Fable II * * * * *

WOW!! I really cant do this game justice. If you havent played Fable 1 on the xbox you NEED to! But this one will be 100x amped up if the pre release info is up to snuff. It is scheduled for launch in a regular and limited edition on 10/21/08 and is a MUST GET! The limited edition comes with all the usual crap (a figure a making of DVD some playing cards) and some extra content. Im excited to see what the extra content may be but all they are saying is that it will require an xbox live account.



First an overview of fable 1 in BOLD for all those who have never played it.
.....
Fable features a character-customization system based on the concept that everything the main character does affects him to a certain extent, measurable through counters accessible through the game's menu, or more generally through his overall appearance, which will change depending on the player's choices. Eating too much causes the character to gain weight. Appeasing his wife will cause her to buy him presents, whereas abusing her leads to divorce. Drinking too much alcohol can cause him to become sick and vomit. The character will also obtain expressions throughout the game which can affect his personality.

Every article of clothing the character acquires will change his in-game appearance. He can be further customized through a variety of haircuts, facial hair, and tattoo cards that allow for a range of body modification options. The clothing, hairstyle, and tattoos the character wears will affect the way he is seen by the non-player characters.

The character's statistics also affect his outward appearance. High levels of Strength cause larger muscles, high levels of Skill increase height, and knowing high-level Will powers (magic spells) causes arcane tattoos to appear on the body and begin to glow.

The hero has a positive or negative alignment. Their actions will award either good points, which produce a positive alignment, or evil points, which produce a negative alignment. For example, killing monsters or saving villagers will result in achieving good points, whereas killing an innocent person, breaking laws, or abusing a spouse will accumulate evil points. The apparel of the character also affects his alignment; dark clothing earns evil points and bright clothing earns good points. The alignment affects not only the responses of the non-player characters but also the appearance of the character. A hero with an abundance of positive alignment will soon find a halo surrounding his head, butterflies swarming around him and his hair will turn blonde. An evil character will sprout horns, emit a red haze from around his legs, draw flies, and have glowing red eyes, in addition to balding.

Over the course of the game, the character ages physically. However, contrary to popular belief, the age of the character has nothing to do with how long the game has been played; rather, how many times the player has accessed experience upgrades in the Guild. Whether he is good or evil, his hair will start to turn white as he grows older. The apparent age of the character is related to the core skills he acquires; using magic often will cause the character to age faster.
......

Fable II will take place in Albion, 500 years after Fable's setting, in a colonial era resembling the time of highwaymen or the Enlightenment; guns are still primitive, and large castles and cities have developed in the place of towns. Unlike the original, the player may choose to be either male or female and you have a pet dog that changes with you. A Co-op option will also be avalable! New aspects of the character alignment system include corruption, purity, kindness, and cruelty which will enhance or degrade a character's features. The player can be good but unpopular socially, or be evil yet charming, etc.



The family aspect of the Fable series will also be built upon. Now you can have children who will take after good ol daddy or mommy! The sex aspect, relatively unimportant in the first game, has also been built upon significantly. Players will be able to choose to have protected or unprotected sex (and by extension choose whether or not to have a child). Female player characters will become pregnant, and they will undergo the relevant physical changes. And dont worry, sex will still fade to black as in Fable 1.


Since the game will take place over a hero's lifetime, many things will change; Molyneux gave an example of a trade camp that the player could either help or destroy. Trading in such camps would increase their profit, resulting in a small town growing around them, while stealing from the camp or massacring the camp will result in the abandonment of the area.



Additionally, every accessible property (properties that can be entered by the player) in the world is ownable, and possessions often unlocks further quests. The houses will be furnishable with furniture etc available to buy. In addition titles will be awarded for buying property; if one were to buy every building and piece of land in a town they may become the mayor of that town, greater possessions leads to higher titles such as king, and eventually emperor of the entire land of Albion.

OFFICAL INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND HERE

Sweet new Arcade /Lan Room

A verry good friend of mine opened an arcade recently. It is at the Valley Fair Mall on the west side next to Red Robbin. It does not have access through the mall, it has a seprate entrance so that it can maintain later hours! So anyone looking for a fun activity this summer give it a visit. At 6 tokens a dollar you cant go wrong! CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICAL WEB PAGE

Mario Kart WII * * *

Another must get for the WII Like Smash bros this game offers a variaty of controlls, however my fave is using the remote like a steering wheel. Not sure why you want to go any other way. Why get a WII and use a standard controller by choice when the great WII controlls are avalable! Everyone whos played a videogame has played or knows of the Mario Kart games so Ill just cover the changes. First you get to choose from a Bike or a Kart! The bike gets a slight boost of speed while doing wheelies by pulling up on your remote. This makes it impossable to turn till you push back down. The advantage of the karts is that you can ram the bikes off the road. Another new feature is the online game play. And because Ive only played mariokart 64 those are the only diffrences I know of other than some new wepons that rock! It has 24 characters and 32 tracks.

Super Smash Bros Brawl * * *

Great Game, one of the WIIs must gets! If youve played any smashbros you know what this is all about. This time they added an online feature to take your battle global, a custome level designer, and a massive powered up attack that is character spacific for the first person to destroy a floating orb that appears at random during the match. And let us not forget the side scrolling story mode they added. The graphics and level design both get a 10! It has about 40 characters and about 40 levels! The controlls are not anything standard for the WII. They are just like any other videogame with no shaking tilting or anything like that. They do however give you the options of using the classic controller, gamecube controller, the remote on its side or the remote and numchuck.

For those who never played the originals heres the deal. The game uses a battle system unlike that of typical fighting games. The player can choose from a large selection of characters, controlling them as they fight on various stages, each attempting to knock their opponents off the screen. Instead of using health bars like most fighting games, percentage displays are employed. These displays begin on 0%, but increase as the characters take damage, up to 999%. As a character's percentage increases, the character flies farther back when hit. When a character is knocked beyond a stage's boundary and disappears from the screen, the character loses either a life or a point depending on the mode of play.

Rock Band * * * * *

WOW! this game is soooo fun. For those of you living under a rock, the object of this game is to simulate the performance of rock music. In this game you must play instruments in time with musical "notes" as they scroll towards them on the screen. Rock Band expands on the Guitar Hero series, in that it offers gameplay for drums and vocals, in addition to lead and bass guitars. Another dif from Guitar Hero is that the song selection is newer and greater, granted they still have some "but rock" but unlike guitar hero 1 & 2 that are 99% all "but rock" rock band has bands like Weezer, Foo Fighters, All American Rejects and 3 new songs a week to downloaad.

DRUMS are great! the drums are the main reson I wanted this game. they are a little more challenging than the guitar, but fun to master. They are adjustable for all sizes to play and you can easily set them up an a table if you wanted (not sure why you would) They are verry well made and react well (light taps will do). The only complaint I have on them is that your ankle gets tired if you dont do the foot pedal a particular way.

GUITAR/BASS is like guitar Hero with the following improvements. First, it looks so real! great attention to detail. The buttons are better positioned for easy use. There are 5 effects you can choose from when your rock meeter is used. And durring solos you can move to the base of the neck where there are smaller buttons that you can push without struming giving you the effect of pounding out a killer solo.

Singing is like any other Karioke game, but you can make it so your voice comes through or the origanal vocal track. Plus you can sing while you play guitar or drums

Did you say CUSTOMIZEABLE ROCKER!!!! you can build your rocker from scratch, you even get to decide if it has a rocker, punk, goth, or metal personality. you can purchase better threads and insturments, you can design tatoos and clothing logos from a huge list of templates, Its great!

This game is definatly funner in a groupe. Visually Guitar hero cant hold a candle to this game. It feels and looks so real, especally when the croud starts singing along with you. I give it a solid 10, a must get!

Super Mario Galaxy * * *

One thing id like to point out before I start, if you look at the game cover, find all the letters with little sparkle markes on them. The letters with she said sparkle are the U,R,M,R,G,A, & Y ("u r mr gay").

Final review time! The game stays consistantly easy with one or two levels that are an a little harder making this game fun to pick up when you just want to mess arround. There is only one star I cant get. it is in a level where you have to pick up 100 coins and get back to the star. the challenge comes in when the floor spaces you step on dissapear. I guess they had to put the combined difficulty that is lacking in the rest of the game on this level. Im not sure this level is even passable.

-3rd REVIEW
Ok, its still pretty easy, but its geting pretty fun. not all the levels are just disconnected plannets, there are some open flat areas with disconnected planets! I still want to see it get harder, but if theres enough levels that it still has a long time to get hard Ill love the game. However, if its short that will be no good. as for the visuals, a perfect 10. definatly the best Ive seen on the Wii to date! and I love the clasic enimys and sounds that are resurected. ill keep you posted while i play more if my opinion grows or shrinks.

-2nd REVIEW-
Ive only had 1/2 hour to play, but Ive allready beat 3 levels. So far its too easy. And I dont know wahat to think of runing arround on a bunch of litthe planets. it sorta takes away the go anywhere aspect out of the game for me. so far Im nutral hanging a little on the dislike side of the scale.

-ORIGINAL REVIEW-
Nintendo is trying something new with Mario. People are comparing it to Mario 64. I enjoyed Mario 64, but we all know what can happen when they try something new with Mario we get things like super mario sunshine (shudder). I did get a chance to play a demo of this and it didnt sway me one way or another. The controlls didnt seem to intuitive and the level I played was rather small and easy. Graphics were good for the WII, probably a 10/10. Im curious to see all the Mario suits, sounds like they are gringing back the mario 3 feel as far as suits go where you actually wear an animal suit. Im definatly gonna rent it before I buy it caust I got burnt by Mario Sunshine. Ill update the post after I play it.

Excite Truck * * * * *

Can I get a WOOT! this game rocks! A MUST GET for all yalls WIIs. This is sooo fun. First lets talk about game play, for nothing els you need it to show your friends how cool the wii controllers are because you steer by turning your "wii mote" on its side and treating it like a steering wheel! This may be old news by now, but to those who have yet to try it, YOU GOTTA TRY IT! And when your in the air you tilt it forward and back to controll your air and landing. If you land well you get a boost of speed making the mastery of jumps necesarry to win the game. You can gain stars by geting good air, doing mid air spins, placing well, raming opponents off the road and more. Stars are then used to unlock cars and levels. This game has soooo much to unlock it is great. I find that if a game has nothing to unlock it looses my intrest faster. I got this game with launch and still enjoy playing it agenst friends. Visually it is pretty standard for the wii. If thats not enough to convince you, each track has its little secrets and shortcuts..... SO GET IT!

Vigilante 8

Heres another oldie, but goodie. Released on June 8, 1998. I dont know why Nintendo dosent do this game for the Wii shop channel. And what happened to this style of game. Id love to see it came back, yeah ps2 had twisted metal black, but it was not as good as the Vigelante series and it came out ages ago in vidiogame standards. A remake for the Xbox 360 was going to be created by Isopod Labs, an independent company formed by the founders of Luxoflux, and was set to be released the summer of 2007 on xbox arcade. What happend to that?! Visually this game gets a 10 for its time. I loved how your car showed physical damage as you get beat up. That was so revolutionary! With its huge selection of cars (not to mention the unlockable cars) each with their own specal wepon, a massive arsenal of common wepons that you can hold 3 at a time (if memory servs correctly, but it may be even more). Pluss you can use each wepon in 3 diffrent ways. For example, you can fire the mortos regularly with the A button, or push up down A, for a homing mortor, or left right A for a powerfull crator forming mortar. The mines laid single, in a mine field or as a tractor beam trap. And for added fun, each level had a secret you can unlock to set traps, get upgrades, and just kick butt alltogether! Then in 1999 Vigilante 8 2nd offence introduced new cars, levels, and car upgrades to allow you to hover, get snow tire upgrades, and more that I cant really remember. So in closing, this game gets a solid 10 for gameplay, visuals and all around greatness!

Alien vs Predator

Heres an oldie, but a goodie! Alien vs Predator (AVP) was released over a decade ago on 10-20-1994 as an Atari Jaguar exclusive. AVP is often considered one of the Jaguars defining titles and it started my First Person shooter journey. This game was ahead of its time in many aspects. It was Visually stunning for its time. The Atari Jaguar may not look like much by todays standards, but you need to consider its compatition was the SNES & Sega Genisis. AVP had 3 stories to play through, the Alien, the Predator, and the Human.

The Alien's objective was to rescue the Alien Queen, who was being held captive on the Predator's spaceship on Sublevel 1. The Alien always starts the game from Sublevel 5. Since the survival of the Alien hive was more important than an individual Alien and also because the Alien could not use medkits as the Predator and Space Marine could, it had to depend on cocooning Space Marines in order to extend the gameplay. You could have up to three cocoons. If an Alien died with surviving cocoons, the last cocooned Space Marine would turn into an Alien. If an Alien died with no cocoons in existence, the game ended. Since the Alien could not use the elevators, it had to use the airducts to advance from Sublevel to Sublevel. Once the Alien Queen is freed, the game ends. The Alien scenario is generally considered to be the easiest of the scenarios, since the character is faster than the Predators and Marines and does not fight the facehuggers or the Alien Queen. The Alien may also roam the air ducts free of other enemies, especially helpful while allowing cocoons to mature. It is the shortest mode, fundamentally a point A to point B challenge. The Alien scenario is the only scenario which the player can have extra lives assuming you can find a human to cocoon. The Alien has 3 wepons, the tail, the claw, and the extending jaw.

The Predator's objective was to get to the Alien's ship and kill the Alien Queen in order to claim her skull. The Predator always started the game from Sublevel 1. The Predator could not use the airducts, instead using the elevators to advance from Sublevel to Sublevel. The Predator could also pick up medkits and keep them in reserve until needing to use them by pressing a special button. The Predator also operated under an 'honour system' whereby it lost points for killing an Alien or Space Marine whilst cloaked but gained points for uncloaked kills. The weapons available to the Predator were dictated in part by their honour points - as such too many dishonourable killings could result in losing or failing to acquire weapons. The wepons avalable are the boe (a Gambit style boe that shocks on contact), a plasma disk, and a sholder cannon. The predator also had many vision enhancements like heat, motion and night vision (usefull when finding pesky face hugger cocoons).

The Space Marine's scenario is to reach security level 10, activate the base's self-destruct, and find the escape pod to escape. According to the story, Pvt. Lance Lewis was sent to the brig to be cryogenically stored for "insubordination and striking a superior officer". During Pvt. Lewis' imprisonment, the base was invaded by Aliens and Predators. As Pvt. Lewis, you start the game with no weapons, no motion tracker, and no security clearance. The objective is to find security cards until you reach level 10. Then you must reach the Sublevel 2 and use the self-destruct computer to activate the base's self-destruct and then go to Sublevel 5 and use the escape pod before the self-destruct timer runs out. The Space Marine can use medkits, but unlike the Predator, they cannot be held in reserve and must be used immediately. The Space Marine had four weapons : the Shotgun, Pulse Rifle, Flame Thrower, and the Smartgun. The Space Marine is able to use the airducts and the elevators to advance from Sublevel to Sublevel and was by far my fav campain.

Halo 3 * * *

Ok, Let me premis this by saying i havent played this online and dont know if I ever will. Im just not big on playing complete strangers. Can you cay overrated. I was a little diapointed in this game. It feels like a clone of halo 2. The graphics get an 8 out of 10 for me, the sound is average and as fpr the gameplay, I could swear Ive allready played this. And its WAY too short. I beat it in 4 hours and I sorta get my but handed to me in Halo online, so imagine what a Halo vet can do. Dont get me wrong, there are a couple of really fun levels that you havent done before. Like my fave in the whole game when you take down 2 of those huge spiders like the one you jump onto in Halo 2 and takeout from the inside, but thistime your on the ground and you need figure out how to get in to take it out. They added some new ships, wepons and upgrades. Now as far as vehicles go on top of the new ones if you have seen it in any of the previous halos you can fly or drive it. Some of the more mentionable wepons now avalable are the hammers, and the fact that you can tear the gun off of turrets and carry them with you. this may sound odd, but trust me, they make it work. On top of that you can also carry one "specal item" such as a gravity lift, cloaking, bubble shields and more. Another thing I didnt like is that in Halo 1 you can go anywhere and change up your stratagy, then in Halo 2 you were put on a set corse, well I prefer the open enviornment and Halo 3 keeps the blinders on. I do like the fact that you can unlock new armor for multiplayer so we dont all look the same, and I suppose that can add to the play time if you unlock all the armor in the game.

Overall I gve this an 8.6 out of 10. However, I also think this is a must get to complete the trilogy, not sure Id suggest paying full price for it unless you love the online feature, but get it eventually. If your dyin to play it, rent it till it goes down in price. I beat it once and havent touched it again.

BioShock * * * * *

What can I say about this game other than WOW!! I was not really sure If Id like this game or not. Every time that I went to a game store and asked for a good game with great graics They allways say Gears of war or Bioshock. So I went to look at the boxes and the Bioshock box looked soooooo lame that i never considered it. On the front its got a tunnel driller dude and on the back It showed a puzzle with some other random game shots so Im picturing a lame kids puzzle game. Well finally i went in looking for a creepy horror game and they suggested Bioshock, well this made me curious so I rented it. Its definatly NOT a kids game (Oh the glorious GORE!), and its not too scarry, but it is definatly creepy. When you see a woman yelling into a stroller about how wicked the baby is and you find a gun there, or see someone tugging away at something on his head saying "I tear them off and the just grow back" This game is cool! Visually I give it a solid 10 best Ive seen so far on the 360! The Sound is fantastic, another solid 10 that adds to the "jump factor" when you hear someone coming up behind you or crawling on the walls in surround! The story has great depth that leaves you guessing whos side you shd be on. Games with story as good as this are a great raraty. The way the story unfolds durring gameplay cant be beat. Unlike Halflife where you have long boring story in game where you need to stay put, in this one you listen to audio journals you find allong the way that you can kill baddies and move on while listening!

You find yourself stranded in an underwatter Utopia gone wrong in the year 1960 where the baddies have great AI and are survivors of the utopia who have all gone crazy as a result of genetic experementation so some are mutates while others are victims of a psycho Plastic surgen who says, "I do what Picaso did with the brush with my scalpull"

You get to short circut & hack guard bots and you have a great arsenel of guns along with genetic enhancements that allow you to freeze and smash your foe, shock them (extra fun when a groupe of them are in a puddle), Start them or the enviornment on fire (fire spreads!), use telecenesis to return unwanted gernades and so much more!

In closing, If you find yourself thinking that this game looks lame like I did, download the demo or rent it ASAP. And as allways PLEASE leave comments with your impressions of the game!