Jeff Feeser

At long last, my replacement parts for my broken 360 finally arrived from the dephts of Hong Kong, and the old girl is back up and running again!  It boggles my mind how a single game can become such a debilitationg addiction, in this case Rock Band 2.  I fixed my 360 yesterday, and i’ve probably already logged about 6 hours of playtime on that game since, getting my band an airplane, as well as a sound guy (who looks like a thin version of that guy from the Cure).  I’m also bogged down in Order of Ecclesia, which may be my new favorite of the “Metroid-vania” type Castlevania sequels.  Symphony of the Night still ranks up there, but Order may actually give it a serious run for it’s money.

Joel Haddock

It’s been a tidal wave of games lately, and playing time is just as limited as it always is.  Heading towards the home stretch of Tales of Vesperia, which has been quite solid so far, and a definite improvement over Legendia.  Fallout 3 arrived on Wednesday, and I’ve put in several hours so far, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say on the subject after I’ve put together my review.  Mother 3 has also been taking up chunks of my time, and it too has been fantastic so far, if not a little depressing.  Finally, still working on a new CTF map for Team Fortress 2, though I’ve barely had any time to actually play TF2 at all lately.

Last time on my look back at games that received what I shall call unfortunate sequels, we took tour of Master of Orion III, a game that failed massively in the gameplay department. This time, we’ll change things up a bit and take a look at a game that managed to complete drop the ball in the story department, as well as a few other ways.

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Game reviews are, at best, a tricky affair.  Everyone seems to have their own idea of how games should be reviewed, what criteria should they be scored on, and what manner of scoring should be used.  To be honest, an awful lot of it is just various ways of fiddling with things in order to create systems that give games the scores people think they should get.

As you might imagine, that makes most reviews worth about as much as the pixels they are displayed with.

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“Wow, that wasn’t the worst Star Wars game I’ve ever played.”

That was the exact message I sent a friend after I finished “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”. Of course, playing through that game made me want to do one thing: Dig out the SNES, and play through the original Star Wars platformers again. Which lead to me to thinking about playing Dark Forces. Which lead me to, for some reason, want to dig up Rebel Assault and play through that canyon training sequence again. Which lead me to wanting to inflict the pain of all the other awful Star Wars games I’d played over the years on other people. So, without further ado, join me as I drag myself through twenty years of painful Star Wars videogames that I thought I had drank out of my head!

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October is a month primarily known for giving us candy and costumes, but not always in that exact order.  Equally as important, though usually oft forgotten these days, October is also the month that brought Roger Wilco into this world.

Roger Wilco’s glorious birth into the world.

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If there was one criticism that could be leveled against Portal, it would be that the game was too short and left us all grasping for more. Portal: Prelude, an independent mod, attempts to fill that desire gamers have for more Portal by going above and beyond what most expect out of a mod.

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The original Final Fantasy Tactics was one of those games that was one of those games that was able to latch onto secret desires in my gaming persona that let it completely control me. Turn-based strategy, set in the world of Final Fantasy, with a huge variety of character customization options.  This was a trifecta of gaming bliss to me, and it could not be ignored.  The fact that I did not have a PlayStation at the time was but a tiny obstacle, and I spent many hours at my friend’s house, happily hogging his.  Eventually I was able to get my hands on the system, and many, many hours were spent leading Ramza and his troops to victory.

Then, the strangest thing happened: Square didn’t make a sequel.  Square, who have always been ready to milk any of their franchises until they bleed for some reason or another decided that FFT did not warrant a part two.  And things remained that way for many years, until finally in 2003, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance was announced for the Game Boy Advance.  My excitement level, as you might imagine, was high.

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