Even Worse Than Your Local Arcade Part 1

Xbox Live Arcade is a strange quasi-realm, populated by a small band of delicious A star games being hunted down by the armies of mediocrity. Or something.

There are lots of bad games and frankly a few good ones. Which makes one wonder, while Serious Sam is a fun game – if you’re going to remake a nine-year old game… gain, why not some other, older gems? So. Here are my finely tuned suggestions.

If you read them all, there will be cake.

Magic Carpet 2

A 4 way fight over the rare and precious Mana Worm. Hilarity ensues.

Whenever you mention Magic Carpet, people sneer at the thought of yet another 3D action game with no substance. What these people don’t understand is that Magic Carpet is the predecessor of games like Sacrifice or Brutal Legend. It’s more of an RTS than anything, and a finely tuned one at that.

If you haven’t tried it, if you’ve dismissed it out of hand, don’t. Give it a try. Get a few levels in. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Why put it on XBLA? Because I want to play the bitching multiplayer without first having to find even one person who owns the game and without having to fiddle with IPX.

Hell, putting this up would be free money. Shame EA owns it, really.

Dark Forces

Wow. That Stormtrooper is FUCKED.

Why the hell not? If you can put Doom and Wolfenstein 3D up, why not a frankly far superior 2.5D shooter?

Destroyed Rebel Bases, Sewers, Hidden Imperial weapons development bases, dusty Mines, Detention Centers, Ice Stations, Nar Shaddaa, Jabba the Hutt’s ship, The GODDAMN IMPERIAL CITY, Fuel stations and Imperial Battleships – Kyle Katarn kicks the shit out of all of them. And Boba Fett. And he steals the Death Star plans in the first fucking level. This was BEFORE he was a Jedi. There’s a reason why the internet tells Kyle Katarn facts.

Besides, it’s the only game where you can walk around using a mining tool on Stormtroopers. And punch Kell Dragons to death. Kyle Katarn is hardcore.

So yeah, put it on XBLA. So I can take down a Rebel Base destroying super droid with a Bryar pistol. (I’m not kidding, really.)

D/Generation

Unlike Mario, those pipes don't need stupid fucking plant enemies inside them to kill you.

To quote wikipedia:

“A French company called Genoq has developed a series of new genetically engineered bioweapons, which have run out of control and taken over Genoq’s Singapore lab. The main character is a courier delivering a package to one of Genoq’s top researchers, Jean-Paul Derrida, and who is happily oblivious of the carnage until the lab’s doors lock behind him. His customer is ten floors away, all of them crawling with bioweapons.”

Aside from the horrifying bioweapons (some of them disguise themselves as people needing help!) there’s also an assortment of security defenses that are out of control. Apparently in the future, all intruders must be killed, not arrested.

I think D/Generation was the first isometric game I ever played, and it was certainly one of the most difficult. But it was a good difficult. And there was something about the art style of the game I’m still very attached to.

Anyway, it’s an isometric puzzle game where you shoot monsters. Sounds like a perfect fit for XBLA to me.

Abe’s Oddysee + Exoddus

If there's more than one, you'd better run!

I’d love Flashback and Another World as well, but I’d settle for Abe.

I don’t think I really need to recap much about this 2D platform puzzle adventure. They are still some of my favourite games ever, and frankly the more who play them the better.

I’ve actually heard these get accused of being derivative, which makes no sense to me. If Abe’s Oddysee isn’t original, then what the fuck is?

Besides, they’ve been released on Steam, Good Old Games and practically everywhere fucking else, so why not XBLA?

There will be more soon. No cake until then. In the meantime, what games would you like to see on the Xbox Arcade? Let me know.

New Horde Races Which Would Be A Better Choice Than Goblins

• Taunka
• Murlocs
• Centaur
• Maghar
• Outland Orcs
• Naga
• Wretched
• Ornery Plainstrider
• Tuskarr
• Nerubian
• Proper Trolls with Muscles
• Faceless Ones
• Gnoll
• Makura
• Harpy
• Kobold
• Hobgoblin
• Spider-Man
• Treant
• Furbolg
• Swift Timber Wolf
• Pandaren
• Undead Orc
• Undead Tauren
• Undead Troll
• Undead Blood Elf
• Undead Goblin
• Undead Undead
• Magnataur
• Gargantuan Thunder Lizard
• Proto-Kodo
• Arrakoa
• Broken Draenei
• Ogre
• Sporeling
• Anubisath
• Gorloc
• Leper Gnome
• Mutant Murloc
• Wolvar
• Night Elf
• Ghost
• Dragonspawn
• Sea Serpent
• High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind
• Cachalot Whale
• Hydra
• Trogg
• Treant
• Spirit Healer
• Titan

If you think some of these make no sense, I must point out that anyone wanting to actually play a Goblin makes no sense.

Gentlemen, This Could Be The End of the World… of Warcraft

After mysterious months away, here is a post. It is about the next WoW expansion. I hope it makes you vomit slightly in your mouth, like all the best things I do.

WHY CATACLYSM WILL ROXXORS BOXXORS

• Garbage stats are gone – Thanks Blizzard! We can now tell if gear is an upgrade by looking over the stats instead of looking up a dozen sources online, checking our spreadsheets and running simulators. Plus things like ArPen and AP and suchlike always felt like a hack job to cover up things basic stats couldn’t do. If you’ve fixed how basic stats worked then this is a great change.
• Levelling will be more fun – As things stand right now, Azeroth feels like being forced to do chores before you can eat your chocolate cake. The zones are boring, quests are still of the old “collect/kill 10″ variety and travelling is unpleasant, to say the least.
• Talents are finally talents – Instead of things you must take to DPS. Plus it’s another reason levelling will be more fun. 1% more Crit at Level 15 is boring and seemingly useless.
• Finally Azeroth is Finished – Pity it took FIVE FUCKING YEARS.

WHY CATACLYSM WILL SUCK GIANT MAN BOOBS

• Horde gets fucked over – Alliance gets Werewolves, we get annoying little green men. Goblins don’t even need a new model! It’s rumored that Cairne gets assassinated and that emo to jock cuntface Garrosh takes over from Thrall as Warchief. What the hell? Why play if I despise my own faction? And the worst part? While all this crap happens to the Horde, what upheavals hit the Alliance? That’s right. Jack shit.
• Awesome Stats are gone – Talk about making the game a bit too easy Blizz. Fuck you. BBQQ.
• How goddamn lazy – All you’ve done is remodelled the continents a bit and changed some quests. It’s still the same shit I’ve been looking at for 4 years.
• No new class to rape DKs with – I’m sick of being destroyed by Death Knights, where was the new Hero class to kill both of us?
• All my Alts feel Pointless – Might as well restart them.
• Goblins, WTF – We Hordies laugh at Gnomes for a reason. WE DON’T WANT THEM. Not even if you breed them with Orcs.
• Garrosh is still a dick 5 bullet points later – Enough said. God, I’ll fucking raid him.

More reasons when I remember them.

A BIG SHOUT OUT TO THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT

And that shout is “Fuck you, you backwards ignorant unthinking MORONS.”

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll put it into simple words for you.

Australian retailers will no longer be allowed to sell unrated online games. If they try, it can mean a hefty fine or prison sentence. This basically means that you can no longer sell online only games in Australia, such as any MMO ever. And of course, the very nature of these games means that companies cannot apply for a classification for their games and keep selling them, because we all know that it is impossible to rate the actions of others online.

Isn’t it enough that Australians have to wait 6 months longer than everybody else for games and most of them are banned anyway, without the government preventing them from buying WoW expansions?

Fuck the Australian Classification Board. Fuck John Hatzistergo. And fuck the Government for having a government regulated system in any fucking case, and for pulling this out of thin air without warning.

Full story here.

11 Reasons Why Shaman Suck In PvP

1. Totems are stationary, weak, rotten pieces of wood which collapse if you breathe on them. 3/4 of playing a Shaman is totems. This is fine in groups and shit because the AI is dumber than Frankenstein’s monster after a lobotomy, but other players know this. And well pet/wand macro your totems to death. Or heck, just hit them. It’s like when Native Americans thought their “Ghost Armour” would protect them.

2. Shaman are entirely dependant on Burst damage. Either they stand 20 yards away hoping for a slightly bigger ZAP, or up close begging for Windfury to go off. There are few DAMAGE utility spells, and they’re rubbish.

3. Shaman are entirely dependent on crap burst damage. Warriors can run around hitting for 5k on demand. Mages can hit for 3k a long way away. Shaman have to have a crit windfury, or crit lightning to get this type of damage. Heck, windfury only has 20% chance to even go off – add on the fact  you’ll need a crit and forget it. THEN add on resilience. Shaman are no more likely to critical hit in PvP than Picard is to see 5 lights. It might happen… eventually… but they’ll probably already have left.

4. This of course assumes a Shaman is allowed to attack, and not locked down by the multitude of stuns every other class and their grandparents seem to have. Whoever at Blizzard came up with this idea is a complete and fucking idiot. PvP should have less crowd control, not more.

5. Pure Damage classes have this brilliant feature in their trees where they give up a little damage to get more PvP survivability (or even more PvP focused damage!). Shaman have these too. They just have to give up most of their damage to get them. THERE AREN’T ENOUGH TALENT POINTS.

6. Totems take far, far too long to put down. Shaman need them to win… but they’re dead by the time they get them all ready. Other classes just buff themselves up and walk about. Shaman have to prop up some giant logs before every fight.

7. Totems are crap. WOTLK has ensured that other classes all get the same buffs, but without relying on propping up piles of twigs.

8. The interrupts are crap. Earth Shock and Wind Shock silence a spell school for two seconds, but start a 1.5 second global cooldown on most of the other abilities except shitty totems, so you get a .5 second advantage. Big whoop.

9. Shaman actually have the lowest base health as a class. No, I don’t know why either.

10. TOO MANY FUCKING COOLDOWNS, NOT ENOUGH REAL FUCKING ABILITIES!

11. Blizzard like a funny joke.

THIS POST IS ACTUALLY KIND OF IMPORTANT, IN THE SAME WAY CHANGING THE MARS BAR SLOGAN WAS IMPORTANT

I remembered that there is already a website called Video Games Suck (it blows, and they fail at games and humour, so i don’t want to risk getting confused with it, like I don’t want to risk venereal disease) so I need to CHANGE THE NAME of this NEVER UPDATED BLOG. I would like suggestions in the comments. Of course, you’ll either not comment at all, because I only have one reader who is James and a lazy bastard, or comment and make crap jokes, because you’re James and can’t even make cancer seem amusing.

You Are Supposed To Elucidate, Not Evangelize

We need to start firing some teachers.

We should no more be willing to talk about God when teaching the origin of life than we should be willing to talk about the Emission Theory or Phlogiston Theory. If a student asks you where God comes in? Give them detention for being a cheeky little shit. Alternatively, explain to them the inherent flaws with creationism (no evidence whatsoever, huge amounts of contradictory evidence) and tell them that wanting something to be true does not make it true – a lot of substantial verified evidence does.

Leave creationism to the R.E. teacher – who should teach it as Christianity.

Dear Youtube…

Please sort your New York City server the fuck out.

Thank you. That is all.

Tomb Raider Update

Well well, what do you know.

It appears publishers may have to start adding “gamepad” as a requirement on the back of the box.

Tomb Raider Anniversary Has An Awful Fucking Camera

Jesus fucking christ. I know the old style Tomb Raider games which had levels which were essentially made of a ton of textured blocks stuck together didn’t exactly have the best camera. In fact they quite often had an infuriating camera, especially when trying to execute a running leap from a one block wide surface with your back to a wall, but these new games have apparently taken a solid camera system with some flaws and thrown it away, instead choosing a camera more in place with a point and click game. No fucking joke. I’ll try hooking up my 360 controller later to see if it helps, but my hopes are not high.

Honestly? When I was grabbing an extra game (On top of the Diablo 2 expansion) to complete my 2 for £15 deal I never expected this. More fool me.