In the past, when I was told about an Xbox LIVE arcade game I wouldn’t even bother to take a brief break from writing the next chapter in my book titled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Racist People. However, a month back I picked up a game called Toy Soldiers: Cold War and was happier than Kevin Smith after he discovered the grease dumpster behind his local McDonald’s.

It was created by Signal Studios, a little development studio based in Seattle, Washington. Their only other titles so far are the first Toy Soldiers and another game that is in development and unannounced. So with a studio so small that a new release could practically fall through the holes Professor Tweed pokes in his condoms, what could we possibly expect? A rocking co-op arcade game that is so fun my facial muscles almost needed to relearn how to make a smile.

This game includes everything that Xbox LIVE Arcade gamers have been wanting. It boasts a campaign around 5 – 6 hours long, it has a myriad of mini games, there is intense online competition, you can team up with online co-op and there are a series of increasing difficulty levels. But let’s be honest and admit that the number one thing gamers want is for their moms to ignore the moaning sounds and suspicious amount of conditioner they use in the shower every morning.

Spend some time shooting at something besides your rancid Fleshlight

Most arcade games look bad. Almost as if  their textures were made by a dog that was given a rail of speed after having a spray paint can shoved into its ass. But Toy Soldiers: Cold War is actually beautiful in its simplistic fashion. Great artistic direction, great toy designs and an interesting variety of levels. From sandy deserts to big cities to Russia in the winter, you get a great mix of terrain. The last time I saw this much diversity was when I was protesting that multicultural parade.

For a brief moment I was a warrior, a killer, a real man... but then I spilled chocolate milk on my teddy bear and got yelled at by my mom

Toy Soldiers: Cold War was so fun I almost forgot that my entire being is fueled by unfocused hatred towards everyone within a 10 foot radius of me. Ultimately this game taught me something: Xbox LIVE arcade games sometimes don’t suck. So if you want to know how to make a great Xbox LIVE arcade game then go play Toy Soldiers: Cold War and bring a notepad with you that isn’t covered in doodles of circular boobs.

1200 gamer points? For that kind of money I could finally blend in at an all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet!

The last few Xbox LIVE games I’ve purchased were disappointing. When the average price of these games is around $15-20 I expect to get a few hours of enjoyment. For that amount you could pick up a ton of great used games, a few cheap new games or enough Listerine to make my signature cocktail, the Hobopolitan. But for 1200 points I got an arcade game that let me enjoy the time I spend hiding in my bedroom. This game reminds me why I love ‘check-your-brain-at-the-door games’. Start your game, blow the shit out of some toys and relax into a world of hilarious nonsense.

Now that we’ve solved the complicated problem of making a great Xbox LIVE Arcade game, we should get our top scientists to focus on something truly important, like sterilizing people who don’t flush the toilet in public washrooms.

If there is one completely untapped resource in the realm of gaming and science fiction, it’s Space Marines. I can only assume that this fact is the leading contributor to all the hype surrounding the newly released and creatively named ‘Space Marine’. Gamers the world over have been clamoring for a game that pits roguishly chiseled manly men with muscle dysmorphia against hordes of hideous aliens in a clash of ceaseless gunfire. THQ has answered the call and stepped boldly into unique, unexplored territory. However, treading into the unknown can be a vicious gamble.
Does THQ live up to the hype? The answer is a solid ‘probably’.

The game’s protagonist is one Captain Titus, who is Colonel of the Ultramarines (Captain is actually his surname.) Colonel Captain Titus is tasked with riding the known galaxy of the Ork menace by any means necessary; even illegal wire tapping and prolonged incarcerations without trial. Colonel Captain Titus is not alone in this task, as he is accompanied by a loyal entourage of companions. Space Marine features full co-op integration allowing up to 4 ½ players to join the game online as any of the following characters:

Sergeant Officer Duke: Ballistics expert and soft-spoken cat-lover.
Private Ensign Marx: Spec ops sniper and devout Mormon.
Lieutenant Admiral Candy: A girl.
Grenadier General Hugo: Cool, but rude (gimme a break)
Chief Commodore Marsupial: A party dude (party)

By far, the greatest portion of this game’s storyline is the ‘Band of Brothers’ element of the group. The Ultramarines are just like the Semper-fi-hooRAH Marines we all know and love, from the sense of fraternity right down to the massive chainsaw swords. The Space Marines stick up for each other and never leave a man behind. You get a genuine sense of camaraderie from the Ultramarines and by the game’s end, you begin to truly believe that they would do anything for each other. That is of course with the notable exception of *SPOILER ALERT* Private Ensign Marx, who is caught stealing Grenadier General Hugo’s prescription painkillers and is cannibalized by his companions as part of some esoteric Ultramarine ritual of honor. I’m not really sure how I felt about that part.

Pictured: An Average Ultramarine.

Anyways, the whole show is brought together marvelously by the leadership of Colonel Captain Titus, who inspires and directs the group. His tough-but-fair demeanor never fails to shine through, even when he *SPOILER ALERT* directs the group to disembowel Private Ensign Marx and cook his carcass on a spit.

The gameplay is expectedly combat intensive with some unique touches. The pacing is frantic and visceral, putting you against endless droves of Orks who are armed with everything from Spetsnaz shotguns to novelty inflatable mallets. The game features three attack subsets that can be mapped to any variety of weapons. Subset 1 features a huge selection of firearms, from the classic shotgun to the rapid fire assault rifle. The Ultramarine has a wide choice of long range weapons (my personal favorite being the Super Soaker filled with elk urine.) Subset 2 is your complement of melee weapons, featuring the Chainsaw sword, The Chainsaw axe and the Chainsaw BDSM paddle. By far the most interesting is subset 3 which is reserved for a very original feature in the game: Tactical Crying. Activating Tactical Crying causes your Space Marine to burst into a fit of inconsolable weeping, causing the surrounding Orks to be paralyzed with a sudden sense of remorse. This leaves them open to a lukewarm urine ambush followed by a thorough slave ass-paddling/chainsawing.

The Gameplay of Space Marine is Intense and Chainsawy.

The HUD is easy to navigate. At the top right is the health bar, the mana bar being immediately to its left. The bottom portion of the screen is reserved for the current time and temperature, as well as a real time CNN stock ticker. The right side of the screen is reserved for the Ultrafinish meter. As the player kills enemies and successfully dodges attacks, the meter fills up until it flashes yellow. Once it’s full, enter a character specific command sequence and you will unleash an Ultrafinish attack, causing the game to seamlessly transform into a dance simulator. Timed button sequences need to be hit perfectly as the superfly Ultramarines have a dance off against the wiggety-wack Orks to the sounds of today’s latest and greatest club hits. If completed successfully, the Orks receive a damage rating of ‘served’ and are forced to get the fuck outta yo’ house with that stank-ass bullshit.

As we all know, the only perfect game ever made is the SNES adaption of Home Improvement, so the game is not without its flaws. The running time of the game is a little short at 85 hours and about 60% of its content is advertisements for feminine hygiene products. The save system is a little clunky as well. Saving is restricted entirely to typewriters which can only be activated if the player has ink ribbons in their possession. Naturally, there is a constant search throughout the game for more ink ribbons which can be quite tedious, not to mention the inventory space that the ink ribbons always occupy.

Pictured: Space Marine's User-Friendly HUD.

There are a few bugs that made it into the final build as well; textures often pop in suddenly on the horizon and there are numerous bugs in the dialogue sequences. One unusual bug occurred in a cutscene where Colonel Captain Titus is having a conversation with Lieutenant Admiral Candy about her fractured relationship with her parents. Selecting the “I understand… That must have been very hard on you…” option instead maps to the “We know you did it, you left-leaning parasite, so spill the beans or you’re getting the gas chamber!” option. I don’t believe this is a deal breaker; I expect that THQ will launch a patch to rectify these problems as soon as possible.

All in all, Space Marine is a wonderful game that is hampered by a few minor issues. This is a must-own game for anyone who has a fascination with Marines who come from space. Newcomers are welcome too; the game is easy to pick up for beginners as soon as you learn to cope with the debilitating migraine that you get after ten minutes of gameplay. Availability of this wonderful product is plentiful, as the game is fully ported to the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC, Mac and of course the Phantom.
I give this game a rating of 5 cheese blintzes out of a possible 7 1/2.

Long before Call of Duty, Bluetooth headsets, and teaching ten year olds your favorite racial slurs over Xbox Live, there was a time when gaming was far more dignified and much simpler than it is today. Starting in the late 1970s, gamers used to gather in public, sometimes even in daylight, and hone their skills on the arcade machines available to them, one quarter at a time. An arcade acted as a social club for kids who climbed the ladder of respect by playing classic games and leaving behind a tasteful three letter handle such as AAA, CNT, ASS, FAG, GAY, TIT, or DIE accompanied by their highest score possible of which others could take notice. This was the original leaderboard. While times have changed, your fond memories of pissing away your allowance certainly have not. Let’s take a look back at the TOP 10 ARCADE GAMES OF ALL TIME.

10.) NBA Hangtime (Midway, 1996)

Midway had a real knack for turning bland basketball games into hilarious, over the top dunk fests. While the original NBA Jam was excellent, NBA Hangtime turned up the heat and allowed for custom characters you could create, level up and play at anytime. Awesome two-on-two action like this hadn’t felt so good since the time you and your buddy cleaned that pool for those sun bathing old ladies alone at a luxurious mansion in Beverly Hills and… oh wait, that was just a movie you jacked off to last weekend in your bachelor suite. Plus, you don’t have any friends so stick to Minecraft and My Little Pony and keep your fucked up granny smut away from one of my favorite games.

9.) Metal Slug 3 (SNK, 2000)

SNK’s flagship platformer, Metal Slug, is still alive to this day but none have been greater than Metal Slug 3. This game had the best of everything in the series. The best art, best action, best story, and best boss fights. Blowing stuff up and foiling military plans with a buddy as you high-fived to a symphony of explosions is a great way to build a sense of camaraderie. This game came at a steep price as you died every 15 seconds, so most kids had to empty out their piggy banks before playing this brutal classic at the arcade, a precursor for some of a life of poor investment decisions that usually ends with divorce and attempted suicide. That was a bit of a downer, I apologize.

8.) The Outfoxies (Namco, 1994)

One of the best arcade games that you’ve probably never heard of is The Outfoxies, a two-player game that pits you against your enemy like two provoked dogs under the care of Michael Vick in a style reminiscent of the original Smash Bros. The environments are super fun and fully destructible which you can climb on and take cover behind while planning your next strike. With a bizarre cast of characters to choose from, including a chimp, twin sisters, and a dude in a wheelchair (sounds like a movie you keep in your sock drawer), the object of the game is to kill your enemy using an arsenal of guns and explosives. Ridiculous fun.

7.) The Simpson’s Arcade Game (Konami, 1991)

In the early 1990′s, The Simpson’s had their name stamped on every piece of cheap manufactured crap to be shipped out of Asia, and us kids ate it up like a dog scarfing down it’s own vomit. The Simpson’s Arcade Game by Konami was definitely no exception as it was one of the biggest draws at the local arcade that allowed up to four players to assume the roles of Bart, Homer, Marge or Lisa and smash their way through legions of turncoat Springfield citizens on a path to Mr. Burns. The Simpson’s were so popular at the time that you could put Bart’s face on a box of used dildos and they would fly off the shelves.

6.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Turtles in Time (Konami, 1991)

Much like Matt Groening and The Simpson’s, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird whored out their franchise like a five dollar hooker giving two-for-one deals at a sex addicts retreat in Las Vegas. Once again Konami delivered huge with the best of the best in the beat-em-up category. Four-player action starring Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello in an adventure through time against all your favorite TMNT bad guys with top shelf 2D graphics makes this game an arcade legend. The 3D remake for XBL and PSN is good, but nothing compares to playing the original on an arcade cabinet.

5.) Mortal Kombat II (Midway, 1993)

No game had greasy white nerds lined up around the block to take shots at ripping their friends’ heads off like Mortal Kombat II did. This was another arcade classic delivered by Midway and the second installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise, but this time with additional characters, like Reptile and Baraka, which added to an already popular cast. With spruced up graphics, tighter controls and more mindless violence than the original, Mortal Kombat II was the game to play if you wanted to “finish” your grandpa by giving him another stroke.

4.) Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981)

1981 wasn’t a great year for most things. The cars were hideous, the fashion was an awkward post-disco nightmare, and the girls had more pubic hair than a lumberjack’s ass crack. One thing that was definitely awesome was hanging out at the local arcade in your knee high socks and Adidas shorts and playing Donkey Kong, one of the most iconic names in the history of video games. Donkey Kong was Nintendo’s first noteworthy video game, the very first appearance of Mario and thirty years later is still an extremely profitable franchise. Like many early 1980s arcade games, Donkey Kong required true skill and if it has taught us anything, it’s that Billy Mitchell should be tied up by his hair and dragged behind a car on the highway. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then make sure to watch the documentary “The King of Kong” because it’s bloody fantastic.

3.) Street Fighter II (Capcom, 1991)

The original Street Fighter was just awful and embarrassing, much like the last time a woman allowed you to stick your crooked penis inside of her at a family reunion. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was a monumental success and absolutely owned the arcade market in 1991. The gameplay at the time was innovative and fresh and every guy on the planet wanted to try it. When it came out, it was an intimidating machine at the arcade that had a bad ass reputation and to do this day Street Fighter II is considered a masterpiece that many dedicated fans consider the best of the series.

2.) Pac-Man (Namco, 1980)

Mastering Pac-Man is harder than trying to sneak out a bean burrito fart under the covers before your wife falls asleep, and it requires a lot of practice to merely become decent at. After three decades it has remained a top favorite arcade game of many bald dinosaurs who remember it fondly, and the chomping yellow circle has grown into a legendary icon capable of symbolizing the entire video game subculture. It wasn’t my favorite game but it’s significance is undeniable.

1.) Lover Boy (G.T. Enterprise, 1983)

I’m sure you’ve never played it, never heard of it and probably couldn’t even stomach it. Lover Boy may sound innocent but it’s premise is so diabolically fascinating that it has earned top ranking on our list. The game starts out as a seemingly decent Pac-Man clone, but instead of eating dots and running away from ghosts, you play as a belligerent naked man wearing only a purple hat who wildly chases down women while avoiding the police and their dogs. When you succeed in catching your prey, the game changes into a graphic x-rated challenge of plowing the poor girl senseless in hilarious positions, all in glorious 8-bit. Generally the term ‘rape’ refers to a selfish act of sexually pleasing yourself with complete disregard for your victim’s needs, but in Lover Boy you must time your thrusts during the assault in a courteous manner to allow her to climax before you. Yes I know, how thoughtful. If you fail in doing so and blow your load too soon (I suggest thinking about baseball), she will then escape and you have to repeat the process all over again. The level is complete when each woman has been caught, fucked, experienced orgasm and possibly even been impregnated. I don’t throw the word ‘epic’ around too much, but believe me, Lover Boy is epic and, surprisingly enough, a gentleman.

In 1991, Capcom hit gamers with Street Fighter II: The World Warrior and it firmly solidified their title as King Shit of Fuck Mountain. Other games have come along and taken a run at the belt, most notably Midway’s Mortal Kombat and Tekken by Namco, but they never really came close to dethroning Ken and Ryu as the champs. You could argue King of Fighters/Samurai Shodown by SNK, but they too could not match the quality of Capcom.

Unfortunately for Midway’s clunky fighter, only the first handful of games in the series were memorable. Everything released past Mortal Kombat 4 declined rapidly in quality and were even less fun than going through old photo albums and reminiscing about your ‘skinnier days’ when you didn’t need your wife to move you around with a pallet jack.

Mortal Kombat enjoyed some brief success for a few years in the early 1990s but the games just came off as gimmicky and entertaining in a morbid kind of way but never posed a true threat to Capcom’s franchise. With the nutty finishing moves and over the top violence, it was obvious that it was marketed towards the easily amused ADD kids shrieking for blood like starved harpies, while the smug, more mature Street Fighter fans stood back and shook their heads in quiet amusement.

I don't know how old Cammy is, but a webcam would put her through college.

Gore does not make a game better, gameplay does. Gameplay is where Capcom outshined the competition for years. The skill of a player can make Ryu look like a graceful ballet dancer moving to a symphony of pain and pugilism, or else like Stephen Hawking trying to line dance in high heels. Being able to do the former and dominate your local arcade requires a lot of dedication and, I hate to say it in reference to a video game, talent. I’m not saying old Mortal Kombat games don’t require skill, but the tap-tap-punch style controls always felt more like you were entering cheat codes or playing Dance Dance Revolution with your fingers, as opposed to Street Fighter’s poetic flow which was harder to master.

Mortal Kombat’s strongest showing was in 1995 with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and I fully admit that I love that game, but like Kevin Smith waddling in front of the sun, it was soon eclipsed by Street Fighter 3: Third Strike which put a stranglehold on the fighting game market for the next decade. Capcom continued to destroy the competition with games like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 while Midway struggled like a Down syndrome kid trying to wipe his own ass and made a shitty mess of things for the next number of years. Ironically, the best thing to ever happen to the once decent Mortal Kombat franchise was the sad demise of Midway.

Years of awful decisions, and just plain terrible games that didn’t sell drained money from the company and eventually forced them to liquidate their assets in 2009 and sell to a dinky little film company you may have heard of: Warner Bros. Like three black dudes in a porno with a blonde chick ready to make like a circus seal, this is when things began to get interesting.

Capcom had just taken another dump on Midway’s head and delivered a KO punch to the jaw of the short lived Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe with Street Fighter IV and then kicked them while they were down a year later with Super Street Fighter IV. The new Midway, renamed to Netherrealm Studios, finally made a bit of a splash with their newly acquired franchise and dropped a hydrogen bomb on the Japanese with a reboot of the Mortal Kombat series and fuck me is it good. So good in fact that it pushed 3 million units and paid for the Midway acquisition in a few short months.

The new Mortal Kombat game makes nerds touch their controllers in whole new ways.

Mortal Kombat 9 has absolutely blown Street Fighter out of the water to the point that the latest Super Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 seem like a distant memory that’s as bland as a cardboard popsicle. Not only is this newest MK game loaded with the blood and violence it’s famous for, but it plays better than any past Mortal Kombat game could even dream of. It is without a doubt the greatest fighting game our world has ever known, and to top it off, Netherrealm Studios has just added a few new characters to the roster, one of which is Warner Bros. very own Freddy Krueger who goes together with Mortal Kombat like cheese and crackers.

Street Fighter fans around the world, including myself, who have been talking shit all these years have spit coffee all over themselves after trying this great game out and now look like idiots with their dicks caught in their zippers. The big question is how will Capcom respond? Can they even?

Your move, Japan. Best make it a good one.

One of my favorite childhood memories that doesn’t involve stealing porn mags from the drug store with my buddy or shooting random shit with my BB gun was staying up late and kicking ass in Final Fantasy IV for the SNES. There is something special about that game that is utterly classic, from the music, to the boss fights, to the incredibly epic story and plot twists. I’ve now played the game far too many times to get any more value out of it, like using the same old fuck sock over and over for years and trying to convince yourself it’s a warm vagina and not a rancid piece of cotton filled with your pubes and STDs. Much like Final Fantasy IV, that story ends with tears.

I do still love all those old Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games and still get tempted to play any of the ones I may have missed. The style and function that went into those games is now so painfully primitive that they are a bit hard to take seriously in our age of realtime tessellation and advanced muscle rigging. But you know what’s cooler than playing these old shitty games alone on a Saturday night with a sock on your boner? Making them.

Tellah got owned, Cid running like a scared bitch. What rookie was playing this?

There is some pretty awesome software that has been around for quite a few years. If you are a sexually hopeless, old school RPG dork with a lot of time on your hands who hasn’t been introduced to RPGMaker, then hit pause on that Mexican donkey show and go check out www.rpgmakerweb.com. It’s a pretty old line of software that has been released on a number of different platforms since the early 90′s.

It started out as a bit of a gimmick but it’s now starting to feel like a realistic option for developers looking to make their own classic RPG adventure games. The engine is extremely flexible, like the hooker you paid for wild, acrobatic sex and then folded into a suitcase and dumped at the landfill. It allows you to create your own scripts and events to build an extremely unique environment and, if done properly, you can end up with a professional looking game.

The cool thing about RPGMaker is that any mindless slug can make a game…maybe even you! God knows this isn’t something that’s going to make you popular with the ladies or help draw attention away from your giant bald spot but it is still impressive in its own right. RPGMaker comes equipped with tons of preloaded art work for you to create your little worlds with. Or, if you are more ambitious, it enables you to import your own art, sound fx and music to make your game one of a kind.

RPGMaker also permits you to sell and distribute your creations, as long as you don’t tamper with the executable, but it’s not like you know how to do that anyways, primate. That’s like telling a beagle not to drive your car anywhere while you’re out, and realistically the only thing you could make that people would pay money for is a video of you getting mauled by lions. So if you do make a game, you might want to put it in the ‘free downloads’ section of your My Little Pony fan page.

So start focusing your spare time into something bigger and better than adding to the heap of crusty Kleenexes at the foot of your bed. It’s time to prove your family wrong and show them that you aren’t a “lazy dead beat” or a “worthless shit-sniffer who couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and an ass map”. What does dad know anyway? *sniff*

During the long, dog days of summer it seems that video game release dates are as rare and distant as your dreams of seeing a girl naked before the Mars Rovers are ever recovered. So instead of just sitting in the dark and sweating into a pile of old socks and ice cream sandwich wrappers, I thought I would take another look at a video game I haven’t played since shortly after Duke Nukem Forever was first announced and women were still second-class citizens.

Everyone has at least heard of Banjo-Kazooie, correct? Banjo is the loveable, semi-retarded bear who looks like Pedobear’s dumber cousin and has a vocabulary that sounds like a product of Alabama’s education system. Kazooie is the smart ass bird who seems to pop out of Banjo’s butt hole whenever you’re in need of a terrible joke, or a reminder of why you feel humiliated playing this game. Together they form Banjo-Kazooie, one of the best damn games I have ever played.

(After Alan just went on a hateful, racist tirade explaining his thoughts on the childish looking Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, I feel kind of stupid promoting one of my favorite retro games of all time. But who am I trying to impress? You?)

So what can be said about Banjo-Kazooie? Well, visually it looks like someone ate enough Skittles to kill a baby elephant and then spent the night shitting rainbows into a Nintendo 64 cartridge. The audio is significantly worse, with sound effects which, over time, will make you want to jump off a balcony and pray to the gods you land on your neck. The game is riddled with awful puns, some of the characters speak only in rhymes that even a toddler would say are shitty and the story will make you reconsider using the gun you keep way in the back of your closet, right next to your sexuality.

Yet, I have such a prolific hard-on for this game that goes beyond any reason I can justify. The level design is tight, the controls are great and the music is perfectly complimentary. The same few tunes are played throughout the game, but they fade into different themed versions of the same songs according to the level you are currently approaching. It’s one of the earliest examples of an open 3D world and I must say that the game has aged remarkably well after all these years which is a hell of a lot more than Nick Nolte can say.

If this picture doesn't keep you clean and sober, nothing will.

Each level has a million items to collect which forces you to explore every square inch of the map, and the strange thing is that you want to find them, every fucking one like you were suddenly diagnosed with OCD and started snorting crushed amphetamines off your coffee table. When you’re not looking for puzzle pieces and scratching at your scabs, you’re trying to rescue Jinjos. When you’re not searching for golden music notes, Mumbo tokens, red feathers or extra lives, you’re keeping an eye out for your friends so that you can quickly switch back to Killzone 3 and be spared the ridicule.

Banjo-Kazooie has tons of atmosphere which I think is crucial to any good video game. You don’t know fear until you’ve collected ninety music notes, have only one honeycomb of health left and just fell into the water of Treasure Trove Cove and you hear Snackers coming to chomp on your ass. That cunt shark still gives me nightmares.

As annoying as some parts of the game are, as a whole it feels very balanced and all of its facets  work well together, kind of like the midgets I keep locked up in the cute little half-scale labor camp I built in my backyard. Like any good RARE game or filthy street drug, Banjo-Kazooie is extremely fun, addictive, and replayable. While I don’t think that I would have enjoyed the game’s style nearly as much if it had been released this day in age, I think it’s a great relic from a more innocent time in gaming, before realism, ultra violence, and tea-bagging reigned supreme.

Both Banjo-Kazooie, and its excellent sequel Banjo-Tooie have been re-released on Xbox Live Arcade and are well worth the few bucks. Go get them!

Starting with Wind Waker I began to realize something. The Legend of Zelda series hasn’t grown up with me. And come to think of it, neither has Nintendo. Nintendo chases after kids like a pedophile who just got his van tuned up. Recently Mike wrote an article about how Nintendo has lost its way and I agreed with him. But it wasn’t until I saw screenshots of the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword that I realized I’m no longer a Nintendo fan. At all.

See that picture above? No, not the one that resembles the photos you’ve been sending Justin Beiber, below that. That picture summarizes everything I’ve always loved about Nintendo games. That classic style  that foretells a cutting edge and memorable game. The art reminds me of sitting beside my dad on the way home from the store, holding the fresh plastic wrapped game box in my hands. I remember eagerly flipping through every page of the manual reading aloud the features of the game to my father, who was so ashamed of me he was fighting the urge to kill us both by driving into oncoming traffic. Ah, childhood memories.

But I’ve grown up. I now have lower back pain, I fear opening bills and I patiently await my rapidly approaching stress-induced heart attack. Every screen cap I’ve seen of Skyward Sword summarizes every reason I’m no longer a fan of Nintendo and why I won’t be buying this game. It hasn’t aged with me. The game looks like its built for Down syndrome children with overprotective parents. While Eiji Aonuma, a designer on the Zelda series, says the franchise is getting a serious mix up by no longer making Zelda a princess and putting the main characters in school, we know it’s going to play out exactly like the others. Which would be awesome, if I was 15 again and was so young I still got uncontrollable boners in the middle of class presentations.

The game just sounds childish. It’s been given a graphical overhaul but lets be honest and admit those characters look like shaved ball sacs drawn by someone with schizophrenia. The Wii’s graphical capabilities are about as low as your self-esteem, neither of which will change anytime soon. And as usual, we know the puzzles will be so dumbed down they’ll look like they were designed by a 12 year-old with a severe learning disability. From the small previews we’ve seen, Nintendo will once again be talking down to us like it’s our first experience picking up a controller. And lastly, you can put money on the plot being more docile than Dora the Explorer with carbon monoxide poisoning.

As much as I hate to say it, Nintendo needs to take a hint from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. She understood that as she was writing her books, her audience was aging. Rather than fight this, she made sure her books were mature enough to be enjoyed by her core audience. She wisely gambled that if she made her books appeal to the original fans, they would act as brand ambassadors and promote her work to others.  What she ended up with was one of the largest entertainment franchises in history that is hailed by both children and adults alike.

I get that Nintendo is targeting a younger audience and trying to appeal to the family demographic. But why couldn’t they have matured the Legend of Zelda series along with their original gamers? If the average gamer was 10 when they played Legend of Zelda, when it was released in 1986, he is now 35 years old. I don’t think you have to explode monsters into clouds when they die. I’ve jammed my dink into a woman’s anus, okay? You don’t need to dumb down the atmosphere by adding giggly creatures and pasting a smile onto everything that moves like I’m a socially stunted Care Bear.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword honestly doesn’t look interesting to me in the slightest because I’m an adult. For the past 20 years I’ve played that exact same game ten times over.  In the words of Sergeant Murtaugh, “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.”

What are the top 10 strategy games of all time? No video game genre is more divisive, perhaps, than strategy games. Games that are hailed as the greatest by some are hated like Tracy Morgan at a gay pride parade by others.  But there are a few gems in the genre that stand out like an attractive girl at an anime convention.

There are perhaps fifty titles that could be on this best strategy games list but I had to narrow it down to just ten. Any game that could be better put into another category such as simulator, space sim, etc I’ve left out. Others that were great but didn’t change the future of the series I opted to leave out for the ones that made us rethink this category. So here it is. The Nakedrobber’s list of the top 10 greatest strategy games to ever grace your geeky, astigmatism-riddled eyes:

The Runner Up.) Tom Clancy’s Endwar (2008)

Tom Clancy stuff is usually reserved for the type of person who owns more assault rifles than books. This may come as a surprise to some, because the game wasn’t a massive retail success, but it deserves to be on the list for one reason: innovation. On top of being a solid tactical RTS with decent graphics, you could issue accurate voice commands and have your troops follow them out. For most strategy gamers, the only social interaction they’ll ever have is this game and maybe the brief moment where the guy in the morgue ties that little tag onto their cold swollen toe. Shouting orders to attack objectives, launch air strikes, deploying units or yelling to fall back to a safer locations is incredible. If you haven’t played this game pick it up for the sheer joy of this one feature alone!

10.) Herzog Zwei (1989)

I'll admit it kinda looks like an anus after a jalapeno eating contest but trust me this game is important

The first strategy game as we know it. If it wasn’t for this game pioneering the genre then millions of Koreans might not have died at their keyboards playing Starcraft. Would this game hold up against the games of today? God no. It would be crushed worse than you after finding out what adoption means. But it deserves to be here in the same way Buzz Aldrin deserves to be remembered as a great astronaut, instead of just an incontinent, useless old fuck. Don’t spend your welfare check buying a genesis to play this game though. Just know that Herzog Zwei pioneered a genre that didn’t really exist before it came along. For that, it’s one of the greatest strategy games of all time.

9.) Advance Wars (2001)

In addition to stopping doors, the DS also includes a little-known feature where you can play games

A good game being released on a handheld is like finding out your prostitute is a post-op transvestite; it’s not a deal breaker, it’s just disappointing. For the most part handheld titles are watered down versions of decent games that usually fail to deliver on what they promise. Advance Wars changed that. Finally a strategy game that made me want to pick up my DS and play it. Great tactics, awesome art and a half decent story. What wasn’t there to like? This game taught us a lesson like only 80′s sports movies can: it showed us not to underestimate the little guy. After Advance Wars, handheld devices were given a series of strategy games and light was brought into that world of sticky, fingerprint covered darkness.

8.) Final Fantasy Tactics (1998)

I instantly regretted inviting this guy to my birthday party...

Proving that Square was more than a one trick pony, Final Fantasy Tactics brought a perfect blend between a strategy game and an RPG. Finally these guys showed the world they could create a game that wasn’t just a metrosexual anime fanboy jerk-fest. It actually had an awesome combat system and even better environments to battle it out in. Like any good Square game it had a deep story that could even rival other Final Fantasy titles. On top of that, it boasted diverse geography from forests to mountain ranges, in a unique 3D environment.

7.) Command & Conquer (1995)

A great setting, diverse array of units, dashes of gore found when running soldiers over with tanks and campy movies with live action actors who set up the missions.  Put it all in a blender and then inject it into a 10 year-old’s eyeball. When I wasn’t trying to figure out what to do with a boner, C&C helped me pass the time in the best way imaginable. The series brought a distinct difference between the two opposing armies of the GDI and Nod and really made you feel you were either fighting for good or supporting the evil cause. C&C also included something that we now consider a must have; it supported multiplayer with up to 4 players.  The nice thing about C&C is that they’re still going on. You can download Red Alert for free at various places online, or pick up a cheap version of the newer games at the website.

6.) Close Combat

Okay, its just some smoke and a few houses. I never promised I was good at finding screen caps.

Almost every boy grows up playing with toy soldiers. Close Combat was one of the first games that took the battles in our imaginations and put them on a computer. This game required actual military tactics that stretched out across an entire campaign.You had to worry about the quality, morale, supplies and stamina of your troops. Eventually, you’d get to know the names of each of the men under your command and would watch them earn medals. This game was incredibly advanced for its time, and revolutionized the strategic capabilities of the genre. The Close Combat fan page is still running. It’s been out longer than the war went on for…

In case you’ve been locked in a sexual predator’s basement for the past six months, E3 just finished and every video game news site has articles about the E3 games they were most excited for. While anybody with a shred of credibility in the video game industry was being entertained with previews of upcoming games, I was sitting at home eating corn pops naked and alphabetizing my personal flaws.

This of course led me to realize that I’m sick of hearing all the good things that happened at E3. Let’s admit that most of the time we wait several years for these games and let the hype inflate our imaginations so much that we always end up a little disappointed with the final product. So in an effort to tone down all the marketing noise, let’s remind ourselves that 80% of these games are going to be lukewarm, overproduced pieces of barf that reek of plastic and game developers’ crushed dreams.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

I've seen people in mass graves who looked more comfortable being photographed

Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s take one of the best franchises ever created and then dumb it down so it appeals to grubby preteen virgins who haven’t discovered deodorant. Does anyone with a job actually care about what games come out for handhelds anymore? Handheld games are babysitting tools. The only people buying these games are mothers with postpartum depression who constantly fight the urge to push their kid’s stroller onto the subway tracks.

That being said, despite my hatred towards all things youthful and full of promise, the game sounds like it might not be a total miserable failure. It’s going to take advantage of some interesting new mechanics. Uncharted on PlayStation Vita boasts over 3000 animations which you’ll make full use of thanks to the controls that now include touch screen capability and tilt controls.

This game just won’t be anywhere near as good as Uncharted 1 or 2 because of the handheld’s limitations.

UFC Undisputed 3

Undisputed 2009 had a Metacritic user score of 8. In 2010 it was given a 6.2. Does anyone expect 2011 to come out swinging like Lesner and get a 9? Actually, it probably will come out like Lesner: an overrated giant that reeks like a bag of poo is attached to his stomach. This game is like watching Anderson Silva fight. It has a couple of exciting moments but for the most part it just dances around while the average person boos.

Unless they’ve added Joe Rogan’s beard as a playable character, I have no interest in playing UFC Undisputed 3. The only thing undisputed is that these games are cash grabs.

This man was allowed to father a child...

Is there even anything to talk about with this game? Probably not, because if you’re a fan of the series you’re most likely busy chewing fistfuls of roids and oscillating between crying uncontrollably and strangling loved ones.

Gears of War 3

I don’t really care about Gears of War 3. Before you grab that retro Lancer Rifle and stab me to death, let me say that I like the Gears series, I’m just not excited about it.

Gears is exactly the same every time. It does its job really well and it looks beautiful, but I will be just as happy playing 2 as I will 3. The big change coming to the series is four player co-op. Never before has this series sported four player co-op gaming and from what Lee Perry says, you’d think it would be a blast: “The amusing side effect of getting more people in a co-op situation… is that it turns into a foot race. It’s like, ‘I want to get into that room and I want to kill everything in there.”

First off, this is exactly how I feel at family dinners. But, if co-op gaming has taught me anything, it’s that if you get four morons playing the same game on their respective consoles, what you end up with is a bunch of drunks yelling over each other through low quality microphones occasionally interspersed with belches, and the chance that the game will devolve into a back stabbing competition until someone rage quits.

Microsoft says this is the last game of the series, but them letting Gears end sounds about as plausible as me taking a piss in a hotel bathroom without intentionally dousing the seat and toilet paper roll.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Being told there is a new Star Wars MMO game is on par with a doctor telling you those aren’t enlarged taste buds, they’re genital warts. For the past decade Star Wars games have been in less demand than lead-based dollar store toothpaste and there’s a good reason: they suck. That wasn’t even a joke. Star Wars games have been terrible. I don’t see this changing with Old Republic.

This game takes place 3,500 hundred years before the events of the Star Wars films. So we can pretty much kiss everything we grew up liking about Star Wars goodbye. Luckily, we’ll get a bunch of badly cobbled together stories and weird looking technology that in no way resembles the retro sci-fi style of Star Wars IV, V, IV.

Then again, maybe I actually am excited about this game. Why? Because each new failure from this studio brings Star Wars fans one step closer to beating George Lucas to death with Jar Jar Binks dolls.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

A new Legend of Zelda? Meh. It’d be more fun if me using the Wii-mote didn’t resemble a kid with down-syndrome trying to get swarm of bees out his shirt.

Call me cynical, but I’m not satisfied playing a supposedly epic fantasy adventure that resembles a pile of bad textures and 3d cubes mashed together and then barfed onto my 50 inch, high definition plasma screen TV. Meth dealers with blurred out faces on the TV show Cops have sharper features than Wii graphics.

P.S. Nintendo, we’re grown ups now. You can show blood and monsters don’t have to disappear into exploding purple clouds when you kill them. If you’re afraid of alienating your younger audiences then stop creating sequels to a franchise that has been around for twenty years. If you make a new Zelda, understand your players aren’t holding their mom’s hand at the store when they buy it. If you want to make a fantasy series for babies then go make a new one and stop treating Zelda fans like a bunch of adult children who need to be told to stop sticking their fingers in their buttholes around company.

We spent $50,000 doing this study

Mass Effect 3

Awesome. Another entry in the Mass Effect series. I look forward to seeing the nerd in the cubicle beside me litter his desk with more stupid looking sci-fi action figures. Mass Effect is a glorified corridor shooter that starts off great and always ends with you feeling less than impressed. The graphics are great. The plot is interesting. The animations are terrible. The mini games are horrifically boring. And no multiplayer.

Am I just mad because I spent 50 hours trying to bang Yeomen Chambers only to watch her get turned into goo? Yes. Still, thanks to plot holes, odd game mechanics, and awkward dialogue I had as much emotional attachment to the characters in Mass Effect as I did to that tick who burrowed its way into my scrotum after a family camping trip.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII-2

Cool name brah. Very original. If this series were a person it would be Jodie Sweetin, the child star from Full House. It started out with a ton of promise, as kids we grew to love it, but then it developed a meth addiction and now owes $30,000 in back taxes. Okay, that analogy sucked. But not half as bad as I expect FF13-2 to be. Final Fantasy combines everything that annoys me about Japanese culture with everything I hate about ambiguous metro-sexual shemales.

Can Square Enix stop pretending Final Fantasy is a game? Just package FF7 as an erotic movie and let closet-case fanboys spend 60 hours denying they get a boner every time they see Cloud touch his giant sword. Oh, they already did that? It sucked? Ah. Then my work here is done.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

"...where do the high school girls hang out in this town?"

It’s hard to find a flaw with Deus Ex. It’s arguably one of the most notable gaming franchises ever created… Now that I’ve complimented it, can I share my biased, uninformed opinion about the next one? Great.

First off, the guy on the cover of the new box looks like the kind of asshole who brags about his ability to pick up under age chicks and molest them. Does any normal person without severe body dismorphic disorder aspire to look like that? It’s like a Hollywood producer from the 80s tasked a committee of agoraphobic nerds to draw someone who looks ‘rad’.

My next complaint is that in no way will this game live up to the hype. These types of games never do. The PR team releases all these tidbits about how amazingly large the game is, or how unbelievably deep the gameplay is and how the art director took some fantastical new approach to creating graphics by sacrificing virgins and painting in unicorn blood. But you know what always ends up happening? You get a gun and you shoot a bunch of bad guys with AI equivalent to a sloth with carbon monoxide poisoning.

I’d love to be wrong on this one but I know what to expect and when. And this prequel/plot-driven/tactical-shooter/RPG/cyber-punk/Renaissance-era/action/conspiracy/thriller will be a few things, but it certainly won’t be all of those things.
Conclusion

In life you get what’s given. A stripper is a stripper. You can’t expect the same girl who stands up on stage grinding a pole to also have a 4.0 grade point average, work at a veterinary clinic and be a Pulitzer prize winning writer. Why? Because she’s a stripper. She’ll grind poles really well and she’ll snort enough cocaine to kill an elephant but if you expect anything more you’re living in a Hollywood fantasy.

These girls care as much about video games as I do about child poverty

The games coming out of E3 will be OK. They’re not going to cure cancer or help you get laid. So while everyone at E3 was beating off to thoughts of scantily clad gamer girls, I remained in reality and admitted that a Mexican donkey in Tijuana has a better chance of fathering a minotaur than these games have of being as fun as E3 makes them sound. Now excuse me while I go back to telling children that hot dogs will give them cancer and reminding elderly people how weak and fragile their bones have become.

I used to have an imagination. I could dream up interesting worlds and go on exciting adventures without huffing enough glue to kill an elephant. Unfortunately years of working in a cubicle, surrounded by people who are genetically closer to cardboard than primates  has reduced my once vivid imagination to day dreaming about eating a doughnut without getting heartburn. Clearly I need the stuff of my youth to kick start this Swiss cheese brain again. I need the space simulator games of the 1990s.

It was during these formative years when I created some of my fondest gaming memories. Space simulators helped realize my childhood dreams of flying a star ship at warp speed, exploring new worlds, and acting out my twisted psychopathic fantasies about exterminating alien life forms. These were happy times for me and the few remaining neighborhood cats.

There were so many good games back then it was almost impossible to keep up. Then suddenly at the turn of the century the great flood of space simulator games dried up faster than your wife after you shouted the wrong name mid-orgasm. Let’s take a quick trip down Memory Lane (keep going past PriestTouchedMe Boulveard) and revisit the greatest space simulators of our youth.

10.) Freelancer (2003)

Announced in 1999 by Chris Roberts, the genius designer behind the Wing Commander series, this game took too long to produce and ended up delivering only a fraction of what it was supposed to be. That being said, what we were left playing in 2003 was still the closest thing this decade has seen to an exciting plot-driven sci-fi space sim. Freelancer wasn’t the best game ever made, but it made a valiant attempt at bringing back the genre. It’s interesting jump gate system made  the universe feel larger than the clump of undigested red meat lodged in your colon.

9.) Escape Velocity (1996)

A game based on traveling to work, buying/selling goods and spending many unemployed hours desperately looking for work. If Escape Velocity had also included taking out massive student loans or parents that were disappointed in you then they could have renamed it Escape Reality. The only thing that hindered Escape Velocity’s success was the fact that it was stuck on Macintosh computers, which is like being the most beautiful woman locked in the basement of an insane kidnapper. That being said, Ambrosia Software deserves a shout out for creating this gem that kept me indoors long enough to make my skin look like Gollum’s.

8.) Independence War (1998)

Compelling story, exciting gameplay and the ability to command an entire warship?! Sounds fun. Independence War was also known for its physics system, which relied on Newtonian physics and gave the game a more realistic feeling. You commanded an entire ship and finally you felt like you had power. The feeling of course was quickly lost when moments after you stopped playing your big brother would pin you down and fart on your chest.

7.) Wing Commander (1990)

This game was one of the first amazing space sim games available that wasn’t an ancient, dust covered Asteroids machine. You could earn medals, win promotions and become a decorated war hero all from the comfort of your Spiderman feety pajamas. The only kid at my school who didn’t talk about this game was the bully whose father beat him like it was a hobby. But while that kid was busy trying to hide his bruises by torturing others on the playground, I was busy talking obsessively about Wing Commander.

6.) Homeworld (1999)

How do you get remembered? You can be the first person in your group to bang a shemale and accidentally let it slip while hanging out with your drunk buddies one night. Or you make a game like Homeworld. Homeworld was a mixture of strategy and space simulation that resulted in a perfect blend of nerdiness. Throw in some B.O. and rufilin and you’ve got yourself what I’d like to call the ‘gamer’s cocktail’. Relic is still around producing great games thanks in part to the success of the Homeworld series.

5.) X3 Reunion (2005)

Supposedly the decline of the space simulation series can be linked to the rise of the FPS and RTS. But that’s like saying people stopped doing it doggy style once we figured out missionary style. And judging by the number of bite marks in America’s pillows I think we can safely say people prefer to compound the goodness. X3 brought back the trading and economic system from games like Escape Velocity. The amazing graphics and deep story (that compounds on this game’s predecessors) also help to make it memorable. The big problem was that it lacked any multiplayer component. Considering the age it was released in, the lack of multiplayer made the game feel emptier than your ball sac after your weekly trip to the sperm bank.