The Save Points!

Well, since I haven’t been playing a lot of new games recently, may it be from rentals or such (partly due to new games not really coming out right now), I figured I needed to try keeping this blog at least somewhat alive.

“Dust Off The Cartridges: Forgotten Franchises That Need A Makeover” is a series of posts where I’ll be talking about… well, the title says it all: Old franchises that people have forgotten, that could do for a modern day revival. And by forgotten, I mean by both the gaming populace and the developers who made them. These games may or may not have large (or not so large) cult fanbases, but have been mostly dead for a very long time and could do with a bit of time in the limelight.

I’ll give short reviews of the game/series, talk about what happened to them/why they’re dead/their legacy, and mention what I think could be done for the series nowadays, what it could offer to the gaming world that we don’t have right now.

It’s all just for fun!

jobocan Announcements, Dust Off The Cartridges, Games

Just a little note before talking about the Games of the Year:
Okay, I’ve been lazy for the last couple weeks/months/most of the year in regards to posting, due to having a bit less free time than before because of a new job at some of the local museums (and being too busy AT work to even write stuff there… I started working there in March, but the workload massively increased in the last few months). I do plan on keeping this place up as much as possible, as I do want to keep on writing about games.

So I’m changing the focus from before. Rather than reviewing any and every game I get my hands on, I’ll just review games I enjoy (as I’ll most likely not get time to review everything I get my hands on). Yay!
For example, I’ve recently played Dead Island and Uncharted 3, amongst a few more, but not enough to review either of them and… well… both of them would have been negative reviews (not that Uncharted 3 is bad at all, just that it’s by far the worst in the series). I may make small posts to mention games I didn’t like, but I don’t want to focus on those too much.

This means fewer posts, but I’ll put more work in each individual review since I’m gonna be less rushed to post about any and every thing I play.

Anyways:
Games of the Year 2011
Doing a “Game of the Year” award doesn’t really feel like the best way to go, EVER. It always felt to me like it makes more sense to do a “GAMES of the Year” award, since there’s frequently a high amount of games that deserve praise/recognition and limiting myself to one winner per category just… doesn’t work. Also unlike other websites, I tend to go not just for the most popular games as winners (with some obvious exceptions *looks at Wii winners*), which means you won’t see Skyrim in here, and go for the more original awesome games that no one know or care about.

Due to some quirks this year and high amount of quality games, each category will have from 3 to 5 winners (yay random numbers). Basically, 1 category per console, plus one for multiplatform games (each console will only get winners that are exclusives) and 2 categories for “Biggest surprises/disappointments”. No overall Games of the Year though, I feel that this category is always too hard to choose so… fuck it! Also, no PSP category just because… well, I didn’t play a whole lot of the thing, and none of what I did play really got to me enough to warrant me putting them in there (not that there weren’t good games, just… meh).
And I’m currently deciding on whether or not I’ll have a PC category… I haven’t played a whole lot of PC exclusives this year, but there are a few games worthy of mention.

Anyways, I’m starting these posts really soon, hopefully today, and I’ll try for one post a day until I’m done with them.

jobocan Announcements, Games of the Year

Yeah, we had a bit of trouble with the website in the past week or so, what with our previous host being a bunch of assholes and shutting down our site with no hope of ever being able to get it back or getting any kind of support from them without paying them loads of money. So we found another host, and have been screwing around in the last few days to get the site back to a working status. There’s still some things to be done, some posts haven’t transfered properly and such (and some are forever lost it seems), but I’m hard working to restore everything to it’s previous glory or whatever.

So I’ll be working on getting everything back properly and we’ll be back to writing posts normally again. And I have a few new types of articles in the work, different from just reviews and “what’s coming out next month” kinds of posts.

Keep watching!

Edit: Okay, maybe we’re not back, big problem with the links to posts not working

jobocan Announcements, News, sexy

Well the end of year is coming, so obviously, like any respectable video gaming website, we’ll post our favorite games of the year, seperated into multiple categories. We’re a bit different here though, and we’ll choose winners that are very different from… probably every other gaming website (other than one category where everyone will have the same winners). And our format is a slight bit different.

Here are the categories (fairly straightforward):

Best PSP Games
Best DS Games
Best Downloadable Games
Best Multi-Platform Games
Best Wii Exclusives
Best Xbox 360 Exclusives
Best PS3 Exclusives
Biggest Surprises of the year
Biggest Disappointments of the year
Games of the Year

Each category will have 4 winners (I wanted to do 5 winners per category, like we did last year, but turns out that very few of the categories had enough worthy nominees, so we went with 4 instead). The final post will be the Games of the Year post, which will have 3 winners instead of 4.

People might wonder why we don’t only go with one winner… And that’s fairly simple: it adds more variety and gives a good view of a lot of the really good games in all the categories. It’s not like there’s actually a “best game” in any of the categories, so showcasing a lot of the good ones seems like a fine alternative.

Oh, and, when I say “Exclusives”, that’s exactly what I mean: games that ONLY came out for that system. Therefore, games that came out for PC in addition to the 360 are NOT 360 exclusives (I shouldn’t have to explain this…  but I might as well since people apparently don’t grasp the concept of exclusivity).

So yeah, look forward to our 2010 Games of the Year winners in the following few days, with a post every day or two until we’re done with all the categories. Cheers!

jobocan Announcements, ds, Games, Games of the Year, ps3, psp, wii, xbox 360

If you want to see some J-Rock on Rock Band, go on jrockrevolution.com and vote for the bands you’d like to see, either as official Rock Band downloads, or on the new Rock Band Network!

You can vote for up to 10 bands. You can also vote multiple times for one band if you want to. For example, I put in 4 votes for Maximum The Hormone since they’re so damn badass

Since there’s been literally no news on Rock Band Japan since it was announced, it’s great to see that someone is doing something to get some Japanese music on there for everyone to play.

Click Here to Vote!

jobocan Announcements, Games, Music, News, ps3, PSN, XBLA, xbox 360

AH yes, Capcom milking something that hasn’t really been milked since the early 90s. After the success(and awesomeness) of Mega Man 9, it was no surprise that people wanted more, and Capcom never misses the opportunity to make easy money.

Since the fans loved it so much, myself included, this game goes back to the NES style of Mega Man games again. Cover art and all. Yeah, I really love that cover art… The game features nostalgic graphics, nostalgic music and nostalgic gameplay.

Does it hold of as well as Mega Man 9, or should have Capcom stopped milking the cow already?

Read on and see! Read more…

jobocan Announcements, Console, News, retro, video, WiiWare

March has some pretty cool releases, including one of the most awaited games in years.

There’s lots of good releases, a few that aren’t too great, but overall it seems like it should be a really good month. Let’s go and see what March has in store for us gamers, shall we?

As usual, the multi-platform releases are toghether, the exclusive releases are in their own sections, and japanese releases are marked accordingly.

Read on!

Read more…

jobocan Announcements, ds, Games, News, PC, ps3, PSN, psp, Releases, wii, WiiWare, XBLA, xbox 360

Well, I just received a strange package from Alawar Entertainment. These are the people that sent us our very first review copy (for Treasures of Montezuma 2, which we reviewed some time ago). I wasn’t expecting a package, so I was confused when I got it.

What did we get? Well… A Christmas card and Smarties!

Yeah, that tiger is actually a christmas card(in front of it is a business card from the person who took the time to send the card and write us something in it), it opens up to reveal a nice little message. Fun.

Smarties in the company’s color. Mmmmm.

It’s a bit late for Christmas cards, but the mail has been slow lately, so it must have been delayed. A nice thought.

Thank you Tatyana from Alawar

jobocan Announcements, Random

Old 3D is the new 3D!

Back in the early 90s, you mentioned 3D and people thought of those blue and red glasses that made images pop out of the screen.  Now up to a few years ago, it was exclusive in the entertainment industries to the 3D found in movies such as Pixar’s Toy Story and in most modern videogames.

Now, people in theaters have started wearing these headaches inducing glasses once more with the advent of movies such as James Cameron’s Avatar.

Majesco is following suit with the new casual Wii game, Attack of the Movies 3D.

BRISTOL, UK. The greatest action scenes in cinematic history come to life as Majesco Entertainment Company (NASDAQ: COOL), an innovative provider of video games for the mass market, today announced Attack of the Movies 3D. The first-ever 3D shooter designed exclusively for Wiiâ„¢, Attack of the Movies 3D transports players to six fantastic movie-themed worlds where they will battle large alien space cruisers, shoot underwater monsters, join the resistance against the machines and more.

The game comes packaged with 4 sets of glasses for some multi-player action that recreates scenes from classic movies.

Not sure how that will work out, but expect a summer 2010 release in both Europe and North America.

David A. Announcements, wii

Get new party members, spells and abilities in this full expansion to Bioware’s last year’s effort.

I haven’t put much time in that game since I have plenty of time-sinks  to keep me busy already, but for those that didn’t get enough from Origins can expect new content, on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 16th.  Here’s the interesting part from the press release:

Designed and written by the same team that brought you Dragon Age: Origins, the Awakening expansion pack offers a brand new area of the world to explore known as Amaranthine, featuring an epic story that will allow players to unravel the secrets of the darkspawn – and their true motivations! Players will face a range of horrific and terrifying creatures including an evolved, intelligent breed of darkspawn and other menacing creatures such as the Inferno Golem and Spectral Dragon. Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening provides exciting new ways for players to customize their heroes and party, including the ability to re-spec their character attributes, allowing even greater customization and replayability. Featuring an increased level cap, new spells, abilities, specializations and items, plus five all-new party members, players can continue their adventures from Dragon Age, or begin with a brand new party.

“Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening shows BioWare’s commitment to our fans by delivering new story-driven experiences which enrich the dark heroic fantasy universe our fans have come to know and love,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group, EA, and Co-Founder, BioWare. “The vibrant worldwide community of Dragon Age fans will relish uncovering the secret motivations of the darkspawn, revealing how the darkspawn continue to infest the world despite the defeat of the Archdemon.”

This time around, you’ll be in control of a Grey Warden Commander in charge of rebuilding their order and uncovering the mysteries of the darkspawns’ survival after the defeat of the Archdemon dragon.

The expansion will cost you $39.99, so expect plenty of content.

Meanwhile, it seems the Return to Ostagar add-on is released today for $5.

David A. Announcements, PC, ps3, xbox 360