1. No Random Battles

The number of RPG’s still employing the archaic genre convention of random encounters seems to have decreased dramatically over the past decade, and Persona 4 makes the final case against them. While there was a time when I thought the absence of random battles in Japanese RPG’s would be the end of the genre itself, planned encounters significantly decrease frustration in a game where even simple encounters can be challenging. Even though the Dungeons in Persona 4 are little more the randomly generated corridors, the option to try and sneak by enemies or face them head feels much more rewarding then having to go into a battle every 6 steps.

When looking at legacy titles on the PC it is often easy to dismiss them as being nothing more then products of their time, with little to give to a post Crysis world. However when looking at the soundtracks of…

This week we are headed back in time to the early days of the Famicom Disk System in Japan with the 1986 release of Nazo no Murasame-jo, which Roughly translated is The Riddle of Murasame Castle. Coming on the heels of The Legend of Zelda, Murasame Castle, much like Kid Icarus is to Metroid, took the same style of play (top down overworld adventuring) but instead of having total freedom to move through the overworld switched to a linear format in which players had to defeat 4 castle bosses before the final showdown.

Middleware is defined as Software the serves as an intermediary between systems software and an application, and over the past generation has become a major part of the video game industries. Whether a graphics or physics solution, the games industry has grown accustom to these tools to allow development to focus on other elements such as gameplay or story development. With the widespread use of middleware, has the individuality and character of earlier 8 and 16 bit games been lost for the sake of shorter and more cost effective development time?

50 Cent is not a gangster; 50 has become so far removed from the Gangsta “I’ve been shot 9 times” image which over the past few years has been replaced by a reality show hosting, Vitamin Water shilling Business man.…

When setting out to review 50 Cent Blood on the Sand, I felt like it was important to consider the following points: Do you like sniping with pistols? Do you like lifting doors? Do you like fighting helicopters? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this game is for you. Everything about 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is made for fans of 50 Cent, his music, and absurd game design. From the ridiculous music to the over the top melee sequences, everything is tailor made for the ultimate 50 Cent fan, and I love it for just that fact.

While I set about a looking at the list of newly announced/release schedule for Nintendo’s pair of jugernaut consoles consisting of the first half of the year, a few titles stand out while the rest seem quite underwhelming. I appreciate Nintendo for making a leaps of faith with a certain title, however I feel as if this shows just how much internal dev at Nintendo is on autopilot and/or saving their big releases for the fall.

Headed to Best Buy tonite to pick up the game of the year: 50 Cent: BLOOD ON THE MOTHERFUCKING SAND!

When looking back at old video game soundtracks it is often important to put into context what else was happening at the time when the game was released. For this week when looking at Lufia and the Fortress of Doom’s contemporaries we can see that Final Fantasy IV had already been out in the United States for over 2 years, and Secret of Mana had been out for 2 months previous to it’s release. Both of these games had fantastic soundtracks, especially when looking at the type and variety of music and sounds that had been created for Secret of Mana.

When I started World of Warcraft in August of last year, the daunting task of getting to the level cap of 80 in the soon to be released expansion Wrath of the Lich King was set before me. Having a roommate that is a day one subscriber to the popular MMORPG set the bar high as to how fast this task was supposed to be accomplished, but between school as well as wanting to play other games it has actually taken me quite awhile to reach this goal.