Michael DeLozier
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Posts by Michael DeLozier
Halo Legends
Mar 16th
Queue the epic music!
Halo Legends is a movie that shows what happens outside of the videos games themselves. There are eight individual stories. Each one is more unique than the last. Every story is animated by a different world leading animator from Japan. Some are CG, some are anime, and one is a strange type of anime with a crazy filter on top of it trying to give it an old samurai feel.
Each story is unique in it’s own way, but at one point you will see something that will make your jaw drop in amazement at what they have just done. One story features a spartan known as Spartan 1337. Now at this point I knew it was going to be stupid. S1337 falls out of a Pelican into a world that seems a little prehistoric. It turns out to be a mix of Dragon Ball with Halo and it felt at that point that they were just crossing the line. Due to the length of this story and all the others, I will not go into anymore detail as it would ruin it.
The animators seems to have liked the idea of a female spartan as there is at least three in this entire collaboration. They are very badass and I like the sense of a female spartan just to show that it isn’t only for males.
The first two stories that you will watch are the origins of the Halo universe. Cortana narrates both of them and it explains the history between the Forerunners and The Flood. It is a very well told story and it kept me interested the whole way through.
You may find that this collaboration of stories have some really dumb, funny, serious, and just downright awesome moments in them. As much as I liked some of them, I hated others. One of them features the Arbiter in a village in samurai clothing. He has a wife and I didn’t even know there existed female Elites. Nothing in it is explained at all and there is a god awful filter over the entire thing. The one about Spartan 1337 also lost my interest as I don’t see Halo being a comedy in anyway whatsoever. The only thing I found interesting about it is someone that they claim to be “Mother.”
The special features are interesting but there aren’t that many to choose from. I enjoyed this movie as I did buy it on Blu-ray and did get to enjoy the amazing quality of the animations. It’s 119 minutes in length and I’m not so sure if I’ll find myself coming back to watch this that much. I recommend this movie as a rent and not a buy. If you insist on purchasing this movie if you are a Halo fan such as myself, then try Wal-Mart or an online store as they seem to have the cheaper prices.
Interesting stories, dumb stories, and amazing stories. Not many reasons to rewatch, but it has it’s moments. Halo Legends is probably only for the hardcore fans, and the final verdict is:
Magnavox Odyssey
Mar 12th
I mean, who doesn’t love Analogic?
The Magnavox Odyssey was designed by a man named Ralph Baer. He is a German American video game pioneer, inventor, engineer, and widely known as ‘The Father of Video Games’. In the year 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology for inventing the home console for video games and spawning the video game industry. So in turn, you can thank him for all the gaming we have today. He began working on a prototype of the Odyssey known as the Brown Box in 1966 and finished it in 1968. The Brown Box can be seen in the Nation Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. After the Odyssey was released, the Odyssey² shortly followed only 6 years later. But that is a retrospective for another day.
This first generation console was released in August of 1972. Sales suffered due to the terrible marketing by Magnavox retail stores. Many consumers thought that the system would only work with Magnavox televisions, thus decreasing sales that much more. The boxes later had ‘Works on any television set, black and white or color’ written on them.
The system is as simplistic as you can get. The Odyssey used cartridges which were just little cards with numbers on them. The games that were made for the Odyssey only had slightly different programming as the games didn’t use graphics. The console only uses little lights the shape of squares/rectangles on the screen and you place overlays on your television screen to simulate graphics.
When you look at the controllers, you will wonder what everything does. Well, it’s just a block on a thick cord with 3 knobs and a button. One knob is for vertical movement and the other is for horizontal. The last mini knob is pretty much used to screw with the game. In other words you could call it the first cheating system in video games. The button on top is just a reset button; self explanatory. You will find that the cords on the controllers are short and bulky, so in order to play you will need to move the console closer. There was also a light gun that was produced. This gun looks nothing like you would see in todays market. It literally looked like a rifle. The light gun was used for a game called Shooting Gallery and detected light. If you wanted to, you could cheat by holding it up to a light bulb as it only needs to detect light to count as a hit.
The games may be simplistic and dumb looking, but you’d be surprised how much fun you could have just by screwing around with it! If you have one or plan on getting one, just have a friend over and just try different stuff out. Maybe play Simon Says or even just the basic Table Tennis (aka Pong). Sometimes the simplest things can be the most entertaining.
The Magnavox Odyssey only sold around 330,000 units. To find one now would probably be hard and expensive at that. If you can get your hands on a working one, then you should definitely buy it. This is first video game console to ever be made. It’s the first game device to use video signals.
Ralph Baer is possibly the biggest person in gaming history. He’s currently 88 years of a age and he seems to be going strong still. Ralph, you will always be a gaming god!
Modern Warfare 2 – Gold = Silver
Mar 12th
Activision has announced that Modern Warfare 2 will be receiving DLC on March 30th, 2010. The DLC pack is known as the “Stimulus Package”. Due to this release, there will be a celebration! Everyone get ready for this… Silver members on Xbox LIVE will be able to play Modern Warfare 2 online between the dates of March 12th and March 15th of 2010. This should make a lot of Silver members want to break out the money for a Gold membership. Infinity Ward said that earlier this week that since Modern Warfare 2’s release, it has been played online by over 25 million people.
So who’s planning on buying this new DLC to release at the end of this month?
Perfect Dark coming to XBLA
Mar 11th
The original Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64 is going to be resurrected in HD glory on XBLA this March! It’s going to be released on March 17th, 2010 and will run you only 800MSP ($9.99USD). It will include all of the original content but completely redone in 1080p. It features up to 8 player versus as well as 2 player co-op on and offline.
“Agent Joanna Dark hit the ground running in Perfect Dark, an epic tale of galactic conspiracies in 2023 America. Now this classic shooter comes to Xbox LIVE Arcade, rendered in greater definition and detail and sporting a silkier framerate than ever before. Fire up your Farsight and prepare for assignment—the Dark returns this winter.”
This game is your typical first person shooter and has a wide variety of weapons. This game is very similar to one of Rare’s earlier title, GoldenEye 007. Perfect Dark has a wonderful story and the multiplayer will have you coming back for more.
Perfect Dark features Agent Joanna Dark. She is sent on a mission to investigate suspicious reports from a dataDyne insider calling himeself Dr. Caroll, who is actually an AI. After the raid on dataDyne, Daniel Carrington (found of the Carrington Institute) is held captive at his private villa by dataDyne soldiers and forced to tell them where Dr. Caroll has been hiding. Joanna’s mission is to rescue Carrington and Dr. Caroll of what has been happening.
I hope to see you all playing it on release! I know I will.
Atari 2600
Mar 10th
Oh Atari 2600, you look so lovely with your wood veneer.
The Atari 2600 is one of the earliest well known consoles. It was released on October 14, 1977 in North America. At release it was known as the Atari VCS (Video Computer System) but was later changed to Atari 2600 (the 2600 came from a part number) following the release of the Atari 5200. Atari’s masterpiece of a console popularized microprocessor based hardware. The system used a cartridge system which it would read the code and compile it to display and run a game.
At launch, the console was priced at $199.99 and included two joysticks and a cartridge of the game Combat. It was at one point rebadged as the Sears Video Arcade which was sold in Sears stores and it was manufactured by Dimerco Electronics.
Atari was competing with the Fairchild Channel F, which is an earlier Pong console. During the time of the Atari 2600’s release, it started killing off other Pong consoles due to the fact that people were just getting bored of them. Since that happened, Atari only sold 250,000 consoles in 1977.
Once everyone started to realize that it was possible to play games other than Pong, programmers started learning how to push out new possibilities. Space Invaders was developed then licensed by Atari. That caused sales to more than double to 2 million units in January of 1980.
There was two versions of the console that was never to see the light of day. They were known as the Atari 2700 and 2800. The 2700 was only a wireless version of the original 2600. It had been never been released due to a design flaw. The 2800 was a nice sleeker version of it that was meant to be sold in the Japanese market. Due to the release of the Nintendo Famicom, it did not sell well at all.
The Atari 2600 has always been in the hearts of gamers. It launched the revolution in gaming technology and is still played to this day. They are known to have the longest life span than any other console to date. As time goes on, younger generations will soon have no idea what an Atari, ColecoVision, or even an Intellivision was. It’s our job to make sure that the Atari legacy lives on. We must teach the young gamers of this system. To this day, I will sit in the dark, and just play a game on my Atari. Enjoying the simplicity and beauty, that is known as the Atari 2600.
Games Inbound – March 2010
Feb 26th
Here are the games that you should keep an eye out for this March.
This will be a new monthly thing.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 – Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Dragon Age Origins Awakening – Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Final Fantasy XIII – Xbox 360 and PS3
God of War III – PS3
Just Cause 2 – Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Metro 2033 – Xbox 360 and PC
Red Steel 2 – Wii
Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition – Xbox 360 and PS3
Resonance of Fate – Xbox 360 and PS3
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey – Nintendo DS
Yakuza 3 – PS3
Heavy Rain
Feb 24th
How far would you go to save the one you love?
Playstation 3
Enter the world of this new psychological thriller known as Heavy Rain. The Origami Killer is out there, taking the lives of young boys. How far will you go to stop a killer? (This review contains a few spoilers that occur in the beginning of the game).
Heavy Rain starts off with Ethan Mars, happily married, living with his wife and two children. Life seems as though it can’t get any better than it already is. That is until, an unfortunate event unfolds at the local mall. Your son Jason starts to wander off in the mall. Ethan keeps following him but eventually starts to lose him. Jason ends up crossing the street, and just when his father sees him, he decides to run back across. You can probably guess what is going to happen (unless you haven’t already seen the mall gameplay video). Let’s fast forward. You spend time with Shaun, the brother of Jason, at the local park. Suddenly you start to black out, wake up in the middle of the street, and have no idea where Shaun is. Thus, our story begins. You take the role of four different characters throughout the game. Constantly switching between them, you will learn that all of their stories intertwine with one another. You will play as Ethan Mars (Architect), Madison Paige (Photographer), Norman Jayden (FBI Profiler), and Scott Shelby (Private Investigator). This is not your typical game, during action sequences you will have to be quick with your fingers because Heavy Rain is heavily focused around QTE (Quick Time Events). Buttons will constantly appear on the screen, and you must hit them before time runs out. Messing these up could possibly alter what happens to your character, thus altering the entire game itself. Any and all of the four characters can die, and if that happens the game will continue on without them. There are multiple endings and many different choices to choose throughout your gaming experience. Some choices you will NOT want to make. Heavy Rain will make you so attached to the character that you may not want to make a tough decision. I found myself pausing the game at some instances where I had no idea which option I should pick.
Heavy Rain has an amazing graphics engine to it. Everything has such incredible detail that you may find yourself just walking around looking at all the little things and interacting with them. The world you’re in is so beautiful. I personally would have loved to have had a first person button just so I could look around at the little things better. I have to say that I think Heavy Rain has the most outstanding graphics to date.
The four main characters transfer their emotions to you so well that you may feel fully immersed. The facial animations match the dialog so well that you may not even realize you’re playing a video game. At times you may not notice the music playing, but it fits so well in most of the situations. The ambiance, voice acting, and music is all spot on. I have seen no issues at all.
This game has absolutely NO prerendered cutscenes. Everything you see is what you get, it is all ingame. If they were to have prerendered cutscenes, the only difference that we would see is some anti-aliasing, and a solid framerate.
I have only encountered one bug in this game. Sometimes when I was doing some crime scene investigating, my game froze right after Norman finished talking. I could hear the ambiance still, but the screen was frozen and I couldn’t use my controller to do anything. It has a constant autosave so if this happens to you, then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. This bug doesn’t bother me one bit because I was able to just restart my PS3 and jump right back in where I was.
Heavy Rain is roughly 8-10 hours in length, and has an amazing level of re-playability. You will probably find yourself going to play it again right after you beat it, just to see the other results for different options you choose. Combat is fun, story is amazing, and at some point you’ll find yourself yelling, “WHAT!? I DIDN’T EXPECT THAT!”
Resident Evil 5 – Lost in Nightmares
Feb 17th
Part of the new expansion of Resident Evil 5, Lost in Nightmares, has been released today on the XBL Marketplace. I’m going to assume that the content will be released late tomorrow for you PS3 users as well. You will be at Spencer’s Estate, where you team up with Jill to fight a new evil. This is just one part of the DLC that is coming out, and the full version (Resident Evil 5 GOLD) will be released March 9th, 2010. Along with the DLC today, there is also a download for two costume. One costume is a fairy tale outfit for Sheva, and the other is a Warrior outfit for Chris. Download them today!
Lost in Nightmare – 400MSP aka $4.99
Costume Pack 1 – 160MSP aka $1.99
L4D2 DLC: The Passing – Coming Late March
Feb 12th
Left4Dead 2 with be releasing new DLC called ‘The Passing’ for Xbox 360 and PC to be release late March. The Passing takes place between Dead Center and Dark Carnival. In the beginning and end of campaign, you will encounter the survivors from the first L4D (Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey). At the end of the campaign, they will help you fend off the horde while you try to escape.
In the campaign you will find a new weapon that looks like an LMG, as well as a golf club to bash in the heads of zombies. There will be a new kind of uncommon common infected known as ‘Fallen Survivors.’ They carry weapons, health, and all other equipment. You may see one of the running from you, but that’s when you should chase after them and kill them so you can get an item from their corpse. There will be interaction between the new and old survivors, as well as more dialog for all the characters (hurray for more stories about Ellis and his buddy Keith!)
The first Left4Dead will also be receiving DLC that explains how the original survivors get to the point where the new survivors are. Thus linking their stories together.
Bioshock 2
Feb 11th
Would you kindly?
PC, Xbox 360, and PS3
You return to the world of Rapture as Subject Delta. You’re on the hunt to find the little sister that you are bound to, known as Eleanor.
Bioshock 2 starts off with you and your little sister (Eleanor). You are fighting to defend her when a splicer uses a plasmid on you to control your actions. You are commanded to shoot yourself in the head with a handgun, and you do so. One may think that Subject Delta is dead, but he might just be waking up, 10 years later (2 years after the first game ended). You explore the underwater utopia known as Rapture, trying to locate your little sister, who is now grown up. You start off with your drill, using it to fight your way through splicers and such. Throughout the game you will acquire many guns such as the Rivet Gun, Shotgun, Machine Gun, and others. Each gun may be upgraded a maximum of 3 times, thus making the firearm even more deadly. There are a total of 11 plasmids, each with their own unique power. You will also find many more tonics in this game than you did in the previous. Little sisters still exist in this title, and are more important than they even had been before. As a big daddy yourself, you can take a little sister from another big daddy by killing him. Once you have a little sister on your shoulder, you can go gather ADAM from two bodies per sister. Before you pick them up each time, you can decide to adopt, or you may harvest them. When you are done gathering your two parts of ADAM, you may take a little sister back to the ventalation system and either rescue them or you can harvest them. After so many rescues you will be given a gift. There are a total three gifts that you can obtain, and the first two contain very useful tonics that will help you with your little sisters for the remainder of your game. Researching is still a very useful part of this game. It will help you gain more advantages when fighting a researched enemy. There are a total of nine different enemy types as well. While you are on the hunt for Eleanor, you will find more certain characters that you may either kill or let live. Letting them live, depending on your play style, usually will help you out in the end. You’ll also be on the hunt for audio logs as usual.
Graphics in Bioshock 2 look incredibly similar to that in the original Bioshock. There has been improvement but you can still see the same old style there was. The developers definitely paid attention to detail. The morbid artwork and the disturbing environments. I was constantly awed by the beautiful scenery and art on the walls. The water effects are similar to the first game, but greatly improved. You will see so even in the beginning of the game. The ragdolls in this game react the same as they do in the first game. Objects sometimes glitch through the floor but I have only seen it happen a few times. While I was playing on the PC version, I am not aware of the drop in graphics that the console versions had, but I’m sure they were not much different.
When listening to the audio logs, you will notice that they are done so well that you may even stand still just to listen to the whole thing. The voice actors in this game did a very well job of combining insanity with beauty. You will find that music is only in place when there is a working record player, you can also hit the record player to hear a funny skipping of the needle. Loading screens may not be around for long, but the music that plays during them is also quite fantastic.
Bioshock 2 has very few prerendered cutscenes, mainly in the beginning and the end, but they look fantastic. Mostly everything else that exists is all ingame. The character movements and the weapon animations are spot on.
The mulitplayer game mode feels like it was just slapped together real quick. On the PC version, it sometimes takes quite a while to get into a game. If you do get into one, with balanced teams and a fun game type, then it is pretty enjoyable. Playing with friends in the only way I could see you playing multiplayer for that long of an amount of time. There are 40 levels to get to and you unlock plasmids, weapons, and tonics at certain levels. It’s 5v5 and there are game modes such as Team Deathmatch, 1 Flag CTF, and Free For All. You can pick from a small list of characters and also customize your mask and your melee weapon. It’s a little weird to explain how it all works, so you would just have to see it for yourself.
The only bugs that I have encountered are things such as a door glitching through a wall, objects falling through the floor, and splicers being idiots and not realizing I’m right next to them. This isn’t exactly a bug, but autosaves only happen when you load a new level. Levels can take up to 2 hours each, and if you don’t save and your PC/console messes up, you’re screwed out of all the work you had been doing. Thus, ragequit ensues.
I was able to complete Bioshock 2 on Medium difficulty in roughly 10 hours. The replay value of the game seems kinda low. Half of the appeal of it is the story, but there are multiple endings (four) that you can get by doing different options throughout the game. The only downside to this game that I can see, is that the multiplayer didn’t have a lot of thought put into it. The guns and upgrades are awesome, the plasmids rule, the combat kicks ass, and you may find yourself running back for more.
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