Game Vortex

Game Vortex, all platform gamer culture

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The other never ending story.

Blizzard, well known for making Starcraft, a game at which you cannot win unless you're Korean. The incredibly delayed third part to the Diablo series. And of course, the never ending and "immortal" World of Warcraft. All very interesting feats I understand, but today I will specifically be talking about Warcraft. Why? For the sheer thrill that is incorporated in writing! Or something else that sound less creepy...moving on...

Warcraft's history is pretty much one of constant success, and seeing as it would be a waste of time to make a chart, just imagine the CEO's firing money from literally every orifice. Enough pussy footing around, they make just around(ish) a billion a year, varying slightly from pounds to dollars etc. But deducting the cost of hiring staff and the investing in new projects, not forgetting the cost of Warcraft's servers...I'm not brilliant at maths but they are still certainly in the green with their profits. However I don't even begin to pretend that I know even a quarter of their earnings report and such, I suppose in the grand scheme of this post it is irrelevant to the subject.

Warcraft has even received a bludgeoning from various groups from the religious to the simply outraged parents. Claims that the worshipping of gods or demons or whatever is just wrong. If someone is worshipping a fictional deity from a video game they are beyond help anyway. As for the parents, the complaint that the game has warped your children is just...well isn't it your job to do what is right by your children, not the developers? Either way it's not my place to interject into an argument such as these. Still, live debates like this are as old as the earth, people just like complaining, enough said.

Here comes the part I've been waiting for, I can hardly contain my excitement over the subject. Is The World of Warcraft really dying? A difficult matter to discuss anywhere on the internet. Mainly because nothing is worse than a gamer who thinks his opinion is the ultimate decider, which, let's be honest, is a large sum of people. It is true that Warcraft has been bleeding veteran players, yet each day someone new fills one of those slots. The argument is that the quality of the game has been declining since the expansion Wrath of The Lich King. And then many jumped the band wagon when Blizzard claimed that the changes in the expansion Cataclysm are only critiqued so harshly is because it is just simply too hard for them, and not that they are simply changing the game to suit incompetent minors and the like. Or something along those lines.

Then came The Mists of Pandaria, an expansion featuring Panda's (which to be fair, are an old lore character), an irrefutable Pokémon-esque system and a world which for some reasons reminds me of Spyro, the last one probably just being my imagination. Whilst I lay no claim to know half there is to know about the ins and outs of the expansion, I can say with up most certainty, it is the final nail in the coffin for most of the original Warcraft players.

There is no use in me simply telling you what to think, it is down to you to decide whether Warcraft is heading down a slippery slope of death from which there is no return, or that everything is hunky dory. Either way Blizzard still has a few more inevitable years where the profit margin will be unaffected, beyond that, who knows. Cheers to them all the same, there was a time when I played that game and had a lot of fun, so I kind of have to thank them for that, I guess the old folks have to move on at some point...

P.S. Murgurlurgrlgr!

[gamevortex-blog]

An Evil Insight.

The Resident Evil 6 public demo is out, technically it was out yesterday but I kind of dropped the ball on that one...anyway I'm here to write as much as possible about the subject before you download it yourself for free on the Playstation Network or Xbox Live Marketplace. Because that's what I do.

Upon starting the game players will be semi-overjoyed to notice they, Capcom, have added a preview to all three character campaigns. Which was partly expected. Anyway Leon's more traditional Campaign demo starts with him shooting a zombified president in the face, because that's how he rolls. Then there is some walking and shooting in dark corridors with Leon's new side kick, "Lady I don't care about" that's a bit harsh but there's the truth. After more zombie killing there is a delightful context-sensitive scene where you struggle to find the car keys within a police car. Strangely fun...anyway it ends with Leon crashing yet another police vehicle, like so many stereotypical driver jokes, god I love minute references like that.

While Leon's demo campaign gives an interesting preview of things to come I simply find the other two, Chris's and Jake's, lacking. I'd go into detail but It'd just be easier to say Las Plagas have returned with a new set of skins. Just play it and tell me that the giant blob of flesh giant in Chris's campaign does not resemble the ones seen in both RE 4-5. It doesn't matter I suppose, since Chris killed Wesker I've lost interest in him and his mighty neck muscles. And if Jake wasn't paired up with good ol' Sherry Birkin all grown up I'd...well I'd care less about him than I already do.

Regardless of the above the graphics are pleasant to look at, even when bathed in gore, and the game adds some interesting features, though not all of them new. RE:ORC's quick draw feature is gone, but from it seems to stem the ability to quickly, and inaccurately, fire a shot from the equipped weapon into the closest zombie in front of the player. Secondly the medical problems are solved with a new feature I've personally nicknamed Peelz...heh...bah, Louis fans will understand. Anyway Herbs are turned into tablets, I prefer pills, which can be stored in a case and quickly used at any necessary moment. Not all that fascinating but there you go. I'd name the rest but I gather you get the picture.

The more keen eyed of you out there will probably know all of this and more, and you probably don't need me to tell you this...but here we go. RE 6 doesn't look how I hoped, but god damn it it's still on my wish list. My reasons? I'm a Resident Evil fan and Mercenaries mode has already been announced, so...yeah. Still maybe I should wait for Resident Evil 6 Ultimate Gold Mega Super Edition...no offence Capcom.

[gamevortex-blog]

Global Saturation.

Has it really been over two weeks since I last wrote here on this dashingly good looking blog? How time flies, anyway today I shall be writing about more than one thing, such joy, and in doing so I hope this won't become too... convoluted to read. Because I have a thing for accidentally making things too convoluted, and strange, but I blame that on society, seems everyone is doing that these days anyway...

Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, yay, or nay? Sorry couldn't help myself. Either way this game was released early 2011, really? Man I feel slow now...anyway it was then remade and re-released as an Ultimate collection, which would've ordinarily been add-ons if not for an unfortunate event that shall not be mentioned here. The improved version simply adds characters that were originally decided against. Most notably our old nemesis, Nemesis, who was scraped because...he...how to say this nicely...he looks like the inside of a whale after eating too much spicy curry, basically, he is ugly. Other features are just simple game play and interface changes, so that is that.

Now if you've never played this game for yourself you probably want me to fill you in on how this fight'em up game works. The answer, exactly like Street Fighter, which if you've never played, seen, or heard of, then I really don't know why you're here, go play outside until I'm done writing, just stay out of the road. The interesting part of this game is the partner system, which allows you to use three of your favourite characters in one fight, meaning you get more ass kicking for your money and time. There is more to it than that but why should I ruin all of your fun.

The character roster is what drew me to this game, as is probably likely to anyone who has played it, or played the second one a decade earlier on the long forgotten but somewhat missed Sega Dreamcast. Or its many re-releases in the following years. I mean what is not appealing about using Deadpool to obliterate Chris Redfield, or vice versa. How about using the all too famous Ryu and his Hadoken's to burn a hole through Magneto, or once again, vice versa. Experimentation seems to be part of the fun in this game.

Admittedly, I suck at this game, and I'm not afraid to say it, I just do. I've wiped out the flood, saved the galaxy from the Reapers, and collected more stars in a life time than I thought possible. But it seems that when it comes down to pulling off a combo I am as useful as a pig on a lunar rover, and that sounds pretty useless to me.

While on this subject I thought that it would be fun to mention how statistically people like wiping the floor with the characters from another universes, while using the universe they prefer. This is both understandable and true as all you need to do is look at sales figures for these things. Super Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat Vs DC comics, the above, they are just all so awesome, whether you enjoyed playing them or not this is undeniable.

Yet one can be left thinking "How far can these things go?" which is exactly my next point. People love having two of their favourite things smashed together in a blaze of glory, it is just simple fact. But when, if ever, will there be an everything vs everything game. Sound stupid, I know, it sounds like the stupidest idea, but when did a new idea not sound stupid to at least one person or another? Understandably the licensing and voicing costs for so many characters from so many universe would be substantially large, large enough to put off this idea for good.

And so an idea dies, I mean who would want to see Batman fight Mr.T anyway...if not for something my father said, who is also interested in seeing such a spectacle. He said along the lines of, if it were turned into a charity event then no one would turn down the voicing roles and etc. While being a valid point and a good way to help others it doesn't pay for the programmers, who don't work for free subscriptions to magazines you know. I don't have the organizational skills to pull off something like that anyway, I'm lucky if I manage to get to the front door without something unexpected happening.

Maybe I am just a grown man clinging to the old school yard thing of declaring that Godzilla could beat Superman up. But you'd be a liar if you said you wouldn't like to see such a game come to the light of day. Anyway, thanks for reading, if you made it this far, and...no that's about it.

Note worthy: After writing this I did a little Internet skulking, and before too long I found something very interesting, depending on how you feel about aforementioned subject. Such a All VS All game does indeed exist in a certain sense. An interesting 2D fighting game by the name of M.U.G.E.N. From what I understand you can download many character sprites for usage. And if you have greater knowledge of programming the options are infinite, hence the name, meaning infinite in Japanese, or something like that. It is not what I expected but it is still a game, and as such I must tell you of it.

[gamevortex-blog]

The cake is most certainly not a lie.

Though it is highly irrelevant I still thought I'd post something on my birthday, I am somewhere between one and one hundred years old now, ah, the mystery of life. Anyway I decided to celebrate my birthday a little bit like a Hobbit, giving instead of receiving, which they do, apparently. Anyway, to you, the people of the internet here is an awesome cake, that an equally awesome person made.

For those who may not know the cake imaged above was designed after the all too famous Portal cake, which was a lie, but then it wasn't...let us side step the confusion. The point is that it is cake, delicious, nutritious* cake.

And that is all, this was only supposed to be a quick, somewhat game related post, but if you have some spare time click here, it is the new blog from the nice lady who baked such a fine cake and allowed me to show it to you, the reader. The reward for using the slightest amount of energy to click the left mouse button? More cake!

*Cake is, despite most wishes, not a form of daily nutrition, hourly consumption of sweet cake can result in, but not limited to, awesome man breast, love handles, a sizeable ass worthy of most rap songs which incorporate lyrics involving large posteriors and finding most physical labour unbearable, while creating enough sweat to fill several glass pitchers. Sorry for the mental images you are no doubt having.

[gamevortex-blog]

The most fantabulous adventures of Coward Man.

Getting scared is natural, and like pain everyone has a set threshold, and once that threshold is crossed it makes it very difficult to do the simplest of tasks, like pushing a control stick forwards. It is no secret that on the bravery chart I come somewhere between a neutered Labradoodle and a ten year old girl, but fear in Video Games is something everyone enjoys, personally I try to stay clear of horror games but they always find me. Even though a game may tote a low age rating there can still be some pretty eerie things and even traumatic occurrences in them, In this post I will name just a few, and even a few not very surprising ones, but keep in mind I am a ten year old Labradoodle. Final word before I begin, I will be using a rating system I lovingly named, " Personal Fear Rating, PFR" it will help you understand at what rate my bowels were voided.

Resident evil 4's Regenerator Lab, game age rating of 15+, PFR-4/5This shouldn't surprise you as Resident Evil is a classic fear game, though the game was continuously scary before the fourth I thought that the Regenerators were the scariest of the bunch. They shuffle and burble and I am quite sure that they would smell horrendous, and like the rubbery man type thing in Zero it is quite elastic, with such a reach they don't hesitate to attempt a shot at Leon's Jugular, by that I mean they enjoy turning Leon's neck into confetti with their teeth, the usual RE enemy attack you know? Worst of it all though is that these things can really take a pounding, porn star jokes aside these things really do have an amazing ability to keep on living, even without legs they slither along the ground and maintain their threat level. Frightening but thankfully not numerous, one of the few creatures I am not ashamed to be afraid of.

Thief: Deadly Shadows' Shalebridge Cradle, game age rating of 12+, PFR-4/5. This was something else, now Thief was never designed as a horror game but this specific location has scared me worse than most advertised "Scarefest's". Shalebridge Cradle is an abandoned Orphanage/Insane Asylum which the main character "Garret" must infiltrate in one point of the game. There are ghostly whispers and flickering lights, it relies on good old fashioned subtly rather than in your face scares to get the job done, it succeeds. If sneaking around an old haunted Orphanage is not bad enough consider this, the old occupants still roam the halls freed from their cells, so unlike the rest of the game you are the hunted, not the hunter. It just goes to show you that a game doesn't don't need a myriad of deformed creatures and gore to be terrifying.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake eater's The Sorrow, Game age rating of 15+, PFR-1/5. Rest assured that this man will make you want to kill yourself, he gives Snake a glimpse into death itself in the course of the game, he also has several appearances in the background of some scenes. The Sorrow is like an Emo wrapped in the darkest of blankets in the middle of the night, he is just so depressing. I added this guy into the list because his methods of attack are rather indirect and freaky, firstly he sends the souls of all the enemies you've killed during the game to attack you in a zombie like way, all the while he hovers ahead of you and sends this weird...watery thing at you which upon contact causes the screen to flash a "scary" image followed by a screaming sound. He is like the living embodiment of a screamer video on Youtube.

Alan Wake's tutorial level, game age rating of 15+, PFR-2/5.  Alan Wake is a really great psychological thriller, you'd know if you read about it on my blog, but so soon in the game it shows its colours with a specific scene. Alan Wake, the author, is being chased by a character in his book who wishes to...politely murder him. Yada yada, Alan eventually becomes trapped inside a shack when the axe murderer has an axe related disagreement with someone Alan knew, this results in an interesting section of game play. You can hear the murders voice all around you as he is chanting for you to "Die" and all TV's in the room are tuning into a close up of a quite insane looking eye, there is no escape and there is who knows how long until he breaks in, then the whole cabin shakes violently. If you want to know how it ends then buy the damn game, you won't regret it I promise. Just a side note, the PFR only goes for the Tutorial level of this game, not the whole thing.

Call of Duty's multiplayer, game age rating varies, PFR-5/5. You should know why this is here, now I don't hate this game but it terrifies me to my very core that it still exists. A Chameleon can change its scales to a variety of colours, but Activisions Chameleon is now being dipped into paint every year. By this I mean that the online has remained unchanged since 2007, every year the Multiplayer is given a new shiny coat of paint and then patted along to the store where many people purchase it. I don't know what is more terrifying, Actvisions sly and clever ability to sell to the idiotic masses (no offence) or the fact that many people who play it don't seem to notice that they are practically all the same. Though I have already bitched about this on my blog, I just thought that this was scary enough to belong here. I (reluctantly) apologise if you think differently.

That is all I can put here without a flood of information overwhelming you, my beautiful readers, though if this is popular enough I could definitely manage another, or more. Though that seems unlikely, but enough about my problems, go back out there are continue being the most important part of the gaming community, the heart...that was cheesy.

[gamevortex-blog]

Why doesn't the disk work?

I don't know what a lot of you think about this subject but personally I am a big disk lover, let's make this clear that I mean that in a platonic sort of way, I like having big piles of games hogging my space because they look nice, I literally have a waist high pile of old PS2 and classic Xbox games, I feel it relevant to mentions I am around six foot tall. Moving on from creepy collections and disturbingly personal information that shouldn't be leaked onto the internet, I can't help but feel depressed, as like the cartridge the disk is getting on in years and will soon be outdated by digital information, oh woe.

Sure the disk has had a nice run but when you go into the details you can understand why it must be replaced, if you have ever bought a second hand game you will understand that it more often than not will look like, what would be a nice way to describe it...ah here we go, it will look like something your smoking eighty year old grandmother would cough up. The paper behind the plastic will no doubt be sticky and wrinkled where someone has defied the laws of physics and have managed to teleport a liquid around and behind the protective casing, the manual will have of been transported to a parallel universe where game manuals are plentiful, while the disk will look like it had just been on a third date with a Death Claw, or a Hunter, perhaps at the same time. The saddest part? I am not even exaggerating, sure I have never purchased a game with all those problems combined but individually I have had all those things and more, with all those things going on it is no wonder that the second hand industry is in trouble, after all that why would I buy a game for £/$20 when you could buy the same thing on steam in excellent digital quality for a quarter of that price.

In the grand scheme of things I wouldn't mind making a complete digital switch over and in turn killing the disk selling industry, but it is the greedy fat cats, I love that phrase, who will get the "brilliant" idea to sell us all our old games that were on disk to use again in digital format, when did the game industry become such a greedy one? Why in gods name would I pay £/$10 for a game that I had on disk before you removed the disk port like an inflamed appendix, because it costs money to put it up there? Not a good enough reason to justify the paying twice thing, then again Microsoft is getting away with charging you for your gold account  then shoving adverts down your throat, Xbox 360 users will know what I mean.

Now I am not one to complain...okay that is a lie, more often than not I am at the fore front of complaints, but don't you find it a little irritating that your game collection will someday become moot? I tell you if I had a better PC I would make the complete switch to PC gaming in a flash, then again I just don't have the time or money to spend on an expensive computer only for it to breakdown when it doesn't like the new updates I've installed, first world problems eh?

I almost forgot to mention this segment, who are these people who treat their games like coasters? Even worse is who are these game store clerks who look at these disks and say, "Well it looks worse than a fur-less Chewbacca and will probably run as smoothly as an operating system created by the Geth but...I guess we will buy it from you and sell it for more money than its worth in scrap." I know its their job but seriously, just...seriously. Something interesting to mention would be that it would be unlikely for a video game store clerk to make video game references like the one above, as their experience in gaming begins and ends with a five hour session of the most detailed boob bouncing games ever, not really a bad thing but hardly the sort of person who belongs in a store that solely sells video games, it would be fair to say that these people are the majority, the minority of the staff are rare and actually play games on a day to day basis.

Let us not forget this genuine scene, I bought a copy of a game from a store for a nominal fee, it was actually in a decent condition, I played it for months before realising that it wasn't about to get any better so I returned to the store to sell it. Here is the next part I can't stress enough, the game and box were in better condition than when I bought it there, less dusty and the disk was even more spotless than before, the manual was even intact. It was the model of a perfect second hand game. It was however turned away for being too damaged, that's right, too damaged, it was in better condition than when they sold it and it was turned away, it was even a Nintendo game and those greedy store clerks love pricing those, another detail to mention was that no other copies sat on their shelves, so it wasn't just a supply and demand issue. That's my problem though and I am over it now, I just thought you might like to share in the injustice, if there is one thing the internet loves it is complaints, and Arty Emo types. *sarcastic hair swish*

P.S Don't worry the above disk is fine, it is just a copy of Mass Effect 3 that "fell down the stairs" it was a complete accident that is no ones fault, the funniest part is I can't remember if I am joking or not, sorry EA.

[gamevortex-blog]

In 1996 everyone was an Italian plumber in a polygon world.

Here at Game Vortex, the staff solely consisting of me and a rabbit who looks like he is constantly plotting something, we like to look at where we have been rather than where we are going, because where we are going sometimes looks like a bleak and scary place, like the Capital Wasteland, while where we have been is usually full of flowers and happy sunshine songs on dreary days, like every Nintendo game to date, some things excluded.

Now if the picture above isn't a big enough clue as to what this is about then I will introduce it here, today I will be slamming my fingers into cubes with letters on them to bring you the joy of Super Mario 64, a game so fun and revolutionary for its time that when Nintendo finally put it in cartridge form it tried to escape their facility on little plastic legs, after that incident Nintendo stopped putting little plastic legs on things, if only they had seen the error of their ways before the giving random objects eyes incident...

Now of course Mario 64 has laughably bad graphics, but no one is laughing because...well for its time they were the best and if it were not for the implementation of the whole 3D camera angle thing, well we'd have some pretty clunky games even to this day no doubt, Nintendo did everything right on this project, god damn do I love a revolutionary game!

The game itself is relatively plot line...less, basically Mario, as per usual, is drawn to Peach's castle on the premises of getting some delicious cake, whether she was kidnapped during the letters travel or before I don't know and I don't think it matters, what is also unexplained is whether Peach uses cake as some sort of strange and slightly sickening suggestion that Mario understands, that is doubtful because this is a kids game too, but it is a shame that Mario had never played Portal, he could've learnt a thing or two about Cake. Anyway Bowser happens, yada yada, Mario decides to save the day, etc, so you see it is your usual Mario game, I still love it though.

Overall the game is colourful, plenty to do and never a bore, unless you get all the 120 Power stars, in that case unless you have a sister like me you can watch while she flings Mario about like a rag doll and off a cliff you are out of luck, though as with many of you will probably agree, I would never trade the childhood memories of playing this game for all the "Please insert appropriate object and amount of said object here" and I don't know about you but that is a lot of "Said object". Thank you for reading this and have a pleasant...day...night? I don't know international times very well as is now very apparent.

P.S Those of you with a "Keen artistic eye" will notice the poor quality of the above images, for increased quality try one of these three suggestions.

Immediately obtain a glass of water and consume two tablets of "Manathehellupa", for increase results don't go back to your laptop until you have thought about what you have done.

Go around the internet and tell everyone about how bad the quality is, I hear that everyone loves a good old fashioned whiner.

Come under the sudden realisation that it is pretty hard to take a screen shot on your Wii and that the only other alternative was using your sisters IPotato.

[gamevortex-blog]

U Wiill still not believe it.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last past year or so you would have no doubt heard of Nintendo's Wii U being blurted out all over the internet, and enough information has been released to the general public allowing me to make a decent blog entry without looking like a horses ass if I get something wrong, it could still happen though. Like many others I have been looking forward to the next Nintendo console since before I can remember, and the Wii U is no exception to this tradition, I can proudly say that the only thing I would like to see more than the Wii U's release is R.Lee.Ermey, Adam West and George Takei having a conversation, I don't know about you but that would be pretty awesome.

As many may now know the basic feature of the Wii U is a handy dandy notebo-screen slap bang in the middle of your controller, this screen will basically work much like the second screen of the DS, giving game related information or menu's and etc, if that does not appeal to you then you will most likely be the hardest of the core gamers, Nintendo thought of you when they made their second controller, it is just a screen-less and more compact version of the first controller, for those games that require a more sophisticated and familiar controller.

Onto the system itself, the Wii U will be ditching backwards compatibility for the Gamecube (I guess it had to be done at some point) but compatibility with Wii games and functions will remain for now, just when I thought I was rid of the Wii-Mote eh? Anyway the inside will be your usual mechanics, I'm no engineer so I can't fill you in on much more than this tid bit, it will be more powerful than both the 360 and PS3 and will have HD compatibility but I suppose that is nothing new, all in all though it will give Nintendo a nice lead in sales for the future. The outside of the Wii U...I struggled for a while with a good way to describe it until my Dad gave me the answer, he said, and I quote, "Imagine if the Xbox 360 was designed by the Nintendo team." It roughly gets the point across though, if you are reading this Mr.Iwata, I am sorry if my father offended you.

A small list of games showing the new power of the Wii U has also been announced, some of them include a re-release of Batman Arkham City, a brand new Mario brothers game and even Pikmin 3, there are many others but to list them all would be madness or at least a little bit Sparta. Those of you who enjoyed flopping about in your living room on the Wii Fit will be happy to hear that it is also returning, I even hear tell of a pedometer being involved somehow, just promise me that this time, instead of sitting on the sofa and wiggling your feet on the board slightly for the games, that you will actually stand up and do it like you're supposed to, the calories burned don't count if you are eating at the same time either.

Last but not least is that Nintendo is vamping up their online accessibility, it was a main complaint that the Wii didn't actually have much of an online feature and the Wii U will apparently solve the aforementioned issue, Nintendo will even be trying to make a way for you to re-download anything you may have downloaded on the Wii, aren't they just the sweetest.

The Wii U sure is shaping up to be a damn fine console, I only hope that the inbuilt control screen doesn't turn into a novelty much like the Wii Mote and the Wii Wheel, I want that to happen less than a bathing suit competition between R.le-you probably know where I am going with this, enjoy the mental image being burned into your mind, however I regret nothing!

[gamevortex-blog]

I wasn't aware that birds could hold grudges.

Angry birds, both addictive and one of the few games on a smart phone that makes you yell "If you don't destroy everything that pig loves I will fling you into the ground next time!" Now don't get me wrong I like Angry Birds but as with every other game, I have something to say, but we will get to that point.

For those who are smart phone or Angry Bird impaired I will explain, the game is about birds...and they are angry because green pigs took their eggs...and ate them, you still following this? So in a bid for revenge they fling themselves from a catapult and explode against the pigs houses in an attempt to collapse them, the surviving birds (if any) celebrate the sacrifice their comrades made by making strange squawking noises and tallying points on how much damage they did to the pigs society, if the tally is high enough the birds will be granted stars from the gods themselves as a reward for their blood lust.

There, I explained it with only the slightest amount of exaggeration, though it is hard to believe the amount of product's this thing is churning out, a good example is the Angry Birds catapult toy, if playing it on the IPhone wasn't enough now you can accidently blind your friends by firing hard plastic birds into sharp plastic blocks, or something of the like. Talks of a children's TV show and even a theme park or play park are lining the internet, speaking of which who is buying eight year old children an Iphone in the first place? When I was a kid a BrickBoy with a copy of Kirby was all I needed, and the only reason it survived my childhood was because it was lined with material resistant to even a nuclear explosion, Kid's are bad at looking after most things let alone a freaking IPhone, but I digress.

Angry Birds is fun, granted, but correct me if I am wrong but I don't think they were the first ones to use the whole catapult and destruction thing, they were just the first ones to profit from it thanks to the IPhone, though like I said, I could very well be wrong, take what I said with a pinch of salt.

Either way Rovio Entertainment has created a work of art that will no doubt continue to distract us from our more serious issues and help us deal with those issues when we finally do decide to do something about them, plus have you seen the amount of money it is making, something like $70 million, I don't know about you but I think that is damn nice for what started off as a IPhone game, no wonder rumours persist about Apple trying to take over the Gaming industry, I think I heard one about Valve and Apple discussing the possibility of making a console together, if there is any truth in it or not I don't know.

P.S I can't quiet remember but the catapult in Angry Birds, isn't it a slingshot? Either way where did birds find that technology and the knowledge required to use it? The world sure is a confusing place these days.

[gamevortex-blog]

Actual Combat? Hell no, let's have a disco in space!

After walking to a car boot sale that was beginning to close as we (Me & Sister) arrived and drinking a whole bottle of cola flavoured Lukozade I felt ready to update my blog. Anyone who has looked at my other content will see that I am not a huge fan of games of movies or games of books, or other such nonsense. Yet today I am going to talk about a game which was a hit among Starwars fans, the one I am talking about is Starwars Battlefront one & two and maybe the elusive and as yet non-existent third.

SWBF as I shall call it from now, is a pretty simple game, the way it works is you have two time lines, a war with clones and robot's or other such stuff, and another more classic timeline between men who can't find the right droid's and rebellious men & women who should just give up and let Darth Vader win because he always wins, except that one time. Once a space of time is chosen you then get to fight on many classic planet's and locations like Tatooine's Mos Eisley or Hoth's rebel base, you then must fight over control of command points using soldiers of specific skills & abilities, a Wookie warriors crossbow's or a Droideka's shield alike, while making the most of defense turrets and Vehicles when present.

The second game is roughly the same except all flight capable vehicles are moved onto a new game mode, which is basically space battles because some people just couldn't handle being shot to dust by a low flying tie fighter, also each faction received an officer ranked class and situational control over "Hero's", each chosen hero varies from location to location e.g, Darth Vader on Hoth and Han Solo in Mos Eisley.

Now that I have explained it to those who haven't heard, played or seen it I can move on to another subject while remaining on the matter, like why Lucas Arts has decided to make the Emperor and Darth Vader have a "Funky dance battle" instead of giving us a game we have long awaited and actually want. In fact SWBF3 is actually supposed to have of been finished at the point that it was cancelled, yet we still get mixed messages from more sources than I care to name, telling us that it will happen or won't happen, it makes the thick slurry of sugary acid that is my blood, boil in confusion.

I don't know the ins or outs of what they are doing and I don't even pretend to know about it in the slightest, the best analogy I can think of for this is if 343 or Activision were to suddenly say "Hang on, we decided not to keep working on the sequel to a hit game, instead we will spend our money on disco dancing Cortana's/Soap Mctavish's!" I could be wrong and I still respect what their doing, even if that is hard for you to believe, but while SWBF3 remains wrapped in a cloth derived from the very essence of secrecy and Lucifer's toilet paper I shall feel incomplete, wait what's that? Max Payne 3 came out a while ago? Oh...screw the possibly forever incomplete game then.

All opinion's expressed therein blah blah apologise for mistakes in text, offensive writing or/and incidental false information etc etc more legal jargon, you have probably stopped reading and moved on, if not then you are either a good person or George Lucas, if the latter then please don't sue, my wallet is nothing but leather and moth corpses anyway, stupid global economy...

P.S The comment above was not supposed to imply that George Lucas was or is a bad person, desecration of beloved Sci-fi, accidental or otherwise, aside I am sure he is quiet nice...

P.S.S I am aware that Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron has been announced, it is as much a sequal to the series as much as Battle Toads is the sequal to Gears of Wars 2, and how often has a PsP and DS exclusive, besides Nintendo classics, been better than anything an actual PC or console could achieve?

[gamevortex-blog]

I think I will stick with phone contract's.

When I use the word Hitman what instantly comes to mind? To some it is the person your ex-wife will hire to avoid giving half her stuff away during the divorce, but that is slightly disturbing and not what I am talking about, I am talking about the bald headed bad ass Agent 47, seriously this man gives people who wear suit's a good name.

Now for those who haven't played any of the Hitman games let me explain a little bit about it for you, all the games follow a similar pattern where you are dropped in an area where you must use your cunning, guile and bad assery to eliminate a given target/'s, more often than not the target is someone who deserves to be assassinated, so you can feel good about yourself at the end of it, in a weird sort of way that sound's slightly disturbing.

Many have criticised this game and many more have praised it, personally I love it but you have probably already guessed that, it seem's that the community of gaming is split with this game, some call it difficult, boring and altogether a waste of money. Those who like it however tend to respond much the same way as a majority of critiques, a sort of mixture of pleasure and disappointment suggesting that Eidos Interactive has done one thing or another wrong, no one is perfect.

When I first played Hitman I fell in love with the whole thing, the scenario's, the game play and most certainly at how in depth some of the level's were, the thrill of leaving a level in a sweet suit with the knowledge that your mission went off without a hitch and no witnesses, it feel's pretty rewarding. Not that I am one to complain but Mr.47's suit is so awesome I can't help but wish that it was involved in the game more, not that stealing someone else's clothes isn't fun or anything...that came out wrong.

It has been six year's since 47 has painted our screen's with his black suit and blood of his enemies but this year (2012) he will be making his return in "Hitman Absolution", so far many gamer's have complained that the game play seem's one track compared to the earlier title's and that Square Enix has already messed the game up. While the game seem's to be taking a Splinter Cell turn for the worst we can only wait and see what happen's, I for one will welcome this HD Hitman, even if he does suck worse than...there are too many games to use as an analogy.

Well that is that said and done, I hope you enjoyed my description and praise on the subject of bar coded assassin's, keep gaming and stay beautiful, yeah that is definitely not my personal sign off...for more gaming literature visit my blog page immediately...no that one isn't right either, sounds too clingy, I will get it right one day.

[gamevortex-blog]

Needs more Bass.

It has just been over a week since I made a blog post so I am feeling a little rusty, not to mention that earlier today during a conversation between my sister and I about Viggo Mortensen she technically challenged me to write a post while listening to a song from the weird part of youtube, if you feel so inclined to read this as I have written it then click here.

Anyway I decided to write about a section of video gaming that is often overlooked by many, the musical section, it is an important part of a game as the graphics, I believe that personally anyway. After all who does not think of the classic monk chanting when Halo comes up in a conversation, or perhaps you are more of a Final Fantasy fan and love every song to have of ever existed in it, either way you have to admit nothing makes slaughtering your enemies more enjoyable than a nice soundtrack.

Some games come with a feature to listen to your own music collection, most notably in older racing games, but even though it enables more modern music to be played I find that feature lazy, after all a good soundtrack is extremely important to the very fabric of a game and skipping that is clearly an attempt to dodge spending more money, then again I can't imagine racing with an opera singer screeching in the background.

I guess I didn't prove much with that last point, here is another, try playing Gears of War to The Queens classic Bohemian Rhapsody, yeah the song is great but can you chainsaw Locust soldier's in half to it? I bet not, if you can then well done you earn a gold star, I do not supply the star so talk to your closest internet provision supplier, I know they don't exist, sorry.

Horror games are another genre that need a specific type of music, it needs to be quiet enough as not to disturb the concentration required to not suddenly void your bowels, yet able to create a sense of urgency so everything feels rushed and dangerous. I can't say how many times a horror game has either, made music that suddenly picks up for no reason and makes me cry even when there is no present danger, or is practically non-existent.

As is clear to even the most basic musician and average internet dweller, music is very important to everything and everyone, without Skyrim's epic intro music how else could a man outrun a train? Without Super Mario's classic tune how would we stomp on turtles and weird living mushrooms? Without the Classic Imperial March what would George Lucas use as a soundtrack to many terrible games, well they are not all bad but you won't see me dancing on the Kinect any time soon.

[gamevortex-blog]

Shenanigans in Tamriel.

Recently I have heard about a new MMO that a lot of people are going to be interested in, heck who doesn't like the idea of an Elder Scroll game going full MMO, yet being the gamer that I am I could say a few things about it, hey don't judge me yet, they are all logical and non offensive, do I look like a giant pair of gonads? Wait don't answer that...

Obviously if you are an Elder Scrolls fan your first reaction is one of two, "Oh my gowsh it will cheapen the series etc etc *face slam the keyboard*" or "Oh wow I cannot wait to play this until my fingers break against my mouse like sticks!" or something along those lines, sorry if I offended. If you aren't an Elder Scrolls fan then you probably haven't even read this far and you are most likely looking at something else, or you are such a gaming fan you will read this regardless of your opinion, you go girlfriend!

Personally my worry is this, Zenimax has only been making single player RP games of sorts, and in doing so have created games with such vast choices and opportunities verging close to reality, if reality was full of dragons and such. So when they make this game a large quantity of choices could be removed because they just do not fit inside an MMO, so we may end up with an elder scrolls game almost entirely deprived of freedom compared to, let's say Skyrim.

On a positive note, it's a freaking Elder Scrolls online game, you WILL buy this even if you don't want too, Zenimax just has that sort of control over the people who play their games, the only way that many of you would not buy this game is if the dragon born was real, and decided to slaughter all who know's of him/her, now would be a good time to wish you were bad at Skyrim and did nothing but talking and bartering.

On a slightly related note with the eventual release of Bethesda's Fallout MMO I will be left with very little time, admittedly I have no clue as to the release date of Fallout Online, and despite that Elder Scrolls Online has been said to be released 2013 I still think I will be going from Sword wielding hero, to Wasteland wanderer a lot at some point.

So let us all raise a metaphorical internet toast to The Elder Scrolls MMO, the place where all of us will no doubt be heading at some point, and even more likely never to return from.

I'm just going to leave this here... "I hereby swear that if this game or any related information therein turns out to be only a rumour, I will deny all knowledge of ever writing this and in turn will only ever respond to said question with an exasperated look, to of course cover my stupidity and gullibility on the subject." The last thing I want is to take an arrow in the knee (sorry) for making any possible mistakes.

[gamevortex-blog]

The Mushroom Kingdom's biggest event.

What is Italian, clothed in red garments and has a moustache like your creepy aunt from across town, of course I am talking about Mario, more specifically today I will be dealing with the Mario Kart series, if I were to talk about all the Mario games today you would be left with no time to do other internet stuff, like...cat pictures, or people posed provocatively, I doubt I need to go into more detail.

It all started in 1992 with the release of "Super Mario Kart" on the "Super Nintendo Entertainment System"...why am I only just noticing that Nintendo loves the word super...moving on from that, unfortunately I had not been given the chance to play that release of Mario Kart but in later years I would be playing "Mario Kart 64" on the "Nintendo 64", what a rich history full of nostalgia.

Naturally I played this game for as long as I can remember, but eventually as times moved on somehow me and the Nintendo 64 were parted, until the arrival of the Gamecube. Now going slightly off topic here, while many did not like the Gamecube, I must say I loved it as much as a boy could love a small box that made magic pictures. Anyway "Mario Kart:Double Dash" was something else wasn't it? Regardless I loved it, in fact it was the start of a little family history here for me.

Now be honest, we have all tried to get someone in our lives interested in video games, be it family or friend, I am no exception from this. It started with a little competitive time trail beating between me and my younger brother, we took turns racing down "Donkey Kong's Mountain" more times than I thought humanly possible, then eventually we bought more controllers and enticed our Dad to join in, now those were fun weekends. As you are probably aware boys playing video games is expected, but what happens next is far from the expected, it was a little fun trying to draw our mother into the game, eventually she caved and grabbed a controller, cue thunderbolts and dramatic music.

I am not sexist and in fact I enjoy a little female competition when playing video games, but when it is your mother who slowly learns to kick your ass when playing a video game it is something different, she learned to play that game like there was no tomorrow, thus ends the chapter of Mario Kart:Double Dash.

There was silence for a while and at a point our family bought a "Wii", with "Mario Kart Wii", at this point I knew that our mother would love the on line feature that was included, after a while of competitive Wii wheel racing mother joined the fray, and naturally she retrieved her racing skills and won again and again, at a cost. Now we've all heard those 8 year old foul mouthed zombie children over voice chat, well boy am I glad the Wii had no such feature, my Mum is not the biggest fan of swearing, heck few mothers are, but when she gets a hold of that remote it sounds like Morse-code coming back into action, if you understand me.

Well that was a bit of nostalgia for me and a history lesson for you about me, what a boring subject...well I deemed it pointless to write in detail about a game that many of you have probably played on your DS while on the toilet, come on you know I'm right. Anyway Mario Kart has been around for a while and will no doubt continue to exist for many more years, Viva la Nintendo, hope you enjoyed this extensive amount of text.

P.S Why Luigi for the image above? Because Luigi is awesome, and green is the new red.

[gamevortex-blog]

Why do all the bad thing's happen in the dark?

Are you afraid of the Dark? If not then you probably won't mind playing a game called Alan Wake, if my opinion is not enough to draw your attention then maybe this will be, Alan Wake is made by the same people who brought you Max Payne, cool, right?

Let's get on the road with this here blog post then, Alan Wake was released in 2010 as a psychological thriller of sorts, based on an author (Who totally suits that tweed jacket) trying to find his wife who was taken by the darkness. Honestly it is better than it sounds, the plot is well thought out, the game play is fun and not that hard to pick up (in my opinion) and I'd be lying if I said that this game did not make me jump more than once.

Now you may be thinking how can a single man fight darkness, well the interesting combat mechanism in this game is, wait for it, light! Yes indeed you have to fight with light, you have to use a flash light to fight off the darkness encasing normal human's, then destroy them with conventional weaponry, you are probably thinking that sounds a little unusual, how about this for a rebuttal, Whiplash used a rabbit on a chain as its main weapon...

This game is usually fun to play with other people around you, like most games which contain a fear factor, not because you need the company to keep your nerve, but rather because it is fun to watch others get scared. I always stayed close at hand to help my sister with this game, but she eventually had to stop playing because it was too hard on her heart, bless her.

So whether you are just looking for a good game to break a bad cycle, or you are looking for some darkness based fear, then look no further. Buy this game, wait until the sun goes down, pop on some nice headphones and enjoy, what's the worst that can happen, an axe murderer breaks into your home while you are distracted and slaughters you unaware? What's the chances of that ever happening...

Finally I would like to say thank you to Remedy for...please tell me you were paying attention, and to you for reading this lovingly made post, I hope you enjoyed it. You might want to keep your light's on tonight though, if you know what I mean.

[gamevortex-blog]

Insert addictive 8-bit Tetris music here.

I hate to admit it but I struggled with several ideas of what to write about, I still have to talk about Elder scrolls, I thought perhaps the Hit man series, but I guess I should talk about a classic, a game so well known that it has seen its way into jokes or reference in almost all great T.V shows and on-line comic artists alike and etcetera. Of course I am talking about Tetris, but now of course you are thinking, "There is no way that he can ramble about a game as simple as Tetris for several paragraphs" well think again, I gave ten reasons why beards and video games go well together, and I can do this!

Starting with the obvious, Tetris was originally just a small and simple game in my understanding simply played from one of those larger than a donkey computers, I could be wrong, but what I have only just discovered is that it hailed from Russia, from some fellow named Alexey Pajitnov, fascinating, but was later seen exploding onto Nintendo. Then even later released onto the brick Gameboy and then onto several other consoles in history, or something along those lines, I'm not a history teacher, my point is that for something so simple it has done incredibly well.

I have played many forms of Tetris, as I am sure you have, I have played it on the Nintendo and even a few attempted remakes of which failed to be as entertaining as the original, you can't change a classic, well you can try and fail. Now I will admit I wasn't even an organism when Tetris was first released around Moscow in 1984, but what I can say is that this game is so insanely addictive that even in this modern era, it can still grasp my attention long enough for it to steal hours of my life.

Few games created around that era even exist to this day, I think another one is Mario, but you have to respect its draw, I mean look, you are sitting here in the year 2012, or some unforeseen future, reading about a game made so long ago that people back then wore pelts, okay that's a bit extreme but I just wanted to emphasize how long ago it was.

I think that's all I can say...well to wrap it up, respect your video game elder and try playing an old classic once more, or ignore what I'm saying and go play Halo or something either way I'd never know. Tetris is still a highly respected and enjoyed game to this day, though If all these anti-video game things are true then Tetris is a sure fire way to become a construction worker, but you don't believe that malarkey...do you?

Just a final word, all thanks and inspirational stuff go to whomever own's the rights to the game, I think it might currently be Atari but I'm not 100% sure...

[gamevortex-blog]

Let me tell you a story...

You know, I was thinking the other day (As you do) about Fable and a thought crossed my mind, "Why haven't I written about it yet?" so of course now I will write about a game series which has changed the definition of the word Fable, go on google search that word, I bet the game is on top instead of the definition of the word...it was wasn't it?

Now being a gamer I highly approve of Fable 1-3 and thank Peter molyou...molyean...Peter Molyneux and his team at Lionhead Studios for its creation. Fable 1 was actually my very first game I had ever played which featured a good-evil alignment, whether that is good or bad I am not fully sure, I'm going with good.

Now the first time I played Fable 1 it was a busy day, now imagine my torment with this amazing game in front of me and unable to stay and continue playing it, life is hard sometimes, but eventually I was able to get back onto the metaphorical horse and play fable until my eyes were sore, I have a problem where video games tend to suck me in closer and closer into the screen...but enough about that, at the time I was fairly new to the Original Xbox so imagine my disappointment when having to play other games afterwards that were sub par, or at least by comparison, that is how good it was.

Here is the hard part, I...did not enjoy Fable 2 as much as I'd like to say, the weird part is I can't quite place what went wrong, maybe it was my unreal expectation of how good it will be after playing the first one more times than I am proud of, or possibly it was the ending, I won't divulge any information to ruin it for others but maybe you should, you know skip this part just in case, as the ending depressed the hell out of me, what can I say I'm a man who loves dog's...

Fable 3 rose high above my expectations though, which is really saying something believe it or not, as with the previous two the plot was great the characters were superb and, once again look away for a sentence for those who don't like spoilers, the ending made me sad...though I'd rather it was "Him" than another dog if you catch my drift, all in all fable 3 was an excellent game worthy of any game collection, after all who doesn't like to feel like royalty while in any game.

You know it is fairly hard for me to write about many game behemoth's such as this while keeping the text level low, as to be easier for you, the reader, so sometimes I feel as though I have messed up as I have not written as much as I could, but I suppose that is the way of things. I hope you enjoyed reading, what little there was, and I wish you a good day/night/evening etcetera.

On a related note if you ever discover the secrets of time travel, do me a favour and travel in time and tell me to wait a little longer and get "Fable The Lost Chapters", you would save me time and money.