This is a blog for Thumbmonkey's staff members to write about gaming, music, movies, the internet, what we've been up to lately, and whatever the heck else we want. Enjoy!
Usually, the average gamer gets screwed when it comes to games. Paying $60 for a 5 hour third person shooter is a bit to ask for. Paying $10 for a 15 year old game with a new coat of paint is straight up rip-off. But once in a great while, the gaming comunity gets rewarded for all their wasted money and is rewarded with a package that, for once, is worth more than they paid.
The first major bargain came in 2007, with The Orange Box for the Xbox 360 and PC, and later PS3. It featured the award-winning Half-Life 2, its two episodic sequels, the multiplayer extravaganza Team Fortress 2, and the surprise hit Portal. $60 for five fully featured and amazing games is unbelievable!
Now, in 2009, we are graced with a deal that is JUST shy of being equally amazing: the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii. This is a single-disc package, featuring all three Metroid Prime titles. The original two for GameCube, and the third one for the Wii. All three games are critically acclaimed, beautiful, moody, and incredibly well-made. The best part of it, though? The original two have been completely revamped with the third installment’s Wii controls! So now all three games can be played with the precision aiming of the Wii remote, as opposed to the archaic control scheme of the original two which didn’t even allow movement while aiming.
The way it was meant to be played.
All three games are absolutely mind-blowing. They take everything that made the 2D Metroid games special and somehow perfectly translate them into a 3D world AND with a first person perspective. With so many games of the past having so much trouble adjusting to modern times, the Metroid series smartly skipped the ugly world of the 64 bit era and jumped onto the GameCube to critical acclaim.
Not only do the games come on one disc, but for once Nintendo actually went the extra mile and gave it special packaging. Featuring a metallic case, a see-through slip-cover, AND an art book, the game actually feels like a complete collection. The menus of the game allow you to launch any game from a single interface as well, so it’s not like the three games were slapped in there with a menu to choose one. They’re all integrated together as a single unit. They even include achievement-like accomplishments for each game to unlock bonus features!
Whether you’ve played the old Metroids or not, whether you own all three games or not, you owe it to yourself to pick up this huge package for only $50. If the Orange Box never happened, this would be the best deal in gaming.
This post is entirely politically-based, though leaning toward neither the right, or left and incorporates what might be described as a “Question Everything” kind of mentality, just as a heads up!
If you find yourself occasionally questioning the behavior and motives of politicians (don’t feel bad, we all do it. It’s practically an American prerequisite), and you’re in the mood for a good laugh, read this post from one of my favorite blogs: “Free Whitewater. If you replace “Whitewater” with your town/city/state i’m sure that you will find the post to be equally as applicable, and entertaining.
Whitewater is a small town in Wisconsin (just West of Milwaukee, and approximately two hours south of my hometown) and the blog is based entirely around one individual’s desire to formulate a peaceful movement protesting against the increasingly negative impact the local government is afflicting upon the citizens.
Small blurb from the blog: “You have lived in Whitewater, Wisconsin for years, perhaps your entire life. Despite your affection for this beautiful city, life in our small municipality leaves you uneasy. You find yourself increasingly convinced that something is distorted in the politics and culture of our city. Rest assured: You are not alone…”
The blog has seen it’s share of hardship (from what I have heard, and particularly from those who are largely opposed to the freedom of speech) since it’s inception in what I believe to be 2007, and is published anonymously under the pseudonym John Adams. It’s a really excellent read and I have a great respect for anyone willing to speak their mind. Hope you enjoy it, too.
P.S.- Toooootally unrelated, but I saw District 9, and it was not at all what I expected for it to be, but I would still recommend seeing it! It’s worth the 10-or-so-bucks. Also, I finally started playing Fallout 3, and I am completely addicted. I am sure you will see a post from me in the near future regarding my progress in the game.
Rare has shared a couple of comparison shots from the Xbox Live version of the Nintendo 64 classic Perfect Dark that’s coming out, and it looks good. Makes-me-want-to-play-Perfect-Dark-again good. Visit PC World for the shots and a little bit of info.
Looking to kill some time? Here are some of my favorite Flash games from the past year or so.
10,000 years after this robot-filled city shut down, it’s up to you to bring it back to life. Little Wheel’s an excellent point and click adventure that could be your thing.
Play some Atari 2600 games online and relieve your youth. Ok, my youth. Now I feel old.
Aether is an imaginative puzzle game. Well done, good music and an overall neat idea. Swing through the galaxy and discover new planets with different goals.
Apparently I drink too much coffee, because my hand is just not steady enough to succeed at Dodge Bubbles.
As someone that plays a lot of games, and as someone that is terrible at most of them, I’ve come to realize that there’s a lot to be frustrated about in games. Whether it’s something in games of the past or modern frustrations, games are always going to find new and exciting ways to make people angry and annoyed. So right now, I am going to go over a few of the worst.
8 Million Random Battles in an RPG
I pretty much want to die whenever I’m playing any RPG with random battles, and you can’t take two steps without entering battle. Exit a battle, and enter one right away. Then walk another three steps, BATTLE. And oh man, nothing’s worse than when you are JUUUUST about to exit one room and go into another and you have one last battle before that. And then there’s when you see a save point up ahead, and get like three battles in a row before you hit it, and then die. Ugh. Luckily random battles are dying a slow and awesome death, but the games that still have it still have that problem.
Escort Missions
Snake, protect me even though before this point in the game I have proven myself to be totally capable of taking care of myself in battle!
Nothing is worse than having to babysit another character in a game. You’ve got yourself to worry about, and then some other character comes along who is weak and powerless, and you have to take care of them too? AND they’re controlled by AI, a technology that has yet to prove itself after being in games from the beginning? NO THANK YOU. The above image is from Metal Gear Solid 3, where you’ve got to protect Eva, a woman who has proven herself to be quite powerful in battle. She may be injured a bit when you have to take care of her, but still, it’s the worst. You have to give up all your food and items to heal her, she gets weak really quickly, and she is painfully slow. All escort missions are the worst, but that one always sticks out because it ruins an otherwise amazing game.
The one exception to the rule here is Ico, where the entire game is an escort mission. But the game is such a beautiful work of art that it’s exempt from being annoying.
Inventory Management
This would be a lot easier if I had room in my inventory for a shotgun, but NO, I have 7 different types of ammo and an egg taking up all that room.
I am all about games shooting for realism, and trying to make you feel like you’re in the game, but come on. I want infinite inventory all the time because nothing is worse than having to shift around objects and items to accommodate stuff. The Resident Evil games are the worst with this, ESPECIALLY the first one. Having to get rid of stuff and drop stuff and move stuff around and sacrifice stuff is beyond frustrating, because you just want to have everything. I know there’s challenge and strategy there, but it also presents itself with a ton of unfair situations that make the game entirely impossible to enjoy. Resident Evil 5 fixed this a bit, with tons of space to store stuff that you can’t access until the next checkpoint, but you’re still stuck with only nine items when you play. And if you get a fancy new gun but have no place to store the ammo, well, have fun with your paperweight.
I could go on for about 20 more years of frustrating things, but I am already in a horrible mood from writing this article. Thanks a lot, games industry. Maybe I’ll bust out another installment when I have nothing better to write about.
Hello hello from Katy on this fine hot-as-eff-but-slightly-less-hot-than-yesterday… day! I would like to take this opportunity to entertain you now with…
Some of those most awesome things i’ve recently found through StumbleUpon.com
I can honestly say that I was becoming somewhat bored with web browsing before I started using this site. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it works like this:
- You set up an account and choose your interests from a giant list that has everything from gaming to American literature to the paranormal, aaand more.
- Install the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser of choice (Firefox for me), and hit “Stumble”!
- Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll spend 6 1/2 hours digging through hundreds of websites, games, articles, etc that are perfectly suited to your personal interests. Categories I seem to Stumble on most often: Politics, online games, psychology, video games, alternative health, arts, conspiracies. Yeah, i’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist, soooo what?
- You may choose to “Like” pages that you Stumble on if you enjoy them, and this will add it to your Favorites (which you can view any time while logged in to StumbleUpon). I find myself logging in frequently to refer back to stuff that I really liked. You can also rate and review pages, too, but I don’t really use those features because i’m lazy.
Click on the images to view each site! Enjoy!
Above: Learn how to spell DEFINITELY.
Above: Artist’s renditions of children’s drawings!
Above: Have you heard of binaural beats? I won’t vouch for this site, in particular, but the concept is pretty awesome.
Above: “ZoomQuilt”. You’ll have to see this one for yourself. One word: “Trippy”.
Above: Video of some nifty transformers made out of cigarette packs and other completely random things.
Above: A kitty cat that uses public transportation!
Rather than go into Champions Online again as that’s what I’m currently playing (the beta anyways), I thought I’d share some random links I’m enjoying at the moment.
Watch one of the best television shows ever, The Prisoner, online for free.
Damn you cat, I’m going to circle you if it’s the last thing I do.
I’m always on the lookout for something new, fun and exciting. And considering my retro kick lately, I’ve also been looking for something with an old school challenge to it. It started when I began playing through the Mega Man series, which is painfully difficult. But every time I would beat a level I felt beyond accomplished. I figured if I could tackle Mega Man, I could tackle a lot of things.
Red Star came to me through the recommendation of a podcast I trust dearly. They said it was a wonderfully hardcore game loaded with old school sensibilities, and boy were they right.
Whole load of fun.
The Red Star, released in 2007 for the PS2, is a game based on the graphic novel of the same name. I am entirely unfamiliar with the source material, but the story is so barely-there that you don’t need to care about it either way. It is a hybrid between a brawler and a shooter. Not first-person shooter, mind you, but shooter in the original sense of the word. Shooter like Galaga, Gradius, etc. You play as one of two characters, fighting through level after level of enemies and giant machines.
The mechanics are simple in design but brilliant in execution. Square is the melee attack, circle shoots your gun (with infinite ammo, but the ability to overheat rather quickly), X guards, and triangle performs your special attack. Some enemies get hurt easily by melee attacks, others get hurt easily by gunfire. Others require a combination of both, and some are immune to one type of attack. The variation of enemies make the brawler portion full of strategy and thinking, while having to be on your toes the entire time.
The shooter parts are amazing.
The shooter parts are where the game really shines though. At certain points in the game you will have to take on a giant machine, tank, or whatever, and the game goes to a top-down viewpoint. From there, you have to almost exclusively fire your gun at the enemy while avoiding a barrage of bullets. I’m only ten levels in and I’ve come across enemies that fill the screen with bullets. It’s insane.
Of course, as the game goes on, there are parts where you have to use your shooting and melee attacks at the same time, taking down a ship, avoiding bullets, and beating the life out of oncoming attackers all at the same time.
While I’m only ten levels in, I can’t recommend the game enough. It’s already insanely difficult, and while the lack of mid-level checkpoints are frustrating (one death and you start the whole level over), it only adds to the unbelievable amount of challenge to the game. This is a game that is not cheap in its difficulty. If you fail, it’s your own fault, and that’s what I love about it. By punishing you with restarting the whole level, it forces you to get as good as possible and truly hone your skills.
I may be all about storytelling in games, and talking about how games are becoming the best medium for storytelling out of all of the various art forms, but sometimes we need a game that just lets you sit back, get beaten mercilessly, and bounce back and go at it again.
If your PS2 is still hooked up, or you have a backwards compatible PS3, I highly recommend it. It’s no more than $20 anywhere, so there’s basically no reason to pick it up. So go do it.
Blogga blog blog. Hi from Katy once again. It’s a cloudy, rainy, and generally unpleasant day here in the Boston area, where I have only lived for about two years now (and I am still not used to the weird weather), but none-the-less, my mood is fine! The Thumbmonkey office is very quiet today and I am listening to some Jose Gonzalez (great for a rainy day) and reminiscing about the hours of play I have put into Spore over the past few days.
Now, I know what you’re thinking (or I like to pretend), and it’s probably “SPORE?! But… why?”. This game has received very consistent poor reviews and without a doubt did NOT live up to it’s initial hype. I won’t BS you, I hate all of the stages of the game that come after the “Creature” stage, which means that I repeatedly only play two stages of the game. The “Cell” stage and the “Creature” stage have kept me entertained for months, particularly in my zone-the-f-out period before I pass out for the night. There is just something so satisfying about creating and controlling an entire species before falling into a nice, deep slumber. Some people zone out with Tetris, and I prefer Spore! (Not dumpin’ on Tetris, though. I <3 it.)
Here’s why I play:
The Cell stage is short and sweet. Create a funky little dude, cruise around looking for food, try not to get eaten by bigger, meaner dudes. How poetic, but in all seriousness, though, it’s a zen thing. I’ve always had a soft spot, too, for the creating and customizing aspect in most video games that offer it, and the Spore creature creator is truly the epitome of what games can offer as far as customizability goes.
Are you the all-out combat type or the passive cruiser type? Carnivorous or herbivorous, it’s your choice. I typically prefer to play as an herbivore for the following reasons: food is extremely plentiful and you don’t have to fight for it (lazy, much?) and it’s fun to add tons of ridiculous-looking armor to my creatures for protection from meat-eaters. Playing as a carnivore has it’s perks, too. There is more play involved, and it’s more fun as you progress into the Creature stage.
The Creature stage! My favorite. I spend hours playing it (even after my species has “evolved” and is capable of moving to the next stage). Understandably, the game play becomes somewhat more complex, but is still simple and does not require an extreme amount of effort (keeping perfectly in line with my whole lazy/zen theme). The point is to expand on your species. In this stage, you have the option of controlling an entire pack, as opposed to simply one creature. The same basic concepts are in place, though. Duh, the game is about surviving and evolving. You eat, fight, explore, and can also choose to socialize with other species.
The idea is to gain “DNA”, which acts as a kind of currency you use to expand on your creature with a HUGE selection (which you slowly accumulate throughout the game) of parts to improve on the quality and sustainability of your species. Prefer multiple appendages? No eyes? A giant tail? Want your species to be giant blobs with tiny mouths? Anything goes. My goal is to eventually move away from my usual type of creature, which almost always ends up looking like a small t-rex with horns and wings. I’m boring, what can I say?
A few ways to make the Creature stage more awesome:
- Get WINGS! Flying through Spore world is WAY more fun than walking. The graphics are not at all what I would consider amazing, by any means, but some of the in-game scenery is still very cool (meteor showers!), and a birds-eye view of all of the other species is pretty nifty. You can also surprise-attack this way, and navigate the world slightly faster.
- Seek out Rogue creatures and befriend them. Screw your species. You want a pack that consists largely of Rogues (yes, you can do that). They’re stronger than you, and it will help you to pwn any other species you wish.
- Find the Epics. They’re the MASSIVE creatures wandering around that can typically squash you with one stomp. I’ve found that there are usually 3 or 4 roaming around, which is very few for how massive the world is. You can’t befriend these guys, but you CAN kill them. It’s a serious challenge (for Spore, anyway), but it’s a lot of fun. They have 1,000 health, and you’ll have no more than 200ish. Good luck! P.S.- You get an “achievement” for killing an Epic. They also provide a ton of food (if you’re a carnivore).
- Lure Epics to Epics. A two-Epic creature fight is a lot of fun to watch, and though i’ve never tried it, i’ve heard of some people reducing the heath on Epic creatures this way, and then finishing them off. If this works, let me know, because I have no idea.
So, that’s that. Here’s to hoping the rain stops, and I don’t have to travel home soaking wet this afternoon. *Cheers with my coffee*
I’m a big fan of watching movies and television shows on my computer. I’m an even bigger fan of watching them on my nice HD television that dwarfs my computer monitor. Finding a way to watch them on my television was easier than I thought, and it absolutely rocks. This post isn’t an advertisement. I know lots of people are aware of these programs already, I’m just trying to share a bit of info for those who were lost like me.
There are a few different options to stream video content from your PC to your console, but I’ve only tried two and I’ve stuck with one, so that’s what I’ll chat about.
The first is called TVersity. This is a free program that lets you share a ton of different video formats over your network. Both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 (among other things) can pick this up and stream the video for you to your television. The quality’s surprisingly good and it’s easy to use although it is a bit limited in the feature range. You can get this running smoothly on a PSP or iPhone which if this is what you’re looking for may make this the top choice. I ran this for quite a while before I found the next program.
PlayOn. Now this isn’t 100% free. While there is a trial version of the application, it does require registration and a fee after 14 days. The upside is that unlike TVersity it supports quite a bit more and has a few bonus additions. Like Hulu? You can stream it through PlayOn. Enjoy Netflix but don’t have an Xbox 360 to use their streaming capability? PlayOn will let you stream to your PS3. Amazon’s VOD service is being implemented. Free plugins have added streaming support for AdultSwim, the Cartoon Network and South Park Central to name a few. Every South Park episode for free at any time and it’s legal. Very cool. It also has support for more video formats than TVersity including MKV and Flash. Honestly, this is the easier $40 I’ve dropped in a long time. It’s freaking stellar.
Both will let you stream your music collection. If you have an amazing stereo hook-up at your TV stand this may be something to check out. I have terrible speakers, so that’s not a big deal although a cool idea.
If you have an original Xbox and don’t mind a little bit of work you can convert the whole thing to a media server that will do most of this. Check out XBMC for the easiest and by far snazziest way to get this done.
TVersity’s great if you’re on a budget and just want to stream your Divx, Xvid or WMV flicks or television shows from your PC. If you’re looking for a bit more definitely give PlayOn a trial run. Wii users take heart, these are being worked on for you too!
Follow Us
Follow Us