Retro Review - Sonic Shuffle

Back in the days of the ol' Xbox360 blog, I claimed that Sonic Shuffle was the 4th worst game in Sonic history, and I made that claim without actually playing it and only looking at gameplay footage. Well, somebody called me out on that saying I can't make that kind of judgment without playing it first, and you know what? I took that to heart. With the power of the internet, I was able a copy (brand new) of Sonic Shuffle, and it turns out I snapped to judgment too soon. I've learned now that you can't really judge a game until you pick up the controller and play it. It was very unprofessional of me, and I was wrong. Sonic Shuffle is not number 4 on the worst Sonic games list; it's number fuckin 2! It catapults itself ahead of Sonic for 360 and Sonic the Fighters easily.

How do you fuck up a rip-off of Mario Party? Well, Let's see. First, tack on a very awful storyline about the world of dreams or some shit. Then, add a dash of shitty mini-games. Once all that comes to a boil, remove it and place it on a game board that is un-fuckin-necessarily huge with numerous goals that'll make playtime through one board take more than an hour. That last part KINDA makes sense since this is suppose to be a mutliplayer game, but seriously, when do story mode, what friends of yours are going to join you? And why is there a story? Since when does a board game need a fuckin story? Imagine playing Trouble and the board  game starts talking about war prisoners trying to escape and get home, only to be caught repeating by waring factions, and your job is to get them home before the other prisoners do. Kinda ruins the fuckin moment doesn't it? I believe that's the time you chuck that son of a bitch into the fireplace. Of course, there are the mini-games. Isn't that what made Mario Party fun? Isn't that the fuckin point? Yea, and Sonic Shuffle fucked them up. Never have I played such boring mini-games before. We are talking Wii Play boring here people. We're talking Fusion Fenzy 2 boring. We're talking every single game in my Worst Xbox360 Games list boring. There is no fun whatsoever in this game at all. They is no redeeming qualities, not even the graphics. Look at Jet Grind Radio, then look at Sonic Shuffle. They is no reason SS should look like that when JGR (a much more demanding game on memory) looks that good. I know it's hard to judge graphics after being spoiled by today HD awesomeness, but when you look like shit compared to a game that was not only released first, but made within the same fuckin company.....I'm overreacting. The graphics on the characters are fine, but everything else look bla.

I couldn't even finish the first stage. Actually, I did finish, but I didn't win. I never win. I don't understand how they decide the overall winner, but I know I'm never it. And this is when I have enough strength to actually sit through the first stage. I least I was able to finish Sonic for 360 and Sonic the Fighters. Hell, I even finished Sonic R if you believe that. I even got past the first stage in Sonic Spinball, and that's something most people can't do. I just can't stand Sonic Shuffle; I just can't. I would rather put my own balls in my mouth during a summer day in Arizona.

NOTE: A sweaty speedbag is never a good thing.

God of War 3

Dante's Inferno owners: look at your game. Now look at mine. Back to your game, and now back to mine. Sadly, yours isn't mine, but it sure as hell tried to be like mine with its sense of scale, camera angles, and weapons that can be politely described as formidable and best describe as fuckin awesome. Your game only had only thing going against it; it wasn't mine. It also didn't help that Dante was released a month before Kratos. Let this be a lesson to all: no one can compete against the god of murder....not god of war; god of murder, disembowelment, chaos, genocide, death defying, rage, and above all else, banging random chicks. Take that you pussy-whipped Dante.



The game does have its share of problems, and all of them (except for my friends the quick time events) stem from the story. Why? Well, the story begins with Kratos riding Gaia as she and the other titans climb up Mount Olympus after Zeus where he falls off, ends up in Hades, and is stripped of his powers. Really? AGAIN!? How many times must we send Kratos to hell before we realize it's fuckin pointless? And why must we find some whacked-out reason as to why Kratos loss his powers. In fact, why cause him to lose his powers? Can we just build on what he already has? The story also has a tendency to go all over the place. It's not bad or complicated in the least bit, but it's not single-focused as the first 3 games were. The end-game is to kill Zeus, but that's not the only goal here.



The gameplay is what you'd expect from a GOW game, i.e. not changed one fuckin bit.
[Neil]: Shooting Locust from behind chest high walls.
Shut up. Anyway, to say it hasn't changed at is a bit of a lie. For starters, and I can't be the only one who noticed this, there are no more balance beams. You're probably saying right now "So What?" Well, the balance beam parts sucked balls; that's what. I like the fact that it's gone. In terms of weapons, GOW finally did something I didn't think it was capable of doing: having other fuckin useful weapons. Of course, this only applies to the Cestus because the other 2 are nothing more than blades on chains....yea. I guess when one chained weapon works so well, why not have more right? Each weapon has it's own magic attack, but like most GOW games, 2 of them prove to be bloody useless. Umm, what else? Oh yea, There are other powers that uses a yellow meter instead of the blue meter. These powers are mainly used to get around the environments, but they can be used for combat.


You know you have a great game when I have to reach deep down to my soul to find something wrong with it. At this point, saying GOW is good is like saying the sky is blue. In fact, its been a month now since its release, so if you don't own it, then what the fuck is wrong with you.
[Neil]: I don't own a PS3
Sucks to be you.
[Neil]: Whatever. I'm gonna go play GOW
I though you said you didn't have a PS....oh yea. Dumbass

Rating: Fuckin Awesome, Sweet, Meh, Ass, Titan mode

NOTE: You know Neil, no one else is gonna get that GOW joke.

Heavy Rain

Meh. Nothing else seems to be happening, and I got some time till I finish with Bad Company 2 and God of War 3 (which was donated by a fan...omg I have a fan; thank you Thomas!) so why not? Oh yea, because I'm a game critic, and this aint a game. Don't give me some philosophical bullshit about how this changes the nature of video games or some shit like that because it don't. You can get the same effect with an interactive DVD except I guarant-damn-tee you it won't be 8-10 hours long. Is it interesting? Yes. Is it engaging? Yes. Will you see it to the end? Probably Yes. Would I recommend it for purchase? You know what, Yes. So it's a game? Heeeeeeeell the fuck no.

In this story, you "play" through the perspectives of 4 people who, each for their own reasons, are looking for the Origami Killer, a guy who kidnaps little boys and leaves their dead bodies somewhere in a wasteland days later with origami figures left in their hands. Nice. To be a successful serial killer, you always gotta leave a calling card of sorts, and make that card as unrelated to the crime as possible. If you like to behead your victims, leave beanie babies. If you like to torture them to death, leave copies of Sonic Unleashed. If you're into choking, place a Mets jersey over them. Okay, now it's starting to get a little relate-able, but the point is be random with it. That way, you gain notoriety and yet no one will know what the fuckin point of it is. The story starts off incredibly slow...turtle slow...fuckin paint dryingly slow, but stick with it then something remotely interesting will happen. After that, THEN the story shows excellent pacing. Each character you play as is somewhat interesting, but only one of them sparks any emotional interest, and that's the dad trying to get his son back. Everyone else I can take or leave (or in this case...kill off). The story is heavily dependent on the decisions you make and will change accordingly. In other words, there's no game over. The story moves on no matter what you do. That's cool and all, but there's one fatal flaw in the design: the killer is always the same person. Murder mysteries aren't fun if you know the killer already, so it kinda kills the replay value, especially since you can just watch the alternate endings on youtube. There's also one big glaring plot hole, but people normally disregard it anyway.

Someone asked me how do you play it? Simply, you push buttons. That's it; you push buttons. The whole game is quick time events, and if you know me by now you know I HATE quick time events. Luckily, you don't get dinged too bad for missing one or two in this game. I will admit that the moments are intense and since it's a core part of the gameplay it doesn't feel like a burden. Still, pressing buttons when prompted to isn't really that interactive. When you're at a ballgame and the announcer tells you to stand up and cheer, do you really feel like part of the game? I don't remember you striking out the batter so I guess not. It's more like a choice your own adventure book (I used to love the Goosebumps ones). There are times when you can walk around and talk and/or interact with shit, and these moments play like good old fashion adventure games, except it's boring as hell. All you're doing is touching random shit to try to make the story progress, and it's just tedious. Why the fuck am I'm juggling? What purpose does this serve? This ties into the slooooooow start I was talking about because shit like this unnecessarily eats up time, time I could be spending finding the killer.

I give the development team credit for trying something different (something games tend to NOT DO anymore), and once it finally got going, it was a kick-ass experience, but this is definitely not for everyone. A little bit more interactivity would have been nice, and for god sakes, let's try something else besides quick time events for a change.

Rating: Fuckin Awesome, Sweet, Meh, Ass, Bricked!

NOTE: I tried to be a spoiler-free as possible, hence no videos.

Almost

I'm still in the mist of editing, but here it is, 10 Rules of Gaming, a blog about general video game discussions. No more will this blog be an xbox exclusive, and to prove my point, my first official 10 Rules of Gaming review will be a....wait for it....Dreamcast review.....yea. suck on that.

New Site Update #2

So, I borrowed a friend's webcam, but it's not compatible with windows 7....nice. Now how will I film my latest sexcapades? Besides that, people who said they would be involved dropped out (like I knew they would) and because of time, money, and resources, I won't be making any official websites anytime soon. So now I'm in the process of turning this blog into a new one called 10 Rules of Gaming (patent pending). If you see posts disappearing or changing, you'll know why. I should be back in full power by April 15th.