We Meet Again

I truly am a certified, bonafide, Class A dumbass. Part of me rejoices in the fact no one reads this blog except my multiple personalities who incessantly nag on my short-comings and misgivings on the current going-on within the gaming universe. I blame my lack of Twitter functionality. 

Why am I degrading myself, you ask? Yes, indeed, there's a Tomb Raider collector's edition that I didn't know about until an hour ago. Please excuse me while I do to myself what Stewie did to Brian. Keep in mind, I bought the Colonial Marines collector's edition over the f*cking Tomb Raider collector's edition. 

I should've seen this coming. 

 I gave up my hard-earned money for a shitty game rather than putting it towards the above edition. Never to fear, with pay day tomorrow I'm putting down a goddamn pre-order with Amazon. I don't care how much will come out of my pocket, I made a promise never to miss a damn fine collector's edition. And from what I see, having Lara Croft on my desk 24/7 would be a wonderful addition to my vast array of nerd goodies. 

Needless to say, I cried a bit on the inside when my mates at Gamestop gave me the no-go on the above pre-order AND the news that my God of War: Ascension pre-order was for the standard when I swear to Chuck Norris mine was for the collector's. Today has been a great defeat for the Jonesian Empire and an even greater folly for The Late Duck. 

I can, however, say this much for the recently released games. Crysis 3's multiplayer really isn't that bad. It's not ground-breaking in the least, but still somewhat entertaining. I've never been much into Metal Gear, so Revengeance wasn't on my radar. IGN did give Tomb Raider a 9.2, I believe, so if you're in need for a new action-adventure that has the qualities of Uncharted, then pick it up this coming Tuesday, 5 March. If I happen to come across the game by that time (Chuck Norris willing), then expect a review by next week's end. 

I solemnly swear The Late Duck will never miss a beat again. Stay tuned for next time's greatest hit!

The Lame Duck

How does a game suck in today's world? 

It's backed by Sega. 

Back in the day, and I mean way the f*ck back in the '90s, Sega knew what they were doing. Sonic the Hedgehog was probably one of the greatest side-scrolling platformer games of our generation. But lately, they've slowed pace with development. In what way, do you ask? Aliens: Colonial Marines. And Gearbox, well, guess their primary project was Borderlands 2. Least that one didn't suck. 

I was legitimately psyched for this game since it was announced years ago in Game Informer. This is coming from the same developer that gave us Borderlands for all things holy. You would then imagine after years of development, Sega and Gearbox would've had this game down perfectly. 

Wrong.

Right from the start, Aliens: Colonial Marines does nothing to truly grab the player and immerse them into the action. The pacing is the fastest I've seen in a video game which does even less for the story. Characters are introduced, but never given the opportunity to develop into likeable or even relatable individuals. The game doesn't give a tense feeling when walking down the corridors of the Sulaco or Hadley's Hope. Never once do you feel as if you're about to step into a veritable hell hole of xenos and pitch black with only a flashlight to illuminate. Instead, players have access to literally every f*cking weapon the USCM has in their arsenal making them Ultramarines rather than Colonial. No to mention that every single enemy drops either ammo or armor, so don't expect to die quite often unless you truly suck at first-person shooters. This lends even more to how simple the gameplay is regardless of the difficulty. 

Graphics are substandard making it one of the worst looking games of 2013. Particle effects look last-gen. Frame-rate issues are laughable, character animations are often buggy, textures pop constantly, and the AI makes Colonial Marines more like a shoot-out than survival-horror. Hell, Doom 3 looks better than this game. 

As far as the story, Colonial Marines has been certified as canon for the series. Seventeen weeks pass since the disaster on Hadley's Hope. The USS Sulaco, somehow, returned to orbit over LV-426: an incident that's only somewhat explained through speculations. And now, yet another contingent of marines is dispatched to 'rescue' the crew of the Sulaco despite a distress signal from Hicks (voiced by the one and only Michael Biehn) which should've been code for "STAY THE F*CK AWAY FROM LV-426!" Yeah, sure, let's send even more marines to die after a unit was slaughtered by xenos. I mean, come on! Hicks just said 'my entire unit has been wiped out'. What more of a warning do you need? Sure, never leave a marine behind, but why sacrifice even more? The story boils down to: run here, flip that switch, shoot this, repeat. There's never a moment when you feel genuine terror especially when you have Ripley's Pulse Rifle complete with flamethrower and grenade launcher (which looks f*cking stupid, btw). Easter eggs come and go in the form of Bishop's lower half in the hangar bay, Hick's shotgun, and Dietrich's body that ended up in a casket somehow. I won't go more into the story for those of you brave enough to slave through it. 

Multiplayer is a joke. Marines win every time unless you're brilliant with a xeno. The bonus firing range is even more pathetic. All I can say for this game is the sights and sounds of Aliens is there, but nothing to make it believable or redeeming. Sega dropped the bomb, again, on Hadley's Hope. However, the voice acting was acceptable with Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprising their roles as Hicks and Bishop. 

The collector's edition was alright for the additional $40. The statue, around seven-eight inches, has enough detail for a nice desktop display. Two USCM iron-on patches should help my new leather jacket look pretty cool. The 'classified' mission dossier has a few neat items: schematic of the USS Sephora, recon photo of LV-426, a propaganda card, and briefing of the mission. 

So, my overall rating of Aliens: Colonial Marines- the lower tier of "keep sitting on the couch playing whatever game you're hooked on". Pass this one up unless you REALLY love Aliens. Rent, GameFly, or Red Box this one, dear readers. Sorry, Sega, go back to making Sonic games that don't suck. 

Aliens: Colonial Marines earns the Lame Duck award (and no, I'm not referring to a political lame duck). 

 

Stay tuned next time for news on March's releases and the delay of The Last of Us. 

The Season Begins

Count DMC as the first major release of the year if you please, but I'm going with Dead Space 3 officially kicking off 2013's gaming season. We'll get to Isaac Clarke shortly. AMC booted up The Walking Dead earlier tonight with an amazing return to Season Three. I've never been so damn happy to turn my television on. We finally get a reason to love Sundays again unless you're into Downton Abbey (nothing against you if that's your fancy). Lucky for fans, Glen Mazzara was part of the season's remainder, so there won't be any confusion leading out of the current story. For those of you who don't know, Mazzara replaced Season One and Two's Frank Darabont after issues with AMC. How Season Four will play out is entirely up to them. 

Let's get right into it and MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!! The contents below will go into Sunday's episode. 

"The Suicide King" picks right up where Rick and company left off in Woodbury. Their assault on the town rescued both Maggie and Glenn, yet lost Daryl who was captured and tossed into the gladiator pit with his brother, Merle. The Governor, after losing his left eye to Michonne, uses Merle as a scapegoat for the attack and has him fight Daryl to the death. The brothers use the walkers put into the ring as a diversion to escape and meet up with Rick. Given the events that happened in Atlanta during Season Two, Rick and Merle don't exactly see eye-to-eye. Daryl's loyalty is put into question at this point with him choosing to side with Merle as he's actual "family" rather than a tight-knit group. 

Tyreese, in my opinion, did his best to persuade the group they pose no harm. By "them", I refer to Sasha, Alan (straight from the comics), and Ben (who looks similar to the Ben from Telltale's game). From Alan's attire to his losing Donna, I can tell his part in the series will be close to the comics. As far as Tyreese, I honestly want to see him to his full capacity as Rick's right-hand man like in the comics. Chad Coleman does a damn fine job bringing life to my favorite character from the graphic novel. The series has plenty of time left to include his bad-ass "lock me in the gym full of zombies" panel. Whether or not he dies at the hands of the Governor is still unknown same with Rick's hand going the way of Luke Skywalker's. 

While I loved this episode, I'm still annoyed with the portrayal of Andrea and Michonne, two of the most bad-ass female characters from the comics. Andrea was a gun-toting, scotch-swilling, Rambo in the novels and Michonne was more than helpful on multiple occasions. Instead, we have the town bicycle and a pantomime with a katana. There's still time in the season, so maybe we'll see justice done to their characters. Why can't they be more like Carl? There's bad-ass in pint-size. 

And Rick's freak-out sesh at the end? Watch out, Tyreese. Let the man wind down for a bit. 

In other exciting nerd news, Skyfall and Aliens: Colonial Marines both hit shelves on Tuesday. I'll have both and my reviews for the new releases by week's end. 

Now, the big moment. I promised a review for Dead Space 3 and I have delivered! Launching almost a week ago, Visceral's latest and last (maybe) inclusion in the survival horror series made out like an ace in the hole. This is Dead Space through and through. Every element from the previous installments is back and then some. While I won't reveal the story, this much can be said. Grab a buddy and hit up the co-op. Certain elements to the campaign are unlocked when teaming Isaac up with Carver. Yes, enemies are more abundant, but you can share spare parts/salvage. The upgrade system is easier to navigate opting on circuits rather than power nodes. Various circuits offer various bonuses such as +2 Damage and +2 Clip size. The possibilities are limitless and I mean limitless. The universe is the limit with weapon designs. I've dismantled and assembled hundreds of combinations. My favorite (apart from the DLC Evangelizer) is my own creation: A fully automatic bull-pup with a fully automatic rivet gun that fires electrified bolts. Another paired an assault rifle with a flamethrower. Or how about a submachine gun with an under-barrel tesla cannon? Or maybe a force gun with a chain lightning gun? Make what you please to tear through the Necromorph hordes. 

New suits are available at the start of most of the chapters with each looking more bad-ass than the last. As with the last two games, you can use spare parts this time to upgrade your RIG and I highly suggest doing so. Those Regenerators aren't so keen on a light tap on the shoulder. A new addition is the Scavenger bot. Equip this little guy and follow the ping to launch the bot to collect parts. They automatically deposit their loot at any bench for you to collect. 

The story, without spoiling much, is the best in the series. Locations take you from the hostile Hoth-like Tau Volantis to a zero-gravity junkyard/graveyard and even the innards of some unlikely hosts. Isaac is thrown through the ringer yet again and probably earns the reward of "Most Likely to be F*cked with on Multiple Occasions". If I were him, the words "You've got the be F*CKING kidding me!" would echo everywhere......even space. Sure, let's go on a goddamn suicide mission that will more than likely tear me limb from limb just like the last two joyful adventures I've been on. Oh, Isaac, the shit you go through for our virtual enjoyment. 

Now, for the rating: I give Dead Space 3 the top quarter of "Get the f*ck off the couch and buy this". This means DS3 has just earned the very first "Crashed Moose" of 2013. What is a "Crashed Moose" you ask? It's my trophy giveaway thingy. 

For now, until I perfect my Photoshop skills, this image will be dubbed "The Crashed Moose" because the game is that awesome it looks like a moose wrecking a car. 

Congratulations, Isaac! You've earned it...if you're even still alive, that is...

The Crashed Moose award!

I will waive my customary send-off in lieu of a newer one.

This is Crash waiting for the Moose signing off.