Oh Noes ze pixels zhey hurt my retinas...

Despite that odd title I am writing this in all seriousness. I still maintain that "PixelJunk Monsters" is an awesome game. There is even more strategy to each level that I would not have expected, to the point of almost madness. I just wanted to throw out the warning that extended playtime with this game in one sitting will indeed cause your eyes to bleed, probably from the mind rape you brain is undergoing trying to figure out the best strategy to beat different waves on monster attacks. No joke, at one point it appeared as if I was crying because my eyes burned so bad.

I make no apologies to my eyes however because we both know it was worth it. That is all.

Life's little fine points

One thing that I find great about artistic mediums, such as video games, is that quite often you find something amazing that you didn't really expect to find. One such example of this is a new game released to the PSN (PlayStation Network) online store called "Pixeljunk Monster". Underneath this crisp cartoon style facade beats the heart of a surprisingly fun game. Playing on the "Tower Defence" genre this game was an almost immediate smash hit in my journal of PS3 gaming.

Having been an avid player of the tower defense player made custom maps from Warcraft 3 I knew this game was perfect for me as I no longer have WC3 installed on my system anymore and despite the constant urges to load it up just for Tower maps I just haven't had the time. In short this game gets a 9 in my obligatory number score book, but the plain and simple fact is this game is pure fun.

Mass Effect, Initial Reactions

As it is likely you have already heard quite a bit about this game if you are any kind of gamer, you likely already know the basics of what the game is. Developed by Bioware, the same company that brought the Knights of the Old Republic games and Jade Empire to us, Mass Effect has a similar feel to it but has a level of polish the other games did not.

Similar to the the previous RPG games this is a Role Playing Game at heart. The twist to this is that it plays like a FPS when the combat begins which gives the game a new depth to the action that it's predecessors lacked. Putting it as simply as I can the combat is just pure fun, plain and simple. Like all games however where there's good there's always something bad.

Mass Effect, as you will no doubt find out within 5 minutes of loading the game, has a lot going on with it. The problem here is that a lot of the controls are not intuitive and the game gives you little to no explanation on how to do some fairly critical things. My suggestion is that when you get a chance read the game manual. This one step will act as your only tutorial through out the process of playing this game. Even once you read this manual the inventory system can still seem unwieldy and will often give you a headache when you can't seem to do what you want with it.

Aside from these two things the game is marvelous at first glance. The conversations you have with people are actually interesting and can make putting skill points into charm or intimidation actually worthwhile. I will have more as I progress through the game and will be updating with a new post in about a day maybe two. Happy Hunting.

New Games, New Year

It took me a while longer to get to posting here than I would have liked, but I take comfort in the fact that the reason it took so long was that I had/have many games to play as I enter the New Year. As any gamer knows there can be no better reason to be late with something.

I will not be giving my opinion on all the games I have been playing right away but I will break them up into separate posts for better flow.

Let's start with a game (if this word can encompass all that this truly is) that is known as the Orange Box. This game is digital gold for your money there is no game that can rival the value of this disc. The game comes with Half Life 2, Half life two episodes 1 and 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

Half Life 2 was one of the most innovative video games of it's time. This game is a titan among it's peers and still stands as a beacon of what a good shooter can and should be. With the clever use of physics and various other detail oriented effects the game has many nuances that make the game even more impressive. Whether its being able to use the gravity gun to pick up a giant circular saw blade and hurl it at a horde of incoming zombies (not in the traditional sense of the word zombies) or a magnifying glass that allows you to look through it at a particular section of a map the game is oozing with sexiness. The two expansions episode 1 and 2 follow suit.

Ah Portal, I love this mini game and I am not lying to you that I would spend almost the full $59.99 on this mini game alone...almost all only because the game is fairly short. This game is one of the best mini games I have played to date. The premise is you are in a testing facility for a new weapon which allows the user to create portals that bend the laws of space and allow for some inventive uses of the physics engine. The game will surprise many with the twist in the game and that is all I will say for fear of spoilers ruining it for you.

Now we come to the obligatory multi player that all games seem to have now a days. Fortunately instead of cooking up some half baked game the people at valve have given the player a stand mp game as a "substitute". TF2 as this game is referred to is highly entertaining and easy to learn. The original TF is almost single handedly responsible for popularizing the class system used in many multi player shooters on the market today. I am happy to say that it's successor continues the tradition with style. The only problem with this portion of the title is the lack of maps leading to repetitive game play in terms of location. Other than that minor fault TF2 is everything that fans could have hoped for. And as for the map situation as stated here under the maps section valve has plans to release more maps in early 2008.

With that said my tentative obligatory numerical score is a 9.5 on the standard 10pt scale. If valve follows through on the more maps...thus making TF2 even better I will be changing my score up accordingly. Have a great new year and stay "tuned".