Back to the internet and bluegreen!

Everyday nations fight over valuable resources on our beloved planet but what happens when there's nothing to fight over anymore? Then mankind shall press forward into space where a new planet rich in resources is plump for the picking.
In the game Massive War made by Belugerin games Earth has been sucked dry and although colonies were established on Mars and Pluto it only caused humanity to split into three factions fighting over a new planet with similar topography to Earth before it was resource dead. On the planet "Bluegreen" you play as a commander of one of the three factions fighting for control of Bluegreen using careful troop selection and spending upgrades appropriately.
The interesting part of this game is that each faction has very similar units due to them all being humans originally from Earth but the small differences are made only by less than 100 years of adapting to the new environments each faction controls. The Earth army has some of the most technologically advanced weapons in the game thanks to any reserves of resources they pumped out of Earth to fight on Bluegreen. The Mars army has been forced to adapt to the harsh conditions on their planet and as a result have the toughest and roughest troops available. The Pluto army has been so far away from the Sun that they began to mutate in strange ways even to the point of gaining almost psychic powers.If I could pick three armies that appear in RTS games and WWII alternate future theories that are represented in Massive War it would be the US showing off their big guns as Earth, Soviet-era Russia toppling out against big odds and surviving the harsh conditions of the Motherland, and Pluto, although not representative of any one country, could possibly just represent any army that made use of biological warfare and more specifically chemicals(almost like the GLA from Generals)All in all it's a quickie, addicting to play, and the pixel style art makes it run smooth on any computer without you paying a penny.

Game Blog advanced

So two things have happened in the land of blogtopia recently.
1:I'm not commiting to one post a month because I haven't really been motivated to do so anymore.
2:Polls stopped working for the time being so there won't be any of those for a while O_O
On another note summer vacation is one day away for myself and many others and that means video games! Over the past weeks I've been messing around with a lot of new games but I decided to take a break for a while and go back to one of my old favorites, Kingdom Hearts:Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advanced.
Anybody that still owns this dinosaur of a video game console probably has about a 5% chance of playing this game (50% if they own Kingdom Hearts for the PS2). For those who hasn't played the series as a whole then I can start with that. Kingdom Hearts was one of the first fun games coming out onto the PS2 that I remember. The idea was essentially Disney and Final Fantasy fusing together to make an epic RPG, platforming, action, adventure game for one console. When commercials came out everybody laughed but after release, Kingdom Hearts instantly became a PS2 classic and people went beserk waiting for it's sequel. That's where we head off to my game of today.
After the huge success of Kingdom Hearts along with it's cliffhanger ending many fans waited patiently for the sequel. However the waiting period was far to long and multiple false release dates drew many to lose their patience so a Kingdom Hearts game was released for the Gameboy Advanced to quell fans and to tighten the story between Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2.
Unique to the rest of the series, Chain of Memories changed the battle system from an X mashing hit and run battle to a hybrid of card games and beat-em up. Essentially the hero of the game enters a castle and forgets all his past abilities from his previous adventure(forcing the player to start at level one) and must unlock his old abilities using cards that he collects in the castle. Each card has varying strength and results along with most cards being numbered 0-9. The battles play out like a child's game of poker; 9 beats all smaller numbers and 8 beats all smaller numbers all the way down to 0. However 0's tend to play out like Aces do in most playing card games; They can be the lowest number value but also the highest number value(pick up the game or wiki search if you need to understand this).
Along with these mechanics are many other parts of Chain of Memories that made it feel more strategic then it's PS2 counter parts but all battles still take place in real time as you walk around the battlefield and attempt to dodge attacks while swinging you're own weapon back at enemies. All in all this is one game I would definitely recommend to those Kingdom Hearts players that never bothered to try the GBA version and crave a more strategic version I would hunt this game down(try e-bay or some old game store that sells GBA).
Well that's about it, wait was I supposed to have some deep message about what influence this game gives us?

Bloggercoaster Tycoon

Whoops has it really been that long? Well to explain my absence to readers(if any) after the July post about halo and kirby wasn't followed up by another monthly post the habit just grew until I forgot about blogging until NOW! With everyone putting New Years resolutions and me already loosening up on video games what better way to celebrate than with more video games!

Anybody remember Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 for the PC? Well just like I have the freedom to not follow my once a month blog rule, this game gave you power to run your own amusement park and do as you pleased. As far as simulation/god games go this game set THE bar during my childhood days. One of the first to popularly bring out the genre of games that put players in true power with the use of the top-down camera view and awesome variety of ways to play the game.

Though not many things can be said about the franchise now-a-days(and where it's gone to now) it should still hold a place in the hearts of all retro gaming fanatics who crave for their low tech semi-pixelated goodies to be placed on custom rollercoasters of joy or doom. As for the next generation of gamers out there I can't really say much for this precursor of simulation coastering. Although the game could offer possible incite on the business world for many young entrepreneurs the truth is, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 for the PC was simply a bit of that old fun that only clicks with the group of it's time. I'd like to rant about new gamers not appreciating the good'ol days but Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 was certainly no Pokemon Red. A good memory and now we must all move on, till next month this is Ricky Lee saying good night sweet prince.

Ummm kirby?

Yeah well I've been playing lots of video games but can't decide between Kirby and Master Chief so I'll write about both. First off we all know the lovable little pink alien blob known as Kirby and his special ability to absorb enemy powers. An old dusty game I pulled out the closet was titled Kirby:and the Crystal shards. As far as I know it may be the only decent N64 game in my closet and is basically a 3-d side scrolling adventure with our favorite little Kirby. The unique parts of this game are that Kirby can now use not one but two enemy powers. By combining one power with another you can get endless possibilities or you can stack two of the same power to create a super powerful version of one single power. If any of you still have a N64 working then I must recommend this game for anyone with a platforming/Kirby deficiency. If old retro ain't for you then I can also prescribe a game that all Xbox owners have played at least once. I'm talking of course about Halo:combat evolved.

I can never get enough of a good storyline but this game just throws the best game storytelling had at my face in a first-person perspective. Set in a not too distant future Humanity has accomplished great task including Artificial intelligence, Super human cyborgs, and interstellar space travel. Along with all these fancy new gizmo at mankind's arsenal comes along the one thing every ten-year old kid predicted for space, Aliens. However to make matters worse these are indeed the mean, ugly, laser shooting aliens in every good action sci-fi shooter. Even worse for the humans are the fact that they face a whole United Force of multiple alien races all itching to exterminate humans from the entire galaxy.

You begin the game as a Super Human Cyborg known only as Master Chief who has been frozen for years after years until being awakened to defend against the aliens as humanity's last hope. With his super human reflexes, endurance, quick thinking, and natural leadership, Master Chief quickly rallies the humans back into the fight and onto the war against the Alien races known as the Covenant. After a quick escape from Covenant spaceships, Master Chief and a few human survivors find themselves stranded on a Large Ring world known as Halo. After progressing so far into the game you soon learn that your not alone on this planet as you are attacked by zombie like creatures who attack relentlessly until you are saved by a group of floating laser shooting machines who introduce the zombies as the Flood and tell you that the only way to stop them is to activate Halo. Once you reach the inside of Halo though you learn that activating Halo will not just stop the flood but destroy all Sentient life in the entire galaxy. Not agreeing to this plan Master Chief makes an alternative by destroying Halo through some crazy action filled cutscenes and escapes at the last minute like any hero would.

In order to fill in anymore space for this post and waste anymore of your "precious" time I've taken the liberty to celebrate the second coming of Starcraft aka "Starcraft 2" by opting in for blizzard's free beta testing(anyone that has a game by blizzard can join, just google battlenet). Not sure why but Real-time-strategies never seem as awesome until there in space.

Blogocolypse

So the end of the world has been a recurring theme in our lives very much(in fact I'm getting ready for a super blow-off party in 2012). But something more interesting then everything being destroyed is finding out what happens next. The one day I decided to stay awake in world History, we were learning about Latin and the use of post meaning after. So post-apocolypse, after apocolypse get it?

This may possibly be the the next best thing you get to zombie-apocolypse and blog-apocolypse, Giant Robot-apocolypse. A bit of an underground series, Armored Core has always been a huge hit in it's home country of Japan but Westerners don't seem as thrilled when browsing on the shelves. As for me I'm a sucker for custom robots and good storylines. Armored Core always delivers a good solid A for story and custom robos. The gameplay is sticky for newbies but a couple of matches in the AI arena and you'll be flying, boosting, and shooting like a pro. Back on the subject of doomsday though, Armored Core is set in a fictional Earth where humanity has fled to the underground for living as the surface is no longer habitable. The countries of the world have totally disbanded and instead rises the era for corporations. In the world of Armored Core people live tough but bearable lives and although having no sky isn't so hot the constant stress of living has resulted in a breaktrough in technology. Stepping up to the plate are known as Muscle Tracers aka MT's. Using these giant robots humanity was once again able to gain a foothold on survival but more importantly the corporations were able to use MT's for gaining more power through the use of military and battle MT's. Fight after fight eventually lead to another breakthrough in technology known as the Armored Core aka AC. An AC is generally a bigger tougher version of an MT but what sets the two apart is how AC's utilise a "Core" part which then gets attached with arms(for holding weapons)legs(for mobility and support)and a head(radar/scanning). With new humanoid mechs dashing across, people soon made piloting AC's a job and became mercenaries known as "Ravens" paid to work for the richest corporations and turn their shoulders on the little guy. You play as a Raven(not actual bird)mercenary and work through the stroyline to become the greatest AC pilot and change the fate of the Earth.

Later sequels are made to the series again succeeding in Japan and doing moderate-Fail on US soil. playing through the whole trilogy, you'll fight underground, in space, on Mars, and even rich environments with trees and plantlife(after humanity recolonized sometime around Armored Core 2 and 3). So just the concept that the apocolypse could epic fail at destroying humanity and instead give them giant robots was enough to make me buy this game and it should for you so good night and happy hunting:)

Mad Mad Mario

On the Internet you will see many things, but if there is one thing I hope you don't have to see till your 18 it may be the flash video Mad Mad Mario. I'll spare you the details of the video, and why I saw it, and why this blog hasn't been updated weekly like I promised. I will however give you some insight into what I thought of the video and how it made me think about Mario's whole plumber for life deal.
Mad Mad Mario basically is Mario finally getting fed up with saving princess peach time after time again so he decides not to put up with bowser anymore and basically walks out of bowser's castle after a very loud scene involving some colorful vocabulary. Mario mentions that Peach has been kidnapped multiple times now and is sick of killing so many turtles on his quest.

I really did realize that Bowser, Peach, or any mario character should have seen this coming for a while. While Mario is just doing what he's gotta do, I'm sure he would eventually get fed up with destroying multiple castles, fortresses, and bosses only to find that princess peach is in some other castle.

The main point of this message should be that nobody should overwork themselves and if they do, they should try and express it.(perhaps in all that jumping and exercising mario gets done when he stomps on goombas.)

Fight for glory

Whenever we watch a movie or play a game, there's always a clear difference between the good guys and bad guys. The bad guys are always sinister, mean, and cold. The good guys will be all bright, kind, with a strong sense of justice. So, what do we do when the line is harder to draw between the two? This can be answered with yet another video game review! Once and underground series, Killzone had risen to popularity among gamers with the release of Killzone 2 for the PS3. Now unlike my previous reviews of M-Rated games, I would not recommend this at all for underage gamers due to unbelievably foul language worse than South Park. However The story is one that must be shown to any global ed, diplomat, or high school student. Basically you have to sides. The Interplanetary Strategic Allience(ISA) and the Helghast. The Helghast are a race of humans who colonized the planet Helghan long ago. Before they were human, but after years of mutating on the harsh environment of Helghan, they have grown pale skin, have no hair, larger than humans, and can only breathe through special gas masks that simulate the air found on their home planet. The ISA on the other hand consist of regular Humans(with the exception of a few Helghast spies). The conflict starts from years of oppression from humans and eventually the Helghast get tired of being shunned, and looked down upon. A Helghast by the name of Scolar Visari decides to take advantage of the angry Helghast people and rallies the whole planet to wage war against the humans. In the game you play as a human working for the ISA and throughout the game you form a team with two humans and a half human-half Helghast spy. The entire game has you fighting hundreds of Helghast troops and every encounter depicts the Helghast as evil, nasty, and souless. My favorite character in this game would have to be Hakha, the human-Helghast spy. Upon meeting him he is disliked by the human character Rico. Rico had earlier lost his whole platoon to the Helghast and hates them more than anything else in the world. By the end of the game Rico and Hakha gain a respect for each other.

Aside from Hakha most Helghast seem evil but cutscenes reveil that Hakha has a family on Helghan who all hate him for betraying their people. Hakha's brother however looked up to him and praised him as a hero until he was killed for his outcries. Just the fact that two Helghast were able to stand up to the oppressive government means that the Helghast are not souless monsters but people with lives and families. The Helghast are not evil, they simply want equal rights with the humans. The only evil in the game would be Visari, who took advantage of the situation and used it to gain power.

Video game morals/ethics

So many times we've all pointed our fingers at video games for our problems. People say they are addicting, make people lazy, and teach bad habits. As controversial as these topics can get it's hard to tell when to have fun or when you've played enough. Video games are all about control, they can be fun but extended playing may cause headaches, addiction, and playing the wrong games at the wrong age can lead to misunderstandings in society.

What I say as a devoted gamer is that it is not the video games who we blame or their creators but rather the people themselves. All video games are labeled for what age group it is recommended for and M games may only be purchased by 17+(believe me I have tried). So when parents start babbling about the new GTA video game with drugs, violence, and profanity just remember that it was you who allowed your children to continue playing. Never try to pull the "My kid isn't going to return the game" card. Until their old enough to get a job (which by then M games won't be bad for them) then parents are the main source of income and parents should really be more focused on learning what games are fun and safe. This does not mean educational games, that is what school is for. Almost all games have main characters with a sense of justice, or show life from a different perspective. Final fantasy IX is what gave me such a good idea of mythical creatures and introduced me to some advanced vocabulary. With it's medieval setting and abilities like insomniac (protecting the player from attacks that usually make them fall asleep in battle) it was easy to have a point of reference when I properly learned these terms in middle school.

As for lessons I again point my finger towards Metal Gear Solid which, although rated M, gives it the ability to touch on more serious matters such as nuclear weapons, passing on culture to the new generation, and learning common goals. One of the best example I have for this is during a cut scene in Metal Gear Solid 3 where the American hero(Snake) is held captive in a cell that is guarded by a Russian soldier(Johnny) during the Cold War era. After offering his jail cell food to Johnny, Johnny begins to see that "not all Americans are dogs after all". Johnny then goes on to explain how he used to live in America when the US and USSR were still good friends and that he just wants to see his wife and kid back in America but can't because of the Cold War. Although the cut scene ends with Snake trying to trick Johnny into letting him out and Johnny responding by a threat to shoot him, they were still able to establish a small friendship despite one being American and the other being Russian.

So parents please don't ban video games, just look at the ESRB rating and ask the workers at the store if the game is right for your kid (they work for the place, they should know what they're doing.)

You must construct additional blogs!

Anybody remember StarCraft? Well recently Blizzard Entertainment announced StarCraft 2 which has heavily improved graphics and smoother gameplay than the previous StarCraft. In case you haven't herd of either than you might have herd of it's ancestor WarCraft or it's MMORPG version World of WarCraft. If none of these games ring a bell than a quick google search of these games is needed for you. In short both StarCraft and WarCraft were real-time-strategy games for the PC. Both games are by the same company and many gamers consider these to be the fathers of modern real-time-strategies.

The theme of WarCraft was medieval war involving humans, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Zombies. Then after some time Blizzard created StarCraft which takes place in future space. The races in StarCraft are humans, monster aliens called "Zergs", and advanced aliens called "Protoss". The main topic in this blog entry will be on the Protoss. One main theme of the Protoss was that they were very technologically advanced compared to humans and they had psychic powers. One essential structure in the game for the Protoss was the Pylon. Pylons allowed their construction Probes to warp. Anytime a player tried to create a unit but didn't have enough "Psi" an error message would tell you "You must contruct additional Pylons". Since the Protoss are so different from humans they have funny sounding voices which sound like humans but with an echo effect. Eventually the phrase "You must construct additional Pylons!" became a popular catch phrase.

Now hopefully most of you know that in real life a pylon is one of those weird electrical lines you see everywhere when driving. Just like how our pylons give us electricity to power our technology, the Protoss pylons give them "Psi" to power their technology. Maybe if we all had a magic voice telling us to construct additional pylons whenever we needed more power than black outs wouldn't be a problem.

Bombs vs rollerskates?

Quite some time ago I posted a blog on Metal Gear Solid and since then my friend has taken interest in it. After playing halfway through the first game he enjoyed very much he's become quite the fan of the series just as I am. Every now and then we even discuss some aspects of the game and one day he reminded me of one of the most random things in the game that I nearly forgot. In the sequel "MGS2:Sons of Liberty" one of the bosses you face is an explosive expert called "Fatman" who fights with a sub-machine gun, c4, and roller skates. As ridiculous as the idea may seem during the fight the roller skates did help Fatman move around the area very swiftly during the fight and since he wears a bullet-proof blast suit the only way to damage him was to get close enough to hit his unprotected head(Becomming difficult since the roller skates.) It may seem even more ridiculous with his name being Fatman and he is quite the large character(though not per-say obese). After some research I found that it wasn't quite a ridiculous name since Fatman was also the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagisaki. So Fatman uses bombs, he's named after a bomb, and he uses roller skates in deadly combat. Most ridiculous idea ever or best boss in the game:)

Fighunter

Lately the Internet has been crammed with a whole bunch of strange websites and content that in brutal honesty, the world might be better without. Fortunately most of these don't get to popular to appear on your search engines or flooding your e-mail accounts. Some people may argue whether a website is good or not since opinions always vary. Newer versions of Mozilla Firefox include page rankings for each website on a 1-10 scale (1=worst,10=best). Sites like Google, Myspace, and Youtube have a relatively high score while http://lolcats.com/ was given a smaller score as a "Page of importance". With all these opinions over Myspace vs. Facebook or Yahoo vs. AIM who's to say what would be a better use of your time? If your smart you'd say going outside, but otherwise the choice is all yours after all the internet can be a wonderful thing if used correctly.

Today I'm going to look at one of the things on the internet that went right. http://fighunter.com/ ,Created by Pseudolonewolf, is a website with mostly flash games(a form of online game often found online using Macromedia Flash). The website mostly consists of RPG's so would be a must for any RPG nerd. Unknown to most of the public for a long time Fighunter.com(named after one of the first games on the website) didn't become popularly known among the internet-savy until the release of it's game SMECOF, a side scrolling shooter game with RPG elements. Of all of Pseudolonewolf's games(all created by himself)SMECOF is by far the most original on the website. Most previous games use similar elements of all other RPG games such as Warriors,Mages using Fire, water, lightning, MP, HP etc. SMECOF steers away from the classic RPG genre and brings us into an extremely advanced star system with ongoing struggles caused by the deadly Cyber Orteks(Dragon shaped cyber beings). Another theme setting this game apart is the fact that you play the role of one of the Cyber Orteks terrorizing the Draco System rather than playing as a typical hero trying to save to world.

With every one of his games being unique with in-depth story lines, self-composed music, and many in-game jokes revolving around several subjects Fighunter stands out as one of the most brilliant websites out there and definitely deserves more popularity and support among the world.

What is a blog?

As blogging has become a hobby of mine I started to loosely mention it one day to one of my friends when we were bored and when he learned it was a video-game blog he put out his own definition of a blog. He described a blog as an online diary where you posts things of significance during your day, also mentioning that someone with more of a life would be able to blog about other things than video games. Curiosity led me to wikipedia as it always does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog. They describe a blog as "a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video." Upon reading more into the page it also notes types of blogs including online diaries, like my friend described, and Genre where someone blogs about one specific topic(such as me!). Gaining this knowledge I felt less weird and was able to jump back into the blogging network knowing that, even if the majority of our class blogs about their lives, I can blog about video games and keep my title of Blogger.





With that problem in the past I can focus on the old subject at hand and the reason why you're here, VIDEO GAMES! For today's topic I decided to go with a classic precursor of video gaming, Pong. Contrary to popular belief, Pong was not the world's first video game. In 1971 the video game Computer Space became the first coin operated commercial video game of all time(Pong was released in 1972). None the less Pong is still known as the ancestor of all modern video games worldwide as it was the first successful in popularizing the concept of video games. Due to it's simplicity and famous history in video games many versions of Pong have entered reality to keep Pong alive in the brains of children everywhere that could be learning to play an instrument. It can be amazing to see how much progress video games have made in their short timeline and we certainly should owe it to many for their claim to fame over the years.

All your blog are belong to us!

Zero Wing was an old Japanese shoot 'em up game made in 1989 and became known across the web in 2000 when people started taking notice of the poorly translated cut scene in the beginning of the game. This was due to the fact that it was rushed to be released into Europe causing many lines to become butchered and hard to listen to. It came by the internet when people started coining the phrase "All your base are belong to us" . The gameplay itself was good but the countless amount of errors and internet parodies made this game hard to be remembered as a good thing. Wikipedia includes several quotes from the cutscene demonstrating it's quite funny grammar errors such as "Somebody set up us the bomb". In entertainment it's importaunt to be funny so as a game this may have failed miserably but at least a lot of people got a good laugh out of it.

One word of advice to any fellow bloggers out there reading this is to learn from this game's mistake and check your grammar in any entries before submitting. After all this is English class and nobody wants to look like a fool (though hopefully you'll never make a bigger joke than this game did.) For anyone who hasn't seen the opening cut scene it's definitely something to check out when you have time. The worst part about this is the fact that Zero Wing was actually a decent game and could've had great potential but this shows what happens when things are rushed. A simply series of grammar errors in an introduction marked this game as one of the worst games even though it wasn't the game itself. If something could be done I would've marked it as a worst video game moment since I respect the English language but to say that Zero Wing is a bad video game is going to far. The intro cut scene can be viewed at this link http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/068fee9d/35d450bc

Deoxyribonucleic acid-mon?

Many video games have spawned from all sorts of ideas but only one has a strange controversial concept that remains untouched by this class. Pokemon. Most people recognize Pokemon as that one old show for kids where people catch animal-like creatures known as Pokemon which possess various superpowers. As ridiculous as the idea sounds both the show and video game have become known worldwide by both kids and adults. As a kid growing up with Pokemon I slowly watched the show grow into the multi-billion dollar corporation it's become. As I grew up I also looked back on the older episodes from the first season and saw that Pokemon was more than just a kid's show, often times containing content that I usually overlooked until just recently. A few episodes would involve people who had a tough childhood. The character Brock grew up as taking care of his nine younger siblings without his parents. The character Misty grows up with an inferiority complex when compared to her three other sisters. Many times Pokemon has close ties to the enviornment as well. Many episodes will envolve the fictional crime syndicate, Team Rocket commiting many forms of abuse towards Pokemon including destruction of habitat.

Moving aside from this idea I realized that even the names of the Pokemon have clever name puns that I'm pretty sure most 5-year olds wouldn't figure out. The Pokemon Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are both obvious parodyies of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. See the resemblance? Despite all the clever pop-culture references Pokemon once had, it seems that the cartoon industry once again fanned it's greedy wings and now Pokemon is yet another half-baked show that, although enjoyed by kids, contains little to no areas of discussion-worthy topics it once had.

Recently I was riding in a car with a few friends to get some pizza when one of my older friend's son coughed and in response my friend simply said "Koffing!" This was a reference to an original Pokemon who's name was Koffing (pronounced coughing). We soon got into the discussion of all pokemon with name puns and when I said DNA my friend responded by saying "Deoxyribonucleic acid... Deoxys!" Of all the Pokemon name puns before hearing this I never really put any thought into that name but as the more I thought about it the more I realized that Deoxys was a very clever name pun of DNA. This is seen evident by the shape of his arms in the movies and games.Diagram of DNA and Deoxys.

As you can see Deoxys has spiraling arms not unlike that of most DNA structures. Also in the Show Deoxys was described as a virus that mutated. This could be relating to the fact the DNA is on a microscopic level just as Deoxys once was at the beginning of it's lifespan. Now in my opinion I don't think Most kids know what DNA is and if they do they certainly can't memorize what it stands for (I know I can't). So with all that said I think it's safe to say that Pokemon will be remembered as more than just a mindless kids show.