The Bioshock Deuce, Hedgehog Go-Karts and Other Assorted Treasure.

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The Story of Chief Aggro: Showdown.

As the sun strolled over the earthen crust and the mountain peaks shone brightly, a strange air permeated the Awesome Valley. The town was bustling with the usual business. The trade post clerk was sweeping the wooden slats that made up the porch. Horses were hitched to fencings around the main strip, swiping the flies away with their tails and the occasional shake of their heads. Women strode along with their baskets carrying goods as children ran past screaming and snapping their pop guns at each other. Men sat at the saloon bar with their glasses of whiskey wetting the countertop with perspiration as the pianist swaggered about his craft with a stirring rendition of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." The sheriff sat at the end of the bar. His guns were hostlered but loomed outward to warn the patrons that their shift wasn't over for the day. A thud echoed through the room and the sheriff looked to see Bob Stallion slumped against the wall, giggling like a schoolgirl with the saloon's premiere marm, Lusty One-Eyed Pearlie. Stallion noticed the sheriff giving him a wary look.

"Sheriff." he tipped his hat as he stood up.

The sheriff nodded. "You keep your poontanging to a hush, Stallion, it's still daylight."

"Yessir." Stallion took his cyclops prostitute by the arm and hustled upstairs to negotiate some land trade.

The pianist was about to emulate Montell Jordan, breaking into "This is how we doooo ehhhht...!" when the saloon doors swung open. The deputy stumbled through with sweat and dirt sticking to his shocked face. "Sheriff! Sheriff! He's here! He's in town!"

"Gulldammit fuck, Brucie, what's all this mamma jamma?" the sheriff exclaimed.

"It's HIM, sheriff," Deputy Brucie bellowed, "it's CHIEF AGGRO!" A record somewhere in town scratched to a halt.

The noise and banter froze at the mere mention of that name. One patron pulled out his pistol and shot himself in the head out of desperation, yet everyone else stared down the sheriff for an answer. He hopped off the barstool with his glass still in his hand.

"Well, I guess we better get this over with."

As the sheriff, deputy, and other patrons walked outside, they saw that hell itself made a housecall to this small community. The clouds covered up the sun to protect it from shining down on damnation, and most of the townsfolk had sought shelter in their homes or peered through the shop windows like scared rabbits. A lone tumbleweed rustled down the main road, moving along to stop at the feet of what had caused all this ruckus. Chief Aggro looked down at the spherical foliage and with one swift movement crescent moon kicked it into splinters and a fine red mist. Only Chief Aggro could make a tumbleweed bleed to death.

"Blue blazes!" Deputy Brucie choked. "D'joo see...?"

The sheriff held his hand up to silence his partner. He sat his empty glass on the porch railing and walked down onto the dirt path. His eyes met Chief Aggro's, but not wanting to let his cool down, he unlodged a cigarette from its pack and lit it. Only the sound of a muffled Stallion negotiating his terms with his lady friend could be heard as the upstairs curtains shifted about. The sheriff scoffed. "What's your business here, Chief?"

Chief Aggro spat a gob of chewing tobacco onto the street. "I'm in the business of doing business, Sheriff Fuckface." He enunciated his reason by smacking his fist into his cupped palm.

The sheriff took a drag off his cigarette. "Sheriff Fuckface was my father. Now I'll only ask you one more time; what are you doing in this town? These folks have done nothing..."

"I want my rematch!" Chief Aggro stomped on the ground. "I want the rematch against Pancho Enchilada el Bacala! That motherfucker still owes me fifteen dollars!"

"Pacho's dead, Chief." the sheriff replied, "'Fraid your punch upset his colon a little too much. Done shit himself to death."

"FAAAHHH! HYAAHHH!" Chief Aggro sent a Siamese Diamondback Fisticuff soaring through the air, sending a waft of sand and dirt across the road. "Then send me your second greatest warrior, that man from the Africas, Mbootie Akimbo."

"'Fraid he skipped town, Chief. Right after Pancho took his last poo."

"He is scared of me?" Chief Aggro folded his arms in protest.

"Nope. Jury duty." The sheriff finished his cigarette and flipped it to the ground. "Look, you've made your point time and time again. All of our best, well, you've beaten them in one way or another. There just aren't any more challengers left in this dusty town."

"Did Manuel McKinley's head ever return to his body after I destroyed his chance at the Best of the West Championship?" Chief Aggro asked.

"We could never find it after you done socked it off. I think the buzzards stole it by now." the sheriff replied.

"Then I shall fight that buzzard!" Chief Aggro shot his fist into the air. "I shall fight any and all buzzards who lay claim as the best fighter of this, this tired, ratty village!"

"They flew away."

Chief Aggro's face contorted into disappointment. He shot a glare at the sheriff, still standing calmly with a look of pity across his weathered face. Chief Aggro pointed at him. "Then I will fight you, Officer Asshat Pissypants."

"Well, if that's how it's gotta go." The sheriff unbuttoned his shirt and removed it along with his jeans to reveal a pair of regulation UFC fighting trunks, sponsered by Subway. He walked down the main road toward Chief Aggro as a beautiful blonde woman in a bikini strutted between them holding a "Round 1" sign. Chief Aggro looked smugly at the sheriff with his arms still folded. Stallion could still be heard fucking the whore.

The two squared off in the middle of the street. Horses began to whinny and some of the onlookers circled around them, cheering and whooping. As the fight was about to commence, and Deputy Brucie was about to ring the bell, a look of concern wiped across Chief Aggro's face. He stopped and stood up from his Brazilian Tai-Jitsu Detroit City stance.

"Wait. Hey, wait." He held his hand up. "What the protocol for having the sniffles?" Another record scratched to a halt in the distance.

"What in the name of fucking shit are you babbling about?" Deputy Brucie exclaimed. "The sniffles?"

"I have a temperature now." Chief Aggro wiped his brow. "I refuse to fight with any advantage given to my opponent." The crowd gasped in dumbfounded confusion.

"What's going on?"

"Is he actually serious?"

"He's not going to fight?"

"Fuck your common cold!"

Chief Aggro shot back, "Hey, fuck your own ass." He pulled out an ocarina and played it. Over the horizon, a Tyrannosaurus Megazord lumbered across the desert toward the town. The townsfolk shrieked and ran around as the mecha lurched to a halt right behind Chief Aggro. With one mighty bound, he lept into the fictitious beast and drove off into the sunset.

The sheriff won. Or so it seemed.

"Sheriff, you won!" Deputy Brucie slapped him on the back. "He was about a pussy lip away from digging your grave, too."

The sheriff shrugged and pulled out another cigarette. "He'll be back. He always comes back."

Suddenly, a loud crash came from inside the saloon. Something heavy stumbled down the stairs and rolled out the swinging doors. It was Stallion, dazed and crumpled with a pair of pantaloons on his head. He looked up at the sheriff and his deputy, grinning ear to ear.

"Boy, but if that wasn't the second-best birthday I done ever had!" he cheered as his bowtie spun in circles.

Everybody laughed, and the sheriff and Deputy Brucie high-fived.

The Story of Chief Aggro: Beginnings.

The lands to the west hold many tales yet to be told. Fierce warriors trode upon the grasslands, searching for meaning to life, or perhaps a bit of skirt that needed the taming of a man's battle-weathered hands. Such stories can be heard, if not faintly, as the wind whips across the ancient lands of the Awesome Valley. Of course, now the valley is nothing more than some plain desert fields scattered with rock and the occasional bird of prey soaring overhead. Yet years ago, it was the home of one of the continent's greatest martial arts heroes of all time. As the sun sets to the west, and the jackrabbits burrow into their nests, the wind tells stories of Chief Aggro.

Chief Aggro's origins prior to his settlement in the Awesome Valley are more myth than fact. The one thing most folk can agree on is that, one blustery autumn eve, Chief Aggro appeared as if almost out of thin air. Some at that time believed the Chief was a living spirit wandering the land to seek revenge on his fallen tribesmen, and others saw him as a being not of this world, perhaps a moon of Jupiter. Chief Aggro himself boasted that he was the embodiment of a unity between Chuck Norris and some crazy fine bitch, perhaps a night elf, but as either did not exist for centuries to come it seemed unlikely, however not impossible. It is not important to note, for Chief Aggro's legacy would be left by himself.

Chief Aggro was adorned with various piercings and tattoos, each telling a tale of their own. His back was blessed with the marking of his immortal battle cry - "Fight Me or Fuck Me" - while his chest remained bare save a patch of woollen lamb's hair shaved into a Star of David, to keep the missionaries away. He also wore a grueling scar on his left nipple, once host to a metal stud piercing, lost in a ten-round championship match against Benicio De La Vega La Muerte at the Palms Casino. Chief Aggro had his balding hair shaped into what was supposed to be a proud, standing mowhawk, shaved by a blind shaman and blessed with oils and a touch of glitter. But the Chief was far too combat-weary to style it, and it lay flat to one side like the fin of a domesticated orca. What clothing Chief Aggro did wear was testament to his impending skill - a pair of blue Russell sportswear gym shorts and hi-tops stained with the blood of his victims and a streak of bison shit. He toted a man-purse - adamantly called a brohan satchel - that housed his trophies, various phone numbers of hot girls that had boned once or twice, and a CD collection of hardcore heavy metal, including a copy of the best of Grim Reaper .

Chief Aggro bore no weapons. No obvious ones, anyway. His right hand held his fist and his left held the fighting spirit, and that was more than enough. However, Chief Aggro did carry guns, at least the guns that were his bulging biceps that twinkled with perspiration after every cage match.

It is not known where Chief Aggro learned his technique, or techniques, as he bore a range of fighting styles that traversed both time and place. One consistent rumor is that at the age of four, Chief Aggro summoned the soul of Bruce Lee to travel to the past and train him in the mountains for seventeen years. But this meant it would involve learning the four thousand styles that Chief Aggro was only witnessed to using, and as Bruce Lee is known only for his kung-fu, it seems likelier that Chief Aggro had instead swam to the bottom of the Indian Ocean and unlocked the scroll that Lee would use much later to learn the techniques bestowed to Chief Aggro first. The mighty Chief was factually connected to the origins of Shaq-Fu, a technique used centuries later by Shaquille O'Neal. However, basketball was not yet introduced to the cultures, so Chief Aggro utilized a boulder carved into a sphere with five uncovered raptor rib bones and a pirate's cutlass. Despite its weight, Chief Aggro would dribble the rock, encompassing all aspects of ancient Shaq-Fu, including the dreaded "Shaq Attack" that left his opponents beaten and generally decapitated.

As the Awesome Valley began to notice Chief Aggro's wanton lust for battle and pussy, rumors sparked of the great chief's skill. Some claimed they witnessed him split an oak tree with the skin of his ballbag, fending off the herd of black bears that lived in it with a hornet's nest that fell and stuck to his ballbag and stung them into submission. A tribe of gypsies camped on the plateaus claimed to have seen him toss Superman into the center of the earth one hallowed evening. Or perhaps it was Ulysses S. Grant. It was dark and kind of far away. But they were certain it was Chief Aggro, as his labret piercing glistened in the moonlight and Anthrax's "Antisocial" echoed throughout the valley.

Almost as notorious as his combative skills were his lover skills. Many maidens were swept from their beds in the midst of the night to be fiddled with for the Chief's desire. Some were stricken with child, and even though Chief Aggro doubled-bagged his shit, his lustful rage forced his seed to explode through two, even three latex coatings, and once through a plate glass window. Despite the fact that Chief Aggro was not just any wayward cassanova, anyone standing in a five-foot radius from him for longer than twenty minutes was telekinetically raped.

The tribes of the Awesome Valley were both fearful and at awe with Chief Aggro. As time wore on, more legends of his deeds were whispered of to warn children and fan the flames of time onward. But for now, this was only the beginning of his story.

Super Boob Fun Time Japan Yes: Bayonetta.

Yeah, yeah, games, games. And yet lately I've been pretty jaded with the latest stock of stuff I've been whittling away at. Prototype lunged at being a great game and fell flat on its monster tentacle face with mediocre elements and too many bullshit freezeups that forced reloads. Brutal Legend was good in its own right but tried to do too many things and failed to be great at any of them. And I can't even muster the reasoning to turn on the PSP, even though I have a decent reason to play it with another Jak & Daxter game on my shelf. Fuck the DS.

Then Bayonetta showed up, as if to say, "play me." In a dirty way.

Bayonetta's origins derive from the Devil May Cry series from Capcom, a set of games featuring an Asian ladyboy badass with guns and a sword and no need for prisoners. It's a basic 3D hack-n-slash that you either like or loathe. Bayonetta's ties to this series are solid, as they share the same creators. But the group of developers fled to Sega, changed their name, and left little to the imagination with this one.

There's a great deal of injustice being dealt to say that Bayonetta isn't screwed up. While the game mechanics are practically copied straight from DMC, they then hike the absurdity and sexism to near-catastrophic levels. The titular character is the best example, as she struts around in skintights attached to her oddly comely beehive hairdo. This is because her wardrobe is her hair, which metamorphs into various combative formations like a stiletto boot, a demon dog, or a bizarre devil parrot thing. This is combined with gun combat, and consider that she carries four guns - one for each hand, and one strapped to each boot. She uses all four rhythmically and with wanton precision, wildly shooting in every conceivable direction as the combos build up. She also has a vaguely sexual affinity for lollipops, which act as her healing items. Top this off with her sexy, yet weird British accent, which will either entice gamers or add to the crazy sense of humor of the game.

Bayonetta has a story far too insane to try and decipher in any review, not that it ultimately matters. The game's two focal points are deep, yet interesting, combat and ridiculous cutscenes (which add up to nearly half the game's overall time spent playing). Most objectives involve Bayonetta running through linear pathways, defeating alien-looking angels and cherub-faced dragons, and collecting halos that look strikingly like rings another certain Sega character cherishes. Scattered throughout the game are bosses that blather on about world domination... until Bayonetta shoots them or finds some offensive way to shut them up. There are also a couple of driving missions inspired by old arcade racers that break up the monotony of hack-n-slash and weird cutscenes.

Perhaps Bayonetta's biggest blessing-or-curse is the oft-mentioned absurdity. Obviously, Bayonetta's acute femininity teeters between hilarious and slight offensiveness. She tends to move about like a professional pole dancer, writhing and sliding around the stage as she fights like a Las Vegas-inspired Annie Oakley. Camera shifts and crafty pauses to accentuate her... ahem... curvature further the cause. The other point to bring up is the strange, Japanese sense of humor. How characters react to Bayonetta's antics are imaginable yet still funny to watch. Dialogue doesn't ever stray away from the joke that this game is supposed to be silly, and even the fighting music (a jazzy riff of Fly Me To The Moon) jumps on the insane bandwagon.

As you can see, Bayonetta has the major bewbage going on. Nice glasses, too.

I can't in all seriousness find many faults in Bayonetta's presentation as it never really takes itself seriously. The graphics are splendid, the combat is approachable, and the wackiness spills out like D-cups out of a tube top. Some may find it too childish or stupid, but Bayonetta charms in a way that few games I've played lately do.

For your health,

-C.

Avatard.

Before the people who read this (two) who loved the blockbustering film Avatar (43 gajillion) get all bent out of shape about the title of this post, I'll say up front that I liked the movie. That being said, the rest of this will be a sort of anticlimatic drivel. I can only hope it doesn't come off that way. Being that I liked it, I will come out and say that it's not the bestestest movie ever made, nor do I enjoy it for the same reasons others might. On to business.

Avatar is a movie by James Cameron. I think that was the point of it all, but in case you weren't smashed in the goddamn face for not knowing that I thought I'd let that one out. To be honest, I've only seen a handful of his movies, and the ones I've seen (Aliens and the first two Terminators) were pretty enjoyable, although they didn't exactly age well. And contrary to belief, I've made a pact to refuse to watch Titanic, starting from its introduction to the world. I didn't see it because even Barney Fife could see how it would end. Romance, a tit shot, and a sinking boat... need I go further?

My skepticism toward Avatar mimicked that of Titanic's all those years ago - everybody came so hard they exploded their zippers which, when combined with the complimentary 3D glasses, looks extra cool. And I don't follow fads well. The previews did little to excite me and everyone's description of it led me to think this was a live action Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.

After seeing Avatar, I wasn't far off. But there was more to it than that.

The movie goes down like this: a former marine-turned-wheelchair warmer gets a second lease on life when his twin brother dies and he becomes the only person to power a remote-control blue space lemur beast, or Avatar. I get it! Anyway, with the help of Sigourney Weaver and the robot dork from Grandma's Boy, the space marine uses his avatar to encroach on Na'vi (this:)

territory, learning their ways and a little furry love along the way. But a cranky old space marine gets butthurt and wants to blow up shit, and the nice space marine wants to save the planet from American justice. And fucks a space lemur with his space lemur. And rides a giant flying dinosaur thing that fight helicopters. Oh, and the bad guys want to dig up space rock called Unobtanium (LAWL!), which only gets mentioned once because they then decide to just kick the Na'vi to the curb, but the Na'vi fight back... street lemur style.

Believe me, I would do a better job describing it but OH DAMN DAWG YOU GOTTA GO SEE THIS MOVIE FO REALZZZZZ! Or something like that.

For all its lack of originality, Avatar is indeed something I would recommend people go watch. If you're one of those folks who take one look at this movie and think it's the equivalent of movie herpes, smoke a joint before you do see it because it looks fantastic. I would argue that Avatar has the gnarliest special effects of any movie I've ever seen, and that says a lot.

Would you hump one of these chicks? The Internet would.

The things I would complain about, if I felt they dented up the film, are debateable. I watched it in 3D, which was alright for what it was but something I thought wasn't necessary to enjoy it. (I flat-out refused to watch it on IMAX. I HATE the idea of trying to watch a screen so big I have to physically turn to see everything. Pass.) And while the story was derivative and followed a lengthier plot from that old commercial where the Native American picks up litter and sheds a tear, I liked it for what it was and tried not to find any hidden meaning or political tomfoolery ingrained in the concept. I got it and moved on, and felt that overall it was in a place between good and great.

So if you're one of the seemingly few people who haven't watched Avatar, I wouldn't necessarily say go out of your way to see it but keep it in mind. It's a grood movie, and boy oh boy, the pretty colors.

Fuck Titanic.

-C.

2001-2009: The Decade of Vidya Gamings.

If anyone reads these blogs, they might notice that I only seem to write about video games. It is my crutch; I know enough about it to come up with some solid gold. Whereas if I wrote about, say, how marketing affects contemporary society, I'd come up diarrhea sounds and draw a picture of Ronald McDonald having sex with a bag of money with the appropriate "$" label on it. Which sounds good unless that's your semester project for college. So now writing about games seems like a safe venture. Like writing about my favorite games of the last decade.

What I think are awesome, totally kick-ass games will likely be different from everyone else's. For one, I noticed I only picked games that came out in 2001 and thereafter, omitting 2000 altogether. I blame the fear that Y2K placed us in when it came to electronics, and for months afterward we all safely played with balls and sticks and elected George W. Bush into office. There are also no Call of Duty, Halo, or World of Warcraft games on it, which could get me friend declined in certain situations. I also chose to make Spinal Tap fans fill the room with stoney laughter by making this a "Top 11 Games of the Aughts." It was accidental, and I'll explain now.



#11 - Conker's Bad Fur Day (Nintendo 64, 2001)
Conker ended up on the ass end of my list for two reasons. One, it marks the end of innocence in my world of gaming. Two, while not a particularly great game, Conker was pretty unique. See, the N64 had an influx of these cute animal platform games (think Banjo-Kazooie and its ilk), and Conker stabbed all of them with bizarre, Scary Movie-esque parody. Flowers with tits, a singing poop monster, lame rip-offs of Medal of Honor and Resident Evil, and even a Matrix parody back when that was fresh. Even the most affluent of potheads couldn't fathom up half the absurdity of this game. One level has the doe-eyed titular character tricking snooty cows into drinking prune juice so they run over to shit in a sewer drain, only to get eviscerated by an angry bull. Again, Conker wasn't the best game (it was on the N64, after all), but I felt some pathetic desire to pay homage to that nutty system.


#10 - Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (Playstation 2, 2003)
This game reeks of animu idiocracy, and back when it first hit the American shores, I was all over that kind of nerd bullshit. I didn't even know how to play tactical games, but that didn't stop me. Disgaea has a steep yet forgiving learning curve, and allows for some incredibly life-changing replayability: think reaching level 9,999. I never sought to lose that much breath over this game and its awesome sequels and PSP ports, but Disgaea led on to me playing other good tactics games like Jeanne D'Arc and Final Fantasy Tactics. My best character in the game? A fire mage I named Mr. Trippy.



#9 - Saints Row (Xbox 360, 2006)
It may seem odd to place Saints Row the first is on here over the vastly superior sequel, but I say that the second game wouldn't have came without this opening the door. After the Grand Theft Auto series set the go-anywhere, do-anything genre ablaze on the PS2/Xbox generation, the wait for the serious GTA4 was far away. Saints Row, seeing this oppotunity, hopped on the 360 without any competition in sight. This gamble paid off. Saints Row took the gangland territory seizing aspect of GTA: San Andreas, but made it fun. They also did what GTA refuses to do: allow players to create their own character. Saints answered a lot of wishes GTA fans had in general and also helped out in not being a shitty clone like so many others. The sequel is the juicier, beefier, tittier version, but Saints Row set a bar for lethargic gamers everywhere.

#8 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Nintendo DS, 2005)

My only portable game on the list, Ace Attorney takes the idea of those Carmen Sandiego "Whodunits" and throws some strangely acceptable translation into it. In fact, Ace Attorney is a pure text puzzler wrought in some wacky Perry Mason universe. Unfortunately, I'm retarded when it comes to puzzle solving, so most of my time with this game was spent with a guide on what to do to beat the game (basically a script). But while I cheated my way through this game and the second and part of the third game, I really enjoyed the story and dialogue. It's also one of those games I'd let my grandma play if it didn't have weird Scooby Doo logic when it came to solving crimes.

#7 - Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (PS2/Xbox/GC, 2001)

This was why and how I got my PS2. I'm not going to go into meticulous detail about my love for this game. I love fighters. And while there's not much polish to it (reused Capcom character sprites are way off from the reanimated SNK characters), CVS2 marks the last hurrah of the classic 2D fighting game. Good stuff.

#6 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PS2/Xbox/Gamecube/GBA, 2001)
Pro Skater 3 needed a home on my list for being a fond memory within my heavy PS2 usage. I dabbled to and fro in the Tony Hawk series in the early years, enjoying the arcadey gameplay and bevy of unlockables. Three was kind of the peak of this now-decaying franchise. Like Star Wars? Go play as Darth Maul. Like comic books? Wolverine's in this game. How about demon titties? Yes, go nuts, there's a firey devil babe here, too. This also marked the introduction of Bam Margera into my world, and it's never been the same since. CKY!

#5 - Kingdom Hearts (Playstation 2, 2002)
If someone told me I'd love a game where Donald Duck and Goofy hang out with the Breakfast Club that is Final Fantasy VIII, I'd tell them to fuck off. But Kingdom Hearts is just the game, and I do indeed love it. Taking action gameplay and tossing around some RPG elements, KH took two different franchises and smashed them together quite wonderfully. Some people hate it and call it sissy, but that's the cham of it. This isn't bloody or full of boobs; hell, the main weapon is a goddamn giant key. And while the sequel offered better things like playing as Jack Sparrow and no shitty Little Mermaid singalongs, this game, akin to my theory with Saints Row, bore out those grand things and therefore should be cherished.

#4 - Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360/PS3, 2009)
I've already announced my boner for this game in a previous blog, so I'll spare all that mush. I should explain why SFIV is so low on my list. It might have something to do with the fact that Super Street Fighter IV will be coming out this spring to replace it. Sadly, we'll have to wait until 2020 to see if that game will be the best game of this new decade. I think it will. If it has R. Mika then I will create a new number to surpass 1. I should also say that while I really, really love SFIV, there are a few other games that won over my love with more surprise...

#3 - Bioshock (Xbox 360/PS3, 2007-2008)
I'm not a big fan of first-person shooters, so imagine my "shock" (tee-hee!) when I decided to cash in my chips and play this game about a 1950s underwater utopia gone wrong. Whether it was the creaky submarine sounds, the strange retro decor, or a haunting Jolson tune emitting from a lone record player, this world of Rapture sucked me in. Watching a Big Daddy (think The Hills Have Eyes in a scuba suit) roam aimlessly with its Little Sister child was pure awe, as it would only attack when provoked. The sequel will be out next month and I will get it without question. But I have my doubts - Bioshock set a grand tone that'll be hard to recapture.

#2 - Jet Grind Radio (Dreamcast, 2001)

Ah, the Dreamcast. Such a waste of mirth and quirkiness. Sega's last console bore some really fucked-up, awesome games. My favorite of these being Jet Grind Radio, a game where you pick a Japanese roller blade punk and tag the city with graffiti. The story was awkward, the music was catchy, and the graphics were fucking FANTASTIC for a game coming from that time. After the eyesore games Nintendo pissed out, Jet Grind Radio was like breathing fresh oxygen after standing in the chamber of farts for five years. Sadly, the Dreamcast quickly died and hardly anyone takes the risk to make another game this wacky and Japanese anymore. It should also stand out that out of the eight Dramcast games I own, this is the only one that doesn't involve fighting. Salud.

#1 - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Playstation2/Xbox, 2002-2003)
Having a GTA game as my #1 game of the Aughts says something about my love of gaming in this day and age: I love fucking off. But the challenge of deciding out of sportsmanship to only pick one GTA game for this list proved tough. GTA3 was excluded, disproving my theory of letting the bearers of better seeds prosper. I never felt GTA3 was a breathtaking masterpiece, fun as it was. And GTA4 and its sub-sequels are all fine and dandy but sucked out what I loved about the series to begin with. GTA: San Andreas seemed like the surefire winner, as I've clocked in well over 100 hours just dicking around in the game's countryside. But it was Vice City, with its retro-80s chic, Scarface-meets-Miami Vice parody, and bucket of classic 80s music that won the whole thing. Vice City encapsulated everything that the GTA series wanted to be - just a dumb, fun game where you get to do all kinds of things. One of my greatest memories was when I first got the game, my friend Bryan decided to bring his copy and his PS2 over to play on my extra TV. We just sat back-to-back on my bed, playing our own copies of Vice City and having a hoot and a holler. Yeah, it didn't make any damn sense, but it didn't have to, I think. The unfortunate thing is that the game looks absolutely awful today. I guess that's why my memories serve such a purpose: to enlighten the past.

For your health,

-C.

Stereotypes Akimbo Review: Assassins Creed II.

It's settled: the holiday season is near its close. X-Mas has came and went, bringing with it enough snow to rape a metaphorical fire monster (with giant titties!). Hopefully everyone lived through the peril, and those who winced and whined about it better remember that fateful season two years ago where we lost our goddamned electricity for a week or so, and subsequently our minds. And I lived to review yet another vidya game, Assassins Creed II, and I liked it a lot. That in and of itself may be proof that I lost my mind for sure.

Some people may not be so familiar with this irony. See, back when Assassins Creed I reared its head in '07, it came close to destroying the balance of video games good and bad. One could look at the wonderful care put into a game like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, or Kingdom Hearts, and immediately tell it was made exclusively out of pixie dust and sunshine smiles. These games were set apart from trash like Shrek's Fairy Tale Racers or Barbie Fashion Adventure Pony Fun Fashion. Things were simpler, grander.

Then AC showed up, and people went daffy for it before they had the chance to play it. Then something went wrong. A rather scathing (and rad) review hit that month's Electronic Gaming Monthly and catapaulted AC into a divided group of gamers - those who favored what it had to offer, and those who played the game with its horrific, awkward control setup and shat magma from their frothing maws. My friend Shaun fell into the former group, buying the game and loving it. However, I sadly fell in the other group. I played the game no more than five minutes, and, having failed to press the proper multitude of buttons to jump on a box half my size (Pro tip: it's two buttons plus the analog stick), I basically felt the urge to "fuck this shit" and stormed off to announce my hatred to the world. Or Myspace, anyway. It led to a character being cobbled for my amateur webcomic Veronica Saga, aptly named "Assassin," who does nothing right.

Time passed. The ultimate consensus that AC was interesting potential wasted on assy design. So a sequel was in order.

Assassins Creed II takes the same elements of the first game and transplants them into 15th century Italy. As the pompadour Ezio Auditore, you turn to the life of an assassin after getting screwed over in a major way. With the aid of your bosom buddy, Leonardo Da Vinci (yeah, THAT one), you set out to kill the conspirators that ruined your life. I should also mention that there's a deeper plot involving this dude, Desmond Miles, that's living the lives of his ancestors through a Professor X mind-reading chair built by the real bad guys. Or whatever. The whole plot to Assassins Creed proper is a dastardly J. J. Abrams mind-fuck, anyway, so Ezio's story was the only one I really followed.

What sets this apart from the previous game is the atmosphere of Italy's various districts and towns. As Ezio traverses through the country, he unlocks more and more goodies to assist in his retribution. The biggest element is his own village, which can be upgraded to accomodate his needs, like offering cheaper weapons, armor sets, clothes colors, and healing items. These upgrades increase the village's value, along with Ezio's money pouch. After about eight hours in, this was the only way I really got money since it pays big. If playing Ty Pennington isn't your bag, you can steal small bits of coin from bystanders or play side missions (or story missions, which handsomely reward you for doing the most menial tasks, like walking with your mommy).

The interesting thing about the game's structure is the amount of history lessons one gets out of playing through it. Running across landmarks will instantly offer explanations on why they exist, and get this shit - they're REAL places. Not to mention that Ezio can purchase actual, existing paintings to showcase in his swank art gallery, each potrait with its own explanation. Ubisoft really outdid themselves with the amount of research put into this sucker.

However, I can't deny that ACII's biggest flaw returns. The run-about controls resurface with awkward button configurations that would lead to more casual gamers seething. The setup is so maligned that timing a jump wrong or moving in a different direction may lead to death or worse, fucking up a mission. Having lived through the scat-smeared criticism of the last game, coupled with Ubisoft's last big game Prince of Persia having Playskool-level run-and-jump controls, one would think this could've been fixed. Alas. Not that the controls are outright awful. When they work, they really work. The same could be said of combat, which starts off somewhat unfair (after all, this is pretty much a stealth game), but as Ezio acquires better weapons, armor and skills, becomes fun and practical. The problem this game does have that I can justify griping about is that it does a piss-poor job explaining how to do stuff. Reading game journalists' Twitts about them constantly failing the first run-and-jump mission because ACII doesn't tell you very well how to run and jump made me giggle, but expands my point that these controls are kinda bad. Forgivable, but bad.

Assassin's Creed II, with all its wanky controls and somewhat embarrassing stereotype of Italians, is a very good game. I can't say it'll win everyone's hearts, but it managed to win mine after having an unenjoyable debut that was my five minutes of the first game. One neat thing that I feel like gloating about is that, ironically, ACII is the first 360 game that I managed to net a complete 1000 gamerscore on. Not that I whored out my time and energy to get it, as the game is pretty generous. It just kind of happened.

On a side note, I've also dabbled in some King of Fighters XII, which was mentioned in an earlier post as being a game I wanted but not for the steep price it wasn't worth. One X-Mas gift card later, and issues were settled. Is KOFXII a good fighter? It's hard to say. It's pretty good except it has no Mai Shiranui in it, and a King of Fighters with no Mai in it is pretty much awful. So it's basically a conundrum. I definitely don't feel like dedicating a whole post to it, that's for sure.

Now it's on to Prototype, Brutal Legend, and Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier. Somebody blew the video game boner this season.

For your health,

-C.