The Game Room

Yes, you read that right. Charlie Daniels doesn’t like Guitar Hero III, mainly because of the way a cover of his song “Devil Went Down to Georgia” is used in the game.

In an April 4 post on Daniels’s Website, he said that one of his main problems with the game are that the devil can, and often does, win in the showdown using the updated (guitar heavy) version of his song. For those that haven’t played, at various points in the single player side of the game, players duel with famous guitarists Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine), Slash (of Guns and Roses) and the devil

Daniels also said, “Actually the game really has a dark side complete with grotesque monsters on stage with the band, strange, eerie lighting effects and all manner of weird things popping up on the stage.”

Now, I realize his music falls more on the country side of things, but has he really not seen a rock concert in the past 30 years? The game (while exadurating slightly) doesn’t do anything you wouldn’t expect to see on stage at a concert (with a huge effects budget).

The Gamers of OSU will be taking over the TV in the OSU Student Union atrium for most of the day on April 14.

Come by, meet (some of) the group and play some Rock Band!

Back when Bioshock came out, I was bummed because on PC it required a graphics card with Shader Model 3.0. Guess what my Radeon X800 GTO doesn’t have. Anyway, I heard there was actually a way around it and that someone was working on an unofficial patch to allow older graphics cards to handle the game. Well, there hasn’t been any progress in several months and it still had some problems with textures displaying properly.

By problems I mean this (via www.overclock.net):

I just ended up borrowing a 360 copy from one of my friends. I might still go back to it on PC once I upgrade to an Nvidia 9600 GT this summer. This kind of game just feels more at home on PC to me.

I really liked the PS2 Scavenger.

I read these when they were first published and stumbled onto them again the other day. The basic idea was that a couple of guys at GameSpy would take bad PS2 launch title, most of which were already really cheap at the time the articles went up, and basically just post what they were saying about the game as they played it. If someone tried this again today, but did video for it, I have a feeling it could really do well, assuming they found the right hosts.

Too bad it never really got off the ground. Check out the few entries that did make it out though. They were great!

There have been dozens of superhero and comic based games made over the years, and while some have been great like Spiderman 2 or the old X-men arcade game, many have been cheaply made, rushed out attempts to cash in on existing characters.

That’s why I’m glad to see that Seanbaby already did a write up of some of the worst over at 1up.

My only complaint is that he didn’t mention that abysmal Crow: City of Angles game for the PS1, Saturn and (I think) PC.

There’s really no excuse for that game being released.

The song “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton from the game Portal, is available for download in the 360 version of Rock Band (PS3 version coming soon) and even better, it’s free (for the first week anyway).

Here’s a video of someone playing Expert level guitar on it.

I know it was just an April Fools day joke, but the Xbox 360: Vintage Edition would have been great.

Check it out.

Well, an unofficial one anyway. According to an article at Shoot the Core it will be hitting XBLA on April 9th.

Still a bit obscure due to it’s only previous U.S. release being a limited print run on the Gamecube a few years ago, it’s good to see this game getting some attention. It’s one of the best, and hardest, arcade shooters I’ve ever played.

Here’s a video of the first level being played on the Gamecube version.

Super Dodgeball Brawlers is coming out for the DS! Sure, they announced it a while back, but there are finally some gameplay trailers up.

Here’s the Japanese trailer for the game.

It looks great. I’m just mad that I’ll finally have to shell out for a DS. That’s right, not New Super Mario Bros., not Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Super Dodgeball Brawlers.

I love the NES version, and I actually bought my Gameboy Advance for Super Dodgeball Advance, so this is the game release I’m most looking forward too. I realize that not everyone has played the older games in the series (or even heard of them), so here is some footage from the NES version, and yes, it is suppesed to look like that.

If you have the means, go out and buy this game.

NOW.

I cannot recommend this game highly enough. Seriously, it is one of the most amazing, intense, enjoyable games I’ve ever played. And I say “enjoyable” instead of “fun” for a reason. I had a great time playing the game, but it’s hard to call one of the most accurate depictions of combat in any medium “fun.”

The multiplayer aspect on the other hand is one of the better team based FPSs I’ve played in a while, but more on that later.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, available on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC (I played it on PC), was developed by Infinity Ward, the developers of the first two Call of Duty games. Other installments in the series (Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, Call of Duty 3, etc.) were developed by other teams at Activision to a lesser degree of success. Not bad games, just not up to the standard of the “real” Call of Duty series.

Anyway, back to the game itself.

The game, as the name implies, attempts to give players some kind of idea what modern warfare is like. It’s a lot less two-hundred guys charging a hill and more five guys trying to find cover in the middle of a firefight. Without giving too much away, you play through related conflicts as two different soldiers, one a member of the British S.A.S. special forces, and the other a U.S. Marine. Although not based exactly on any specific events, the Marine’s missions take place in a Middle Eastern country and deal with the U.S. moving in to overthrow a dictator. It’s not exactly hard to see what they were going for. The S.A.S. soldier’s missions mainly take place in the former Soviet Bloc, and foreshadow future conflicts that could arise due to political instability in the region.

The missions are strung together by briefings and news broadcasts, usually of events that have already happened in the game, displaying how military operations, especially covert ones, aren’t always show exactly as the happened, even if the general idea is right.

Anyway, this game is intense. Even on the easiest difficulty you end up seeing the tastefully done, and sometimes thought provoking, death screens quite often. They just have the screen fade to gray and display either a quote about war, like “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” -Winston Churchill, or some interesting fact, like that a single B-2 Bomber costs $2.2 billion. It’s much better than just some tacked on “GAME OVER” screen, and helps add context to your actions. Higher difficulties make the game even more difficult, increasing realism. As in, one shot and you’re dead realism.

Beating the single player game also unlocks an Arcade mode, with a running score and set lives for each mission, so that adds a little replay value, but the multiplayer really is good enough to stand on its own.

Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer is amazing. Great weapons, good balance between side for team games (on most maps anyway) and RPG elements to keep it interesting for a long time. By getting kills, capturing points, or completing other tasks you gain experience which progresses you through the ranks, unlocking new weapons and abilities called perks. Between the different weapon layouts and perks, you can customize your character to fit your play style.

Again, I cannot recommend this game highly enough. Whatever system you play it on, it is an amazing experience and should not be missed by any gamer.