I do not believe that is fair

So maybe you all heard that Game with Fame with Paramore is happening tonight. Maybe you also heard that they would be playing the new, unreleased Left 4 Dead DLC.

Lynsey and I certainly heard.

Convinced that the new map would be released this morning we happily signed on to XBox Live only to find . . . the DLC was still unreleased. We now know that it's coming September 29th.. That means Paramore gets to play the new DLC before us.

We are not pleased.

Oh, and do you all remember Lynsey's ridiculously nerdy dream a few posts down? Well, now I feel compelled to share this little glimpse into my brain. Perhaps nerdy dreams shall become a regular occurrence here. . . anyway, so I dreamt that my sister and I were trapped in Arkham Asylum (wait, it gets better) and were tying to avoid Scarecrow's gaze. Batman was using some sort of (bat) jet-pack to fly around and then the floor was electrified by Data from Star Trek who had gone rogue.

Yuuuuuuup.

I'm so awesome

WET Is All Dried Up

Dear Gameinformer,

As an avid reader of your magazine and website I find myself pondering a question that simply must be answered: what kind of wonderful new drug did you discover and indulge in that would compel you to give WET a 7.5?

When I played the demo for this game I was skeptical: the controls seemed pretty wonky and the gunplay unsatisfying but I still thought the game had style and a great soundtrack. I told myself that if Gameinformer rated the game a 7 or above I would check it out. I told myself this because I am almost always in perfect agreement with this particular company.

So yesterday around 7 PM I rented the game. This afternoon around 3 PM I took it back. I was right in the middle of a mission – not close to a savepoint, not in the middle of a boss fight – just a regular ol’ mission and I just could not take this game anymore.

If any of you reading this have played the demo then imagine playing that same exact mechanic over and over and over and over again. That’s WET. You run around, jump like a moron, and eventually end up in a room where you slowly kill several dozen people and close their spawn doors. Oh, and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. a dude with a minigun shows up and you have to shoot repeatedly at him before he starts limping away, triggering you to get close to perform a quicktime kill. You better be quick too because before very long he’s magically all better.

Practically everything I enjoyed about the demo was torn apart in this game via endless repetition (redundant?). The one song on the demo that really caught my attention – something about zombie killers of the wild west – was no where to be found. Granted, I didn’t finish this game but I did make it more than halfway through before I threw in the towel and at around 4 hours in that itself should say something.

Before I quit when I did I damn near shut the thing off within the first hour of playing it. At the conclusion of an early chapter you find yourself at Rubi’s hideaway with a new weapon and an obstacle course meant to train you in using this new weapon. I’m like, “Meh, no thanks” so I look for a door or an option to exit and continue with the main story and I can’t.

The game forces you to run through a fucking irritating as shit obstacle course every single fucking time you get a new weapon.

There are so many things wrong with the game that the few things it does right doesn’t even come close to negating it. Not only would I certainly not recommend spending your 50 bucks on it but I wouldn’t even recommend it for a weekend rental. Instead, I suggest you partake in more that aforementioned wondrous new drug, Gameinformer.

And send some of that shit my way.

Sincerely,

Cary

She insisted

Cary and I have this long-running competition (that isn't really a competition) where we see who can have the nerdiest dreams. Well, it seems, after last night, I pulled into the lead.

I don't think it's a secret that Cary and I have been trying desperately to finish a "Left 4 Dead" campaign on Expert. What you don't know is that, last night, we nearly accomplished our goal. We got to the finale of "Death Toll" TWICE on Expert and died on the dock, TWICE, during the first tank. We have a way to go before we can manage to pull this off and claim that ridiculous achievement, Zombicidal Maniac, which should so totally be worth more than 30G.

At any rate, last night I had a dream that Cary and I finally beat a campaign on Expert and then we were contacted by a Microsoft (or Valve, maybe? I don't remember) representative to congratulate us and say "hey, because of your wicked awesome achievement, we're going to give you the new 'Crash Course' DLC early... You deserve it."

Valve. Microsoft. Are you reading this? ... No? Okay, well, please at least release 'Crash Course' soon. NOW? No? Fine.

SIDE NOTES: Cary got the All 4 Dead achievement the other day (even though she doesn't deserve it, ahem) but I got the Lamb 2 Slaughter one, too, the other day and she doesn't have it. Muahaha. But, she has Jump Shot, which I will never get because things jumping through the air hate me.

Batman, More Zombies, and Shadowy Complexes

The second episode of the Play Like a Girl podcast is now available! Download it here or check it out on iTunes by looking up playlikeagirlblog.

Thanks, everyone!

Channeling Tim Curry

New information has arisen via Gameinformer regarding Left 4 Dead 2. We now know of a new level, new special infected, and new common infected. . . one very notable new common infected:

Do. Not. Want.

I hate clowns. If they giggle or laugh when they run at you I may very well have a heart attack. Still, no words can accurately express how excited I am for this game.

Also, I'd like to share a funny Halo story that happened to me the other night because damn it, zombie clowns shall not overtake this post! So I was sitting in the lobby waiting for a game of Slayer to start when another player suddenly gasped and went, "Hey everybody! Kill the girl! Kill the girl! The pink one . . . Rosen . . . rot! Rosen rot, you're mine!"

*sigh*

Now, not only am I pissed but I have to play really well on principle. Oh, and I should point out that my gamertag is German and is pronounced in the back of the throat like "rwosenrwot". Anyway, so the game starts and it's, of course, probably the only map in Halo 3 that I'm not very familiar with. Now, I should mention here that I don't consider myself good at Halo, but I'm also not bad. I've come in first place maybe 3 times but I've also come in last place maybe 3 times; most of the time I'm in the top 4.

So the game starts and up until the last 6 minutes I was in first place. And freaking out, I might add. When it was all said and done I ended up in 3rd but I beat out that guy who claimed he was going to slaughter me beforehand.

Then, Ladies and Gentlemen, guess what happened?

He sent me a friend request.

Oh, happy, happy day.

After I was done laughing, I denied it. Not gonna lie - it felt awesome.

How can a shadow have a complex? Am I looking too much into this?

So, there I was: playing 1 v. 100 by myself on a Friday night, when one of the creators of "Shadow Complex" appeared as a guest to talk a little bit about the game. Also, they were giving out free copies to certain mob members and, of course, I was never one of them. But, Xbox had done its job: by the time I had finished 1 v. 100, I wanted to play "Shadow Complex" so I downloaded it and I finally finished it yesterday. I believe I was just an hour or more into the game when I found myself telling Cary how emphatically I was enjoying myself.

"Shadow Complex" centers around Jason Flemming, a dude a little to able and a little too unwilling. He finds himself in a predicament where his friend, Claire, gets captured and is held in a suspicious underground facility that Jason (you) has to traverse in order to save her. Along the way, you encounter all forms of soldiers and robotic bosses, but the best part was the stuff you picked up and were able to use along the way. I don't want to give too much of the surprise or excitement away but this game just gets more and more fun because you are rewarded by being able to do more stuff and venture into more restricted areas simply by playing through the main storyline.

For an Xbox Live Arcade game, I was surprised with the overall quality of the game, which was more than excellent. The story was innovative and one part toward the end was hugely unexpected, but the climax felt kind of... anti-climactic. I wasn't disappointed, that doesn't seem like the right word. It just wasn't what I was expecting, I suppose.

But my opinion is, for the equivalent of something like $15, you can't afford to miss out on this great game -- a game many people are touting as one of the best of 2009. (Of course, L4D2, Modern Warfare 2, and Halo 3: ODST have yet to see the light of this year's day.)

Ain't got the same soul.

The other day I caught a rather interesting commercial for Guitar Hero 5:



I really don't think I need to say too much about it; pretty sure it speaks for itself. This however isn't the first time writhing women have been used to sell Guitar Hero:



It's kinda funny: I don't remember Tom Cruise having only his underwear on in the original scene from Risky Business. I suppose in the developer's defense there is a version of the same commercial where Ms. Klum keeps the oversized shirt on but I've never seen that one on TV.

Is this just another example of using sex to sell a project or is this also enforcing the idea that video games are men's toys?

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

Despite all things nerdtastic in my life I’ve never been one for comic books. In fact, I cannot name one single book that I’ve ever enjoyed and, for that matter, very seldom will I check out a film based on a comic book. As the Batman comics go, I’ve never so much as picked one up but as for films based on The Dark Knight, I flock to them.

Not really sure why. Maybe it’s because Dad would always watch the old Adam West TV show and would take us to the movies.

Still, had this game not had so much buzz around it and had I not been blown away by the demo I more than likely would never have picked it up. That being said, I am so very, very happy that I did.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is one fantastic game. With a relatively simple story Rocksteady has created a beautiful and insane world for Batman to traverse and, oh man, trust me when I say you really do feel like Batman in this game. Everything about him is so powerful from the flawless melee system to those wonderful toys, every part of this game just feels so natural.

There is so much to appreciate with this game that there is just no way I could name it all but the Riddler’s, um, riddles were so much fun and made for a very engaging side quest to the main story. All of the boss battles – with some exceptions – were unique and full of flavor only to be slightly tainted when I remember that Batman never actually kills anyone so that boss you just spent 10 minutes beating just might find his or her way back to you. The melee system leaves you feeling confident that you’ll just wipe the floor with all the baddies.

Though it is a bit of button mashing I was so impressed with the way Batman handled himself in hand to hand combat that I found myself getting giddy every time I’d see a crowd of thugs blocking my path. I will say though, crowds of thugs do not necessarily need to mingle with mini-bosses. Or bosses for that matter. Just sayin’.

I really only have one main complaint with this game and that’s that Rocksteady made Batman’s Detective Mode too good. With this mode enabled you can see how many people are in the room, what weapons they are holding, and locate any weakness like flimsy walls or objects to grapple. I say this is a problem because I found myself not wanting to exit Detective Mode and, thus, missed out on the developmental beauty of Arkham.

This is no reason to ignore this game however and I have a feeling most of you won’t.

Games this good don’t come around terribly often and Batman: Arkham Asylum just may have beat out Resident Evil 5 for my game of the year.