Shank (by developer Klei Entertainment) is out for the Xbox 360 (via XBLA) and the PS3 (via PSN). If you love pulp action and over the top combat then this puppy is right up your alley. It is a 2D side scroller splattered with a unique art style (Samurai Jack meets graphic novel) and a satisfying combo building system. The action is fast and gory. You are Shank, a one man army of death and destruction who is out for revenge, armed with a blade, a chainsaw, and dual pistols. Each weapon represents a type of attack: the blade is your melee, the chainsaw is your power attack, and the pistols are your ranged. As you progress you unlock additional weapons for each “slot” and can toggle between them during game play. Continuous hits builds up chains and different button combos result in a ton of stylish attacks. The game even features 11 costumes that can be unlocked for your character.

If you are rockin’ any mini-me’s then expect to be firing this game up late at night (when they are asleep) or while your significant other has them out at dance practice for the afternoon. Gore, profanity, and juicy audio will pump out of your TV and speakers throughout the duration of your campaign of vengeance.

One thing to be aware of: there is an issue that the team at Kei is working on fixing that is resulting in choppy playback of the opening cinematic and long load times between levels on the Xbox 360. Sounds like they will have this fixed soon so don’t hate. Besides, they kick ass. Need proof? Their game rocks and they released the soundtrack for free! Get it here.

This game is retro-laced, 4 player co-op goodness to the core. It is a RCR clone with references abound to classic 8 bit titles. You can play as one of four characters with the ability to level up stats and moves on each one. The couch co-op (no online play via the Playstation Network) is pure bliss. The essence of teamwork is defined by the ability to pick up your partner while they are laid out and proceed to hammer on enemies with their face running point. I’d recommend turning off friendly fire in the options though as things get hectic on the screen when your squad gets rushed by a ton of goons. Don’t fret though, turning off team damage only disables the damage done by your base melee attacks. You can still pick up a bat (or any other Object of Mass Destruction) and tee off on your pal(s) with it. Oh, btw, the game has bats and balls. So you can play some stick ball in between fights (or drill the batter with a 4 seamer from point blank). For those of you who are new to the RCR type game play, each level is littered with objects like bats, brooms, buckets, trash cans, tires, and more that can be picked up, used as weapons, used as a lightsaber (you can block incoming objects, no matter the size, if you are holding an object and swing at the incoming object…it’s very technical) stood on to gain the high ground, or even as transportation (have a buddy chuck a tire and try and hop on top of it).

Just like River City Ransom, there are levels with shops that one can purchase anything from a cd of your nemesis band The Clash at Demonhead (the song Black Sheep by Metric in the movie kicks ass) to some nachos and even sushi! These can be used to refill health or permanently boost stats. One can earn money for purchases by collecting coins that baddies drop when you mop the streets of Ontario with them. So make sure you get your loot on early and often if you are playing with other humans (there is no communal coin purse, however you can lend cashola if you feel so inclined).

If you are longing for a 2D game with that retro 8 bit feel (and sound) to play with some friends then this game is a shoe in. If you never experienced River City Ransom with a friend then you should get on Scott Pilgrim and cut your teeth, then go out and get River City Ransom to learn the history.

I hate RTS’s. That’s a fact. Rapid mouse twitching and clicking should be reserved for hacking and slashing the demon-spawn of hell and being a Johnny-on-the-spot lewt hog. Keyboard mastery is a worthy skill set for typing up these posts or cracking under pressure (NSFW…as if anyone actually reads this at work). Macro-managing an economically-driven war machine is more like a job than a game.

So, I totally geeked all over my desk when StarCraft II released. How did this happen? For starters, the single player campaign mode is a great way to ease into the complexity of an RTS. Isolated missions with short-term objectives that are laced with replayability incentives in the form of achievements serve to draw you in. A challenge mode that illustrates how to counter units is a non-intimidating method of teaching the laymen RTS rat the intricacies of the art of war. However, as every StarCraft whore knows, multiplayer is where it’s at.

I hate 1v1. My personality is definitely more Magic than Jordan. I would rather elevate my brochachos than exterminate (or more specifically, get my ass candy painted by) some Void Ray rock star. Fortunately I have a set of “Real IDs” that cut their chops on the first StarCraft, and StarCraft II lets me recruit up to 3 of them to take on either the computer A.I. or venture into the Ladder system and actually play other humans. Now this, I find enjoyable. I like being able to focus on a tech or two and just build while relying on my teammates to handle all the other crap. And when the game reaches the 30 minute mark and I have officially lost the will to macro-manage I can always just build some silos and cold war some bugs…or my allies (evil grin). Nuclear launch detected!

btw – I am Zerg rushing Twitter with updates on game releases and news as I come across them while I am working…um, researching. Follow it: liquidsneezes

I have been catching up on the Clone Wars via DVR as of late. Season two is darker and littered with lightsaber action, I love it. Last month I posted about Assassin’s Creed 2, another round two. This past Tuesday I powered through the last bits of Mass Effect 1, getting my mack on to try and score some blue alien tail and to finish off the story before I picked up my copy of Mass Effect 2 at midnight at our local GameStop. If you have never done a midnight release, and you consider yourself a hardcore gamer or even a gaming addict then you owe it to yourself to at least experience it once. These events are not long and it is certainly not like camping out for Jedi, but it is pretty slick when you find out that 2 million units of the game are moved in the first four days and you can say that you were one of the first of those. Oh yeah, then there are the social network achievements too:

I know the year is young, but I think it is deserving of the moniker “Year of the Sequel”, or maybe even “Year of the Empire Strikes Back Quality Sequel” (wow, Star Wars nerd alert, 4th reference in just one and a half paragraphs). Mass Effect 2 is flat out bad ass. Time Magazine has the best “one line review thingy that you see floating around aimlessly on those commercials that run a couple weeks after a movie has been released in theatres”:

…it’s the Avatar of video games – except it’s better written.

Allow me to iterate over that statement and break it down. Avatar was a tremendous visual experience. It flexed CGI’s muscles and showed the world what really can be achieved via digital effects. It also made the new 3D experience feel, well, comfortable and fitting. Everything just worked great visually and you weren’t left to ponder details such as character run animations or illogical data screens. ME2 has the same…effect. This game is polished like your grandpa’s bowling ball and as fine tuned as your father-in-law’s restored Chevy. The graphics, the tech, the game play, they all just exist and absorb you into the fictional world.

Avatar’s story…you know that part in Big Trouble in Little China where that thug gets all “5 year old pissyfit” upon seeing his boss lying dead and holds his breathe until he explodes and the contents of a bag of garbage from your kitchen comes flying out of him? Fill that garbage bag up with the stories of Dances With Wolves and The Matrix, the concept art from World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and a Mad Libs book for coming up with people/place/thing names like “Pandora” and “Unobtainium”, then stuff it in an inflatable human mannequin and blow it up in 3D across the world and self-proclaim it epic and you’ve got Avatar.

Mass Effect 2’s story…print it out and make sweet whoopie to it. It’s that damn good! BioWare has crafted a darker story line that starts off infectiously and festers in your mind until you find yourself making excuses to stop work early or put the kid to bed at 4:30. Continuing on the legacy of your version of Shepard is extremely satisfying. My Shepard was a fairly nice guy in the first game, however going through hell to save the human race only to be rewarded by getting killed and reborn tends to change one’s outlook on the galaxy. Fortunately the story this time around allows me to handle my business like a true forgotten hero should.

ME2 is everything that I expected ME1 to be. When ME1 came out there were all these killer concepts like traversing the galaxy to visit remote planets, hacking systems and accounts, and being heroic or maniacal. It failed to live up to those on an immersive level. ME2 has resolved all of those issues. Gone is the pain of driving the stupid Mako and those trips to other systems that result in 3 orbiting planets that only exist to fill your codex with words that belong in a book. Each non-accessible planet can now be mined for resources that can be used to upgrade weapons, armor and other tech. Hacking actually feels like you are getting your hack on. No more flashing controller button patterns to mimic. The new hack system has you picking out matching blocks of scrolling source code or pairing up icons on a circuit board (which I think would make an awesome iPhone game…so if anyone at BioWare is reading this, please contract me to be the lead Game Designer on that one…). Finally, we are able to walk the true path of either a Paragon or a Renegade with ME2. Just like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (another BioWare epic), our actions towards light or dark not only change our appearance but also progress the story and our NPC interaction down different avenues.

All of this reeks of the smell of replayability, and the way they nailed the Sci-Fi experience has my anticipation for BioWare’s next project, Star Wars: The Old Republic, reaching critical mass.

The Assassin’s Creed series is back with its second installment. The game play in the first one was extremely addictive and part two follows the same creed.  But it doesn’t stop there. Unlike most “cash in” sequels out there in gamesville, this episode looks to improve on the formula. We get to spend less time out of the Matrix and more in the virtual past, this time set in Italy. Our historical avatar is a ladies man with a burning desire for revenge which by my standards is a perfect characteristic package for a would be assassin (’cause we all know real life assassins aren’t psychologically fragile CIA dropouts).

We are treated to a plethora of new features in part deux. There are vendors in each city that sell weapons and armor upgrades. There are doctors that will give you a leech bath (to refill your health) and there are art vendors that sell historical paintings. Where do these paintings go? Do you store them up that GAP inspired male skirt? No sir, you adorn the walls of your estate with them. That’s right, this time around you’re big pimpin’. You get your own manor early on and you get a chance to stash all of your digital historic goodies there. All of the weapons and armor you purchase are stored in your casa and you can switch your load out with a quick visit home. Quick visit home? That’s right, there are quick travel vendors. Some dude with horses and a buggy is waiting around for your coins to take you to a loading screen between cities (note that this is faster than leaving the city walls and riding out to a loading screen in the mountains). And your home…it comes with a city! You can spend your Robin Hood duckets on city improvements and score discounts on your future purchases when you buy goods from vendors in your city.

Apparently Assassin’s Creed was the gateway drug and AC2 is the crack. Now I have an addiction to climbing up to rooftops and leaping around like a monkey in a rain forest as well as the desire to beautify my home and keep the people of my city prosperous. And I am even more addicted to the technique of assassination now, thanks to sweet new moves like the ability to stabby stab by launching off of a rooftop and down onto a target and the double stab (you can obtain an assassin’s blade for each hand and can take out 2 targets at the same time). Getting to your target is no longer limited to scaling buildings or hiding among crowds. There are NPC groups that are available for hire. Thugs can be hired to start a fight with a target or guards. And hookers, I mean, female escorts, are available to seduce your marks (and yes, they will whisper sweet nothings to you while you travel in a pack to your destination). You can hop on a banana boat and row your way through the canals. Or you can get your swim on. Hell, you can even climb up to the crow’s nest on ships and dive into the water!

Sure, there’s a great fictional story sprinkled with historical facts that you will play through. The characters are strong and the dialog is not too campy. But the real joy in this puppy is all the cool stuff that you get to do on your own. It’s like playing with GI Joe (not the 12 inch stuffed dolls that old people used to own) or Star Wars action figures all over again, which is a great feeling when you have a daughter and the only ass-kicking you can do during play time involves having the “daddy” doll tell “brother” and “sister’ that they have to set the table in the doll house.

One parting note, try out the “walk-by-pickpocketing”. If you ever had a hidden desire to goose Italian town folk this will satiate your needs. Although I recommend goosing the females over the males as to maintain your masculinity (but if you are a chick, don’t worry, I’m quite comfortable with you goosing other women).

That’s all, drive thru.

This past Saturday I rolled over to Jack in the Box, ripped off all my clothes down to my boxers and scored a 20% off any used game at GameStop. Since any discount above 10% is enough of an excuse for me to buy a new game it was time to pick up my copy. If you haven’t been keepin’ up on current events, the new Batman game has been building hype for the past year. It has definitely lived up to that hype. I popped that puppy in on Saturday night after the little squirt went to bed (around 7:30pm) and didn’t shut down the PS3 until about 2am. It was like bat scat crack.

The game is a 3rd person action game in which you can build combo moves while taking on multiple enemies. It also has a detective mode in which you are constantly looking for data and clues to progress the story line and unlock achievements. The fighting is extremely rewarding and the usage of your bat tech is a blast. But the game really shines in its overall production value. This game has Call of Duty 4 style and feel. It immerses you in blockbuster content and the insanity of the asylum and the villains within its walls seeps through your TV and digital surround to infect your gaming cortex. There are moments in which your environment gradually morphs into different locales and there are even points at which you are put into a 3d side scroller mode. Amazingly, these changes are smooth and super engaging.

I am a picky SOB when it comes to my games. I know how massive of a project it is to build software on a large scale, but I also believe that when you have a large budget you should be able to produce a worthwhile product. Most games have at least a handful of moments or elements in which I find myself pondering how the hell that could make it out the door. It is rare when I come across a game that doesn’t feel 100% polished. CoD4 was one of those rarities. Add Batman: Arkham Asylum to that list.

Two parting notes, Harley Quinn is hawt and I couldn’t stop saying “I’m Batman” out loud after laying out a bunch of thugs.

Cataclysm was announced as the third expansion for World of Warcraft. Cracka (you’ve seen him post comments here) actually broke the news of the new races to us prior to Blizzcon so the introduction of the Worgen and the Goblins lacked a little thunder. The huge ass backdrop of the main stage made up for that with a wicked image of a Worgen thirsting for blood. Then, on day two when I sat down to play the Cataclysm demo, the Worgen became about as exciting as the DVD copy of Twilight my wife bought while I was at the conference. I’m pretty sure she picked it up at the same moment I shape shifted from the non-combat human form into a Worgen for the first time. Like our DVD collection, there was a ton of potential to be great, and then you go and check out the run and combat animation and you find yourself staring down the throat of some snogging tweenage vamps. I played Cataclysm for one sitting, splitting time between the Worgen and the Goblin. The goblin on the other hand, well, that wasn’t anything to write home about either. At least I was able to use the race specific skill “rocket jump” to get to the roof of the 3 story shipwreck at the starting zone. They should really consider putting epic loot in hard to reach world locations to reward exploration nuts like me.

A playable version of the campaign mode of Starcraft II was available this year. I typically lose little to no sleep over RTS games. However, I am partially geeked up on this one. I love the sci-fi lore of the Starcraft series. The demo brought back memories of the only other RTS game that ever managed to earn my time, Warcraft II (surprise surprise, another Blizzard game). The campaign mode tones down the focus on resource management and pumps up the storyline simulation. The first release of SCII will contain the Terran campaigns, so the demo had us playing as space marines. We were treated to a GUI that consisted of the bridge of a starship in which we were able to pick a system to assault. My selection took me to a mission in which I was tasked with the safe transport of refugees from an outpost to a shuttle landing bay in an attempt to get them off world to safety. For me that beats the hell out of dueling some actual human. Like the Cataclysm demo, I played this one only once.

That was about it for games at Blizzcon…NOT! Diablo frakin’ III. I felt it only fitting that I play it three times. They announced the Monk class and included it in the demo. It was ok. We had about 15-20 minutes to get a session in and then it was back in line. It just wasn’t enough time to snuggle in with the skill set of any class, let alone the Monk. That being said, I am sure that it will be a fun class once the game goes gold and we get to play from apprentice to master. My other two rounds were played as the Barbarian and the Wizard. My buddy was a Wizard when I played the Barbarian. That combo is going to be vicious. The area stun (Barbarian) combined with the frost nova (Wizard) provided some serious crowd control that could be followed up with AoE damage from both classes. The Wizard feels like it will play the same as the Sorceress class from Diablo II, nukability mixed with squishiness. When the first screenshots of the game were released a year ago there was a decent uprising of whiners that apparently got sand in their…well, they didn’t feel the art direction was up to par with the previous two releases. The Diablo franchise is hands down my favorite series of all time and having played and replayed the snot out of one and two I can safely say that three has the same immersive feeling as its predecessors. Oh, and the exploding corpses don’t have white pixels in the blood (don’t tell me that you petition toting, rainbow hating, unicorn murderers can’t recall that the other big D’s had soft porn blood…right, ok…that was supposed to be “bone simulation”…). Diablo III is shaping up just fine and can’t go gold soon enough.

With the close of Blizzcon came the end of my planned journeys for 2009. Time to settle in for the rest of the year and spend more time doing research for my writing…watch out stack of overly expensive games that were bought on release day and have about twenty miles of wear and tear on the tires. You will be slain, unless Q4 gets here sooner than later and your army grows in numbers with the release of Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, DJ Hero, Left 4 Dead 2, Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, and on and on…

P.S. – Go see District 9.

Blizzcon is in two days and once again I will be making the journey to attend. This will be the third year in a row. Blizzard has done an excellent job at making improvements each year, the latest being that you can order the same merchandise available at the convention from their online store prior to the event, thus eliminating the need to wait in long lines and lug around your goods. However, for some reason I find myself only mildly excited about this year. Maybe it is due to the fact that last year’s event packed the punch of the recently announced Diablo III title and subsequent playable demo on the floor. I’m just not feeling any anticipation of shock and awe to be unleashed. But there may be hope yet. It looks like The Guild actually has its own panel and season 3 is set to air via Xbox Live on August 25th…could we possibly be treated to a pre-screening of the first episode? If not then I guess I will settle for trading war stories with Codex about our employment time with Sears.

My daughter has been pwning Little Big Planet as of late. She just turned 5 and I was debating on whether or not she would get into it. There is definitely some complexity to it as you progress in levels. But that little booger is tearing it up. I should have never shown her how to grab other people. Now she uses that technique to keep me from beating her to the finish line. Plus she has mad Indy skills (pre Crystal Skull but post Young Chronicles) when it comes to swinging. I have to be honest here, my vision of parental success entailed having a child that can knock the bottom out of video games (and have a killer crossover)…so far the future is looking bright. That doesn’t put me in dorksville right? I want her to play ball too. That has to count for something. Hey, I voted to buy her sheets for her crib that were made out of basketball leather. Of course the wife shot that one down. No matter, my daughter and I are extracting our payback on her in Little Big Planet. We coordinate our jump and swings so that we maneuver the sponge on a rope just out of her reach and she falls to her doom! Muwahhaahaa!!! And before you go there, no, my other vision isn’t of molding her into Stewie (although that would have potential to be freakin’ sweet).

Madden 10 released this past week and I am pretty sure I will not be picking it up. The series has lost its allure for me over the past few years. (side note, daughter just asked me to play LBP while I am writing this) Madden was a perfect college game. Remember when we had a ton of time to burn and we had those two friends in our group that actually lived together. Their house was the perfect setting for getting together and playing our season games. We would take turns playing our scheduled games and occasionally we would get treated to the head to head matchup and trash talking would ensue over a couple of Dominos pizzas and beer. Yeah, I’m so over that era too. When it comes to Madden, I don’t really want to play it alone and I don’t want to play against some 14 year old online. All of my friends live in separate towns and most have families that keep them busy so there is no hope of a season. Sure, Madden 10 comes with an online franchise mode add-on, but it doesn’t come with a PS3 or Xbox 360 to play it on (not all of my friends are crack addicts like myself).

I know, I know. Single subject posts and micro-subject posts are not in the same ballpark, they ain’t the same league, they ain’t even the same freakin’ sport. But I’m the Liquid Sneeze blog master. I’ve got my technique down and everything. So next post I will deliver you what you expect.

We happy?

Now I know what you are probably thinking. Pac Man with its lounge fly sit down table, Tecmo Bowl with its multi-screen display, Gauntlet and its four player setup, Marble Madness and its roller ball control, Contra and its side scrolling co-op, Street Fighter II and itself, all vessels of awesomeness. The arcade world gave us a ton of ways to play and to have fun. Well, as bad ass as it was to go to the arcade, the NES was to be our savior. No more burnin’ quarters or waiting in lines to get on the Space Ace machine. No more bummin’ a ride to the mall off of your friend’s older sister. We were going to be able to game till we dropped in the comfort of our own homes.

Our NES was spawned and a ton of unique titles followed that sent us in a frenzy. We played the snot out of Super Mario Brothers, Zelda and Metroid. For a while, we were blinded by the light. We had forgot about the dream of playing arcade games in our homes. Then the Nothing came and sent our dreams into darkness. We were treated to garbage recreations of Donkey Kong and Gauntlet. TMNT was such a bastardization of an arcade legend that we found ourselves playing Battletoads in an attempt to disassociate our Turtles from that setting. And then came the legend of the Double Dragon.

Double Dragon was the king of the arcade world. The day that it was announced that there would be a version for the NES was the first time that an article in Nintendo Power was actually read instead of skimmed for cheat codes. The day it was released Toys R Us didn’t even get a chance to hang those ticket tags on their displays, they just handed them to the 15 rich kids that were waiting for the store to open. We all put our names on the list at the local video store in hopes of renting one before we were old enough for high school. Eventually we tracked down one of those rich kids that scored a copy and convinced them that we were their new BFF. And then we played it…

Talk about a buzz kill. It was like Pac-Man on the 2600, only we were old enough this time to be pissed. The game lacked all of the style of the arcade version. Granted, the NES was only 8bit so in hindsight it was not going to be able to recreate the same feel as the arcade, but it was as if the developers didn’t even try. The release of the double D ushered in the realization that the NES would never fully replace the arcade experience.

Now we find ourselves in a so called retro-revival period. Both Xbox Live Arcade and the PSN Store are fighting for our 80’s gaming souls. While they have delivered some incredible titles like Pac Man CE and Space Invaders Extreme that have allowed us to relive classics in a new era, they have also awoken the arcade port suck machine. Apparently they have found new ways (in HD) to make the same retro games nothing like their arcade parents. TMNT: Turtles in Time looks like 4 Gumby’s in a crowded room. Golden Axe, I think my daughter can work MS Paint and create better graphics than that. There is even a version of Double Dragon. For piss sake, this is next-gen! Can someone please make an exact replica of the Double Dragon arcade game before I get too old to finger both of my analog sticks at the same time?

Instead of looking back on the arcade generation with smiles that beam like rainbows and farts that smell like roses, I am taunted by the missed opportunities of the home consoles. I get cold sweats whenever I go back to the arcade room at Circus Circus. Thankfully our local mall is long gone and I will never get the urge to cash in my daughter’s allowance for some tokens and a shot at getting a turn on Spy Hunter.

This one goes out to anyone who has ever left their NES on pause while they went to school.

I touched on the time factor in my last post and want to expand upon how it affects us 20+ gamers (30’s the new 20 so I am re-categorizing us). Gaming is done in micro blocks with the occasional multi-hour session when the kid is in bed or we are not working overtime at our jobby jobs. We need to be able to maximize our game play time. Making progress for 30 minutes only to die and have to reload from the last save point is so “last gen”. We might as well go back to writing down 24 character pass words to load our games.

I am getting close to polishing off Mass Effect and have found myself saving after almost every battle. It’s not that I want to save constantly, but lets face it, I don’t have the time to spare to drive my 8 wheel land rover for 10 minutes and then have the power steering go out and dump me into intergalactic lava. Honestly, has there ever been a vehicle more frustrating to drive than the Mako? We all know that games cheat (stupid computer) every once in a while. Back in the day we would just bitch about it, but it really didn’t affect our gaming sessions. Now, however, that crap is more than an annoyance. A game that takes 15 minutes out of my life might as well be taking food off of my baby’s plate (fine, that’s a stretch, but it’s definitely robbing me of something).

Gone are the days of bragging to your friends about how you beat Ikari Warriors in one sitting. We don’t have time nor the babysitters for that. So we leverage the save functionality, a habit formed from our time in the workplace where software is abundant and maintaining data integrity is mission critical. Maybe game designers never save their design docs, leaving them open on their desktop and delaying their Windows Updates every 4 hours to avoid the reboot. Mass Effect actually has a counter built into the save screen that tells you what save number you are on. It’s bad enough that every developer and their mother are riding the achievement bandwagon, but to have a game point out your pathetic inability to power through without a do-over each time you go to save is like dropping 25 cents on a sticky hand. The first fling is not so bad, but each successive fling results in the hand picking up more and more gunk and becoming less sticky and more un-fun until you want to feed that POS to the dog to see if it will pass all of the way through the next day. Freakin’ sweet! Up in space aboard the Normandy time must be infinite. Well down here it’s our time, our time down here. And that is all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket (or get a request to play freeze dance).

By the way, I have saved this post about 30 times since I started writing it. That’s how I roll!