Current Gen Consoles, Old Gen Consoles

Without game systems, video games would just be CDs that nobody could use. And the video game console has evolved alot over the past twenty years. We've gone from using cartridges to store games, wired controllers to play on, and the only way you could play with someone else is if they were in the room. Now look, our games our on DVDs, even blu-ray. you can play a game with your controller from over thirty feet away. and a great part of video gaming is about being able to play online. and buying add-ons for games or downloading games. and having hard-drives inside our game systems has made memory cards a thing of the past. to put it simply, game systems have changed. and I'm dedicating these reviews to the systems we have today. and the old-school systems that I thought were the grooviest of them all.

I never owned a 360. but my brother did. and I got to play one at a friend's house. So I think I got a good idea of what the 360 is.

Game Library: When I first played the 360. the first game I tried out was Oblivion. and it was damn good. being a complete Improvement from Morrowind. Oblivion was definitely a great game to have while its was exclusive to the 360. another great game was condemned: criminal origins. which was intense and scared the shit outta every time I'd play it. one of my old time favorites, dead rising. was another great game. being stuck in a mall with 50,000 zombies and being able to use anything as a weapon I thought was a grand idea for a game. gears of war was awesome. but not all the it was hyped up to be in my opinion. the whole, "fighting aliens that wanna kill all of mankind." thing has been done before. and all the characters were all just your generic badasses who walked around in a suit of armor that no real human could fight in. it would be like trying to walk around with a tank on your back, you just could not move that fucking fast in it like they do in the game. Halo 3 was probly the most disappointing game in my opinion. maybe it was the fact that I never got into Halo 2 a whole lot. but it just felt like it lost something that the other halo games had. the weapons felt crappier. the level designs didn't feel as amazing. none of the new vehicles they added were that awesome. it wasn't a game I'd wouldn't have with like I did with Halo 1 or 2.

Online: every time I'd play online. it worked great. I spent alot of time playing Gears Of Ear at my friend's house. And it worked well and bearly lagged or crashed the game. the only problem I see with it is: It's not free. If you want Xbox live account you'll have to pay for a subscription to it. which is kinda a drag. 

Hardware: This is were the 360 fails the most. you have dreaded "red ring of death". which will probly make you have to take your 360 into repair many times. I know people who have had to get their 360 repaired 5 or 6 times because his kept on breaking down. 

The Xbox 360 is a good system. Maybe not the best one ever made. but you'll get some fun outta it. now, onto the next system. 

When I heard about the Wii. it was still called the "Revolution". and I thought that was an awesome name for a system. and I thought its motion control scheme was a groovy idea for games. But then I had to go hear one of the things that was one of the many disappointments. The change of the name's console from the "Revolution", to the weird as hell, "Wii". Why the fuck would you change the name from something as awesome as the "Revolution" to something as fucking dumb as "Wii". It's like if Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid changed his name to "Anus Fairy". It just doesn't sound as awesome. But enough ranting about it. Let's see if there's anything else about the system, besides the name, thats wrong.

Game Library: like any system. It has some good games for it. Zelda: Twilight Princess was a great launch title. No More Heros is a FUCKING GOOD game. Zack & Wiki is a nice puzzle game. and Super Mario Galaxy is a great breath of fresh air from all the fucking mario sports games and the 100th fucking Mario Party game. But other then that. It doesn't have an amazing selection. You'll probly just find ports to old gamecube games or other systems. or games that took less effort to make than wiping your ass after having a nice shit. I really thought when I first got the system that It was really gonna have games that really had you use the motion control to its fullest potential. but all I found were games that made you flick the Wiimote in some direction most of the time. which I found to be rather disappointing. 

Online: It sucks. Badly. the whole friend code bullshit makes playing with other people a pain in the ass. not to mention the whole Nintendo Wi-Fi thing just doesn't work 90% of the time. Even when you do find someone to play with the chances of you starting a game without it crashing is fucking low. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I got Brawl for Wii and tried to get it online just to find out that starting a game was just as difficult as fighting someone in it. seriously, Its a fucking bitch.

Hardware: I'll give it one thing. it hasn't broken once. the only time its freezed up on me was when I'd try to play red steel. other then that, the controllers work, the system functions. its all good. 

Wii might be cheap. But it is for a reason. It doesn't have a great selection of games. but it doesn't mean I don't hold hope for it. No More Heros got me to play my Wii again after a long while. I'm holding hope that Mad world will be as fucking awesome as it looks. and even House Of The Dead: OverKill. looks like an interesting game with its style similar to that of the Grind House Movies. So even though it may be in the shitter right now. I'm still holding out some hope that Nintendo will get on the Right track. 

 The PS3 has been the system that has truly kept me happy. I don't mean to sound like a fan boy. But the PS3 is the most ass kickin system. It took me 6 months to save up for it. and it was worth every fuckin penny. here's why.

Game Library: It has franchises both new and old that are solid and just plain awesome. may it be older games like the Ratchet And Clank series or the Metal Gear Solid Saga. Or newer games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune that has the story of a good adventure movie and the solid gameplay combining the fighting of gears of war and the Platforming/Climbing of Tomb Raider. and Little Big Planet. A truly Original platformer with possibly the best level editor I've ever seen for a game. they'll be series you'll enjoy. 

Online: Its free and it fucking works. There might be games where you get the occasional lag or crash. But its going to work 90% of the time and you don't have to pay for any of it. now I know I haven't talked about the Xbox live Market Place or the Wii Virtual Console. but I find the PSN to work damn well and it has good shit to buy from it. and it doesn't have any point system you have to do to buy shit. you can do it all straight through a credit or debit card. 

Hardware: I've had the PS3 for over two years and it hasn't broken once. The controllers and the Motion Control work perfectly. The only gripe I guess I have is that I have a 20GB hard drive for my PS3 and with all the add-ons and data utility for games can take up alot of room on a hard drive. but they got PS3s with bigger hard drives. 

The PS3 may be expansive. But if you got the cash to fork over. You'll know where that extra money went. 

but now, I wanna take you to an earlier time. where game consoles where much different then the ones we have today. and the first console I wanna review is the first one my family ever got.

 

Ah, yes. The Sega Genesis. Every time I hear music from the old Sonic The Hedgehog games. it brings me way back. *sigh* so many good memories. anyways, onto the review of it.

Games Library: Sonic The Hedgehog Originated on this system. so, of course. probly his best games are on this console. but that's not all it had. probly some of the best games in the genesis's library are either the platformers or the fighters. You have Kid Chameleon. where your a bad-ass kid in a leather jacket who can transform into things such as a samurai, someone who would look like Jason from the Friday the thirteenth movies if he had an axe instead of a machete. and even something resembling a Nazi thats in a tank that shoots skulls. then you have Streets Of Rage. That was to the Genesis like Final FIght was to the SNES. an awesome fighting game where you wonder around kicking crime in the ass. I could go on, and on. All I'll say is that the Genesis has an awesome library of games. and definitely had some advantages to the NES, and even to the SNES.

Hardware: They came out with two models to the Genesis. I have the first one. It had everything a game system needed back in the day,  two controller ports, a head phone jack, and a reset button. the system has never broken down on me. the only gripe I see with the first model is that I have to really push down one the cartridge to get it in. It sometime feels like I'm about to break the system trying to get it in. 

When Sega had game systems. It brought some good competition against Nintendo. and I can see why. With Sonic as its mascot and other good games in its library. it was definitely a system worth getting.

 

Even the Genesis was the first system we ever got. my earliest memories was playing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo. This, in my opinion, was when Nintendo was in its prime. it was a time when Mario wasn't horribly franchised and Mario Party or Mario Golf didn't exist yet. and they just focused on making Mario games for what he was famous for. platforming. let's take a look.

Game Library: Super Mario World, Zelda: A Link To The Past, Chrono mother fucking Trigger. these were few of the many majestic games that were in the SNES's library. and just when they couldn't get any better. they added two other games which put SNES at the top. the first one was Donkey Kong Country. A game that had amazing graphics, great music, and just wonderful & Original platforming fun. The other game, being Super Mario RPG. This was one of the best Mario games in my opinion. when you put game companies Square & Nintendo together. you get an interesting battle system and the awesome characters Mallow and Geno. And it was the first game where Mario teamed up with his arch-enemy bowser. which was pretty amazing back in the day.

hardware: Shit, I don't see anything wrong with this system's hardware. you got of course, your two standard controller ports. they Included an eject button so you could easily pull your games out. the controllers are A+. and haven't broken or worn out at all in my time of playing on it. and best of all, I've had the thing for years and it has never broken on me. which amazes me. nowadays with the 360. it breaks down all the time. and yet, here's the SNES which is indestructible practically.

the Super Nintendo is legendary. Its library of hardcore games is 10 out of 10 awesome. And I've never had as much fun with a game system like I did with the Super Nintendo.

this here's the last system I got. so get ready.

I never paid a huge amount of attention to the DreamCast when it first came out. but I fucking wish I did. Not only did it have some groovy games on it. but just the design was godly. just the name, "DreamCast" was so cool. it wasn't the Sega Genesis 2 or the saturn 360 or some dumb shit with numbers. no! They used a new name for their console. and Unlike Nintendo with their names like "Wii". Sega's names fucking Worked. 

The DreamCast logo you got was when you first turned it on was cool, and the system's menu screen was nicer even then the PS2's. but anyways. lemme get on to the system review.

Game Library: When it first came out. it of course, had Sonic as one of its launch titles. Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 was one of the last good Sonic games to come out. Power stone was like Sega's super smash bros. Hydro Thunder was awesome. house of the dead, even with its bad voice acting, was still fun with a gun controller. And Crazy Taxi became one of my favorite Arcade game ever. and of course, the DreamCast had one of the most original games ever made in my opinion, Jet Grind Radio. A game having Cartoony, cel shaded graphics, and involved you going around spraying graffiti and taking other gang's territory.  

Online: This was the first system I think to have online gaming. you could even surf the internet on your DreamCast if you had the web browser disc. thought it was kinda difficult without a keyboard. it was still pretty awesome to surf the web on a game system. as for online games, the only online game I know about is Phantasy Star Online. And I only played that on the game-cube not online. But it was a really fun game. I'm sure it was awesome when you could play it online with other people.

Hardware: Just like all the other old consoles I've reviewed. This one has never broken on me. And I had this since the day it came out. so that's saying alot. It's system was small and compact, and looked very nice. The Controllers felt perfect, even if you had just one analog stick. They too, haven't broken on me.

after the unsuccessful Sega Genesis add-ons. and the Saturn, which didn't do so well I think. I've bearly heard about the system, so I don't know. But what I do is that the DreamCast was a very successful system. Its unfortunate that it was Sega's Last system. Nowadays I wonder what the gaming world would be like If Sega was still making consoles. Would they still be as good? Would Sonic be better? Would they still think of cool names for their systems? I guess we'll never know. Anyways, that's all for today. I hope you've enjoyed my review, And I hope you guys keep on reading more of my blogs.   

Resident Evil 5 demo + Resident Evil 1 PS/GameCube versions

Hello again people. sorry if it's taken me a while. but I'm finally back, with some reviews you should enjoy.

I've been a huge fan of the resident Evil series. and when I saw clips of RE5 in action. I didn't know what to think, really. it just looked liked RE4 set in africa. but the game did seem like it would have potential. 

last night I got to play the demo of the game at a friend's house on his PS3. and here's what I have to say about this IT.

THIS GAME IS GONNA SUCK!!

okay, maybe I wouldn't take it quite that far. but that's how I felt when I first played it. I was horribly disappointed with the demo. here's what I have to say about it.

Gameplay: to start off. the gameplay is practically the same as RE4. even the flaws the were in RE4 were in this one. like the fact aiming your gun is slow and kinda difficult. or the fact that you can't switch which shoulder your aiming over. and you still can't move around while you aim your gun. you think after games like uncharted where it allowed you to do that, they could have added stuff like that to the game. 

the only real new thing I can really see they added to them game is that you don't have to pause your game to change your weapon and use items. you can this menu pop up while the game is still going on and you switch weapons and use items through that. which I guess makes things a little intense when you have to switch weapons when a mob or people are cornering you. 

the next thing that bugs me about RE5, is the fact that it has no fucking fear factor whatsoever. RE4 didn't have much of one either. but at least I got scared at some points in the game. but I can tell just by playing this that they've gotten rid of the whole idea of scaring the hell outta of you in this game. 

to start off, both levels in the demo are set in broad daylight. you can see everything thats coming at you. nowadays, we have games like Condemned or F.E.A.R, that actually utilize the darkness as best they can. where pretty much your only source of light, is either a flashlight, or the dim, flickering lights that you would occasionally see in some areas of a level. in this, you don't get any dark rooms or areas. everything is completely lit because you happen to be fighting monsters on a clear, sunny as fuck day. 

next off, the enemy AI in this game is just dumb as hell. especially the chainsaw people. I intentionally left myself open & vulnerable for the chainsaw guy to attack me so I could see myself die violently from the guy. and when the guy finally was up close enough to hit me. he didn't swing his chainsaw until like, 3 or 4 seconds had passed. another enemy ended up hitting me and moved me outta the chainsaw guy's way by the time the guy swung his chainsaw.

next thing that bothers me is, who the fuck is this chick with Chris Redfield?

now this sounds like a stupid thing to complain about, I know. but this girl just bugs me for some reason. she just doesn't seem like she's gonna be that memorable of a character compared to the main RE cast. her name is Sheva Alomar, and she's is a special agent tasked with investigating the epidemic in africa. now, do we need another character that just happens to be another special/secret agent. over half the cast is part of some organization or agency. how about some character with a bit more originality?

the other thing is that she even makes the game even less scary to play. having a partner thats constantly by your side is not gonna make me feel more scared. yeah, with RE4 you had a partner that you had to work with too. but she couldn't attack, and you had to spend most of the time protecting her from the monsters.  and she wasn't with you all the time. in RE5, she fights just as much as you. and the game has co-op gameplay to it. so I'm guessing this chick is gonna stay by Chris's side through the whole game. 

Presentation: I'll at least give the game this, it has really good graphics. they are definitely above par quality. as for the music, I was to busy hearing the sounds of screaming from the hordes of people after you & gunshots to really pay attention to the music. 

Resident Evil 5 has officially strayed from the survival horror path in my opinion. and has become pretty much just another action game. which might satisfy some people, but for people like me who want stuff that the old resident evil games had, which was some grade A fear. then I think some people are gonna be in a for disappointment. now I know game sequels don't have to bring a ton of change to a game series. after all, the early games constantly used the same gameplay style. but they added some different weapons you can get, different monsters, and original puzzles, so you were doing more in the game the just shooting and killing. RE4 was a really fun game when I first played it. and did a good job on the different style of gameplay. but the puzzles became way too simple and made you do no real thinking. and after you defeated the first few hordes of crazy assholes. nothing else in the game really scares you like the other games. and RE5 is just the same, showing even less fear in the game and no real original monsters. 

now, I'm gonna show you guys what I thought a true Resident Evil game was. back when the people who made it knew what fear was, and actually cared about showing it to gamers.

   

Resident Evil 1 for playstation came out in 1996. it may not have been the first survival horror game with the same style, Alone in the dark beat them to it. but Resident Evil 1 was not only THE resident evil game to play. but its probly the first game that people think of when they think of survival horror. this game made the survival horror genre, and made me, and probly many other kids terrified of the dark at night. 

my favorite version is probly the Game Cube version. but the original PS version of it is really good too. and is still scary to play, even today in my opinion. but I'm gonna tell you about both versions.

Story: The story to both versions are pretty much the same. you play as one of the two main characters game. Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield. both of them are with a special agency called S.T.A.R.S(Special Tactics And Reconnaissance Squad).  they are sent in with three other members of stars to investigate bizarre murders that have been happening around raccoon city. when Investigating the forest and a helicopter crash. your team is attacked by a pack of dogs and one of your team-mates gets killed. seeing that some fucked up shit is going down. you and your team run from the dogs and make it to a nearby mansion. and of course, you should all know how it goes down from here. they investigate the mansion. and bump into zombies, Giant Spiders, strange agile amphibious creatures called hunters, along with many traps and puzzle throughout the whole mansion. 

both main intros to each version of the game do a great job of setting the tone for it. but are done pretty differently. the first game, using real footage and actors for the game. and the game-cube remake using CGI. 

 Original RE intro( sorry if the audio is a bit off with the video ).

Game-Cube RE intro

GamePlay: the gameplay to both versions of the game was solid. depending on which character you decided to play as. you'd have a slightly different game. such as what weapons are available and how much room you had to carry things. Jill was the easier character to play as since you had access to a grenade launcher. and If memory serves me right she could carry up to eight items. and she had Barry, who was pretty much your assistant. giving you an item or two usually when you'd bump into him. Chris's game was a little bit more difficult. you could  only carry up to six items. didn't have access to a grenade launcher, and the other person you work with, Rebecca. isn't that much of a help if I remember. 

the main gameplay consisted of you roaming around the mansion, fighting monsters, and finding key items to help you solve puzzles around the mansion. and figuring out where these monsters originated from and getting the hell outta there. you'd even fight bosses along the way such as a giant snake or a huge mutant plant. 

the original game was rather short. probly spanning to about five or six hours through your first time playing it. the remake to it added alot more content in it. from more locations/rooms, to more monsters and bosses. even the zombies were smarter in this one. they'd make they're way into others rooms and bust they're way through windows. and then, they're were the crimson heads. tougher versions of the zombie that would come back if you didn't kill them right(destroy their head, light the corpse on fire). they were faster, stronger and tougher to kill.

unlike RE4 and 5. you didn't have a huge source of ammo. in RE4 you'd could get ammo from the monsters you killed. which gave you a good constant source of ammunition and supplies. in this, you had to really go looking for it in rooms throughout the mansion. making ammo and supplies rather scarce in the game. making you ration your supplies and use certain weapons/items only when you really had to. 

presentation: for its time, the original version of RE had really good graphics. the voice acting might have been bad. but at least it bad in a way that it was funny to hear the people talk(especially Albert wesker). the Music for original I thought was great. it really set the tone for the game and some of the music alone sent chills down my spine. 

the remake definitely Improved on the graphics. making it probly one of the best looking Game-Cube games. and the voice acting improved as well. it maybe isn't the most memorable acting in a game. but it's good enough that the characters can be taken seriously. the music in the game wasn't exactly as chilling as the original. but still does a great job of setting the tone for the game.

if you ever decide to take interest in the Resident evil series. forget about RE4 and fuck RE5. the first game is where you should start. I can't tell you how many times I've played RE1 over. it's that fun of a game to play. after you play it, you'll know why it's become part of video game history.