Night Before Christmas for the Home-less

'Twas the night before Christmas on PlayStation Home,
Not a creature was stirring resembling a gnome;
A character was made with great pride and care,
Despite my distaste for the lack of choices on hair.
Error -603 tried to keep me away,
Still, I tried seven more times and was able to play.
To my studio apartment my character tracked,
And noticed I, then, the options I lacked;
All eight pieces of furniture were colored in white,
And wallpaper choices were dull or a disgusting sight;
I thought to myself as my hopes slowly died,
"Perhaps there will be more once I venture outside."

As I walked through the courtyard in search of some game,
I noticed the theater was calling my name.
The screen said it was downloading, so I found a seat,
In the front behind others who were still on their feet.
The men were all asking the woman for cyber sex,
Except the one dancing, who said, "show some respect."
I stood to go join him in frolic and fun,
And chose as my dance move the man on the run.
Once dancing grew dull, I returned to my rump,
As the download completed, screaming, "Hey! Down in front!"
When, what to my increasingly bored eyes should appear,
But a trailer for Twilight, not a film would play here.
I got to my feet and went out the door,
Thinking they could've at least picked a good movie to advertise for.

Then, I thought I should give the bowling alley a try,
Hoping soon I'd find something to keep me from waving goodbye.
The ten lanes were full at 4 players each,
And no one would leave no matter how I beseeched.
A single-player arcade in the two rooms nearby,
Featured bastardized versions of old games I would try.
I was finished quite soon with the ruined Echochrome,
And Ice Breaker was just Pong made to play on your own.
On my way out the door, I saw pool tables, as well,
But realized fast that this pool game was hell.

One more building remained that I hadn't yet seen,
So into the mall I went for the first time since age fourteen.
Here, I found a small assortment of things I could buy,
Using real money to decorate my apartment, but why?
I'd found nothing so far worth the time I had spent,
And that money is something I need to pay rent.
I could upgrade to a summer home or purchase clothes with money just the same,
But the question I'd asked with no answer still remained.

I finished exploring all there was to do,
And decided the thing we'd been waiting on for over a year; almost two,
Was one of the biggest disappointments of 2008,
Worthy of nothing more than sadness and hate.
I pressed the PS button and selected Quit,
Just after typing a message to any that could see it.
They heard me exclaim, ere I faded from sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and PlayStation Home sucks."

What's Wrong with Left Fore Dead

First of all, where do you get off calling a game something like "Left Fore Dead" when it has nothing to do with golf! If it did, I probably wouldn't be playing it. Golf games suck. Hell, sports games in general suck, so any game about a game that claims to be a sport is guaranteed to suck. So, I guess I'm glad Left Fore Dead's not a golf game, but they could've used a better title. Maybe something like Left Four Dead, because four people are left behind in a zombie apocalyptic world and if they don't do something fast, they're all gonna die. What? Oh, it is called Left Four Dead? Oh, Left 4 Dead? 4 means four? Not fore? I never was very good at spelling.

Still, there are a few things I'd like to see Valve improve upon to make this game better than the awesome it already is. Here's a bullet-point list.

  • Team swapping. This game's all about teamwork. But, for some reason, Versus mode has a tendency to randomly swap players from team to team. I'd guess it's some sort of auto-balance thing like they have in CounterStrike, but at least there they warn you first with a big "auto balancing next round" message. But, with Left 4 Dead, team swapping really screws things up. Versus mode is all about getting a higher score than the other team. It's kind of hard to do that when you're responsible for half the points the other team has since you swapped to the team you're on now at the beginning of this round. Take the team swapping out.
  • Match-making. Again, this is a game that's all about teamwork. It's more fun when you play on a team with three other people you actually know and love (I'm assuming my readers aren't friendless. Wishful thinking, but who knows?) The match-making system in this game isn't the best for that, though. Sure, you can find your friends through the Play with Friends option, but the best you can hope for there is either a 4v4 match with seven of your buddies, or a 4v4 match with three friends and four random people. There's no middle ground. I'd like to see some sort of match-making system that allows a pre-made group of four go up against another pre-made group of four you've never met before. You could introduce a whole ranking system through that, it'd be awesome. Besides the fact that match-making is lacking, you have to enter in the console command to view the old server list that's a staple in all the other Valve games. So, to avoid the match-making system, you kind of have to go out of your way. I don't mind a good Quick Match function, but that's basically all Left 4 Dead has right now. Give us some variety.
  • More maps. The basic campaigns are fun, and the replay-ability is pretty big, but seriously? Two versus campaigns? Four regular campaigns? Come on! I'd been through it all once already within 6 hours played. I know they're counting on the mod community to come out with stuff, but the SDK tool modders use to make maps isn't even out yet. Not to mention the fact that any maps people have managed to develop for Left 4 Dead still aren't playable on any server because any time you try to load one up, it defaults back to the same crap we had to begin with. The game's been out for almost a month, and people are getting bored with the lack of content. Do something.
  • Loading times. It's inconsistent between players that have quality machines and people with equipment they should've thrown out in 1999. This isn't a huge problem, but it takes away meaningless achievements from people if they don't load fast enough, and it gives players with better systems a big advantage in Versus mode, especially if they start off as Survivors. Would it be too much to ask for a simple "Waiting for other players..." like Warcraft III has? Only when you're loading up a new map, obviously; let the late-comers suffer the consequences, but don't punish people just because their PC sucks.
  • Weapon variety. Right now, there's a total of 5 guns in the game. 6 if you count pistols, 7 if you count duallies separately. Adding in molatovs and pipe bombs, you bring the total weapon count to a whopping 9 weapons, and that's being generous. I can think of plenty more ways to kill a zombie than 9. Can we get some more options?
  • Specials aren't special enough. You've got to do something to balance out all the new weapons you're going to add, so make the Special Infected a little specialer. Start off with the cloud of smoke you get when a Smoker dies. It doesn't do anything. I'm told it stops in-game voice chat, but who uses that, anyway? Disable the computer's sound card instead, that'll really screw with people. No more Ventrilo, no more Team Speak, and because of the sound of the explosion, you won't be able to hear your teammates' cries for help or the Hunter that's lurking around the corner waiting to pounce. On top of that, give it a small damage counter, due to choking gases in the smoke or something. Smoker's just aren't useful enough as it is. Tank's aren't imba enough, either. It's way to easy to get kited around. Those arms are long, give their hits a little more reach. And Hunters are hard to make use of, too. Pounce damage is cool, but it's tough to land a blow on a Survivor from a distance. Maybe you could add in a little target thing that tells you where you'll land if you pounce from where you are in the direction you're facing. I don't know, though, that may be too much of an easy mode.
  • Dedicated servers. As a general rule, they all suck. Host a game locally, or don't play at all. The biggest problem with dedicated servers right now is that they seem to be running a different version of the game. Get used to playing locally, and things will seem weird to you when you switch to a dedicated server. The "too close to survivors to spawn" radius is too big, the cooldown on a Smoker's tongue is the same on a miss as it is on a hit, and... well, I guess that's it. Still, that's enough to drive you crazy.
  • Spawning in finales. This is some messed up #$%@. Why are Infected allowed to choose where they spawn until the finale event starts? Is it because the finale is hard enough as it is? Screw that, if you know what you're doing as a Survivor, you should be able to defend against Infected wherever they come from. Mainly, the reason I'm pissed about this one is last night I got to play as the first tank and I spawned in fire. Game over right there. I'd say a better handicap would be to make the "too close to spawn here" radius bigger during the finale. That way, they don't spawn so close it's "unfair," but they still get a choice, rather than throwing a Boomer in the middle of the level right in front of the minigun on top of Mercy Hospital.
  • Finally, more story. The most we've got is one single epic intro movie. We know nothing about who these four people are or why armageddon's hitting them in the face with a shovel. Add some more campaigns or cinematics so we can get a little more background on the situation. While you're at it, try making the different campaigns we've already got tie together. It bothers me that the same four people have to escape the zombie apocalypse four times in completely different places.

Fix it, Valve. Fix it long and fix it hard. Left 4 Dead's pretty awesome, but let's take it to the next level.

Pointing and Clicking actually CAN Be Fun!

Sam and Max: Season One (Wii: October, 2008)

I never thought it would be possible to find a small-statured creature hell-bent on destruction more loveable than myself. But, I may have met my match in the bunny-like Max of Sam and Max: Season One. The dynamic duo of Sam, a suit-wearing dog who runs around on his hind legs, and the naked aforementioned Max are freelance police detectives who do everything from taking their office phone back from their unwanted kleptomaniacal rat roommate, Jimmy Two-Teeth, to killing an evil reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln.

Sam and Max: Season One is a point-and-click adventure ported from the PC version released about a year ago. Prior to that, Episodes 1 through 6 had individual web releases spanning from October 2006 through May 2007. And before that, Sam and Max were the characters of a comic by a guy named Steve Purcell. But enough with the boring history lesson, let’s talk about the game.

This game restores my faith in a genre that hasn’t been entertaining since... well, ever. Each of the six episodes is full of brain-tickling puzzles, enough jokes to choke a rhinoceros, and a uniquely engaging plotline that contributes to the whole season’s overarching story.

If you think you’re good at solving puzzles or you don’t have any qualms with Googling for a walkthrough, you may be okay with simply renting this game. But, if you have a tougher time figuring the difference between the ins and the outs, it may end up being cheaper to buy it than checking it out from the local Stormwind Video over and over again. What, we can’t have video rental places in Azeroth? There’s enough on that tiny little Wii disc to give you a full 6 to 72 hours worth of puzzle-solving fun (I prefer not to make estimates on my readers’ intelligence). Previous Sam and Max fans could probably go without on this one, though. The only thing the Wii disc has that downloading the individual episodes doesn’t are some lame-ass excuses for “Special Features.” Paragraph-long character bios for 5 or 6 recurring characters and some uninteresting concept art. That’s it. Still, as a newcomer to the series, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It’s making me rethink my contract with The Donut Boys. I wonder if Telltale Games has room for a second mischievous being of lesser-than-average height...

Overall score: 8.5 out of 10, for an episodical… episodal… episodic… yeah, I think that’s it, episodic adventure of pointing and clicking at various things to achieve bizarre objectives and laugh at some zany jokes.

(P)hail to the Chimp

Hail to the Chimp (PlayStation 3: June, 2008)

What seems like forever ago now, I downloaded a demo of Hail to the Chimp. It seemed like a light-hearted and entertaining party game, enjoyable for me and a group of up to 3 of my closest friends/worst enemies to laugh our bums off for hours on end. Holy crap, did I just say bum? Sorry, I guess the British in that Kiki must’ve worn off on me....

Anyway, I’ve never been more wrong about a video game’s entertainment value. You see, the demo’s got maybe 20 minutes in it; the typical for a free demonstration of a larger product. Naturally, I assumed that since the demo was entertaining for the full 20 minutes, the full version would be just as entertaining, maybe not for the full length of time you’d put into it to see everything, but at least for most of it. Oh, how wrong I was... You ever go to a movie after seeing a trailer that makes you go, “Wow, that looks like a good movie,” and then leave when you realize you’d already seen all the best parts of it before you went in? That’s exactly what happened with Hail to the Chimp. 20 minutes is about all the time you need to spend on this game before you realize the rest of it will be exactly the same. All the mini-games are just slight modifications of the same damn thing. You compete with three other characters to collect clams, which, in the animal world are somehow the equivalent of electoral votes, and either throw in a ballot box, feed them to another clam, or beat more of them out of your opponents until you’ve got more than they do. “Variety” is apparently not a word in developer Gamecock’s vocabulary.

Looking around for the web for this game, you’ll find other reviewers agree with me whole-heartedly, but some actually hold this sorry excuse for entertainment in moderately high regard. That’s because there are some redeeming qualities in the game. Well... there’s one, anyway: humor. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the game is a satirical work of genius, but it’s at least a satirical work of higher than average intelligence. There are plenty of things to laugh at in this game. The problem, though, is that almost none of them have anything to do with actual gameplay. All the laughs come in the extra features and the cinematics, which can only be unlocked by playing through the monotonous single-player Campaign mode 20 times. In order to actually enjoy yourself and watch about 30 seconds of comedy, you’ve first got to subject yourself to 3 hours of torture (It’s a lot like watching “Comedy Central Presents...” in that way). Not only that, there’s no list available anywhere, in the game or even on the internet, to tell you what you have to accomplish in order to unlock specific extras. Basically, the whole “game” is about as entertaining as jamming your fingers into a paper shredder. It’s a lot of pain to go through for a tiny amount of comedy that’s actually pretty hard to find.

Overall score: 3 out of 10, for sucking less than some of the other games I've played.

I'm Baaaaaack (Finally...)

Everybody's been wondering why The Chalice of Silvermoon and my Blog have been missing ever since BlizzCon 2008. Well, now I'm back, and I can tell you why: The Donut Boys, at least the two I THOUGHT were cool enough to bring with me to the convention, thought it would be funny to wrap me up in duct tape and leave me locked up in KikiJiki's hotel room. And I admit, that WOULD have been a great gag... if it weren't for the fact that the hotel he was staying at is a disease ridden, roach infested hell-hole where the cleaning staff only comes by ONCE A MONTH! I've got half a mind to just up and quit your stupid show right now!

But, my agent tells me I need the "publicity." So, I guess I'll stay. Besides, The Donut Boys should've learned their lesson, now- their talk show's been lacking it's only quality content for the last month. At any rate, now that I've escaped the clutches of the stickiest substance known to man (I'm not talking about the duct tape), I'm ready to get back to my true calling: blogging! A lot of things are on the way over the coming week. Keep watching closely.

Star Wars: The Glitch Unleashed

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PlayStation 3: September, 2008) Listen to this post

I got excited when The Donut Boys handed me a copy of Force Unleashed. "Finally!" I thought, "They're giving me a real video game! Something I can give a good solid review on, so that I can establish my career as a journalist and leave this God forsaken hell hole they claim is 'radio stardom.'" Of course, that would imply that someone actually reads this blog, and considering how talented The Donut Boys are with marketing and promotions, I probably shouldn't hold my breath. I'd end up turning blue, and it's really not a good color on me. I'll leave that to the trolls.

Let me just get this out in the open right off the bat: I am a huge Star Wars geek. Like, seriously, I go to all the conventions in a Vader costume and everything. People say I'm too short for Vader, but seriously, no one remembers the 3-foot-tall Ewok. Everyone remembers the 3-foot-tall Vader. Anyway, as far as Star Wars fandom goes, this game knocks it out of the park.

As far as video games go, however, this game could've handled about three months of hard work. Honest to Force, this short little 8 hour game is so buggy, I don't know how it managed to hit the shelves when it did. There are some serious problems in this thing. I killed a boss and waited for like 5 minutes for something to happen before I realized I needed to go back to the last save point and kill her again to get the cinematic. How does a game with these kinds of problems get released?

And that's not the worst of it. The difficulty in this game at some points is comparable to attempting to break through a brick wall using just your forehead. Wham! "Ow. That hurt. Did it do anything? Nope, let's try again." And I'm playing on Sith Warrior, the "Normal" level of difficulty. I can't imagine what this would be like on Sith Lord. It's not a difficulty setting in this game, it's an impossible-ness setting.

Because of the mechanics of the game, you've got to have a "kick 'em while they're down" sort of mentality. And, let's be honest, who doesn't enjoy kicking people when they're down? That part's lots of fun. But getting kicked while your down sucks. There are several ways to get knocked to the ground or frozen in place in this game, and any time one of those things happens, you're stuck, completely vulnerable, for a good 2 or 3 seconds. If you're facing a relentless baddy or you're in a room full of little guys, you're basically screwed as soon as you hit the floor, because they'll keep hitting you to make sure you stay down. Even on easy mode, this thing's a pain in my tiny ass.

Playing with force powers is fun (though they could've done with adding a little more fire), and the graphics are shiny and pretty, but the overall gameplay in this guy is sadly lacking. For such a short game, you'd think they would've unleashed something a little more forceful. The only thing that's holding this game together is the story.

I won't give away any details, but this game's story adds a lot of great stuff to the Star Wars saga. You find out how the Rebel Alliance was created, and you get a lot more insight on the character of Vader. And I'm talking real Vader, not pre-Vader Vader. The lead character is wildly interesting, though it kind of sucks that he doesn't have a name. Especially since they're now treating this as canon to the Star Wars universe, the events of this game actually happened in the realm of the story being told in the movies. The choose-your-own ending is a little weird, too, considering that one ending is what actually happened in Star Wars history, and the other one is a huge "what if."

Long story short, if you like Star Wars, or just good stories in general (and let's face it, if you listen to Chalice, you've got some taste), rent this game. Don't buy it, because it would be a total waste of money, especially considering the fact that it's only got about 12 hours worth of content even if you go for 100% completion. But rent it.

I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel, now, because it can only go up from here.

Overall score: 6 out of 10, for a truly brilliant story and the joy of spinning Stormtroopers around in circles as they dangle helplessly by your Force Grip.

iPod Touch = BEST HANDHELD GAMING EVAR!!1!1!!1!

Listen to this post

So, the news blurb from the realm of video games today comes from a company that has no business talking about games whatsoever: Apple. Today... well, yesterday at this point... they released their new iPod Touch 2.0, aka, iPhone without the phone part. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was quoted as saying, "It's the best portable device for playing games."

Aside from the fact that Apple is an evil, greedy, over-pricing, egotistical corporation... Skipping the part where I tell you that handheld gaming is completely irrelevant in the eyes of any god worth paying any attention to... I'll just get right to the point: Apple makes hardware that, first of all, costs way more than it's worth, and second, excels at doing things like audio editing and video editing. Aside from that, their hardware can do the same things anyone else's hardware can do about half as easily. Unless you're a total moron, in which case, the secrets of Apple hardware somehow manage to reveal themselves to you. That part still confuses me. These "anything you can do, Apple can do... kind of" activities include word processing, browsing the internet, and, in the case of the iPod, listening to music on the go. That's basically it.

Nowhere in the history of Apple computers has there ever been an even remotely successful attempt at breaking into the gaming industry. Video games have been dominated by companies like Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft since the beginning of time. "Time" in this case refers to the day the first video game was invented, which, as far as I'm concerned, happened with "Computer Space" in 1971 (one year prior to "Pong"). Never has Apple truly tried to break into gaming. Never has anyone with any form of technological knowledge ever given Apple credit for an ability to create games- either hardware or software.

Now, all of a sudden, Steve Jobs has the audacity-- err, sorry, idiocy-- to go and claim that something his company's made is the "best portable device for playing games?" What the hell did he pull out of his ass that happens to be better than anything Nintendo or Sony's got on the market right now? Granted, the stuff that comes out of anyone's ass is probably pretty close to the same value as any handheld gaming device, but as far as handheld gaming devices go, you can't turn an MP3 player into a gaming platform! And you damn sure can't turn it into a gaming platform that's better than something a veteran like Nintendo or Sony can make.

Take my advice, Apple: stick to what you're good at, and quit trying to hone in on everyone else's turf. Better yet, just get out of our hair alltogether by spending all of your money on useless crap, declaring bankruptcy, and giving back the small percentage of the market share your stealing from the reigning king of computers- PC.

Fun for Hippies

So, while we were on-location working on Chalice this last week, The Donut Boys neglected my contract and decided not to provide me with at least one console or even a competent PC. They did, however, lend me Mickey C's nearly useless iBook G4 laptop. Let him know what a waste of space it is for me later. Right now, I wanted to share with you this free online game I found with it in my downtime.

Music Catch is an independant game made by some company called Reflexive. It's a flash-based game, so you can run it on just about any web browser. The screen's completely black, except for your cursor, at the beginning of the game. Then, from the blackness, green shapes start flying out, and you're supposed to catch them with your cursor. I'm not sure if I'm just tone-deaf, but I didn't notice any correlation between what I was catching and the music that was playing. Anyway, the music's pretty soothing, and the game's kind of fun. When the yellow shapes come out, you want to try to catch them, too, to get a multiplier and a bigger cursor. The more yellow shapes you catch without accidentally catching one of the evil red shapes, the larger your cursor will get, and the bigger your multiplier. Red shapes are nasty, though, they'll cut down your multiplier and your cursor size by about half every time.

So, if you're ever bored, away from modern conviences like a good ol' PS3, or too poor to get a copy of a real game, go check out Music Catch. It's good for at least 5 minutes worth of free entertainment.

I've managed 815,588 points. What's your best? Comment below.

EDIT: Yeah, that score was done on a crappy Mac laptop. I got back home from the set today and decided to see how much easier the game was with a real mouse. I can now proudly say my high score is 2,006,804. Beat that, kiddies.

New News is Old News

By now it's old news, because it's been news since Thursday, but Blizzard released the opening cinematic for Wrath of the Lich King. It's really not all that impressive when you think about it in comparison to, say, the Burning Crusade intro. There aren't any really quotable lines from Arthas, and the only thing that makes you go "Oooo" is the giant dragon. Sorry, I probably should've warned you about that spoiler, but if you haven't seen this yet, that's your fault, not mine. The one thing that I can't ignore here is the fact that this is the opening cinematic for the game. What could this mean? My money's on a BlizzCon 2008 release party. I got 6 copper, who wants in on this?

Blogspot apparently hates me. I tried to give you an in-post view of the video. Looks like you'll have to click on the link.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/intro.xml

Not Another Starcraft

Universe at War: Earth Assault (Xbox360: March, 2008) Listen to this post

I tried really, really hard to ignore my initial doubts and finish this game. From the moment I turned it on, I was stifling the urge to kill myself in order to escape the torture, but, unfortunately, I caved after about four or five levels and promptly lifted the Xbox360 from the TV stand and hurled it off a cliff. I then cackled gleefully as I watched the massive piece of machinery tumble and transform into a fiery hunk of wreckage. Okay, I added the fire myself, but it did the rest all on its own.

Universe at War is a blatant ripoff of Blizzard's legendary StarCraft, however, SEGA decided to change things just a little by putting the game on a console. At least, that's what I thought, until I realized the console version is a port from the PC, originally released in December of 2007. Apparently they weren't paying attention to the fact that Blizzard tried to do the whole port-a-PC-game with the original StarCraft years ago and failed miserably. History repeats itself, ladies and gentlemen.

This game deserves nothing more than to burn in hell for all eternity. That's putting it mildly. Sega took the three races from StarCraft, kept the same basic unit types, and changed the aliens to robots. They didn't even come up with a new name for the humans; they're still Terrans. But, even their blatant theft would've been acceptable if they had made a decent game. Instead, they created a nightmare: a self-indulgent pile of crap that makes little attempt to even tell you what you're objectives are with a difficulty curve that starts out at the boring tutorial level and by the second or third mission has already reached infinity and beyond.

The biggest flaw in this RTS is the same as any RTS that's ever existed on a console: the controls. An all-purpose button doesn't really do much for you when the cursor is guided by a joystick. I can't wait until the day comes that developers realize the hard truth that RTS games and consoles don't mix. Sorry, Halo Wars, but all I'm gonna say when you suck is "I told you so." You can't compete with the power of a two-button+ mouse and a full-size keyboard. That silly little thing that Microsoft calls an Xbox360 controller just isn't capable of doing things like simple little micro-management.

If you ever get possessed to try this game, do yourself a favor: take a cigarette, light it, and jam the lit end into your left nostril. That will bring you less pain in a fraction of the time than Universe at War.

Overall score: 2 out of 10. It gets that much because had I tried this on the equipment it was intended to be played on originally (a PC), I might have actually been able to play through more than half of it.

This Game is Not Worthy

Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (Wii: February, 2008)

I can proudly say I didn't play enough of this game to give it a real review, but don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of first impressions to get the job done.

It's a point-and-click adventure, which in my mind is an oxymoron, not a game genre, ported to the Wii from it's original 2004 PC release. I'm amazed it managed to make it to the Wii, honestly, because the only place it should've been ported to was the dumpster.

If you had the patience to beat this game, you should give yourself a pat on the back, right after you finish bashing your head against the wall and asking yourself, "Why?!" Hell, if you had the patience to play this game for longer than the 10 minutes I spent on it, you deserve something. That 10 minutes was longer than I would've liked, but I had to give it at least 5 minutes of gameplay after the 5+ minutes of worthless cinematic at the opening.

The Wii version of this game takes it to an even more meaningless level than before. It's a mystery game, and they openly tell you at the beginning that part of the "mystery" is figuring out how to tell your character what to do with the Wii remote. Then they give you this example: if you want to open a door, instead of just pointing and clicking as usual, you have to point, click, and twist the Wii remote like it's a door knob. Seriously? I've heard of meaningless control concepts with the Wii remote, but nothing this ridiculous.

The story was neither engaging nor readily apparent to me at the start of the game, which, coupled with the stunningly boring activity of pointing my remote at everything on the screen, clicking on it, and hearing my character say things like, "It's a painting of a purple water lily," left me feeling no guilt when I almost immediately removed the game from my console and set it on fire. All I can say to those of you willing to sit through this one is, "good luck."

Overall score: 0.3 out of 10. Yes, that’s a decimal in front of that 3.

Hey, look, I've got a blog now.

In the first intelligent decision they've ever made, The Donut Boys decided to give me, Tickelbur, a blog. What shall I blog about, you ask? Read the title at the top of the page, dumbass. This blog's gonna be all about video games. I'll fill it up with reviews, news, and anything else worth wasting your time with. So keep coming back, there should be something new here for you ever couple of days.