Infinity ward not afraid of BattleField: Bad Company 2

DICE's Bad Company 2 has been doing really well right now number wise with a bunch of people putting down Modern Warfare 2 and moving on to EA's new BattleField game, which I personally think is better.

But in an interview over at CVG Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling told them that he was confident that no other war FPS would topple theirs.

We've been number one since launch and this map pack [Stimulus - released today] is going to bring even more people to playing MW2 and extend their play time. I don't see it slipping any time soon."

Its funny though, every time Infinity Ward does something, they piss people off, but people still support them. There was a huge backlash when they announced how much the stimulus package DLC would cost, but everyone knows people will buy it and it makes us look ridiculous. I really hope gamers don't pay 15 bucks to go back and play three maps, I would hope the gaming community was better than that, but I guess not.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

If you haven't seen the trailer yet for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, you need to seriously take a look. The opening is darker than what people would normally consider Spider-Man to be, then the Spider-Man Noir version of the wallcrawler shows up. I'm excited for this game, since I love Spider-Man and every other version of him. I'm curious as to which Spider-Men the other two are, however. Are we going to see the Iron Spider variant from Civil War? The Symbiote costume? Scarlet Spider? Spider-Man 2099? Ultimate Spider-Man? Well, maybe the last three, since the versions are different and not the costumes. I'd like to see an Amazing Bag-Man costume though.

If the trailer is any indication, Amazing Spider-Man levels will play as you expect. Lots of traditional Spidey fun with web-punches and kicks from nowhere. The Noir levels look kinda like Batman: Arkham Asylum, focusing upon stealth and efficient takedowns. This game is supposed to hit in September 2010.

Now I'll be singing the Spider-Man theme song all day long.

Money and Superheroes

This doesn't come as a surprise to me at all, seeing as peripherals in the gaming industry are often sold for MUCH more than they're worth. Microsoft is planning on selling their 360 USB drives for $39.99 (8 Gig) and $69.99 (16 Gig). They're shipping the drives on April 6 to any poor sap gullible enough to buy them.

On the home front, Joe and I spent some special bonding time with a game I've mentioned before: Champions Online. Last weekend was a free weekend for anyone who wanted to try it out. For us, that meant investigating to see if Cryptic fixed all the bugs and general stuff we disliked about it. I'm happy to report that our Monster Island Crisis missions did not bug, as previously experienced. The addition of extra costume pieces and powers allows you to customize characters even further. We didn't get to the Revelation content, so I can't vouch for that, but if you haven't given Champions a shot; Now is the time. I really did forget how fun it is when everything is working correctly. Joe says he'll probably go back to it for a little while, and I'm giving it some thought.

Oh, and GameCrush crashed when it opened. This shows how excited gamers are to pay to play games with attractive women. What I want to know is why no one has had this idea sooner.

EDIT: It is now a few hours after I've made this post and it seems that the APB site has been reworked. There are videos showing more information about the game. Examples include both factions, the city, the weapons, vehicles, and really shiny customization examples. I am literally salivating while watching these. Here's to hoping that this game doesn't make me cry myself to sleep too much when it fails to meet expectations. Oh, and be sure to sign up for the open beta. I'm not sure when that will hit, but hopefully soon. After all, I was promised a March 2010 release, Realtime Worlds. >:(

Bioware countdown was a big DUD

Last week a mysterious Bioware countdown popped up on a couple of Bioware's websites. Many theory's were being thrown around, like new game announcements, and DLC, but I was leaning toward a Star Wars: The Old Republic closed beta announcement.

Well it was none of those things and instead Bioware is having an auction were contestants can win games, gear, and apparel. Write me down as unimpressed and unexcited.

For the auction people wont be using real money but instead be using tokens you can earn by answering questions on Biowares Twitter feed. Yay. At least I found this awesome picture.

Mother buys Petz game, actually gets Sprung

A mother up in Spanaway, Washington, bought a copy of Petz: Monkeyz House for her nine year old daughter at Big Lots. It turns out that the game was labeled wrong, all the way down to the sticker on the cartridge and was actually the mildly inappropriate Sprung. I think its pretty funny because the mother is all upset because she feels her daughter has lost her innocence or some shit, but the little brat was just complaining that she couldn't play with her stupid monkeys.

I'm curious to know if this is some sort of prank and if there is some guy laughing his ass off right now.

Left 4 Dead DLC "The Passing" has been delayed

Originally slated to be released before the end of March, Valve has announced that the DLC has been pushed back, but did not say why. When asked what the new release date was they said Spring.

Thanks for the vague release date... No shit it is going to be released in Spring. This isn't much of a surprise since its already the 28th and we haven't heard much about the DLC being released which was odd. So its a bummer, but at least there's a bunch of stuff to play right now.

It has also been confirmed that the DLC will cost 560 Microsoft points, but nothing about if the PC version will cost anything. Hopefully not, Valve wouldn't do that to us!

Mod Nation Racers actually looks a little fun

Up until now I haven't given Mod Nation Racers the time of day. I just didn't care about another cart racer. But today I decided to watch this video over at Giantbomb.com and have to say I am actually impressed. All of the customization is really cool and it doesn't hurt that the weapons look cool either. I might pick it up when its released.

Half Life 2 voice actor passed away

I was on steam downloading Champions Online to play the free weekend trial when a news update window popped up. Robert Culp was the voice actor for Half-Life 2's villain, Dr. Wallace Breen. He died on March 24. =(

The third Penny Arcade Adventures wont be completed

The first day of PAX East has brought some bad news. Mike Krahulik has announced that Hothead games has stopped work on the final Penny Arcade game to work on their other project DeathSpank. And instead of finding another developer PA is just going to finish the story on their website.

I really liked the first two Penny Arcade games, but I'm not that bummed out by the news. My favorite thing about the games was the funny dialogue which will be the same in the comic strip they do. And it will save me about 10 bucks.

Boss Talk!

Boss VG is proud to present our foray into the magical world of vlogging in the form of Boss Talk. Xenodyne and Joe are happy to get on camera and grace the internet with their handsome countenances and manly voices. Schedules permitting, every week we'll bring you our opinions on the past week's stories, and perhaps some other stuff along the way. Indeed, it is a work in progress, but with your help we can find our niche in the game news world.

If you have any ideas to improve upon Boss Talk, please send them in. For now, enjoy the first of what we at Boss VG hope is many, many more to come!

Natal to premiere on June 13

Just a really quick snippet of information for all of those people who are excited about Project Natal. Microsoft has announced that they will premiere their Project Natal accessory at a public event on June 13. I would be excited about this accessory, but like Joe I'm a little skeptical about any sort of "motion controller". Granted, Natal isn't really a controller per se, but it certainly controls something, if my data can be trusted. If you live in the area, check it out!

Sony thinks 3DS is a bad idea

In an interview over at IGN, SCEA's Director of Hardware and Marketing John Koller said they are only working on making 3D for consoles.

"Our focus on 3D right now is on the console," he said. "There's a tremendous amount of opportunity on PlayStation 3 with 3D. The amount of interest in 3D from the retail side and game publishers is off the charts. We know we have a hit with 3D on PS3 and we're going to concentrate our efforts there."

He also said that he was not impressed with the 3DS, because he doesn't think children want 3D....

I swear to god, people in the game industry have to be the stupidest people on the planet. This is about as bad as Nintendo saying that people didn't want to play online games.

The only people that are going to go crazy for 3D ARE kids!! All you have to do is go to a damn movie theater and see that all the 3D movies are targeted for children with the exception of Avatar. No wonder Sony is behind in the console war right now.

Sony is going to look so fucking stupid when the 3DS sells like crazy and no "older kids" are going to care about their stupid 3D PS3 games. Just start developing head tracking Sony, its cooler than 3D anyway.

"video games promote hatred, violence and sexism"

Every time one of these videos comes out it makes me fucking sick. They are prime examples of just how stupid and ignorant the people of this world are. I have no idea how people have the nerve to discuss something they know nothing about as if they are experts.

This time its a segment from a British talk show called the The Alan Titchmarsh Show. He invited one guest to defend video games and two other ignorant bastards to throw lies in the guys face and gang up on him with the help of the audience. This poor guy had some good points that everyone that goes on these fucking things tries to say, but its as if no one listened and just waited for their turn to talk.

The part that pisses me off the most was how quick the audience was to jump on and make the video game guy out to be the bad guy, clapping for everything the other two guests said but actually sneer and boo whatever the other guy said. People need to stop believing everything "experts" say and find out for their fucking selves. A normal healthy human will know that what they are playing is a game and that they should not go out and do that kind of shit in real life. Its to bad that the fucking whack jobs who do screw up are used as an example for the entire gaming community.

New Left 4 Dead 2 DLC info

Over on the Left 4 dead blog Valve has made some announcements regarding the games new DLC "The Passing". Even though the details are scarce I'm still excited.

DLC confirmations:
A Wicked Witch Bride!
A Gargantuan M60!
A Slashing Golf Club!
And Introducing The Fallen Survivor!
Meet 3 Left 4 Dead 1 Survivors!
New Game Modes!
Coach gets a tiny wrist!

I wasn't expecting any new game modes, so that's a pleasant surprise. And I want to to see the M60 so bad!!! This DLC is going to be awesome, crazy awesome!

Bioware counting down to something hopefully awesome

Over at three of Bioware's websites a countdown has appeared that will run out next Monday. The countdown is missing from The Old Republic Site though. My fingers are crossed that this is something awesome, like an expansion for Mass effect 2 like Dragon Age's Awakening?

Its most likely nothing, probably some more free DLC or something, the guys over at Bigdownload.com think its going to be the relaunch of Bioware's main website, which would be really really really fucking lame.

3Deez Stories

So there's been a couple of big stories this week, with perhaps the biggest relating to Nintendo's announcement of a new handheld system.

According to a press release earlier today made by Nintendo, the Nintendo 3DS will be a new system among their handheld family, and not just another shameless rehash of the Nintendo DS system. It will feature DS/DSi backwards-compatibility, and will tentatively become available between April 2010 and March 2011, though I'm placing my money on a holiday 2010 release.

The most interesting announcement regarding the system, however, is that it supposedly has a 3D display without the need for glasses. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the 3D fad, largely due to the need for 3D glasses, but if Nintendo has figured out a way to do it without any additional equipment, sign me up! As usual, they promised more details to come during E3.

My next piece is nowhere near as exciting, nor is it really news, but the website switchgames.com has finally started offering a service that allows gamers to sell their used games over their online service. The site was originally set up to allow people to trade games amongst themselves, but this is a step in the right direction, as it cuts out the middleman, and it allows for a greater profit on games that aren't necessarily new, but are still worth a bit of money. The main thing I find interesing though is the ability to donate a percentage of the money you receive in the transaction to the company that originally created the game. This has been something that game development companies have been clamoring for ever since Gamestop got big, and the lack of that feature has triggered the development community to design systems that punish people from buying games used, such as the Cerberus network for Mass Effect 2, which costs $15 if you buy the game used, and it's the portal for all DLC for the game.

Finally, potential great news for Australia. The Australian attorney-general Michael Atkinson is retiring. This paranoid old man alone has been responsible for the majority of M-rated games from being released in the country. The hope is that the next attorney-general will be less paranoid, as the approval of an 18+ rating system requires the unanimous vote of the attorney-general to pass. The most famous example of heavy editing in a game was Left 4 Dead 2, which was heavily toned down on the violence and the gore. Here's hoping they don't get someone worse.

Posted from my iPhone, so pictures to come later.

Dont use hacks in China

No one likes cheaters in their video games, but fucking a this takes it too far. A 17 year old Chinese kid was using wall hacks at his local LAN center. A group of kids were arguing with him and then decided it would be appropriate to shove a rusty kitchen knife through the kid's head. Who the fuck does shit like that? I hate cheaters but Jesus, couldn't they have just talked shit to him?

This kid actually survived the attack and won't suffer any long term damage. Doctors said that the HUGE knife missed all major arteries. This cheating asshole has to be the luckiest hacker in the world. Hopefully he will learn that games are serious business and that he should hack from the safety of his home.

PS3 shortages, Obama loves XBox Live, and video games can change the world

It looks like Foe's suggestions pertaining to God of War III were some sort of psychic phenomenon. People apparently are buying PS3s just for the game. It looks like shortages will continue for a while, which is bad news for Sony. I'm sure they'll lose some sales from people who had wanted to play GoW III, but couldn't find a console. The Nintendo Wii is also suffering shortages, which surprises me because I would have thought that everyone had one already.


In stranger news, Microsoft has seen fit to ban an XBox Live user with the gamertag "mpeach obama21".

"“This name is actually, it’s not likeable,” Jordan, a Microsoft Xbox LIVE spokesman said to WorldNetDaily. “If you were Obama, what would you feel if you saw this?”"

First of all, why would President Obama be playing an XBox? That guy has got better things to do. Secondly, he's the President of the United States of America! Why should he care about what some pasty nerd on XBL has to say about him? Then again, that pasty nerd has freedom of speech, so he should be able to say whatever he wants online, as long as he doesn't violate rules, which he hasn't. It's an odd situation.


Finally, if you saw the TED talks from last year, you'd know of Jane McGonigal. If you're like me, you didn't watch anything TED-related, but you probably should. Ms. McGonigal claims that we should take the emotions, enthusiasm, and social bonding we feel while playing video games and apply them to the real world. I think this is an excellent idea, and have had similar thoughts about gamers myself. After playing a lot of Medic in TF2, I felt like being nice to people and being more positive overall. Sure, the gamer population sometimes comes across as a group of assholes calling each other "faggots" over their microphones, but we're not all that way. I'm sure you remember that one player who played nothing but Medic or Healer roles just to help the team or guild push forward. Maybe if we focused all of that positive energy we could create something amazing and advance our society as a whole. I guess as the last generation begins to retire, and we gamers assume charge of the country, we'll see what gaming does to a person's mentality.

Krinkors take on Final Fantasy XIII

Let me start off by saying that I enjoyed this game as a whole. It was an entertaining way to pass the time which in the end is the goal of all video games. Unlike other folks though I was not expecting anything revolutionary nor was I expecting Final Fantasy 6 again with updated graphics, which from others comments I've read seems as if many people would prefer.

The minor concerns that Joe and I were discussing prior to its release such as silly names: Snow, Lightning, Hope, Cocoon and its lack of towns I quickly dismissed once I actually started playing. The names didn't distract from the game in any way unless you're simply looking for a reason to dislike the game and those listed are really the only ones that stand out as odd. Lightning also has a real name so no harm there! As for the towns your characters are fugitives, it makes no sense for you to even be in them, you can still shop so while you'll miss some immersion you don't dwell on it.

In the beginning of the game my biggest complaint was "I can't choose my party setup! This is bullshit I don't want to use this kid!" But after a while it made sense, this isn't a group of friends, these people just got stuck together. So it's understandable that you not be able to use everyone as one big group right away. I actually found that it was a nice way to progress the story along and get me interested in characters that previously I had not been. It managed to work for me, I previously thought low of Vanille but after seeing her story my mind was changed. Although that is also its flaw, it attempts to make you like all of them which is just impossible and at times may just feel like a drag to some people.

The plot is standard Final Fantasy, save your new unique world from destruction. If you were expecting anything else I might venture a guess you've never played a game in the franchise. It doesn't stray from this path nor should it. What may appear to make FFXIII's plot more shallow than previous games is that you aren't as attached to Cocoon, not that your characters aren't. Without the world map and active exploring it is a difficult task to accomplish, how can I care for a world when I've only seen a single city from flashbacks and some corridors? The answer is, you don't. You either care because your characters do, or because you just want to be a hero.

The characters are a more personal matter so feel free to disagree. I loved Lightning's hard ass attitude, Sazh's humor and Snow's heroic antics, Sazh had a phenomenal story arc that almost brought tears to my eyes. While I was not a fan of Hope's "wisdom". Fang and Vanille I found to be the most interesting characters with Fang being my overall favorite. Yet these are things you must decide for yourself.

The main aspect of combat is no longer your ATB gauge, instead they focused on Paradigm Shifting. A system where you can change your groups roles during combat to your current needs, and they will change quickly. I found it to be a enjoyable, everyone in your party will always be doing something. No healer to just chill while you grind monsters, your healer now beats the shit out of them. Not to say your new ATB gauge is uninteresting! The ability to queue multiple moves in advance is a nice concept and smoothly executed.

Others may argue that this game plays itself. While this is true to a moderate degree what did you do in other Final Fantasy games? Buff your melee characters out the ass because attack was the first on the bar and hit X three times. It didn't matter that your mage is going to attack for crap damage, its easier this way. The only time you really went out of your way was boss fights and special monsters. At least the computer makes intelligent choices for you instead of poor ones.

Overall, yes this game is linear. It will tell you exactly where to go and while I don't mind linear games it feels alien in a JRPG. If you consider the computer helping you an insult to your intelligence then this isn't the game for you. However if you can get over that fact and accept that Square Enix is willing to experiment then give it a try, you may be surprised for better or worse.

A Left 4 Dead character will die in the new DLC

Last night over at game trailers, host Geoff Keighley interviewed Valve's Chet Faliszek where he revealed in the Left 4 dead 2 DLC we would only encounter three of the four survivors from the first game. Saying that one of the original cast members would die.

This sucks because I really like the characters from the first game and I don't want to see any of them be killed. But this is definitely hyping me up for both DLCs and the comics that Valve has mentioned.

My guess is that the whoever dies is going to be shot by the military or another human, because they get tore up by zombies all the time and if its true that they are carriers of the virus, then they cant turn into zombies.

TF2 updated with community items

A couple months ago, Valve put up the Contribute! site asking the community to make weapons and hats for their class based shooter. Yesterday they released a patch with the new community-made items in it.

New Weapons:

The Dalokohs Bar
Heavy secondary weapon
+Increases max HP by 50 for 30 seconds after eating, regardless of your current HP upon consumption.
-Can't be thrown
-Only heals for 60 HP (you read that right: overheal may be 50, but it heals for 60).
*Overheal doesn't stack with Medic overheal, and changing secondary weapons causes any existing chocolate-induced overheal to vanish.

The Pain Train
Soldier/Demoman melee weapon
+Caps points and pushes the cart at scout speed
-Extra 10% damage taken from bullets
*Effects are in place regardless of having the weapon drawn or not; so long as it's equipped, you cap faster and take more damage.

The Homewrecker
Pyro melee weapon
+Destroys any building in two hits regardless of level.
-Does 75% damage to players
*As a reminder, this is capable of random crits, unlike the Axtinguisher.

The Soldier/Demo melee weapon sounds really cool and I would love to use it, but I've spent so much time with TF2 I think its time to move on, Although I might play when they release the Engineer patch. Also the hats don't sound that great either. I was hoping that since the weapons/hats were community-made, we would be able to equip them from the get go, but you still have to get lucky with the random drop system. Which is too bad.

Secret God of War III website

Achieving the "Spartans Stand Tall" Platinum Trophy in God of War III will get you a link to this Web site. There's a bunch of rain and a compass you can't use. The site is basically worthless but it's got me excited for whatever DLC they have planned.

EA thinks Star Wars MMO could get 2 mil subscriptions

EA has said that their upcoming Star Wars MMO is the "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company,” and it's quite clear that expectations for this title are huge.

Because of the huge cost of development EA is hoping to attract 2 million subscribers. And an analyst said that EA will need a little over 1 million subscribers to reach the break even point.

Everyone here at Boss Video Gaming knows how MMO's start out. They start off by selling extremely well, and report big subscription numbers. Until the second month rolls around and they lose 500k subs. An MMO developed by Bioware is going to draw a huge crowd, not to mention its based on the Star Wars franchise. But how many players will stay?

IO Interactive: Textures aren't what's important

Lately a lot of films have been going for the home video style, which I love. And that's exactly the look IO Interactive is going for with Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. But now they are worried that gamers that only care about graphics won't approve of the shaky cameras, rough textures, and pixelated violence.

"We Actually do think that yeah, the people that we're already showing this to do get it," explains Lund. "This doesn't come across as actually low res when you play it, I think that it comes across as very modern. The way we actually show each other what happens in the world, whether we choose reality television or social stuff. We tried to polish all of the visuals like that. It's not like this game's not polished, we spent a lot of resources into creating this feel and look, but I think it makes. Sometimes it makes the Hollywood style if you know what i mean?"

Personally I feel this style will make the game seem more realistic. For example the film Avatar and God of War III have some of the best graphics I have ever seen, but neither of them felt realistic to me, they just had good graphics. We still have a while to go before the technology is there, at least for video games. So this style seems like a step in the right direction and I cant wait to see how it turns out.

God of War 3. Just buy a PS3 for it.

Wow, so I just beat this game and I decided to write this review before it becomes any less fresh in my mind.  I've been so hyped up about this game and yet so anti-PS3.  In fact I think the only bad thing about this game is that I had to buy a PS3 to play it.  As I traveled home with my PS3 in hand, I wondered how good this game was actually going to be.  Lately, a lot of the time games hype themselves up and gaming news does the same - bubbling the excitement until it turns in to a frothy frizzle.

This game does not disappoint.  Not only does it deliver in the bloody savageness: the grotesque kills, but it still keeps up on its puzzles and actually introduces action as you're solving them.  The combat system hasn't really changed much, using square, triangle, and circle pretty much handles the soon to be brutalized monsters.  The real innovation or I guess I would say improvement in GoW3 is the simple and easy way to manage your god powers and the weapons at the same time.  Previously you had to select the power that you wanted by using the D-pad but now, one weapon one power.  How many do you ask?!  Four.  Up(Exile Blades.),Right(Claws of Hades), Down(Nemean Cestus), Left(Nemesis Whip).  Each of these weapons have their own unique and awesome talent.. that  I'll let you find out for yourself.

 

If you think that only 4 weapons and abilities is not enough the game even brought a item system in which you can use to conquer puzzles and enemies alike.   In my personal opinion I feel the items are weak, and most of the time just a small annoyance even for the weakest of enemies.  ( With the exception of Hermes' Boots which rocket your enemies in the air in slow motion so you can pull off some extended and awesome combos.)  Even so, the way in which you obtain each of the items is brutal, savage, and epic at the same time. "Bragic?"

The story is awesome and immersive.  I'm holding my tongue to not release any spoilers for the rest of the BVG crew but, I'm really hoping this isn't the last God of War game we see.   God of War 3 was worth every cent of enjoyment and I still have not even taken advantage of the multiple modes that still await me.

 

Until next time folks.

F03

DICE finally releases BC 2 patch

Well about fucking time. Over at the Bad Company 2 forums, DICE has released the notes for a patch that will go live shortly. There are a couple single-player fixes listed, including the sound problems I was having. But most of it is multi-player related and has to do with their horrible server browser.

Even though the game hasn't even been out that long, it's really to bad this didn't happen sooner. Tons of games are coming out now, and BC2 is going to have to be put on hold. I'm playing God of War III right now and I still have to play Metro 2033, the Dragon Age expansion, and Final Fantasy XII.

By the way, God of War III is amazing.

New Champions Online content patch

To be more honest, Cryptic refers to it as a "free expansion patch", but that's just semantics. "Revelation" features all new costume pieces, zones, perks, meta-powers, and characters. The focal point of the expansion is Vibora Bay, a seemingly New Orleans inspired city teeming with magics and mystery. Look forward to this content sometime later this month.

Our experience with Cryptic has been kind of scattered. Foe, Joe, and Xenodyne played City of Heroes for a little while, but not on the same scale as our World of Warcraft obsessions. When information for Champions Online began making its way onto the web, Joe and I got pretty excited. The cel-shaded look was distinct and the customization it offered sounded too good to be true at the time.

When Cryptic posted on their blog calling for locals to volunteer for in-house beta testing, I jumped at the chance. A week or so later, I was invited to Cryptic Studios for some serious alone time with their new superhero MMO. Well, that may be exaggerating a bit, the actual testing only took around an hour, and the servers crashed probably about a dozen times in the process. It was a beta though, and the actual open beta began the next day, if memory serves correctly.

The level of customization was amazing, especially compared to other MMOs on the market at the time (or even now, for that matter). For the most part, you would never see characters that looked very similar to other characters. Unless of course you decided to count the billions of characters that ripped off of actual intellectual properties from comic books or movies. If I had a dollar for every "Iron Man" clone I saw on Champions, I would be typing this blog from my diamond-encrusted yacht in the Caribbean while Xenodyne, Foe, and Joe popped expensive bottles of champagne over my naked form.

I really did enjoy Champions Online, for a month or so after the release. The customization offered to players was, to me, a breath of fresh air. Years of playing World of Warcraft and raiding for the right to look like every other Tier-set Mage have conditioned me to like customization in MMOs. That's the main reason I'm so excited for APB.

However, after regenerative powers were nerfed, fighting six or more enemies was no longer possible. Some missions a level or so above you would be impossible to solo unless you had the correct (see: overpowered) powerset. It no longer felt heroic to me. Do I miss leaping large distances as a beefy luchador and uppercutting enemies into the air en masse? Sometimes yes, but I'm not sure if I could ever see myself playing Champions Online again.

As I write this, Joe tells me that the next patch involves a buff to melee-based characters. This is one of the main reasons I quit in the first place, so maybe its time to look at Champions again.

Nintendo knows they cant make games like Bioshock

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has admitted that Nintendo isn't very good at creating games like Bioshock. And that they rely on third party developers to bring games like that to the Wii.

"The fact of the matter is we know we create great content for younger consumers, we know we've got great content for more casual players, and we want fantastic content for that more active player who loves Metroid or Zelda but maybe also wants something like a BioShock 2 to play as well," claims Reggie. "And we also recognize that we don't create that type of content ourselves. We're not good at it and it's not a key focus area. So we want that content on our platform, so we have to court third-party developers and encourage them to make [those games], but it also has to be financially viable for them as well."

Its really too bad that third party developers are only producing nothing but garbage games for the Wii. But then again it is also the Wii players' fault for buying all those horrible games.

Crackdown 2 landing July 6th

Everyone here at BVG is pretty stoked for Crackdown 2. So its great news that Ruffian games has announced a release date for the game. The game is being released on July 6th in the US. Asia, Australia, and New Zealand will see the game on July 8. Europe will have to wait til July 9.

Ruffian games is also releasing three videos leading up to the game's launch. The first of the three is entitled "Fun with Friends". It shows what you would expect from a Crackdown trailer, with a whole bunch of stuff getting blown to shit.

Our YouTube is LIVE!

I've been kind of looking forward to APB, since the amount of customization showcased by Realtime Worlds has left many a gamer with their jaw on the floor. Of course, I have my doubts, just as any reasonable person should when looking at a new MMO. However, when the last couple of podcasts showed the nifty music creator tool, my expectations for this game skyrocketed. The idea of the game seems sound, seeming at first glance to be a sort of Grand Theft Auto MMO, but the focus on PvP content and player customization makes it a definite game to watch out for in my book. Whenever Realtime Worlds plans to release it, we'll see how it measures up to expectations.

In more BOSS VG relevant news, our YouTube channel is up and running. There's not much on it yet, but we're working to get everything together for some sort of video blog. Right now we have coverage of a Street Fighter IV tournament that was put together by some friends of ours. My personal favorite is Roderick's rendition of "The Last Door" by EXILE. Show your friends!

We're putting all of our best ideas together to make our vlogs (as the kids these days refer to them) distinct from the rest of the YouTube gamer types. Hopefully we'll be in business soon to bring you our unique look on whatever is happening in the gaming industry.

God of War III might get alternate ending DLC

Everyone knows God of War III is going to be epic! But game director Stig Asmussen told Kotaku that the ending was just too crazy and they wanted to make it more personal, so they scrapped it.

"There was a pretty large thing that we chopped from the ending that I had regrets about, but then something we added at the end that helps make up for it a little bit, and helps make it more personal," Asmussen lamented. "We had Titan encounters in the game, we had a pretty big one planned for the end and we got pretty far with it it, but it was just one of those deals where we just had so much."

"As far as DLC goes, it might be something we might think about getting out there someday," Asmussen said. "The pieces are in place, the idea is written. If it's something we put out there it would be something that would be free."

I'm so excited for God of War III that it's going to have to lick total balls to disappoint me, so the talk of a free alternate ending is aaaaamazing!

Good Company. Bad expansion.

Bad Company 2 is one of the most immersive games since World of Warcraft hit the shelves almost 5 years ago. I mean who wouldn't want to send a helicopter spiraling out of control, or slice the tender necks of the opposing force. Yet one thing that plagues this game is random errors, disconnects, slow retrieving and lack of server expansion. I'm a hardcore Battlefield fan, but this is ridiculous and somewhat unprofessional on Electronic Arts' part.

The due date for all the fixes to be resolved was on March 8th and well... it is now March 15th and EA still has a hold on servers being brought up in the roster. In defense, four hundred percent more popular than estimated is a lot to adjust to, but the game has been out for almost 2 weeks. Yet EA must have a server manager that fixes stuff like Repair Man off of All That. I'm hoping for the server hold to be released soon so maybe we can release some of our pent up error rage on our own server.

Hopefully the Final Fantasy

Sorry about the lack of posts out of me, been busy with trying to trudge myself through the abomination that is Final Fantasy XIII. For a game that tries to do everything in Square-Enix's power to make it action-packed, it fails horribly. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Squenix's idea to make a game action-packed is to pack it with cinemas. I'll admit that I'm not too far into the game due to the limited time available to me, but being as familiar with a Squenix game as I am, the game will remain consistent throughout. Even combat feels bland and stale.

For your main character, the times when you don't have to spam a potion over and over (which takes crucial seconds that could have been avoided if it were mapped to some type of hotkey) can be spent by selecting auto-attack. I agree that it is nice with the battle system the way it is, but I would rather select single attacks as I have the rest of the Final Fantasy games. It ultimately ends up losing some of its action due to the automation of inputting multiple attacks and then waiting for your character to carry them out.

The game is also extremely linear. Not that this is a major complaint on my part, as I play an RPG for a linear experience. If I wanted something that was 100% open world, I'd just start playing WoW again. Sadly though, some areas of exploration are missed, such as some of the neat little secrets that have always been worked into previous Final Fantasy game.

In addition to the linear nature of the game, I find the story-thus-far to be quite lacking. It may pan out over the course of the rest of the game, but can I stand to wait another 15 hours (as I hear it takes) to supposedly pick up? The purpose of a game is much like any other type of media: create a hook that entices the player to play and motivate them to complete the game. This game does neither. I shouldn't need to get 25 hours into the game to reach that point. On top of that point, the characters are unimaginably bland so far. I have been unable to identify with any of them, and I wish the main character would go the way of Aeris.

The one shining spot of this game is, of course, the gorgeous visuals, though even those manage to disappoint at times. The frame rate does not always stay at a solid 30 fps, nor do the graphics always manage to stay "pretty" and "sharp." With God of War III coming up, boasting some of the best visuals on the PS3, and Mass Effect 2 with its gorgeous visuals as well, a game that is mainly cinematic in nature has no excuse to stutter in the frame rate, even during one scene, when I counted numerous times in only the first few hours of the game.

Regardless, this game is at least worth renting, but I would not recommend buying it. God of War III is coming out this week, and just from the gameplay footage I've seen, I will not be disappointed.

Massively.com hands-on with Star Wars: TOR

There is a hands on impression of The Old Republic over at Massively.com. This is the first time BioWare and Lucas Arts have let the press play a build of the game, and its about what you would expect from an early impression of an mmo. But it is still a good read, especially if you are as excited about the game as I am.

Valve snatches up some Naughty Dog devs

So it looks like Valve wasn't joking about finally developing for the PS3. They have recently hired three high-ranking former employees of Naughty Dog. And if anyone knows how to do shit on the PS3 right, its them.

The hires include Vitaliy Genkin, Alex Vlachos, and Elan Ruskin. Its nice to see Valve expanding to other platforms. I would be excited but I would never play a Valve game on console, and It's safe to say these guys where hired to improve Valves PS3 ports which have been horrible in the past.

Goggy sings!

Last night we went to a Street Fighter 4 tournament. Roderick started talking shit about how good he was, so we made him promise to sing the SF4 theme if he lost. He ended up losing.



We'll get some more footage of that tournament later, this was too good for us to make people wait for it. Grats to Goggy on his singing skills.

Bioshock DLC already on disc

Rumors are flying and fan boys are crying. Apparently the recently released Bioshock 2 DLC, Sinclair Solutions Test Pack wasn't really downloadable content and merely unlocked content that was already on the disk.

The small size of the file is the reason for the suspicion. The file is a measly 180kb. The official forums are on fire with gamers bitching about this, with one poster believing that the DLC should be labeled "unlockable content" instead of downloadable content.

This is a fucking low blow on 2ks part. I feel that the content should be part of the initial purchase if its on the disk gamers bought. It would not be such a big deal if the DLC was free, but its not. What pricks.

Deus Ex 3 teaser trailer

Teaser trailers usually don't do much for me. They are just pre rendered piles of shit that let you down when you realize the game wont look that good. But my two brothers loved the original, so its safe to say that my family and I are very excited for this game.

Time to get creative!

Nintendo announced Crafting Mama for the DS. Since I work at a lame craft store I'm a craft pro, so this game is just up my alley. I cant wait to help mama make scrapbooks and birdhouses. I hate my life... Maybe if I play enough Crafting Mama I wont have to tell housewives how I know nothing about crafts and to leave me alone. Now I can be like "Hell yeah I do bitch, I help MAMA!"

Playstation Move fails to impress (me)

I just got done watching the Sony conference over at Gamespot and my hype meter is at a whopping 0%. They started off by confirming that the motion controller is called the Playstation Move and began stressing the word precision over and over. After a few minutes trying to convince the audience that their motion controller was more precise and handled better than Nintendo's, they showed off their shitty mini games, which are nothing more than HD versions of shit that Nintendo has already done. You got your ping pong game, your golf game, shitty fighting game and some others that looked all right, like the gladiator one. But the controller they brought to GDC is a black Wiimote with a ball taped to it, nothing more.

Then they talked about how they can integrate the Move into other Playstation games. They used Little Big Planet as an example, and it actually looked pretty cool. They're going for a co-op multiplayer idea where one player plays the game normally while the other uses the wand to help with puzzles. I thought that was a pretty cool idea and liked it, but not enough to drop 100 bucks.

Towards the end of the presentation they started talking about how the Move was SO precise that even "hardcore" gamers would be able to use it. I got really excited. I started telling myself that maybe George was right, and they could do something with it besides mini games. Nope, it looked like a big o' pile of shit. They had someone play Socom 4, which they had talked about earlier in the presentation. The game looked and ran horribly, but that's not the biggest problem. The problem was how the game played. The crosshair was a big circle like one you would see in a railgun shooter, and all the guy did was move it to the general area the bad guys were at and they died. He didn't use precision which is all they fucking talked about, he just pointed and held a button down.

This was the first time Sony even showed the thing off, so they might make this thing work. From what they showed, it looks like families and girls will like the controller, and I don't blame Sony for wanting to tap into this audience. But to fucking lie and say that hardcore gamers will want to use it?

Glory is 99% oil, 1% skill

My last bit of news for this day is thankfully not related to DLC of any kind. The next character for Super Street Fighter IV was revealed today.

Hakan is apparently a Turkish wrestler, but I'll have to take IGN's word on that. I'm a little distracted by his fighting technique. Hakan is one of the larger characters in the game, on the scale of Zangief and Abel. The weirdness begins when he covers himself in oil and begins slipping around on the ground. Its something you'll have to see yourself in order to fully appreciate it, like live human birth.

In other news, the GDC continues. Maybe we'll be able to go next year, but for now we'll do what everyone else is doing.

Of course, that's only if everyone else is camping larger gaming news sites, salivating over new announcements. In that case, we're all normal here.

DJ Hero invokes the power of Jay-Z, Eminem

New DLC for DJ Hero is on the way. A "Jay-Z vs. Eminem" pack will be available for download on March 18, for $7.99 or 640 MSP. Wii owners are lucky enough to get the same pack a week later on the 25th with each track being sold individually for 300 Wii points each. The whole pack is only three songs.

I can see Xenodyne getting this for the plain fact that Eminem is involved.

LOL AVP

When the demo for Aliens Vs. Predator was released, we here at BOSS VG decided to give it a go. Free multiplayer FPS, right? So we gave it a shot, and let me tell you how amazing this game is. It is so amazing, you'll have to play it yourself to see what I mean when I mention how absolutely amazing it is.

Jokes aside, it looks like new DLC is on the way for anyone willing to pay $6.99 (or 560 MSP) for two new multiplayer maps and two new survivor mode maps. Look forward to this on March 18. Or don't.

Ubisofts DRM servers attacked again

Ubisoft's DRM servers are again under attack and have been experiencing these DOS attacks since the weekend.

"Our servers are under attack again," explains the publisher. "Some gamers are experiencing trouble signing in. We're working on it and will keep you posted."

Its fucked up that people can't play their games, but this is a good demonstration of how fucking horrible this DRM is. Publishers need to realize that pirates and hackers will always find ways around bullshit DRM like this and only honest paying customers are left having to jump through hoops and all the bullshit they don't deserve. So if DOS attacks are the only way for publishers to realize this, then I say bravo boys.

Left 4 Dead comic hitting Xbox Live

Valve is planning to release a Left 4 Dead comic on Xbox live very soon. The comic will explain how Bill, Zoey, Louis and Francis made their way to the south and met the cast of Left 4 Dead 2.

Nothing was said if Microsoft would charge for it, but I think this is a really cool way to get people excited for the DLC which will be releases later this month. I'm just afraid I won't have time for the DLC right away because of both Final Fantasy XIII and God of War III being released.

My dreams have come true!

Harmonix and MTV Games have announced that a Lady Gaga track pack featuring four of her songs will be released for Rock Band next week. The pack will include: "Bad Romance," "Just Dance," "Monster," and "PokerFace." The pack will cost 6.99/560 MS Points. They are also releasing the Eric Cartman cover of "PokerFace" for $1.99/160 MS Points/200 Wii Points.

This is the best news EVER! And if I had rock band, Jervan and I would be playing this shit all night every night!

I guess the people at Valve like all the rivalry between the console and PC gamers and decided to make another addition to the "fray" as they put it. The new to the gaming scene Mac users will now be tearing it up with us on the Valve servers.

My thought on the situation? I bet Mac users go into the Apple store and purchase their iMac for hardcore gaming. Wait no they don't, because the only game available on a Mac is Photoshop. I guess I just cast the first stone.

Rivalry aside, I can't wait for the fresh blood to be introduced into the world of gaming outside of apps. Maybe one day we may see cross OS versions of Half Life, Portal, and Counter Strike.