You have to appreciate the sort of shitty, douchebag business model that Capcom pushes. There was already a total uproar over Resident Evil 5’s multiplayer modes being sold as DLC instead of being packaged on the disc. And now? Grease up your butts, they’re releasing Super Street Fighter IV as a full retail release. What does SSFIV bring to us gamers?

Via Kotaku:

Capcom today have announced Super Street Fighter IV, a new, standalone title which is Street Fighter IV with eight new characters added and some tweaks made based on community feedback.

A full retail release? For eight new characters? You have to be fucking kidding me. I find it mind boggling that they need a full retail release for eight new characters and some “tweaks” – a beautifully nebulous and indistinct term – while companies like Bethesda offer new episodic content for $12.50. Don’t fucking fret, Capcom has their asses covered. Tell us Capcom, why can’t you release this as DLC?

Ono says the changes are so extensive that they couldn’t just be tacked on, so a disc release was necessary.

Really? Really? Really? I’d like to spin kick whoever believes that shit. Anyone who has played WoW knows the sort of stuff they can do via downloads and patches. The entire game can be remade for Christ’s sake. But these nebulous tweaks can’t be sold through Live! or PSN?

But don’t worry, it probably, maybe, certainly wouldn’t be full price. Apparently it’ll come with some sort of reduced price, and get this, an as-of-yet unannounced, special treat for people who own both the original SFIV and SSFIV.

Here’s hoping it’s some salve, for the bruised ass Capcom is going to leave you with.

Ah, Bayonetta. On a nightly basis, I get into debates with myself over the merits of Bayonetta. On one hand, it seems like an amazing game. It stars a gorgeous woman with GLASSES, and features Devil May Cry-esque gameplay. On the other hand, it seems like the most amazing and flagrant female objectification in a long time. I take a moral stand for about fourteen seconds, before I’m amazingly defenseless in the face of a gorgeous woman and sleek gameplay.

Fearful of being outdone by anyone in the super-sexy-uber-sexual game department, Capcom has released a commercial for Bayonetta in Japan which features cleavage, ass shots, and yes, lollipop sucking. Top it all off with the tagline, “Nonstop Climax Action.” Amazing.

Check the video out after the jump. Keep Reading »

Kristen Bell is a bit of a hot button topic for me. Why, you ask? Because every time I see her, I become convinced of two things:

1. If I could just meet her, I’d probably be able to persuade her into dating me. I’m witty, not completely ugly, and I would be willing to wait on her hand and foot. Plus, she dated that dillhole Dax Shepard.
2. She is the penultimate nerd’s wet dream. She’s cute, she has a hell of a body, and she starred in a movie about Star Wars, and used the word “frak” on her television show Veronica Mars

Well, Kristen Bell did voice acting for the game Assassin’s Creed. And now apparently she’s back to reprise her role as something or someone or some such in the sequel. Yeah, I didn’t play the original. But! I’m meaning to, since I’ve heard the sequel is like, you know, like the original except improved in every way. Here, let’s hear Kristen talk about doing some voice acting, and just nod our head and not really care about what she’s saying, so awed are we by her presence:

Via Destructoid:

“As an actress, it’s both challenging and rewarding to play a complex character with this great mysterious background,” she says. “I’m very happy to be Lucy once more, and I look forward to fans discovering more about her – they will be pleasantly surprised.”

Uh, yeah, that all sounds great and amazing. Wait, what were you talking about?

I may be crazy enough to call Halo 3: ODST the best installment in the Halo franchise yet. It seems particularly insane, since the game started off as DLC, then sprawled into a full release. All of this while not shaking the Halo 3 umbrella, because it wasn’t long enough, it wasn’t a full game, et cetera, blah blah. But I’m going to lay it on the line: ODST is shockingly superior in narrative and presentation to all the other Halo games. It left me with a sense of satisfaction that I haven’t gotten since the original Halo. And that’s what, eight years ago at this point? But I’m not bullshitting you.

Master Chief Sucks.

Oh my god fifteen million people just shit their pants. Fanboys are falling over and fainting and arming electronic messages of hate. But I love ODST so much more than the other Halo games because it finally put a human face to the epic, generic sprawling war that encompasses the Halo mythos. Master Chief is awesome because he can take an ass-kicking that would fell a tank, he does cool shit like hop out of spaceships, and he’s apparently schizophrenic and talks to computer AIs in his brain.

But can anyone relate to Master Chief?

I CAN, I TOTALLY READ THE SEVENTEEN BOOKS PLUS I FOLLOWED ALL THE VIRAL MARKETING, AND OH YEAH, I’M AN OVERWEIGHT GAYLORD FANBOY

Yeah well, let’s say that you’re someone who hasn’t read all the books, decoded all the messages, spent a million years on the Bungie message boards ruminating with fellow Halo fanatics. Is Master Chief anything more than the standard John McClean trope? No, not really.

I can’t tell you anything about the first three Halo games at this point. It’s been what, two years since the third installment came out? It’s forgettable slop. Yeah, I said it: forgettable slop. It’s a mushy Sci-Fi tale that borders on non-sensical for anyone who doesn’t want to sit down and hash everything out.

So what you’re saying is that the storyline sucks because you’re too stupid to understand it?

Actually, maybe.

But what I’m really trying to emphasize is that I haven’t connected with Master Chief and the primary storyline because it stars a sterile, unrelatable hero, with poor presentation.

So prior to playing ODST I thought that telling a lovable tale in the Halo universe was impossible.

Then I met Buck and Veronica.

Keep Reading »

Poor Final Fantasy VIII. It followed VII, which made roughly eight-zillion nerds who had never played an RPG fall in love with the genre. Myself included. Little did we know that most were mine-fields filled with shit, slow-ass battles, and mediocrity.

I loved it. All my friends hated it. It was definitely not Final Fantasy VII 2.0 Us being neophiles to the series, that left a lot of us befuddled. Holding on to one another, crying and asking where Cloud and materia were.

It had the Draw System.

I loved it.

It was Dawson’s Creek in Space and Time.

I loved it.

And now it’s coming to the PSN shortly.

Awesome.

Time Line:

Sony releases the PS3 Slim.

I say to myself, that’s hot as hell. But Ian, you’re broke and unemployed, you can’t afford it.

Gamestop announces you can get 150$ towards a PS3 Slim if you trade in your old PS3. I begin to waver.

Not Sony shows this FFXII Themes PS3 Slim.

My conviction continually wavers. It’s fucking hot. I generally don’t enjoy Game-Themed consoles. I may, it’s not my Final Fantasy XIII-player. It’s a general console. I know it’s irrational, OCD type shit. And I know I’ll hold strong…despite this. Probably. But if I was ever going to buy a themed console. It’d probably be this. Jesus.

Ah, god bless the shitty motion controls gimmick. I thought it was going to die. I thought that maybe, somehow, people weren’t going to dig it. But now everyone is into it.

And then, somehow, I thought that maybe shitty motion controls remakes would be relegated to the Wii. Stupid Resident Evil 4 with motion controls. The Metroid Prime games re-released with motion controls. I mean, what’s worse than the stupid gimmick that is motion controls? Making some cheap cash off of rehashes with the gimmick smashed into it.

Well guess what, PS3 fans! Apparently you’re going to get to re-buy Resident Evil 5 and Littlebigplanet so you can shake your little wrist to make them uh, do stuff:

Via Kotaku:

Well, we now know what that “Resident Evil 5: Director’s Cut” stuff was all about. It’s a re-release of RE5, built to take advantage of Sony’s upcoming motion controller.

The game will be out in Spring 2010, and it’s far from the only existing PS3 title to take advantage of the new peripheral. During SCEJ’s TGS press conference, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida revealed that the controller will also work with existing games like LittleBigPlanet, EyePet, Flower, Pain, High Velocity Bowling “and more”.

Sick! More phallus-shaking action! Christ, between jacking off compulsively and now wasting money on shitty motion-based rehashes, I’ll have the wrist of a god! Which is uh, good for nothing.

Hey, let’s churn some obvious bullshit and pass it off as news!

Via Kotaku:

[Uncharted 2] doesn’t conclude the story at all. The expectation with Uncharted 2 is that it can be an ongoing franchise as long as people want more of it.

Wait, really? This news blows my mind for two reasons:

1) I thought middle installments of stories always conclude the tale.

2) I always thought they didn’t make sequels to successful franchises because they didn’t want to milk it to death.

Seriously, this is staggering news. As a non-snarky aside, I can’t wait for Uncharted 2. The original game is still my favorite PS3-exclusive. It doesn’t pioneer anything, but it executes on so many levels with bonerfying proficiency. Hilarious typical wise-ass lead, beautiful visuals, addictive and challenging gameplay, the quinessential shotgun of fury. Every game should have a shotgun of fury. It’s scientifically established the shotgun is the coolest gun in any video game. Ever.

But seriously Naughty Dog, this is good news. But could you take a break and give me a PS3 Jak and Daxter? I’ll sell my nana to you. And my dad.

I haven’t played much ODST yet, but I figured I’d vomit up some impressions for those curious. Let me first begin by saying what you’ve already read everywhere else: as a single-player campaign, this isn’t worth sixty bucks. Maybe with all the online nonsense that I’m really not even going to touch, but if you’re looking for some single-player lovin’, seek elsewhere.

What’s awesome? The narrative. It’s only taken Bungie four Halo games, but they’ve finally made something compelling. The storytelling is much better than the previous games, and I already care more about these ODST scrubs than I do about the Ender’s Game rip-off known as Master Douche.

Blah? The graphics. C’mon Bungie. You look like you’re running last-gen stuff here. I’m not a graphics whore by any means, but you’re getting shredded by countless 360 games.

It’s a good game. Addictive even. I’m only taking a break to do some nightly reading and writing, or else I’d still be in there. It’s probably for the best though, since I’ve been told it’s only about five-hours or deliciousness. It’s a good, engrossing narrative so far, wrapped around the same tried-and-true gameplay. You may love it, but it’s refried beans to me at this point.

I’ll write something else up when I complete the game, which again, is about as long as one of my farts. (Which are probably longer than should be humanly possible, but extremely short in the grand scheme of even a mortal’s life.)

Final Fantasy Tactics is up for download on the PSN. Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. When I first bought it, it broke me over its knee and left me for dead. Be gone, nub player it told me. And I nodded at it and left glumly. Years later I returned, a wizened young adult, ready to have his ass served to him repeatedly in the name of strategy. And by the end, with my legion of Monk/Ninjas, I was double-fist punching the shit out of every goon in my way. I still own my original copy, but if I didn’t, I would be on this like fanboys on Felecia Day.