI agent who has been trapped in a hotel and has to find a way out.

The franchise gets points off for not releasing the games outside Japan (Even the Jump! fighting games with the main cast in them weren't released outside Japan), but extra points for dubbing the movies and releasing them in North America, no matter how brief. The anime gets extra points for adding another twist to the ending and for being dubbed excellently, as well as an amazing theme song. The manga gets points off for removing a few religious implications that would have made perfect sense in context, but all in all the official translation screws up less things than most of the fan ones I've seen, if you don't look it up they won't bother you. If you're used to color comics like most people in the US are then you'll notice the manga is in black and white first. Don't let that get you down, it doesn't need color to convey everything it does. This is a unique thriller in the sense that you never expect what's going to happen, even though it's essentially a comic-book. Death Note is manga at its best and anime at its best, if you have to read or watch anything Japanese, let it be Death Note.
Hulu has it streaming free with Japanese audio and English subtitles, but I prefer the English dub. It's not too common for someone to say they prefer an English dub of something, but I like the English voice actors, I think they did a good job and I don't like having to read the script when there's a perfectly good English version out there.
I can't rate this franchise, or even the individual parts of it. I had a hard enough time coming up with words to describe it without giving away major plot twists. You really have to read it, watch it, and play it for yourself to experience it, I recommend that you go through it all, and read the 13th volume of manga since it has the pilot chapter, which will be just enough to hold you over until WB comes out with the new movie. Believe me, by the time you're done with it all you'll want a lot more. The manga is only 12 volumes (with the 13th as a guide) so it won't take you too long to finish it. The anime is only about 37 episodes of 20 minutes or so apiece, so that won't take you too long either, string it out for as long as you can so you aren't left wanting more too soon and you don't miss anything. I've been planning this entry ever since I finished the manga, and you can see that it's pretty long. I hope I haven't missed anything or bored anyone, so I'll finish with this: Go get the first volume of Death Note, and then decide for yourself.

Image credit www.jwallpapers.net

Monday, February 11, 2013

Metal Gear Solid


Metal Gear Solid is a game released by Konami in 1998 for the PlayStation, it has a stunning sound-track, an excellent story, and despite its age is still one of the best games you could ever own.
It drops you right into the action, no build-up to anything, it gets its story across and you can pretty much pick it up and go.
The Dualshock is a must for this game, with a d-pad you can't move as precisely as you can with an analog stick.
My only complaint about the control is that you have to hold the Triangle button to stay in first person mode, which is on occasion a minor annoyance.
Even though the game makes constant references to the first two Metal Gear games, (Metal Gear, and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake) It's not in any way required that you play them to understand the story of them game.
The graphics are old, but the game is still playable and enjoyable.
After a few bad experiences with another "PSX great" I was hesitant to buy and play this game, but I'm glad I did. Metal Gear Solid has a complex storyline that draws you in and leaves you wanting more. You play as Solid Snake, an ex mercenary who used to work for Fox-Hound who has been enlisted by his old commander to take on the members of his old unit which have taken over a nuclear-weapons disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island. The plot twists enough to keep you guessing even at the very end, the gameplay is the pinnacle of intense, even for the PlayStation. Be it 240p or 480p Metal Gear Solid is still action-stealth at its finest and if you put aside your HD graphics and motion control for a bit you'll learn to ignore the few flaws this game has and enjoy the experience. The only complaint is one section requires you to press the O button rapidly to survive (See my Let's Play of it for details) and it's nearly impossible without a turbofire controller. I actually had to go out and buy one so I could proceed to the rest of the game, but it's not required that you pass that section, you can choose to skip it, but as I preferred to get the good ending instead of the bad one first time around, so I had to buy a turbo-pad to clear the stage. The only other complaint I have is that there's a section where you have to read the back of the case the game came in to proceed (Referenced as "The back of the CD case" in game) that's a bit confusing, since the person who told you just gave you a CD and the case the CD is in. It's minor and is easily skippable, but first time players will try to examine the ingame CD case, all you have to do is talk to the colonel five times and then go into the codec memory.
All in all the game is enjoyable and deserves the title of classic, I'd go so far as to say that it's a work of art.
I'll give this game a perfect 10.1*, it's definitely a must buy if you've got a PlayStation, PS2, PSP, PS3, PSVita, GameCube, or original Wii. You'll not be disappointed by this masterpiece!

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Mutant Mudds: First Impressions

Mutant Mudds
Mutant Mudds is a downloadable game for the Nintendo 3DS eShop on January 26th, 2012 in the NTSC and PAL regions, Microsoft Windows (With extra content) on August 30th 2012, iOS on December 6th 2012, for Wii U (as Mutant Mudds Deluxe) TBA 2013. I will be reviewing the 3DS version in this article, thanks are given to Nintendo's PR department for getting me this game free of charge.




The soundtrack is complex and beautiful. A and B jump, X and Y shoot, the analog stick and D-pad move. There are three planes to move between. There are no checkpoints, so if you die right next to the end you gotta start back at the beginning of the level.
I find myself comparing this game Cavestory, you're a nameless protagonist with a bubble-gun in a Nintendo hard unforgiving world of pixels. The 3D mode is seamless and Mutant Mudds is the first game I've played that doesn't give me eye-strain for leaving the 3D mode at maximum. There are sections that you need to have played before in order to survive it, like Cavestory.

All in all I've enjoyed the game so far, I'll get back to you when I've finished it.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Blogdude on The VMX Show, Season 7! *UPDATE*

I apologize, I think I misunderstood the time, happens to the best of us! Without further ado here is the episode of the webshow I was on, start at 0:25:10 if you just want to hear me talk:

Monday, February 4, 2013

Blogdude on The VMX Show, Season Seven!

I just got done recording with fellow internet personality NecroVMX, so check out his Youtube channel tomorrow, hope to see you there!

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

I've been trying to get Super Smash Bros. Brawl to play for the channel for a while now. The library system near me at one time had over twenty copies in circulation, but they've all been stolen over the last few years, so I was about to give up on getting it to play.
Later that week, just a few days ago, my mother asked me to fix someones computer after a bit of tinkering I asked what the box lying next to his computer was, it was something called Fix-It Utilities by Avanquest. It wasn't working properly, and it was interfering with the actual fixing of the computer. I uninstalled it, then re-installed it, thinking that maybe it would work right that way, but it was stuck in a feedback loop. Thanks to that, I had to restart the computer twice. I went into add-remove programs and erased the program, then decided to clean up the hard drive some more by removing a bunch of un-used stuff.
After doing the math, I found that most of the clogging on the drive couldn't be installed programs from the previous owner (20GB HDD, the entire Add/remove list amounted to less than a gigabyte), so I ran the defragger and all the clogging was fragmented files. I ran the defragger five times and only freed up a few megabytes, gaining little ground.
Since he had all the discs that came with the computer (The previous owner included them with the PC) I decided to do a fresh install of Windows XP. After formatting the drive and letting the installer run, it was almost time for lunch, so taking a break, my mother and I decided to go to Taco Bell for a quick bite and stop at one of the thrift-shops to see what they had while the installer took its time (45 minutes were left when we left) My moms friend suggested that we return the faulty anti-virus/fixit program and get the money from that as payment. After eating lunch and perusing the PS2 games at the thrift-store we headed to Wal-Mart to return the program.
After Customer Service informed me that they would not refund, only exchange the program. I then went back and got an identical one, figuring that I could just return it for the $27 dollars, but they would have opened it to prevent that very action (and they required someone with an ID to do anything) so after arguing that the software didn't work and we didn't want to get another probably just as broken piece of software, the manager said to go get something that will work with the computer.
Thing is, she didn't specify WHAT it would have to be, so I grabbed an Xbox 360 controller off the shelf and brought it back. Then ANOTHER manager asked if she needed to call the police because apparently trying to return broken software is illegal in the state of Mississippi.
The first manager lied to our faces, saying she specified it had to be software when all she said was "get something that will work with your computer". After verifying that it could be any software, I went BACK to the electronics department for a THIRD time (It's all the way on the other end of the store from where the returns desk is) and picked out a Wii game, Super Smash Bros Brawl.
After I came back my mother told me that the clerk had told her that I was swearing at them.
Wanna know what I said?
Damn, under my breath, not even FACING anyone, for all they knew I could have been sighing, and the clerk acted like I was yelling at them at the top of my lungs, sifting through the book of words you can't say on TV, when I never even raised my voice.
They exchanged it and we walked out, feeling disgruntled and tired, then we went back and had to deal with Microsoft customer service, but that's another story.
On the plus side I've got Super Smash Bros. Brawl and I'll be playing it for the channel soon.

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