'Splosion Man (XBLA)

What is the best way to solve any situation? You make something explode. Someone parked in your parking space? Boom! Need to remodel your kitchen? Blammo! Someone owes you 50 buck, so you go to his house to demand your money back, but he acts like he's not home despite the fact that his car is clearly in the driveway so he must be home, so you call his cell to see if he picks up, and when he doesn't you leave a message on his answering message saying if you don't get your money back there will be trouble, but he doesn't contact you back even though he was just talking to your girlfriend on facebook, so now you have to get back, but don't know how? 'Splode! If you think that would make a great video game, then you think exactly like the guys at Twisted Pixel, creators of 'SPLOSION MAAAAAN (hmm hmm hmmmm). This game is funny, addictive, original, simple, and bottom line, fuckin awesome.

I make thing go boom!

You control a man who is basically walking napalm, set to explode whenever he chooses without hurting him. Clearly, he's an experiment gone in a lab in the middle of who gives a fuck. Your job is to make it to the end of each level. Simple. Kinda. Maybe. In terms of story, you're not gonna find any here, but that's okay. This kind of game isn't meant to have one. It would only ruin the charm of it. Speaking of charm, this game is so devilishly innocent looking. Even when you blow up scientists, there's no real death to be seen. They turn into meat products like ribs and hamhocks (and maybe a veal). Even 'SPLOSION MAAAAN (hmm hmm hmmmmm) doesn't look all that threatening himself despite being a walking forest fire. I guess what I'm saying is the visual presentation makes the game more fun.

To play 'SPLOSION MAAAAN (hmm hmm hmmmmm), you move with the left stick and...well, explode with everything else. Seriously. You do everything by exploding. To jump, you explode. To kill scientist, you explode. To flip switch, you explode. To slow your fall, you explode. To order pizza, you explode. To wipe your ass, you explode. Really, you only have 2 options here: to explode or not to explode, and more often than not, you're not gonna pick the second option. The control scheme is so simple, there's no way you can fuck it up. Does that make the game easy. Fuck no. Like N+, this game gets brutal as you progress. Trying to figure out how to get through certain spots is basically trial and error, and sometimes it can get annoying. When you die a certain amount of times, a box appears telling you you can skip over to the next level. I wish you can turn that option off because I'm not skipping the level; you feel defeated that way, and I'm not gonna let a video game beat me!

[Neil]: Ninja Gaiden and N+

.......okay, I'm gonna let ANOTHER game beat me. If 'sploding by yourself gets boring, you can always bang with a friend (not to be confused with 'bang a friend') in 50 co-op levels. Good luck trying to coordinate that shit. You have to time your 'splosions to get through obstacles, and that can be a bitch when playing with someone who can follow simple fuckin directions.

[Neil]: Don't look at me like that. I just got the damn game.

We grilling tonight

'SPLOSION MAAAAN (hmm hmm hmmmm) is a great puzzle game, I recommend everyone to get it, especially if you like N+. It replaces Battlefield 1943 as the best XBLA game on the market (don't bug me about Shadow Complex; it's not better). It's 10 dollars, so go download it now. If you don't have the internet, steal your friend's hard drive. He won't know.

Rating: Fuckin Awesome

NOTE: Please tell me you got that Trojan Man reference.

TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled (XBLA, PSN)

On August 5th, at exactly 10:42 pm, I downloaded Turtles in Time. On August 6th, at exactly 12:37 am, I fuckin finished it. I spent the next 4 days pondering whether or not I should even do this review, but since this is insanely popular, I have to bash it. It's the American way. If you haven't played the original game, then this review means nothing to you because you weren't going to buy it anyway unless you're a TMNT fan. For those who have, this game bought back a lot of memories I had at my cousin's house. We would played for hours overheating the SNES trying desperately to beat it, but to no avail, until he got a game genie (who remembers that?). When I heard that there were to be a remake for the Xboxlive Arcade, I was generally excited, and after playing the game repeating, I can honestly say...I WANT MY FUCKIN MONEY BACK! It's not that Ubisoft did anything wrong with recreating a game that was good, but it WAS good, and what was good then isn't exactly good now. TMNT: TIT (HA! I love acronyms) did not age well, and my boredom is the proof.

For all the TIT (HA!) fans out there, it should be noted that this game is a recreation of the arcade version, not the SNES version, so you will recognize some differences if you didn't play the arcade version. The Technodrome stage that followed the sewer surfing segment is gone. That stage was an SNES exclusive. In fact, the boss in the sewer surfing stage (Rat King I believe) is also gone. Once you get to the end of the stage, Shedder sends you to Prehistoric Turtlesaurus. At the end of Prehistoric Turtlesaurus, you fight Cement Man, not Slash. At the end of Skull and Crossbones (the pirate ship), you don't fight Bebop and Rocksteady. Instead, you fight Tokka and Rahkar, who were in the left out Technodrome stage. Once you get to the final boss, you don't face Super Shedder; you face Shedder in his normal form. Why Ubisoft chose the arcade version over the SNES is a mystery to me, especially since the SNES version is the one most gamers identify with when talking about TIT (HA!). The only reason I can think of is that the SNES version is licensed by Nintendo, and Nintendo didn't want their version of the game to be released for their competitors. If that's the fact, Nintedo you greedy bastards.

Smack!

This is how you play TIT (HA!): You walk right, you press attack a lot, you walk right, you press attack a lot, a boss appears, you press attack a lot, and you turn off the game. All you do is press attack, and it's the same combo throughout the whole game. That was fun back in 1991, but in today games, we need more complicated moves. I mean, it's so simple, it makes it so hard to even review it. Unlike the original game, you can attack in 8 directions instead of only left and right, which makes thing a lot easier give or take your level of difficulty. Instead of having 2 turtles, you can now have 4 player co-op with all the turtles. The graphics have also been beefed up to match modern day standards. Everything else has been faithfully recreated, for better or worse (mostly worse). You also get unlimited continues, which makes sense since you can't feed quarters into your system. That would be weird if your 360 said you need more quarters to play. And where would the quarters go when the machine got full? If they disappeared, I would run my fuckin ass out of there. I'd probably shit myself too. Like you wouldn't. I played it once with another person, and it was slightly more entertaining. I didn't play with 3 other people, but I think having all 4 turtles on the screen would turn things into a clusterfuck. How would you be able to tell who's who. Like I said, I didn't play it like that, so I can't really comment yet. All the traps and bosses are cheap as hell and will drain your health fast. This was an arcade game after all. They were design to eat quarters with punishing difficulty, but still, not being able to avoid some of these attacks are fuckin annoying.

If you can't beat them, twirl

You will die. You will die a lot. You will die at least once per stage. Despite doing nothing but pressing one button, I can't get over how fuckin hard TIT (HA!) can be. Now, I could have put it on an easier level, but that's not the game was supposed to be played. So I drank some Red Bull, coffee, Pepsi, and pure liquid caffeine, had a smoke, beat my chest, gird my loins, and put that son of a bitch on hardcore difficulty. It took 2 hours to finished it. I would have finished it sooner, but Tokka and Rahkar wouldn't fuckin DIE! And after all the pain I went through to get to the final boss, Shedder was a cakewalk. Then after you beat it, you're left with this "What should I do now?" feeling. All you can do is turn it off, and play a real game like.... X-Blades....AAAhahahahahahahahahahahahaha.....haaaaaa sorry.

TIT (still funny) isn't worth it at all. Here's an idea: download a SNES emulator, download the game, and play it for free. Don't waste your $10 like me. To think, they were gonna charge $15 for it. This shit ain't worth $5.

Rating: ASS (to the 4th power)

NOTE: Ten Rules of Gaming does not condone the illegal use of emulators. To legally use one, you must own the system and the game you are playing, but hey, whatever you do on your computer is your own business. Enjoy your TIT.

Battlefield 1943 & Dishwasher - XBLA

You have 25 bucks to burn; what do you do with it? What if I told you you can get 2 kick ass games off the xbox live marketplace? Sounds awesome, right? Before, I never really gave a shit the xbox live arcade because it didn't really have games I wanted, and the games I did want to play were old classics I already had. There were some standouts like N+ and Portal, but it was mostly crap to me. Then I heard that Battlefield was coming out for the XBLA. That kinda confused me because Battefield known for full CD releases, and a downloadable would be going against the grain unless it was an add-on. No it wasn't an add-on. It a full game (kinda), and for 1200 points, or $15 if you want to know the actually fuckin price like any other decent human being, it's freakin worth it. With the leftover 800 bucks, I decided to get the dishwasher simply because it was there, and I had points to waste. It was the best random ass purchase I've ever made. So today, I'm giving you 2 shorts reviews for 2 awesome games that you can get with 25 bucks. Go get some points.


Battlefield 1943 is a smaller version of the PC hit 1942. It takes three maps from the previous game and adds one more specifically for air fights. It even has destructible environments like in Bad Company: not as good, still a nice touch. There's only one game mode. Both teams have a meter on the top of the screen, and the objective is to drain the other team's meter. To do this, you kill them, obviously, but that's not all. Each map has bases you can take over. The more bases you hold, the faster the other team's meter depletes. Some bases have perks you can get like planes, tanks, and even airstrikes. There are 3 classes you can chose from (rifleman, gunner, and sniper), and each one is balanced nicely, so snipers can't come in and dominate unless hidden extremely well. All in all, it's a nice size game for $15.

If you played Battlefield before, then you know exactly what to expect. If not, then let me tell you, this game is hell, in a good way. In a game full of people, you have gunfire in every direction, tanks rolling in to establish dominants, planes doing bombing runs while shooting it out with other planes and avoiding gunfire from turrets, snipers dueling from across the map, and a lot of dying. If you don't think that's fun, why even bother playing video games? I still have some problems with it, though. When a bomb is dropped from a plane, it doesn't do enough damage. I've have bombs blown up in my face with no consequence, which is funny because grenades can kill you from a farther distance. The sniper rifle sucks balls. If you don't get a headshot on a guy, then you might as well say fuck it, and move on to the next target because you will not kill him. Now, that's normally the course with snipers, but this one is so fuckin bad. Even if the reticule (which is small as fuck) is dead center, if the guy is moving, it won't connect. The bullet will hit the ground a second after you pull the trigger. That's bullshit. A bullet connecting is suppose to instantaneous with the pulling of the trigger. I shouldn't have to wait for the bullet to connect. Most of your targets will probably be snipers or just people generally standing still, so its a small problem, especially if you're not the sniper rifle type, but still worth mentioning. Besides, the good players somehow find a way to adapt and rack up the kills, anyway.

All in all, this gets my stamp of approval. It's a fun shooter, even if the feature set is limited, but hey, what did you expect for 15 bucks? Besides, there's always room for downloadable content. Now to move on to the Dishwasher.


The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (that's the full name by the way) reminds me of the good old days of the side scrolling beat em' ups for Sega Genesis and Nintendo mixed in with a little flair you would find at newgrounds.com. The story isn't really that great, but it was created by some guy in his basement, and since he's not an expert, I can forgive a poor narrative. It's not really poor per say, but it's hard to care about it, especially when there's a lot of slashy slashy do to. You play as a guy working as a dishwasher when his heart gets ripped out of you Mortal Kombat style. He's still alive, but don't know why. Meanwhile, cyborgs are coming after him for reasons he's not sure of yet, but he knows they're the reason he has no heart. So, not only is he out for revenge, he needs to figure out just how da hell is he still alive. You know, upon retrospect, the story is a lot better than I gave it credit for.

This is one of those games where button mashing is fun as all hell. Going through wave after wave of enemies with a pair of meat cleavers just never seems to get old no matter how long or how many times I do it. Don't think this game is easy, though: not by a fuckin long shot. Trust me, there's nothing wrong with putting the difficulty on easy. This game reminded me just how frustrating the 8-bit/16-bit game were except the Dishwasher thankfully has a difficulty setting that can be changed in the main menu no matter how far along you are in the story. As for the gameplay, mashing buttons is fun, but you better learn how to avoid attacks because your health goes down quick as hell. It's also a good idea to figure out the quickest way to kill people because the numbers can fuck you up. You know what, forget what I said about button mashing. Unless you're playing on easy, you better know what the fuck you're doing. Boss battles are a bitch, but once you figure out the most effective way to deal with them....okay, they're still a bitch, but at least you have a chance. Despite the difficulty, everything is setup so nicely, it's a rewarding experience when you come out on top, and not frustrating when you don't. It's like N++: it treats you like scum, but you keep coming back for more. When you do learn how to fight effective, it is such a kick-ass experience bouncing around the screen killing everything that moves. There's even an arcade mode dedicated to just that.

Both games are pretty fuckin awesome, and proved to me that the Xboxlive Arcade may actually be worth a damn. Now, if only that TMNT: Turtle in Time remake would come out already!

Rating: Fuckin Awesome

NOTE: In NCAA Football, I'm using Rutgers for season mode. I gotta go against Florida, then Oklahoma, then Texas, and after the bye week, Penn State. If I go undefeated, I better get a fuckin BCS Championship breth.

N+ - Xboxlive Arcade

Ever played a game so addictive that you didn’t care how abusively difficult it was? If the answer is yes, you will love N+. If the answer is no, prepare to yes over and over again like your sister when she stops by my house (OOOOOOOH!). N+ is just one of many Xboxlive Arcade games circulating around the Xbox interweb, but it’s one of the few games that are actually good. If you have 800 points, then use them to get this instead of those alternate costumes you were going to get for Street Fighter 4.

You're gonna die.......

No story needed. You’re a ninja trying to get the hell out of whatever room the game sticks you in while collecting as much gold as you can. You know, Academy award winning stuff. The controls are simple enough: A for jump, right click to change camera, and left stick for movement. Oh, and there’s a suicide button (X). You’ll see. You can jump off walls, slide down slopes, jumps up slopes, and jump cool stuff that ninjas do (except kill). Pulling off feats of ninja-ism is simple. Getting out the room, well……..

...you're gonna die....

In order to get out of the room, you have to hit a switch located somewhere in the room (it’s all 2D and transparent so you’ll see where it is) to open the door and move on to the next room. You have a time limit, so collect as much gold as possible to extend your time. Standing in your way are a shitload of hazards ready to abuse your ass at any given stage: lasers, mines, turrets, electrodes, ninja-sinking missiles, ninja-sinking electrodes, and really high heights. Some require you to move fast as fuck, some require precision movement, some require advanced planning , and some require improv. That’s just the first few stages. Later stages will probably require all of the above.

...and you're gonna die.

If you can’t handle failure, then this game is not for you because you will die ahellava lot. You will die repeatedly. You will die consistently. You will die bullshittingly. You will die stupidly. You will die accidentally. You will die purposely (suicide button). You will die loveless. Yea, I think that’s it. The difficulty level is that of…..WAIT got another one. You will die nameless (thanks Neil). Ok, I’ll stop now. The difficulty level reminds me of the old NES games. What I mean is that this is console stomping, controller chucking, swear word saying, frustratingly hard. Despite this though, it’s hard to stop playing. Every time you fail, you find yourself saying I think I know what to do now, only to fail again. Yea, it’s hard as fuck, but when you do pass to level you let out a hard sigh and bask in the satisfaction, kinda like what your sister does (OOOOOOOH!). The puzzles themselves aren't hard but avoiding the hazards are a true test of skill and patience. If you die, it's because you suck, and not because of some bullshit (like enemies attacking offscreen like in Ninja Gaiden 2).

If anything, N+ is a great way to gauge how short your temper is, but inside all that frustration is the feeling of accomplishment that most games lack, and that's saying something. It's a very lengthy game and worth the points if you have them.

NOTE: I bet you read this post wondering who sister I'm talking about......YOURS (OOOOOOOOOH!)