The Gaming Grid

As promised this week we’re highlighting Quake Live, the new free browser-based platform for playing Quake III during your lunch break. Developed by id Software and recently opened for public beta, Quake Live offers the gameplay of a perennial favorite coupled with the convenience of Facebook chess.

After signing up for a (free) account, Quake Live requires the prospective player to download a small plug-in for their browser of choice. Once they’ve completed this one-time installation the player can log in and jump directly into the game. To keep downtime to a minimum the basic game files install in the background while the player creates a character and personalize details like control schemes, model skin and the appearance of weapon blasts.

Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your hellspawn of choice you’re confronted with an optional brief training match; for Q3 vets it’s not much use but if you haven’t played in a while give it a whirl, if only to see how the controls have been updated and to ensure you’re matched against players of consummate skill. That’s right, the game features a matchmaking service which automatically ranks displayed servers based on your performance and recommends the top three for your gaming pleasure.

In addition the game offers a hub system from which players can launch multiplayer games, find friends and check out player profiles to keep abreast of each player’s stat log. The service puts powerful emphasis on building a vibrant community, and offers the opportunity to view the statistics of friends and recent rivals. If community gaming isn’t your thing (or you just want an opportunity to refresh your skills before jumping into a pulic match) Quake Live offers practice matches with customizable bots to round out the teams.

The game has suffered from the expected post-launch delays and technical issues (stat tracking is currently disabled to streamline the playing process) but plays surprisingly smooth after only a week of public operation (I noticed no noticeable lag in about four hours of play.) However, there is currently no support for user mods to the base Quake engine; this is troublesome, as when I think of all the great experiences I had playing Quake III in high school they were mostly with mods like Action Quake and Assault. Can vanilla Q3 (even a free version) keep player interest for more than a month or two?

I don’t have much experience with drugs, regardless of what others may claim. They are all liars, and I’m a good boy. Subsequently, I think there is something I’ve been addicted to that can be seen as a debilitating addiction.

In 2005, a little game known as We Heart Katamari came out. My sister told me the premise: Roll shit up in a ball. Sounds easy, and guess what, it is. You start with a ball and you roll things that are smaller than you into it. Anything smaller, nailed down or not. Then you get bigger and can roll more things into yourself. If you can manage to get within the time limit, you can roll up clouds, islands, anything.

But that isn’t the best part. If you just plopped that game in front of me, I’d be confused as to why anyone would want to get in on it, but this is a game that was made for the Japanese. Go do a google image search for weird things in Japan and you’ll have your answer as to why this it the greatest game ever.

You star as the prince of the Cosmos. All the planets, stars and other heavenly bodies disappeared in the last game for some reason, and now you have to make new ones. Your father, the king of the cosmos, stands over you absentmindedly speaking about things that make little sense until he remembers that you need to make a katamari. He lords his giant package and toned muscles over your dimunitive form, orders you to earth and then you roll.

Then the music starts up. I have the entire soundtrack on my iPod, and it is for good reason. It’s catchy, never the same J-pop which will delight, then annoy, then begrudgingly become good again until the subliminal messages start to bore into your brain.

The first few levels are small, and you aren’t just doing whatever the King tells you, it’s people wandering around a meadow that make the requests of you. Either they are too lazy to make their child clean their own room, or they see a Katamari as a ball of tinfoil for them to grasp at while repeating the phrase “want the shiny!” Some want to see big ones, some want fast ones, and some are just assholes that don’t want to do work.

As you roll, you hear plopping sounds as you pick things up. Some things have their own sounds, such as animals and humans as you take them in, which can be entertaining if you like the pathetic sounds of cats as they are forced into your Katamari. Remember, all of this will be shot into space, so if you really aren’t a fan of cops, clarinets, sumo wrestlers or any other kind random object, you can take pride in knowing that all of these things will be turned into a ball of superheated gas that will be flung into space, or have the gravity of their own mass crush them into a planet in the open vacuum.

Once you finish, and there are many different ways to finish, depending on the level, you take the Katamari back to dear old Dad and listen to him wander aimlessly with his words for a few moments until he realizes he is holding a compressed ball of humans, animals and all kinds of other things. I have yet to get him to say that I did a good job. Apparently I could always be doing better, thus completing the transition of this man being just like my father. Except the spandex, though just because I’ve never seen my father wear it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t ever happened.

If you fail at your mission, voices displeasure and gets all shadowy as he shoots lasers out of his eye at you. I never really understood this part, but it is fun to try to dodge as he takes child abuse to a whole new level

Again, just like dad, but that isn’t important right now.

What is important is that this game is nine kinds of awesome for the ADD sufferers and the really, really stoned. There are cut scenes in between some of the levels that tell the story about how the King and Queen got together and started making weird headed babies, and there are other things to pick up, such as presents and cousins. You can play as the different cousins after you snag them, but it doesn’t do anything for you, and the presents are little more than strange accessories that show the people of earth really have no idea how to treat a deity that can shoot lasers out of his eyes.

… wasn’t all that great, to be honest.

Anytime I see a movie or series dealing with Street Fighter, I usually cringe, especially if it’s made in America. I know a lot of backstories and how characters intertwine and who is what and everything else, but the people who should know it, the writers, just take character names and make up a story. A prime example is the first live-action Street Fighter movie with JCVD in it. Guile, who is solely American, is played by a Belgian actor. I have to give it to him on two aspects: 1) the Flash Kick he manages to pull off twice and 2) he’s the only one who pronounces Ryu’s name correctly. When I saw it at the theater, I knew stuff was all messed up. E. Honda is now from Hawaii and not Japan like he’s supposed to be. Balrog is a good guy. Dee Jay is working for Bison. Chun-Li is a news reporter. Cammy is helping Guile instead of being with Delta Red. T. Hawk is a moron. Blanka is made up from Guile’s friend Charlie. Charlie is called Carlos Blanka. Dhalsim is the guy from the Temple of Doom and never fights anyone and never uses the Yoga noogie. Fei Long doesn’t exist. Ken and Ryu are thieves or something. Vega wasn’t bad, but needed blonde hair. Raul Julia did a good job acting as Bison, but his voice was too high for the part. Zangief was well conceived, but again, he works for Bison for some reason.

So there’s the nitpicking on the first SF movie ever done. I had major issues with it and even with this new Chun-Li movie, I still have them. Watch out for spoilers if you don’t want to know anything and plan on wasting $10 to go see it. I know I did…

The story is this: Chun-Li’s father is some very important businessman and not a Hong Kong police officer as he really is from her actual back story. He apparently is very influential and Bison kidnaps him to identify other CEO’s families so he can get them to do what he wants. Chun-Li’s mother, who actually died when Chun-Li was born/very little, has some disease and dies when Chun-Li is a teenager or whatever age she’s supposed to be in the movie. (That never comes up.) After her mom dies, she receives some scroll at a piano recital (another thing that’s odd…) and goes ot the city to see what it means. Some lady tells her to go find Gen and off she goes to Bangkok for some reason.

Basically, the movie is about Chun-Li running around slums and stuff looking for Gen. Gen is played by Robin Shou (Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat). Why? I’m not really sure. Yes I know he’s Chinese and is a martial arts expert, but Gen is supposed to be an old man with white hair and a long beard. In this movie, Gen is buff and doesn’t really have an issue moving around since he’s not old. Once she finds him, he helps her train while Bison kills a bunch of guys to get his way.

The fights in the movie don’t last long at all. Vega and Chun-Li’s fight lasts about 2 minutes, if that. He dies from being hung by his feet. At least, that’s what it looks like. Balrog fights Gen and gets killed by a steam pipe being injected into him. And the final battle… Bison fights Gen and then fights Chun-Li. She supposedly kills him and everything is fine again.

Charlie is in the movie, but doesn’t look at all like his character and is played by Chris Kline. He could actually be eliminated from the movie completely and it wouldn’t affect anything. At the end, Liu Kang, I mean, Gen, tells Chun-Li there’s a tournament posting (in the newspaper) and he’s going to look for Ryu (but says it like RYE-YOO and not REE-YOO). She doesn’t want to go along as she’s back home at her house with no parents… Although she’s not through with fighting.

I didn’t gain anything from the movie except that no one seems to grab the concept of the Street Fighter characters (or ANY video game, characters or not) at all. I think all they see is that these characters fight each other and some die. If there’s ever a video game movie that gets the characters AND their stories straight, I’d be amazed. Mortal Kombat ALMOST did that except they combined MK1 and MK2 characters together in the first movie.

You have been warned about the content of the Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li movie, so go see it at your own risk to your wallet. Man, I wish I was a director…

Nominated Games
* A Kingdom for Keflings
* Portal
* Braid
* Castle Crashers
* Bionic Commando Rearmed
* Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2
* Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
* N+
* Penny Arcade Episode 1
* Schizoid
* Age of Booty
* Boogie Bunnies
* Roogoo
* Meteos Wars
* Soul Calibur
* Mega Man 9
* Rez HD
* Fable II Pub Games
* Duke Nukem 3D
* Galaga Legions
I have been really enjoying whats been on the XBLA so far. So does Microsoft. Hit up their site and let them know what you think. Yes we can. On this list I have played a few, I really loved that they have Duke Nukem 3D. Mega Man 9 made you feel like a kid again playing on the NES. That goes to show you that graphics don’t count for everything. Castle Crashers is a fun golden axe style side scroller with a new look. For a few extra Microsoft points you and a group of buddies can have fun. Taking you back to the days of old, where trash talk wasn’t a string of four letter words.

So check it out. Vote!
Awards 2008

Unfortunately I do not own a Nintendo DS, but I love the Fire Emblem series. Not many people know of them, since not many have been released outside Japan. But with the release of Smash Brothers, you could find a fan sub of the games. Even with really bad Engrish you could get a general idea of what is going on. The last one I owned was the first one to come out for the Game boy advanced.

I owned the SP and loved it. Now I love tactical turn based squad games. The story was decent and the game play was really well done. One thing I love about these style games, is that the art work is usually better than most other games. They don’t have to put to much time into 3D rendering, so they can put that time into other things.

One of the cool things that I see with this, is the duel screen which is awesome, but also the multiplayer. I think having a quick reference on your second screen can save time, and help you from making those silly mistakes. The multiplayer may be great, depending on what kind of units you can field. Now not owning one I’ll have to steal someones to play this, But what I would think would make a great multiplayer experience, is that you can unlock characters through the single player to start with. Fighting either co-op or vs. you can level them your own way. Unlocking additional character through multiplayer gaming. This would allow for great variety and game play.

The Nintendo site says that you pick character you have raised from battles, but not sure if these are the guys you start off with or what. If you like Turn based Tactics, I would pick this up for the DS. If you do I’m Jealous.