The Game Room

This is just amazing. Made my running 1000 replays of a Trackmaina Sunrise track on top of each other.

Despite my best efforts, I’m somehow still president of the Gamers of OSU and we’re having a LAN party!

Saturday, March 15 in the Student Union, Exhibit Room 2 (4th floor) starting at 10:00 a.m. and running until 6:00 p.m. $5 at the door.

Normally we run until about 11:00, but it’s the start of spring break and the Union closes early. We thought about moving, then remembered that we’re about broke.

The informal title of this LAN is “There will be Brawl!” As the name suggests, we’re having a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament. Make sure you show up by 2:00 if you want in. We’re still doing PC stuff, mainly Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2, but we’ll play whatever.

So come on out and have a good time!

If you haven’t heard of Penny Arcade I’m going to cut you some slack, but if you’re even remotely interested in anything I’ve written about on this site you should be reading it. One warning though, “four-letter words” are quite common, but I really don’t think the strip would work as well without it.

Seriously, Penny Arcade has some of the best analysis of video games, the industry, and geek culture in general that I’ve ever seen. Gabe’s (Mike Krahulic) artwork has steadily been getting better over the now almost ten year history of the site. He pretty consistently great now.

It’s really quite amazing how far he’s come as an artist from the first strip back in 1998.

Also, Tycho’s (Jerry Holkins) writing is amazing. He is one of my favorite writers, regardless of medium.

A great example was his description of their friend’s obsession with Pokemon:

I mean, there are profundities here. It’s like looking into a twisting hole in reality that has another hole inside it, snaking through the universe, and in this second hole a third hole is visible. In this third hole - should you look long enough - you can see your own death.

Also, this strip is another great example:

I really don’t know of too many other people who write like that.

Also, I love plays on words, and PA delivers.

But back to why they tie into gaming. Despite being just a webcomic that comes out three times a week and a “news” post detailing whatever Tycho (and sometimes Gabe) have been playing lately, they have some of the best commentary around. They don’t give games a score, letter grade, or anything like that. They just say what they think about it, good, bad, or ugly. Even their ads are somewhat personal. In the past they would take ads from just about any game that looked decent, but after there was a bit of an argument between them and Ubisoft over their harsh criticism of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. They agreed to run the ads based on liking the first game, but weren’t fans of changes made in the sequel and made that known on the site. Ubisoft wasn’t pleased, but they explained that the reason ads on their site (apparently) correlate highly with sales is that they only allow ads for games they actually really liked. After that, they started making sure they could actually play at least some of the game before agreeing to any advertising deal.

This is an even bigger deal after “Gerstmann-gate.” For those that don’t know, Jeff Gerstmann was an editor at Gamespot, one of the bigger gaming websites, and had been for several years. Eidos, the publishers of Kane & Lynch, were pumping tons of advertising dollars into the site. As in, allowing users to skin the site with Kane & Lynch themes, ads all over the site, etc. Big time promotion. Jeff wasn’t a fan of the game, giving it a 6.0 out of 10, which within the context of that site’s reviews, is mediocre at best and implies that the game is not good. Shortly thereafter, Jeff was fired. Now, there has never been an admission that this was the reason for it, but anonymous tips from other Gamespot employees has suggested that he wasn’t fired for the score, but for the overall “tone” of his review. This outraged many in the gaming community and press, but not much was ever officially resolved. Several other editors and writers left the site, either in protest or fear of being fired for one of their future reviews, and Gerstmann has recently started a new site, Giant Bomb.

It’s not even just big news that gets great coverage from them. Often, it’s just some weird quirk a game has.

So seriously, if you’re into gaming, or just geeky humor, Penny Arcade is a great read.

I got Rock Band a few weeks ago, and at least for the band my roommates made, I’ve been the drummer. I’m not great, but I’ve never played drums before, so being able to pass stuff consistently on medium seems like a good start to me.

Then I saw this video of The Perfect Drug on expert from the recent Nine Inch Nails DLC pack:

I already know Trent Reznor is a bad ass, why does he have to rub it it?

I guess the person playing in that clip is an actual drummer of sorts and did some minor mods on the drum kit to make it play a little more realistically, so I don’t feel quite as bad.

Still though, not even they got it perfect. I wonder if it’s even possible.

Although games have been coming out for Xbox Live Arcade since the 360’s launch, many are saying that with recent releases like REZ HD, N+, and this week’s release of Trigger Heart Exelica, the service is really hitting its stride as a distribution format.

With over two years under its belt, and the fact that this site just came into existence recently, I think it’s time to recognize the best games Xbox Live Arcade has to offer.

And so, without further delay, I present the top 10 Xbox Live Arcade Games!

Number 10: Pac-Man: Championship Edition

Although it looks like nothing more than a graphical update, there were many gameplay tweaks made for this release. Different mazes, a time limit, and the game’s classic gameplay make this one of the best.

Number 9: Catan

Although a board game about trading natural resources might not sound like the best idea ever, trust me, it is great. This game works wonderfully with Xbox Live because it really does need human opponents. You can pick up the game in a matter of minutes but there is tons of depth there. Also, if you really like Catan you should probably check out Carcassone.

Number 8: Omega Five

The first true original on this list, Omega Five is a great horizontal scrolling shooter. Not quite R-Type Final, but still a welcome addition to the system’s library.

Number 7: Alien Hominid HD

The little game that could. It got its start as a flash game on Newgrounds, managed to get a full retail publication on the PS2, and Gamecube, and now a high definition overhaul for Xbox Live. Funny, beautiful, and brutally difficult, Alien Hominid out “Metal Slugs” Metal Slug 3 for the seven spot.

Number 6: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

One of the best co-op arcade games of all time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is still as fun on the 360 as it was in the arcade almost two decades ago.

Number 5: Trigger Heart Exelica

Ok, I admit that I’m cheating a little bit by listing this since it doesn’t come out until tomorrow, but it’s one of my favorite shooters on the Dreamcast (and that’s saying something). All signs point to this being basically a port to bring it up to par (higher resolution, achievements, etc.), so there will have to be some kind of historically bad screw up for this not to be as fun of a game on the 360 as it was on the Dreamcast.

Number 4: Rez HD

Rez is, well, Rez. There’s not much else like it. It’s just an amazingly beautiful rail-shooter that has to been seen to be believed.

Number 3: Bomberman Live

The Bomberman series has always been one of my favorites, and this entry does not disappoint. Although there is a single player aspect to the game, it’s really just practice for the real game. It really is one of the best mutiplayer games on this, or any, system.

Number 2: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Forget Xbox Live Arcade, this is one of the best games ever. A decade after its original release on the PS1, Konomi still hasn’t moved much further (in a positive direction anyway). Beautiful graphics, great sound, tight gameplay, it has it all.

And Number 1:

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

This game, more than any other epitomizes Xbox Live Arcade. The first great game of the service, it is the one I recommend no matter what a friend’s genre of choice may be. Trippy, fun, and tough as nails, this game has yet to (and I doubt ever will) be surpassed.

I can honestly say this is the most impressive innovation I’ve seen in a game in a long time.

More impressive than the Portal gun, more impressive than the spherical worlds in Super Mario Galaxy. I even like this more than Forge in Halo 3, but maybe not the ability to record stuff. Seriously that should be required by law. But then again, that’s not really gameplay.

Anyway, check out this gameplay footage.

The game is everything Super Paper Mario wishes it was.

Fez, developed by Kokoromi, recently won the Independent Games Festival Award for Excellence in Visual Art. I’m glad that they’re getting recognition of this, but I really think they should have won in the Design Innovation category as well.

I really can’t wait to get my hands on this game. Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, whatever. Just get it out there and playable.

If you want more info on Kokoromi hit up their site or check out this interview over at Arthouse Games.

I was having trouble thinking of what to write about for my first post on the site, so even though most of it has been covered on the about page, this will be sort of an introduction and mission statement type entry.

In other words, I got tired of looking at the 404 error while working on the style of the site.

My name is Hans Wuerflein. (Pronounced “Hanz Were-fline” because no one in my family can even fake the German accent required to pronounce it the way it was originally)

I’m a News Editorial Journalism student at Oklahoma Sate University. I’m also the president of the Gamers of OSU, but other than that all I do is sit around and play games.

I hope to someday write professionally for a video game magazine or website, but I’ll take just about whatever job is available after I graduate. Oklahoma Game & Fish Magazine here I come!

As far as the gaming goes, I play both console and PC, but not a lot of handheld stuff at the moment. I’ve yet to find a genre that I didn’t like at least one representative of, but FPS, strategy (real-time or turn-based), rhythm, puzzle, and old-school point and click adventures (specifically Lucasarts’) are some of my favorites. I play sports games, but I refuse to pay more that $5 for a copy of Madden, so I’m still looking forward to playing the ‘07 installment.

I have a gaming PC, but it’s starting to fall behind. It can run everything but Crysis (duh) and Bioshock (stupid SM 3.0) though. On the console side of things I’ve got a 360, Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, Saturn, N64, SNES, Genesis/32X, and a knock-off NES. So yeah, I can play just about anything released up though 2007 unless it’s exclusive to the Wii or PS3.

Anyway, the point of this site is really to give me a place to write down my thoughts on games the industry, gaming culture, and whatever else gaming related I happen to think of. Also to get a grade in the class its for, but mainly for the writing thing.

So check back soon for, as the header suggests, news, reviews, and rants about video games.