MAFIA II just hit this week and I have to say that I enjoy the game quite a bit. It’s gameplay is a great mix of brawling and third person shooting. It has a lot of mechanics that work, and it all takes place in a lively, gorgeous, ever changing open world version of New York. Too bad it’s completely wasted.


Mafia II has an incredibly linear story telling style that pushes you from mission to mission. There’s no wandering to be done in the game. You’re not going to find some long lost friend from the old country on the side of the road the way you did in GRAND THEFT AUTO 4. Sure there’s trouble to get into in the game. You can drive around and start hitting pedestrians, killing people with random street shoot outs, and get in trouble with the cops in the process, trying to evade them. But isn’t this gameplay kind of worn out? Is there really still an appeal to driving around and killing everyone in site in modern gaming? I’ll admit I did it in GTA4 simply because that’s the only way I knew to play a GTA game then I grew up and started playing story missions, which I enjoyed quite a lot. The open world map served a purpose in those games of making the city feel alive. You could play any way you wanted. Same goes for RED DEAD REVOLVER.



Along comes MAFIA II and there’s none of what makes an open world game great. The city feels plenty alive, but it’s it’s incredibly linear gameplay elements it feels unnecessary, and actually it feels insulting in a way. The game makes you drive from mission to mission, padding out the gameplay, but there’s no reason for this since the story is linear. This is just adding something for you to do, that’s not fun, not interesting in any way, and gets rather boring by the 8th mission where you have to wake up get some clothes and then drive to a place. Why not just have a mission at that place? You already know where you want the character to go, you’ll save space on the disk, your programmers will be happier because it’s less work, and the gameplay will be paced much better.



There are some things developers seem to think they have to put in a game to make it successful. Things like tacked on multiplayer that no one will play, a promise of DLC, and now I’m guessing they feel the need to make a game open world. So to you developers I say, don’t. If it’s not going to directly affect the gameplay, then make a linear game. Don’t be afraid to just tell an incredible story from start to finish and leave gimmicks behind. If you want to make an incredibly well paced linear story then make sure the characters are interesting, the story is good, and the gameplay elements you have work. Trim the fat.



Having said all that, I still feel that Mafia II is a really cool game. I enjoyed it a lot, and I’ll probably play through it one more time, if for no other reason to find all the hidden issues of Playboy Magazine scattered through it. It’s definitely worth checking out, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself bored, driving, listening to Bing Crosby sing about how it’s a White Christmas or some nonsense. It gets old fast.

Yet again WCG Ultimate Gamer reveals an initial trailer that shows who most of the cast is, reveals games, and teases with a bit of drama. A couple people and I have been talking back and forth about who we thought was on the show and the trailer confirmed a good majority of these people.



I CAN NOT WAIT for this show to come out. One reason why… EDITING! You can tell ALREADY from how the show was edited that they are going to show LOTS of drama. They show a well known DOA player Vanessa crying in the trailer… just like they did for me. Basically this is going to go one of two ways… Either people will just stupidly believe that that show accurately portrays everyone on it.. OR People will finally realize how “reality” tv can portray ANYONE to look like ANYTHING they want as they see their favorite gamers in a new light. I really think people need to realize people were made out to be the “bad guys” in season one when in actuality they are very nice. People like Rob were made out to be the quiet type when he’s very outgoing, talkative and fun to be around, Chelsea was the innocent girl on the show and she was the one creating most of the drama… so editing is going to play heavily on how you perceive this new batch of gamers on the show… so keep that in mind before you start talking crap again people. Ok… now that you trolls ignored ALL of what I just said… read on.



Before I get started I wanted to touch base on a couple things. The intro… only pay attention to the people’s faces in boxes… ignore anyone that had a speaking part in the beginning…that guy followed by an asian girl you saw in the beginning of the trailer. NO, they are NOT on the show. How do I know? Lets just say I was personally told that she was the 1st person sent home from the final auditions hence why she ran home and wrote a nasty little blog with the following blurb…



1st- I dare you to tell that to Mark Smith, Season 1 winner who’d laugh in your face while flashing $100 bills. lol 2nd- Didn’t everyone just see you on that video AUDITIONING for a show that’s purpose is to find the BEST ALL AROUND GAMER? *Facepalm* Can you say “SALTY”? I actually saw a few ppl who talked smack about Season 1 at auditions for Season 2 also so it goes to show, people will do anything for fame and money… luckily the cast they picked had a handful of passionate gamers who were doing it for more than just the attention. Well… what you REALLY want to see starts at about 0:35 in, so go ahead and fast forward to that.

Now I’m going to start telling you a bit about the gamers that are on this cast. (AND PRODUCERS… DO NOT CALL ME YELLING AT ME AGAIN! YOU RELEASED A VERY REVEALING TRAILER!)

Let’s start with the winner of the voting contest…

GAMER: Jake aka Thirstee321 Jake won the popular vote to earn his spot in the house and that is something that will hurt him BADLY! Why? Well Basically everyone else who was a candidate for the show saw the voting process, and if they were smart, would have researched his background to see that he is a very well rounded all around gamer that is part of a group called Countdown321 along with Season 1 cast member Jamal aka Zophar321. Speaking from experience, I told Jamal to tell Jake that he needed to put his xbl profile on friends only because Amy from season 1 was watching all of us like HAWKS before the official cast was announced to see who was good at what games. If anyone did that to Jake all of his weaknesses and strengths would be exposed making it easier to take him down. On top of that, since he’s the only one that all 11 other members will be familiar with, he will probably be deemed “the threat” and they will try to take him down ASAP.

STRENGTH: Multi-Genre Gamer

PORTRAYAL: The Threat

PLACEMENT: Top 3

GAMER: Yaz aka Clown- A well known Counter Strike player formerly of Team OPTX who has CLEARLY stated to me several times he does NOT own an Xbox 360 and has only touched a console a few times. He was supposed to be on Season 1 but was screwed over by CGS right before the company bombed. He was promised a spot on this season, and they clearly came through with their promise. How far can he go? Well, honestly it depends SOLELY on his ability to make friends, and do well in the physical challenges because he’s going to suffer in the isolation room.

STRENGTH: FPS games on PC

PORTRAYAL:The likable jock

PLACEMENT:Bottom 3

GAMER: Vanessa- A well known top DOA player, former CGS Team OPTX member and girlfriend to the well known MASTER. While I don’t know her personally, I have witnessed first hand that she is a very emotional person since I followed her progress in DOA while she was competing in the CGS series. She’s a very strong player but takes her games to heart. At world finals I saw her break down in tears for about 30 minutes when her team lost while MASTER consoled her. Does that make her a bad person? No, but it DOES mean you’re going to be seeing a lot of tears as long as she is around. Her skills in other games is unknown to me. I have never heard her mention playing other games, but I also don’t follow her too closely anymore since CGS went under. I imagine she is good at ALL fighters, other strengths are unknown.

STRENGTH: Fighting games on console

PORTRAYAL: The drama queen

PLACEMENT: 6th-9th

GAMER: Faye aka PrincessAura Faye is known in the Street Fighter 4 and Brawl scene for… well I believe she was a top placing SSB player, but as far as Street Fighter goes, she’s just a competitor. You may notice her at every event with her friend MarkMan, she’s the girl with the blue streak in her hair. Knowing her on a somewhat personal level I have seen that she has some skill in the fighting genre and is also good at vocals for Rock Band. Where her talents extend outside of that I have no clue. While she has always been nice to me, I have heard from multiple people in the gaming industry that she is a … well… a persuasive person I’ll say. She can easily obtain what she wants, and if she took that into the house with her she could end up in a situation very similar to Chelsea from season 1 who skated by to the finals by making friends with the right people.

STRENGTH: Fighters on console

PORTRAYAL: The cute “innocent” girl that everyone will overlook while she skates to top 6.

PLACEMENT: 4th-6th

GAMER: Sebastian aka Chosen1 I don’t know too much about Chosen1 but I definitely know the name. He is another Multi-Genre gamer and he doesn’t take crap from ANYONE as you can see from the trailer. I really think that he’s going to be taking charge in this house and starting a fight or two. I don’t think he intends on being friends with anyone to make it to the top and will dominate purely on his skill.

STRENGTH: Multi-Genre Gamer

PORTRAYAL: The trouble maker

PLACEMENT: Top 6

GAMER: AJ aka HatPerson While most of you will be saying “who is this guy?” I know him pretty well. AJ was the tech guy for the Rockathon charity Rock Band marathon that I did in Houston last year along with Prod1gy X. When we needed an extra person because someone fell asleep or just couldn’t do it anymore, AJ would step in as an expert guitarist, vocalist or drummer. His strength in Rythm games is well known to me and he is also a very strong Street Fighter player. On top of that I remember him telling me that he’s a pretty well rounded gamer before he auditioned and obviously, it’s true if he made the show because unlike the first two gamers I mentioned, he does not have a huge name for himself… YET. Since no one in the house will really know who he is, I think he’s going to be the biggest threat to everyone without them knowing it.

STRENGTH: Multi-genre gamer

PORTRAYAL: The quiet shy type that will be quietly planning his plot to destroy everyone behind the scenes

PLACEMENT: Top 6

GAMER: Justin Wong aka Jwong THE MOST recognizable player in the fighting game community, I believe Justin Wong is going to be the most well known gamer on the show. While he’s top in the nation for various versions of Street Fighter, TvC, MvC and more, no one has ever seen Justin attempt to go pro in another genre. Does that mean Justin is ONLY a fighting game player? Well, yes, he is, but that doesn’t mean he’s not multi-talented. I talked to Justin while he was practicing for auditions and he passed all of the game auditions with only a short amount of time to practice each game. While he did not like having to do cramming practice sessions, apparently they paid off. While my initial instinct was that Justin was going to bomb and be the first person out unless Game 1 was SSF4, I now think he’d make it just a bit further after seeing the rest of the cast. Justin being on WCGUG2 will either make or break his career either further boosting his already huge success, or in the event of poor portrayal, can cause him to lose a large amount of his fan base and respect in the community, especially if he gets knocked out in the first episode. Here’s the twist though… Justin is good friends with Faye Mata in real life. I predict an alliance between them DAY 1.

STRENGTH: Fighting Games on console

PORTRAYAL: The cocky one who will probably say things to start trouble because he knows how to work those mind games!

PLACEMENT: Bottom 3 (Unfortunately. I <3 you though Justin. Prove me wrong please!)

GAMER: Rachel aka PMS Seltzer This gamer is not one I’m very familiar with. I know OF her but don’t know her well. Apparently she’s a FPS console player. My friends and I believe that was her in the opening shot where it shows the boxes around peoples faces. You can see her next to the well known Guitar Hero pro WitWix. Not knowing much about her but only a bit about her personality and going off a few things I heard about her strategy in the house… I see her as the type that will turn on a few people to get to the top.

STRENGTH: FPS games on console

PORTRAYAL: The backstabber

PLACEMENT: 6th-9th


GAMER: Katherine aka Mystik I don’t know much about her but was told the following: She is a pro gamer, and was a member of the Carolina Core team for the Female DOA4 division in the now-defunct CGS league. That makes 3 players from CGS.

STRENGTH: Fighting games on console

PORTRAYAL: Nobody has really told me much about her personality so I don’t know how she’ll be portrayed.

PLACEMENT: 6th-9th

GAMER: Ryan aka RyBu Oh boy! I got all giddy like a school girl when I found out Ryan was on the show. I had the pleasure of meeting Ryan at the Los Angeles casting call and he was instantly one of my favorite people. If you remember my video from Day 1 casting calls you’ll remember a guy saying “Ryan Burnett Portland, Oregon WCG Ultimate Gamer right here baby!” Well… he definitely had the right mentality going into it and I know first hand that he is very good at Rhythm, FPS and Fighting games. It appears as though the only areas he has problems with are Sports and Racing.

STRENGTH: Rhythm, Fighting and FPS games on console

PORTRAYAL: The nice guy that everyone overlooks as he takes top 3.

Placement: Top 3 (I wouldn’t be surprised if he won actually)

GAMES EXPOSED: NHL 10 (Euw), Tekken 6 (awww did Capcom say no to SSF4?), Forza Motorsport 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Mario Kart (WTF?). I’m not super surprised by this set of games… the only one that threw me off was Mario Kart, but I guess that goes to show they DID take our recommendations to include more systems not just Xbox 360 this time around. I was surprised, however to see what looked like Wii Sports resort or something which looks like a multi part challenge. That… looked… STUPID. It also appears as though Wii Sports Resort will be the first game in the series. Also they more than likely WILL have one PC game on the show and our guess is that BFBC2 will be played on PC. Other then that, the real life challenges are pretty similar to what we did for season 1 and OF COURSE someone doesn’t know how to drive and almost killed people again. Dammit! Did they put Dante back on the cast?

NEW RULE: I was also told about a new rule to this years show. Apparently the winner for each game/real life challenge overall is NOT allowed to place themselves against the last place person. This new rule will make the show a million times more interesting since TWICE on season 1 we had to deal with 1st going against last which resulted in the last place person going home both times. With everyone knowing that THEY could be placed against the last place person at any point in time, that adds some extra tension and will make the show that much more interesting. Good call guys, but wish that was implemented in season 1!



The most interesting part to this show is that the final 2 people have not played yet. We have NO idea who won the show because they don’t play until WCG grand finals in Los Angeles, CA this year. This is an AMAZINGLY smart plan by their marketing team to get more people to attend the WCG World Finals. Kudos marketing experts… I applaud you. What else does this mean? This means that the two finalists get to practice their ASS off all the way up until that point. I think that’s a bit unfair because on Season 1 we could only practice each game 1 day before we were expected to play it for isolation and they also kept to that system for the finals between Mark and Rob. If they didn’t already have experience with that game then they literally had one night to learn the game. I believe THAT was a true test to how good these gamers are, now these guys get to sit at home and practice? Well guess what WCG… you messed up there. Why? Well because anyone who knows these people’s gamer tags is just going to watch which 2 cast members are practicing the same games every day and we’ll be able to tell who is in the top 2 from that. If you haven’t already started trying this theory out… good luck on that because I’m sure the producers are going to tell them to put their stuff on private once they read this. lol



Well… I look forward to Season 2. It’s supposed to August 19th and I’m DEFINITELY going to watch. I can’t wait to see how they dealt with experiencing what we went through. They’re lucky however… I heard filming was only a couple weeks for them. We had to endure a whole month of living together. -_- I will be posting updates as I find out who more people are. KEEP CHECKING BACK and COMMENT! I would wish all of you who are on the cast good luck… but the time has passed. So good luck to the top 2 people and to the rest of you… prepare for hatemail. :p Sad… but true…

OH! And don’t try to call your friends who are on the show and asking them what happened because if they DO tell they’ll get in big trouble and we all know you can’t keep your mouth shut… so leave em alone. ^_~ You’ll find out what happened soon. I know it’s hard to contain yourself… but if you get your friend sued they’ll hate you forever. -_-*

Hot on the heels of a new Mortal Kombat movie’s viral campaign a new trailer hits for a new Mortal Kombat game. What is some what surprising is that this game looks more like traditional Mortal Kombat than ever before. There’s no gritty real world take, and the trailer features many of your favorite characters. After MK vs DC it’s nice to see that it has Fatalities as well as brutal violence through out the game. Oh, and this is “Mortal Kombat 9″ or “Mortal Kombat: Random Extra Confusing Title”, but just Mortal Kombat. BUT there are too many characters for it to be a reboot.

The trailer starts with gorgeous graphics showing off the detail behind Shao Kahn and Raiden before they go into battle. Then the actual gameplay hits and I was impressed. Mortal Kombat seems to be in the combo game, as most of the gameplay shown in the trailer involves juggles and special moves. Favorites like Johnny Cage (with a douchey new chest tattoo that says *groan* Johnny), Kung Lao, Sub Zero, and Reptile.



Perpetual damage taken through out the the match seems to be a hold over from MK vs DC, as does their up close combat system, but this time damage during these encounters is shown with X-Rays that reveal cracking ribs, broken jaws, and mangled bones. It’s a nice touch to be sure.



What really surprised me is that the game is taking the 2.5 D route rather than full 3D like MK vs DC. All of the levels shown are on straight forward 2D planes, with no room to move side to side. Again this is a great return to form. One of the biggest complaints gamers had with MK vs DC was that special attacks and projectiles were easy to dodge with a simple side step. Levels like the sky bridge, the acid pit, and the evil forrest return, as well as levels like Shang Tsung’s throne room, an arena packed with spectators and a city rooftop. They all have great detail, and one moment in the trailer featured a man being lowered into an acid pit, guaranteed carnage, even when fighters aren’t doing anything? AWESOME!



The biggest shock may be that the Mortal Kombat may feature a tag system. There were a few moments in the trailer when other characters popped on screen to attack with special moves. This could just be an ally system, but here’s hoping we can see some crazy tag team matches.



I’m incredibly excited about this Mortal Kombat game. The graphics look great, the environments look really well rendered, and the gameplay looks solid. Honestly, I didn’t think there was much wrong with MK vs DC. I felt like it was a very well balanced game, with a lot of re-playability. My friends would come over all the time and we’d smash each other all day. The only problem was that Street Fighter IV then came out and we started smashing each other with that.

This could be the first Mortal Kombat game in years to be worth of tournament play! Here’s hoping we see a group start to support the brutal killer and that it has some long life ahead of it.

For a long time Mortal Kombat has gotten the short end of the stick as far as content outside of the games goes. Toys have sucked, t-shirts, books or comics have all been garbage, and don’t get me started on the films. While the first one was a fun take on the deadly island tournament formula that was popularized by Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon”, the franchise has never taken off in a way that it deserves, until now.



A new short film called Mortal Kombat Rebirth hit the web today. It’s a 7 minute long, super gritty, real world take on Mortal Kombat that could not only revitalize the movie franchise, but also the video game franchise. It’s directed by Kevin Tancharoen, the man who was behind the camera for the remake of “Fame”, and it’s entire purpose is to show Warner Bros that a that a great movie could be made from the franchise and get funding for it.

Personally I think it’s cast very well so far. I love the real world take on these bigger than life characters. The way they handle them is just as extreme, as ever. Baraka being a made scientist who’s embedded claws into his own arms, and Reptile being a freak of nature all work for me.

Some one recently commented no the video that this approach is “fucking up” something good and original, when I think it’s almost the exact opposite of that. Mortal Kombat itself is an amalgamation of every good martial arts film of the 70s and 80s. It’s premise had been seen before. It’s story was never all that deep or involved, and when it tried to be in later games is when the series fell apart, long before the Mortal Kombat characters tangled with the DC Universe.

I think this could work, and start a cool series of Mortal Kombat films that please the fans, first timers, and set both the movie franchise and the game franchise in a new direction. Here’s hoping Warner Bros listens up and stars production right away. Honestly while I like the video I don’t want Kevin Tancharoen directing. Most of his experience is in music videos. I’d rather see some one like the Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the men behind Crank, Crank: High Voltage and Gamer to do it.

What do you think of the seven minute promo?

Well everyone I’d first like you to welcome Kent Lundblad to StarSlay3r.com! Kent will be writing game reviews for the site and is one bad ass gamer! Please shoot him a welcome message and follow him on twitter @IamKent and check out his first game review of Red Dead Redemption. Hopefully this will help you decide if this game is up your alley. -StarSlay3r

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GAME: Red Dead Redemption
DEVELOPER: Rockstar North Rockstar San Diego
PUBLISHER: Rockstar Games
GENRE: Sandbox, third-person shooter, action-adventure
RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2010
PLATFORMS: XBox 360, Playstation 3
GAME MODE(S): Single Player, Multi-Player

Red Dead Redemption is big, it’s beautiful, and it’s probably the standard for well designed sandbox games on this generation of consoles. It has that same Rockstar flair that you may be used to from games like Grand Theft Auto 4, it even starts out the same, with getting off a boat, but it has so much more to offer than just GTA in the old west.


You play as John Marston, a man who’s past reckless past has come back to haunt him. Marston’s family has been taken captive by twisted government agents, and he’s been tasked with taking out members of the gang he used to ride with in his youth. Your adventure will take you all across a Texas like state called “New Austin” and down into Mexico, as well as a snow covered forest in the north. As your journey progresses you’ll meet more than your fair share of insane characters, each one crazier than the last, but all of them helping you towards your end goal.

The story is impeccably well written, and the voice actors are a joy to listen to. Marston alone sells you on his character with a gruff honesty, far less comical than GTA’s Niko. Some characters are over the top but fit in a world where they’ve clearly been twisted by the environment they’re living in. The west is not a kind place.

Red Dead Redemption is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever played. It’s day/night system is absolutely breathtaking. The same environment can look totally different but still be gorgeous, depending on the time of day you arrive there. The night sky is so impressive that it’s a shame most of the missions take place in the day. The character animation is just flawless, and the lip synching is some of the best I’ve ever seen. Each character is unique and fits the environment very well. Little touches like kicking up dust on the unpaved roads, or the way your character will tip his hat at certain people just make the game feel more alive.



It takes around twenty or so hours to get through the main mission, but there’s no way anyone who picks up the controller won’t be side tracked by all the amazing moments that come with it. Simply riding from point A to B can be an adventure with over turned wagons on the side of the road being a hiding place for bandits and raiders, getting to a town can quickly be followed by a gang rolling through on horses shooting everything they see, or a random man will tell you some one’s stolen something from his store and it’s up to you to capture or kill the criminal. Moments like this break up the game into interesting moments that you’ll remember long after you play, and they’re just the random moments you have no control over.

There’s also hunting, gambling, bounties you can take on, night jobs, cattle rustling, breaking in horses, and of course they’re goofing off and shooting everything that moves. Normally there’s no real consequence to being a jerk in a game made by Rockstar. In GTA 4 you can go on a rampage killing and maiming everything that moves until you die or get arrested. But after that you get let free and the world doesn’t really change for your character. In Red Dead Redemption, if you go on a killing spree you lose honor and carry a reputation with you, that is unless you have a bandanna. If you put on a bandanna you can do all the killing and murdering you want and you’ll strike up a bounty, but will never lose honor for your reputation. Amazing how a piece of cloth can do that for you.



Moving around in Red Dead’s world is just fun. The controls are spot on accurate, and while riding a horse and shooting at the same time can be a little difficult at first, it quickly becomes natural. The dead-eye feature is what really shines during combat. Clicking down on one of the thumb sticks takes you into a slow motion world where you can mark your targets and blow them away quickly. It’s as if the Matrix and Unforgiven had a love child.

The weapon selection is well rounded and interesting. Everything from handguns, to sniper rifles, to shotguns, to throwing knives, the game has a large assortment of weaponry. It’s up to you to find what works best. Each gun allows you to tackle situations the way you want, allowing each player to take on the same task a different way.



The single player game is fun, and if that’s all there was to it, I’d say it’s definitely worth a full price buy, but there’s so much more to the game. The multiplayer alone is one of the best online experiences anyone can have.

Red Dead Redemption has your regular online battle modes involving variants on Capture the Flag and King of the Hill, and they’re really fun to play, but where the game gets incredible is Free Roam. Free Roam is a feature that puts you in an open world version of the map from single player, along with several strangers, or smartly it’ll put you in a room with all your friends already playing (if there’s room). It’s here that you can take on gang hide outs with your friends, go hunting, ride around causing chaos in the world as a posse, or even find other posses to battle in multiplayer modes.



It has everything you’d want from the single player campaign, minus the story, but with a persistent leveling up system like Call of Duty. The more gang hide outs you take out, the more bad guys you gun down, the bigger the bounty you rack up causing chaos, all contribute to XP that levels your character up. There are also challenges involving hunting, gathering plants, getting so many head shots and the like that also give you XP. Leveling up isn’t without it’s rewards. You’ll get new characters, horses or mounts to ride on, and new weapons. Like Call of Duty there’s a prestige system that allows you to go back to square one after you reach the cap of level 50. Once there your character flips back to zero, but you keep all the titles you’ve earned, and get legendary characters and mounts and gold weapons for each time you do it.

Red Dead Redemption has this and a whole lot more to it. It’s a gigantic game, and even with being over 100 hours into it I haven’t experienced everything, and with free Co-op missions coming soon the game is only going to get better. This is a nearly perfect game. There are still glitches in multi-player allowing people to fall through walls, but in a game this big it’s almost expected, and doesn’t really hinder the experience.

With how gorgeous the game is, how well it plays, and for all the features it has, Red Dead Redemption is the new gold standard for sandbox games. It deserves as much credit as it’s getting. I give it a 9.8 out of 10.

Well I’m going to start this off with the statement that I’m not afraid to admit when I am wrong. I’m sure you all read my “say bye bye to guitar hero post”. Basically it looks like Activision actually listened to the people on this one and made the smartest move they could have ever done and they decided to bring Guitar Hero back to it’s roots. I believe that Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is going to help save Activision’s ass quite a bit after the failures known as Guitar Hero 5 and “Crap Hero”. Yeah, I said it. Basically just when you played Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80’s and Aerosmith and thought “well it can’t get much worse” they came out with GH5 and the pop hits aka Band Hero and totally turned me, along with 75% of the hardcore Guitar Hero crowd, off to the series.



One of my biggest complaints with the series was that ever since Guitar Hero 3 it seemed like they focused more on making the game mainstream by getting the big name pop stars like “Taylor Swift” instead of making the game challenging and fun. They also came up with the gimmicky slider bar for the GH World Tour and GH5 guitars which was a total flop as most people didn’t even use the touch bar since half the time it would malfunction causing it to go off on its own ruining your streak and became completely useless.



When it comes to Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock’s setlist it’s looking like they’re going back to the roots of GH1 and GH2 and bringing in some killer metal tracks and some awesome artists that are going to make for some decently hard and fun to play tracks. So far the following have been released:

AFI – Dancing Through Sunday
Anthrax – Indians
Avenged Sevenfold – Bat Country
Black Sabbath – Children of the Grave
Buzzcocks – What Do I Get?
Children of Bodom – If You Want Peace… Prepare for War
The Cure – Fascination Street
Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar on Me
Dethklok – Bloodlines
Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
DragonForce – Fury of the Storm
Drowning Pool – Bodies
Fall Out Boy – Dance, Dance
Foo Fighters – No Way Back
Foreigner – Feels Like The First Time
The Hive – Tick Tick Boom
Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing
Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Kiss – Love Gun
Linkin Park – Bleed It Out
Megadeth – Sudden Death
Metallica & Ozzy Osbourne – Paranoid (Live)
Muse – Uprising
My Chemical Romance – I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
Night Ranger – (You Can Still) Rock in America
Nine Inch Nails – Wish
The Offspring – Self Esteem
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
Rammstein – Waidmanns Heil
The Rolling Stones – Stray Cat Blues
Silversun Pickups – There’s No Secrets This Year
Slayer – Chemical Warfare
Tesla – Modern Day Cowboy
The Cure – Fascination Street
ZZ Top – Sharp Dressed Man



I had a chance to chat with Herman Li of Dragonforce about GH:WOR a while ago and since his band has a song in the game he was wondering what my thoughts were on the game. He wrote “So do you think people will still care about the next GH or Rock band games? It’s getting repetitive now and saturated no?”. Of course after seeing the other artists that are going to be on here and knowing that this is only PART of the list I’m extremely confident that this will be one of the best selling Guitar Hero titles to date and difficulty wise will probably sit at a level comparative to Metallica or Van Halen with the fun factor of Guitar Hero 2 mixed in. I don’t think Herman needs to worry about their song being in THIS version of GH at least. So far Dragonforce has been one of the selling points for Guitar Hero 3 and Smash Hits especially since they had a 3 track downloadable content pack for GH3 that everyone couldn’t get enough of.

On top of the new incredible setlist Activision, of course, felt the need to introduce two new guitars into the mix. I was surprised to see that the new guitars are lacking their slider bar since that seemed to be the new thing that they were all excited about. Gizmodo had a write up about the new guitars and revealed that they will have one cutaway section with all of the electronics inside of the fretboard and neck which means you can change out the bodies or even play without a body at all which is definitely an interesting new approach.



This new concept comes with positives AND negatives however.



Positives:
-The guitars have a more edgy “hardcore” look
-The guitars will be easier to customize
- The guitars will have less problems with buttons going out now that the body/ fretboard can’t disconnect. Often times disconnecting and reconnecting the pieces too much would cause pins to not connect properly and fret buttons would start to mess up or stop working entirely after a while.
-No touch strip means that the game most likely wont have insane unnecessary slider solos in the songs. Thank goodness!
-The fact that the guitar is all one piece means you can’t break it down for travel anymore which means you’ll now have to check your bag instead of tossing it in the overhead compartment on the plane.


Negatives:
-The guitars are too small which will make it awkward to play if you are a person who plays sitting down with the guitar resting in your lap
-The awkward shape will cause a problem similar to the explorers for 360 where the guitar would tilt if you’re a standing up type of player
-The start button looks like it is big and easy to hit which means that the possibility of accidentally pausing the game is greater.
-Where the hell is the XBL button supposed to be? Basically there’s not much room in the neck/fretboard area for a guide button and I have no idea where they’re going to place it. No matter where it goes it most likely will be in an easy to hit area which is VERY VERY bad!

Overall I’m pretty impressed with everything I’ve heard about Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock so far. The set list is looking solid, the new look for the characters is pretty damn awesome and I can only imagine the death metal overhaul that the venues got. So far I’m saying good job Activision. I’m so happy that you have proven me wrong because I was fearful that the game that I once loved so much was doomed to fall into the fiery pits of pop hell. Thank you for taking the route of your fans and going back to the good music that we all know and love and making the songs harder so that we can once again shred on our dusty guitars. On behalf of all of the hardcore Guitar Hero 1 and 2 fans out there… I thank you.

Are you ready for a new addicting game? Headcase Games recently released both 180 and 180 FREE and this game is definitely one that has all of my friends addicted to their iPhones!

180 is an action-puzzler where players must launch coins onto the field while attempting to match 3 or more of the same color to clear the gems and gain points. The fun thing about this game is that each of the coins have 2 sides so you tap to flip them (hence where the name 180 came from) which is a key element to setting up some killer chain combos. This game has 3 game modes, is easy to learn, has 4 characters (one of whom you just might recognize ^_~) global leaderboards, and is openfaint enabled which means it’s got that added competitive element where you try to get more achievements than your friends so you can rub it in their face.

180 is only $1.99 from the itunes store and it’s definitely worth the money! If you’re one of those “try it before you buy it” type of people you should check out 180 FREE and get your fix! I’ll warn you now though, once you start playing you’ll find it hard to stop! I’ve caught myself playing to the point that my iPhone is dying and I’m screaming BUT I WAS ONLY 1k AWAY FROM GETTING AN ACHIEVEMENT!!!

Currently Headcase Games is currently holding a contest for people to win prizes such as an Xbox 360, Playstation 3, iPad and iTunes gift cards for scoring high and obtaining all the achievements. For more info on the contest click here.

For those playing 180 FREE wondering how you can have ME as a playable character: you have to purchase the game to unlock the other 3 characters, including me! Also, if you have openfeint don’t forget to add me! ^_^ I’m StarSlay3r on openfeint. GAME ON!!!

180 Gameplay footage:

Well guys, I’ve had to keep quiet about this game for quite some time so I’m happy that I get to finally talk about it and tell you a little bit about it. A couple months ago I got a job with Artificial Life to work on this game that I was told was a “music based game” so of course I jumped on it. When I got into the conference room I was handed an iPod Touch with a game called “8-bit Rebellion” and had an 8-bit version of Linkin Park music playing. I freaked out! This was the first time I had dealt with a game like this. I jumped into the testing job working away on what I thought would be a rhythm game but it actually turned out to be an adventure type game. This was a very INTERESTING game to say the least. Chester… you are one creative guy! ^_~

Here’s a bit of background on the game:

Many years ago, the world existed in 8-bit harmony… until PixxelKorp arrived. Now technological advancement dominates, and evil reigs supreme. A mass-brainwashing campaign has taken over and is turning the world into a high-res nightmare. A rebellion is rising, and Linkin Park is calling on YOU to lead the fight against PixxelKorp.

From the imagination of Linkin Park comes 8-bit Rebellion, the only iPhone game that turns Linkin Park’s world into your gaming reality.

Cool facts:

- While you’re playing you’re listening to 8 Linkin Park original tracks turned 8-bit including “New Divide”, “In The End” and “Crawling”.
- All of the Linkin Park characters are in the game
- The band members all had a hand in creating the game so it’s pretty awesome seeing original LP artwork and such in the game
- You can create your own avatar! You in 8-bit = sexy! haha
- You can add your friends to your friends list, send them messages in game, and link your game with your facebook.
- You get your own personal space that you can decorate
- When you beat the game you get new exclusive Linkin Park tracks!
- It’s only $4.99!

I say, if anything, download it since when you beat it you get some awesome Linkin Park tracks! Below is a youtube video showing the trailer for the game. The game is available for download now so check it out at the app store! Thank you to Artificial Life and Linkin Park for letting me have some part in making this game better. I had a blast working with you!

In preparation for the Rock-a-thon which starts in less than 3 weeks I’ve been on a quest to catch up on all of the Rock Band songs that I’ve been missing while playing Guitar Hero, SF4 and Tekken. Last week I rented the Rock Band Beatles and made it a goal to 100% as many songs as possible (I was hoping for EVERY song) and on the first try. I also set the goal to gold star every song no matter what. In Guitar Hero gold starring a song is easy… you just have to hit 100% of the notes so it’s ok if you over strum or have a bad star path, you still get 5 gold stars. In Rock Band in order to get gold stars you must get a “very high score” while on expert, so it is possible to 100% a song and STILL not get 5 gold stars, which is a challenge that I like! The Rock Band Beatles gold star cutoff’s can be viewed here. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to research the cut off’s until AFTER I reterned the game so all of my scores are based on sight reading. (Activating Beatlemania when I thought it was appropriate not knowing what notes were coming up next)

My overall thoughts on The Beatles Rock Band… I didn’t really care for it. Now, I’m not a huge Beatles fan so I knew that this was a possability, but I actually liked a lot of the songs in the game… my complaints are mostly from the game design itself.

Positives:
-Good storyline. I like how the game follows their journey to stardom.
-Age progression. It’s a cool new feature that makes it feel more like you’re actually moving through time with them. (Metallica only had 80’s and today looks)
-All the hits. Yeah I’m not a huge fan, but all the songs that everyone loves are in that game.
-Song specific venues. Yellow submarine… that’s all I have to say. Pure awesomeness!
-Realistic achievements. The achievements are tough, but can be accomplished with a little practice. I also like how they require you to do things like hitting all HOPOs without strumming them which makes for great practice and a tough challenge.
-The ending… was epic. That was the first time I actually was happy with the ending cinematic in a rhythm game.

Negatives:
-Bad highway. It was pretty hard to see the notes especially when activating Beatlemania.
-Bright backgrounds. With the studio video backgrounds being the same colors as the fret buttons it made it extremely hard to see the notes thanks to semi transparent highway
-Distracting sequences. While I love yellow submarine I also hate it… too many things going on in the background sometimes broke my focus on the highway.
-Song length. The beginning of the game the songs were all too short, then toward the end it felt like they’d just never end. (Abbey Road Medley)
-Challenges. The challenges are simply playing every song in each chapter as a setlist. Where’s the creativity? I didn’t feel like playing the game all over again.
-Not enough hard songs on guitar. Bass seemed to be the hardest instrument as far as note tracking for the two instruments.
-1 set progression. You have to play the songs in the same order no matter which instrument you play which means sometimes you’ll play a super easy song followed by the hardest song in the game followed by another easy song. There is no instrument specific difficulty progression in the game.

I only played Guitar and Bass so I don’t have any opinions for Drums, vocals or backup vox. I also did not get the chance to play anyone online for Score Duel or Tug of War due to the fact that despite trying several times I kept getting a message like “unable to find anyone else that matched your search criteria” aka “no one else is playing this game but you”.

I beat the game in approximately 6 hours or so and that includes going back and re-doing songs if I missed just one note or if I didn’t gold star it on my first try. I gold starred EVERY song in the setlist and I got 100%ed all but 5 songs. 1 song I got 98% due to the lack of the number of notes (since I missed only 3) and the other 4 I missed just 1 note on and had an overstrum somewhere in one of those as well so I decided to just continue on with the -1. Here are pics of my scores! Next Rock Band challenge will be LEGO Rock Band if I can get my hands on a copy!

Hey everyone! Because of the fact that games like Guitar Hero have been stupidly easy to the point that people no longer feel the need to use them in tournaments anymore, I have decided to start picking up some random games from Video 94 and writing about them. Just because I’m a “rhythm gamer” doesn’t mean that’s all I play, it’s just what I specialize in and I really enjoy ALL games, so this is a chance for me to take a break from the competitive scene and enjoy some of the great games that I’ve been missing out on this year! I’ll keep these short, but real… basically no one is paying me $ to give this game or ANY game a good review so I’m going to be honest… if the game sucks, I tell you it sucks! If the game rocks, I’ll tell you why it’s a must have. IGN, Kotaku, 1up…. whatever… this is MY point of view.


The game: Ghostbusters!
System: Xbox 360
Publisher: Atari
Game Type: 3rd person shooter



Since a child I was always a hardcore fan of the Ghostbusters. I watched the movies, put up the posters, and collected everything Ghostbusters that I could from shirts to lanyards and the coveted ECTO-1 license plate. For this reason, and the fact that I had to wait FOREVER for this damn game to come out, I had HIGH expectations for the game.

I start the game and am immediately happy to hear the original Ghostbusters theme song, see the Ecto-1 and the Ghostbuster house looks just like in the movie. All characters have the voices I remember and of course Slimer is there to be a pain in the ass. After the opening cinematic I sat down and said… “this is going to be an awesome game”. I see I’m playing the role as “the rookie”, some random dude who is being trained by the Ghostbusters. I was actually pretty happy to see this is the route they took since I was wondering if I’d have to pick one of the Ghostbusters P.O.V.’s or something at first.

I start the training and find that this game is a lot different from your normal FPS. Instead of having a gun which fires a shot, you are now shooting a stream which means that instead of needing precision aim you can fire away and find the enemy then you’ll have a pretty easy time staying locked onto the target. The other weird part in the beginning was learning how to trap ghosts since you can’t just shoot them then bag them… you must first weaken the ghost with your normal stream, then wrangle it in with a capture stream, then throw the trap, then pull the ghost into the trap’s area forcing it in. All of that is hard enough to do but you’ve also got Walter Peck  on your  ass telling you not to cause too much damage while busting ghosts which makes the game that much more difficult if you actually care about trying to stick with keeping the cost low.

So… I’m running around, I’m scanning ghosts, I’m finding cursed artifacts, I’m mastering the proton pack… it’s all good with one exception. One of the things that bugged me about this game is that I’m having to use my PKE meter to coax ghosts out of their hiding spots A LOT. I spent a lot of time running around chasing ghosts and telling them to GTFO of this or that so I can bust their ass, which caused me to get a bit frustrated and lose interest at times. Every time I see a cinematic or I’m busting a ghost I’m as happy as can be, but when I spend 10 minutes wondering around with a PKE meter I tend to get a bit pissy. Hey, I can only look at a level in 5 shades of green for so long! In total, each level took me less than one hour to complete, and after each level I’m rewarded with an achievement… seems easy enough.

As the game goes on the level’s get progressively harder, the ghosts become more difficult to capture, the bosses more violent (and you have to start finding out their weaknesses in order to defeat them), and there are added puzzle type elements to the game. Sometimes You’ll have to use a specific beam to grab/ move something or capture something in order to continue your venture through the level which can add even more frustration if you’re not an “outside of the box” type of thinker. The story line progresses to tell you that the reason for all the trouble is that there are Nodes in the city which must be destroyed so that the ghost world and real world do not merge. It’s a pretty Ghostbuster-ish type plot which makes sense and gave me some good locations to go bust ghosts. I also like the fact that the bosses MADE SENSE! I mean, I’m in a library and I’m fighting a crazy librarian and her book monsters and in a museum fighting civil war ghosts… good stuff!

In total it took me about 6 hours to complete the game, although I know if I went through the game again I could beat it in about 4 since a lot of time was spent scratching my head and using my slime tether on objects trying to open doors and solve puzzles. Aside from the normal career mode there is also a multiplayer mode that I didn’t get to really check out.  This mode is seperate from the game and includes capturing as many ghosts in a limited period or attempting to defend ghost disruptors as they are charged up.  Players are rewarded an amount of career earnings for their performance but the earnings online do not carry over into the normal offline career.  If I get the game again I will try to go online and see if there are enough people still playing the game to get some rounds in and see how online multiplayer works.  The bad part, there is no local multiplayer mode for 360, so if you wanna bust ghosts with a friend you either have to do it online or man up, hand over the controller, and take turns locally.

Some things that made me all giddy and made me literally want to throw my hands up with glee…

• The cinematics made me feel like I was really a Ghostbuster, busting ghosts.
• I LOOOOVED that they got the original actors to do the voices in the game.
• The ECTO-1 … perfect!
• I got to fight Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man!  That dude is a Ghostbuster legend… he’s so cute too! I felt bad that we had to whoop his ass.
• When running around the Firehouse I saw the talking painting from the Ghostbuster movie, and yes, he actually TALKS too!
• Achievements for this game are easy… maybe TOO easy? I mean hell, you get one just for sliding down the fire pole or busting a ghost.
• This is a biggie… NO HUD!  Yeah, your health meter and proton pack heat level is all located on the proton pack itself so there’s nothing extra on the screen!
• Multiple difficulty levels so the casual players can play and have fun and the hardcore can get man handled by the ghosts. (It’s not fun, trust me)
• There’s a TON of funny lines/ parts in the game.

Some things that kind of bummed me out

• Why didn’t Slimer hang out more? I think maybe I was expecting some elements from the Ghostbusters TV show to be implemented. Oh well.
• No local multiplayer? WHYYYYYYYYYYYY???????
• Too much down time looking for ghosts
• An achievement for total damage cost <$100k I deemed impossible.  I racked up a total $220k damage being careful! Sheesh! Why should I have to pay for that stuff anyways?
• When I pushed the button to open the containment unit in the basement a bunch of lights and sirens went off but then it all went away and I couldn’t push the button again. WTF was that? Why didn’t all the ghosts come out of the unit? I was honestly expecting to have to re-catch all those ghosts and WANTED to!

Overall  I would give this game an 8 out of 10. If you’re a Ghostbusters fan I say this is a good buy since there’s good replay value and an online multiplayer mode, and if you’re not a huge Ghostbusters fan, I still say it’s at least worth a rental at your local video  store!