Soul Calibur 4 (360)

So it's been a while since i have been hardcore on any fighter , I played metric shit ton of Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. But one series that has kept me coming back is Soul Calibur. It franchise has it all for me tits and weapons(sorry i'm a guy with a fetish for Cold Steel). But besides the eye candy lies a one of the best fighting systems in a videos games, it's pretty much what you make out of it, you want to mash buttons it works or if you want to really Gnaw your teeth into the system you can parry, counter, juggle and combo till your thumbs bleed.



The created characters are pretty deep I'm sure some Message board is going to have a thread for fan created characters you can pretty much make anything. Finally you will be able to take those characters online which is great. My only complaint is that the characters that i think look really good have shitty stats, each piece of armor has stats for your characters, so i have characters to help me get through the incredibly hard Tower of lost souls mode and characters that. but you can play in standard mood where the stats from items are not included. Look its Mega man!!-------------------------------->

The Star Wars characters are really cool rumors that maybe trumors say that the console specific characters (vader for the ps3 and yoda for the 360) are going to available later in some sort of DLC, also the apprentice is rad to play with but you cannot customize him or make custom characters out of the Force users..... NAMCO please let me do it i want to make a bunch of jedi (mainlly a bunch of evil slutty jedi... sigh a boy can dream, shit that was half the reason I bought the game) Also don't expect other Star Wars characters besides maybe Boba Fet, if the had characters like luke or han they would have to pay the actors that played them Royalties so before i get some rabid Star Wars fan pleading on some message board think why they chose those characters in the first place.

That said i am enjoying this game a lot on my own i can't wait to get some friends over have them play on their own then destroy them. Online has lag at times but all in all the experience is what you expect in a arcade. People Spamming the same fucking moves, but you take it in stride. i have still to win a match i got a few runs but the hardcore is already starting to take over the online game. People have been fairly pleasant i only had on guy run his mouth about how bad I'm doing. The older characters have been altered a bit. I was a Raphael player in II but after that Namco keeps nerfing him. Amy is a decent replacement but shes can be countered easily. Voldo and lizardman are getting to tournament play levels. So so far my online experience has been helping me to develop an Stomach ulcer........

Ok now that we have a real review of a game I'm going to explain my method for rating games. don't give scores, not that I'm included on Metacritic anyways. I'm going to list the pros and cons of the game and you need to invest a little mental capital into forming your own opinion. I don't want games to be compared to other games that don't belong for example, you wouldn't compare Polka with Thrash Metal there different and should be looked at differently for what they are. To remove the reviewers personal tastes and preferences. .... SO now that this tirade out of my way.

Pros
Fighting system that caters to the hardcore and the Casual players.
Lots of customization options
A single player challenge mode(tower of souls) that is Hard as shit.

Cons
can't customize the look or make custom characters of the Star wars characters. NAMCO think about, slutty jedi = 1 billion units sold....
if you don't have any friends into fighting games you maybe relying on the online to keep you playing, so this is going to depend heavily to the Soul Calibur community to do this.
Versus options are kinda lackluster i wish there was more modes to do, tag matches or

Late Pass: Assassins Creed

The 4^th quarter of 2007 was what many thought the perfect storm of video games. Triple A titles were coming out every week. Now that it’s the summer, school is out it is the perfect time to catch up on the games that I happened to miss. Each week I’m going to go back to my pile of shame and look at the game after the hype has been long gone. Also since it's been almost a year since the game has been out i may say some spoilers but you probably already know what I'm referring too

Leading up to its release I was heavily looking forward to playing Assassins Creed. I found the setting was new and interesting and I have always loved to play as sneaky roguish characters. So the game seemed like perfect match for me. But then the game came out and so did the reviews.

Early reviews of Assassins Creed were mixed; the game has stunning graphics and a intriguing story. But the game play became an issue; the game was one of the most repetitive games created. The Cities were mostly the same… the characters were mostly the same and the actions that you take part in were also … The same.

Me being a fledging enthusiast Blogger, I wanted to ignore what I heard about the game and just enjoy it for what it’s worth. I found the experience to pass my expectations. The combat was different from what i am accustomed too(god of war), though I would have like more offensive skills since parrying NPC attacks were rewarded more then offensive barrages. One or two extra combos would have been nice or moves that could kill multiple enemies at once. Although this would have drastically changed the image that Ubisoft had intended for Altair. Assassins were not combat bad asses to the extreme, but instead were opportunistic predators waiting for his enemies to make a mistake for him to capitalize. Also why the fuck didn’t Altiar just wait until night fall so he could just sneak a la Splinter cell.It's the same publisher steal a couple of the guys from that team for a month and get some of those "Sam Fisheresque" skills into the game. If the game would have given the player the choice to attack in the day time or at knight so the type of sneaking could have been more varied. I got really tired of trying to hide in plane sight. Also besides throwing knives it would have been great to get a crossbow to do some longer range sniping to clean out the guards.

What I found more promising was the story that is revealed as the game progresses. The world that Desmond and Julie live in is a world turned on end. An experiment gone wrong in Colorado, the evidence of more objects like the piece of Eden all these elements will lead to a plot that can explain myths and legends from the past.

But the criticism that the hardcore game press outlets spoke about the repetitive nature of the game. You only experience really a handful of different activates leading up to each of the games 9 assassination missions. So after the 25^th building scaled to find where you need to rob some moron talking about their plan and broad fucking daylight or be a complete douche and beat up flunkie for your target for information only to kill them once they serve no more use for you. I found myself playing very sloppy trying to get through as fast as possible. Even during the assassinations I played very recklessly when I found out I could just fight my through any mistakes I make, which took me out of the experience as well.

To sum things up Assassins Creed was only a taste of the true potential of this series. It’s being billed as a trilogy and I hope the sequels don’t all take place in the past but also to take experience the near future of the games true setting. But the Ubisoft has to take more time to develop a better pace in the game play, I am tired of getting cock teased by games that have you start out with all of your abilities and equipment but then takes it away in the first 30 min of the game (I’m looking at you Link and Samus, try and hold onto your shit for once!!!!). More variety is needed in the sequels in this franchise, giving the players more tools in their arsenal could also help alleviate this. I know the three main cities in Assassins creed are having slightly different looks and feels. But it’s still the desert in the Middle East. How amazing would it have been to fight in Caves and catacombs bellow the cities or even exploring the city at night would have been enough of a change to fool me that it’s different. The game almost feels like a demo, stretched out for the length of an entire game but for the most part i enjoyed my experience and i saw what Ubisoft was trying to accomplish with this title.

Mission Satement From Game Rage

It's time for me to stop waiting around waiting for something good to happen.Today I'm starting Game Rage,
A blog that analyzes the aspects that Anger, Annoy and Frustrate Gamers as a whole.

For the now this is a solo mission but if others are interested and creative then i am more then eager to work with you. Together we can help develop this blog into something more then a blogger page. But most great things must come from humble beginnings... and it doesn't get more humble then this.

Wow that was fucking cheesy. Let me Digress folks, Do you want me to rant and rave about beating my head through a cement wall doing the same five fucking things in Assassins Creed(i know it's a little late i explain later douche), Do you want me express my disgust for shitty shovel ware titles that Plague us. Or to express my hate for being nagged at Lame Stop about pre-order games too far in fucking advance… even though I’m thinking about getting a job there. I got things to bitch about come bitch about things with me and together maybe we can get through this cluster fuck. Yeah i like to write fuck often... I could use better vocabulary but i don't really have any and I think it makes the point clearer don't you. I 'm not getting a journalism degree, and I'm writing how i would talk about and i like dropping a few F Bombs... if you don't like get the fuck out. If you find this somewhat interesting stick around, this is only the tip.

Done

Note: also in the works adding new media (podcasts, forums etc...) if interest is there. Feel Free to comment and speak your mind. I am no way an expert I am merely and enthusiast looking to share my ideas. I am wrong fucking yell at me, if you want to me to discuss a topic shoot me I’ll ignore and refuse to acknowledge the fact that it was your ideas.