Halo 3: ODST

If I had to describe this game in 2 words, it would be this: It's Halo. There; I just described the entire experience for you.

Rating: Sweet

See ya next week.

........................................................

All right; all right. If you didn't get enough bang bang goodness from Halo 3, you can now pick up this little gem if you didn't already. In fact, why am I reviewing this? Who doesn't own this game by now? You weren't waiting for me, were you? AW, that's sweet (in a gay sort of way). With that said, there are some additions that make things more enjoyable, but I just don't feel like it's THE game to get, despite others saying otherwise.

Big Monster vs. Pistol....Good Luck Pal

The story takes place between the events of Halo 2 and 3 as you control a group of drop troopers on a mission to save the city of New Mombasa, which they fail miserably. Did I ruin the story for you? Of course not; you got the game already, and if you don't, you still already know that from Halo fuckin 3. Microsoft proves once again that Master Chief is overrated and casted a bunch of humans to do the grunt work. Yep; Halo with normal humans instead of a cyborg. Talk about fuckin innovation.

Despite my snarky comments (haha...snarky), playing with normal slightly above average humans with great thresholds for pain and super strength does change the way you play. Instead of gun blazing and running head first into the enemy for one or two smacks to the head, you spend a lot of time ducking and dodging to stay alive, at least on heroic difficulty because any lower on the settings will make you look like a pussy. You don't have the usual kind of health either. You have a shield like Chief, but it's nowhere near as strong. Once the shield is down, bullets start chipping away at your health. Although the shield regenerates, your health doesn't, so you have to find med packs. If you played the first Halo, you have the general idea. Once you get used to this, then you may commence with the pistol whipping. Sometimes, it's better to just sneak around the enemy and avoid fighting altogether. Stealth in a Halo game...the devil must be wearing a winter coat by now. I'm saying that hell has froze...you get the joke. Other than that, it's pretty much Halo, for better or worse.

WHOA! Dude! Don't Shoot the Cameraman!

My biggest problem is with the multiplayer. Don't get me wrong; it's still fuckin awesome. If it was a cake, Halo multiplayer would be a fuckin upside down awesome cake with awesome filling and ice cream on the top (the ice cream's flavor? Kick-Ass). My problem is that the multiplayer is Halo 3, not ODST. I have this game already! So do most ODST owners! Why fuckin repackage it? I know what some of you are saying. "Kevin you under-appreciated, unexplainable handsome man of gaming, if the Halo 3 multiplayer kicks so much ass, why bash ODST for repackaging it?" Because they cheaped out on the ODST multiplayer. Yes, you have co-op campaign and firefight, which pits 4 players against endless waves of cannon fodder, but that's it. There's no competitive ODST games to be found, which sucks balls. I would have settled for just Slayer and Team Slayer as long as I get to play as the ODST guys and use their new guns. It's not worth 60 bucks for half a game I already own.

Look Alive Boys! Time to Do Some Pwning!

In short, Halo 3: ODST is a..........you're playing it right now, aren't you? Hold on; let me go online. I need help with unlocking recon armor.

Rating: Sweet (again)

NOTE: Seriously, how do you unlock recon?

Batman: Arkham Asylum

I don't think many people thought this game would be decent, let alone be one of the best games of the year. Batman and video games never really seemed to get along in the past. There have been of couple of good ones in the SNES days, but for the most part, Batman games suck donkey balls. In fact, with the exception of MK vs DC, DC has no good games to its name except the aforementioned SNES Batman. Going into this, it's totally understandable to think this is a waste of time, but then you play it, and you're silenced by its awesomeness. It's been a long ass time since a game has made my jaw drop (Grand Theft Auto 3 I think), but Batman has so many kick-ass moments that about half way in, my jaw was on the floor for the rest of the game (it broke off...call a doctor). Even if you know very little about the bat, you still feel like this game does him justice, which is more than what I can say about Jason Bourne and his game. Dude, imagine Batman and Bourne working together. That would be sweet.

I said make me a balloon animal dammit!

The story begins with Batman bringing Joker back to the asylum in his ultra sleek, badass Batmobile...hey why don't I add that into Club BadAss? Anyway, feeling that Joker gave up too easily, Batman decides to escort the loony into the asylum. Well, the Bat was right. Soon, Joker gets loose and frees the inmates. Now all hell has broken loose, and it's up to Bats to fix everything the only way he knows how: extreme violence. Keep in mind that this is Arkham Asylum: the place where Batman brings all crazies he catches. Normally, I would say a hero is screwed, but this is Batman. There's nothing a punch to the dick can't solve.

There are 3 elements to Arkham Asylum: combat, exploration, and stealth, and each is done very well. Normally, no one really gives a shit about exploration, but here, exploring has its own rewards. The riddler has left trophies and...well riddles...all over Arkham, and finding them unlock challenge rooms. The combat is probably the most satisfying part of the game, as it should be. If kicking ass ain't fun, then what's the point (like oneechingchang...still doing oneechanbara jokes apparently)? The controls are simple enough: X to attack, Y to counter, B to stun, and A to dodge. You think with only one attack button, you can just button mash, but noooooo mister video game man; it's not that simple. You need to balance all of the four buttons (when called for) and time everything right, or else you'll know first hand what a human fist taste like. There's this one glitch in the combat that may be the best glitch ever. One of Batman's move is him jumping on a downed opponent sternum and punching him in the face for the knockout. Sometimes though, he lands on their face and punches them in the dick. I'm pretty sure that wasn't done on purpose, but I'm glad it wasn't fixed. The punch in the dick always results in a knockout, too. Makes sense. The stealth element surprised the hell out of me in the fact that I liked it. My friends know I hate stealth, but I had fun picking people off one by one without being seen. The fact that Batman can hide in the rafters (and the enemies never fuckin look up) makes stealth easy, and him assortment of moves and gadgets are cool to use. The best part is that stealth isn't the main part of the game. It's regulated to certain parts of the game where goons bust out the guns. It doesn't happen as often as you think.

Ah! Bats hate light you douche!

So, you know all this stuff already. It's been over a month already so you should have heard all the praises by now. Question is, is there anything wrong with the game? Sure, I can find something to complain about. First is the run button. Why is their a run button? I thought we ditched that kind of thing when they created the analog stick for the N64. When you're not holding down the button, he does this slow walk like one of his bat gadgets curled up into his ass. Until you get used to it, making a getaway can be problematic. The boss battle are just down right disappointing. Bane was a challenge the first time through, but really, it's like the developers ran out of ideas when it came to boss battles. The most disappointing is the encounter with Killer Kroc. At first, it freaked me right the fuck out, but when I finished it, I was saying "....that's it?" As for the challenge maps, the only way to unlock them is doing the Riddler's challenges. After you beat the game, you can go back and solve the puzzles, but it's so fuckin boring. I understand you want to give people a reason to solve these, but c'mon. I want my damn maps.

So many options at this point

Unless Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 proves me wrong (and it probably will), Batman is the game of 2009. You know it, I know it, Batman knows it, and Rocksteady knows it. It's been said that they are already working on the sequel. Kinda hard to see where this can go from here, but then again, I couldn't imagine a game like this to begin with. Just remember to make the boss battles fun, okay guys?

Rating: Fuckin Awesome

NOTE: ..........I'm Batman!

New List

Someone suggested to me that Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 should be on the list. Good point. So I'm added it to the list. I'm also added Sonic even though I haven't done the review yet.

9. Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
8. Sonic Unleashed
7. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2
6. Sonic the Hedgehog
5. X-Blades
4. Pimp My Ride
3. Bomberman: Act Zero
2. Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
1. Vampire Rain

Keep in mind that games directed to little kids do not count since they generally suck to begin with. Besides, as long as they're happy (and quiet) then I'm happy.

Vampire Rain (W)

Oh my god. This is it. I found it. This has to be the absolute worst game for the Xbox360. Never have I played a game so bad, that I felt such strong physical pain before. Seriously...OW. To be completely honest, I didn't get far into the game because it was so bad, I couldn't play it anymore. Despite this, I still had a review to do, so I gave the game to 2 avid gamer friends of mine and asked them to give me feedback on this shit. For some reason, they don't want their names attached to this review. Maybe it's because they don't want to be attached to this piece of shit. Maybe it's because they knew I would misquote them and call them names. Either way, I thank them for what they done for me. Now, here's our review of the game that beat out Leisure Suit Larry for the top spot of worst.

Sam Fisher?

The game starts off with a poorly, POORLY, acted screen with a commander and his assistant talking about the increasing vampire problem. It's this scene where you hear this line:

"We were suppose to be the country's watchdog. Well, this watchdog grew some teeth, and it's time to bite back."

......moving on...

So, basically you play as Lloyd who's job it is to get rid of these bastards. How do you do it? By sneaking past them. Yep, this is a stealth game, and a game where you sneak past vampires is suppose to be pretty freakin sweet (I don't really like stealth games, but the other guys do), but they couldn't fuck it up worst, but I digress. The story is bad, the acting is bad, the dialog is bad, your sister's cooch is bad; everything is bad.

I'll show you who's taillight is busted

You know in the old Metal Gear Solid games, there was a radar telling you where the enemies were? Well, this game has it too, but nothing will show up. I was wondering what was the fuckin point of the map if it didn't tell me where the enemies were, but then I found out about the Necrovision. You use your goggles to see if anybody in the area is a vampire or human. If you scan a vampire, then it shows on the radar. It's a fuckin hassle to stop every 5 minutes to put on the goggles to see if it's friend or foe just so they appear on radar. Why not just have them on the fuckin radar to begin with!? And why the fuck are there humans on the street? Don't they know there are vampires? Anyway once you do that, then you can start sneaking around. Now, what's one important aspect of stealth games that is vital? It's freedom of movement. Does this game have that? Of course not. It's a shitty game. The game is very specific on where you have to go, and if you try something else, then expect to hit dead ends and have vampire teeth up your ass. Does the game tell you where to go or at least leave some clues? No; that would be the smart thing to do. Instead you have to find out through trial and error, and in a stealth game, that leads to a shitload on death. What the fuck were they thinking?

The only time a gun is useful.

So, what do you do if a vampire spots you? You die. You will always die. The guns you carry around are nothing more than a cocktease because they don't do shit against the vampires. I unloaded a whole clip of my sub-machine gun into one of these bastards, and he still killed me, IN 2 HITS! Can you run? Fuck no. Vampires are much faster than you. Plus, you will have to deal with sticky controls, so even if you could run, you will fuck it up and die. If a nightwalker spots you, just rest the control down and wait for the retry screen because there aint a damn thing you can do about. In good stealth games, you could at least defend yourself to some extent, and if you couldn't do that, you could always run. Vampire Rain basically gives the middle finger to players and says "Tough shit. You shouldof never got seen." This game is pure agony in disc form, and if you bought this, I wouldn't blame you for killing yourself.

Rating: Red Rings of Death (TWICE!)

Well, that might be the worst game for Xbox360, period. That's good. It means I won't have to review Sonic the Hedgehog or Too Human because I know for a fact this is worse. I know some people were looking forward to see me bash Sonic again, so I'll tell you what. I'll still do the review for Sonic the Hedgehog on 360. It's not over yet. There is still one game left that may be the worst game yet. Until then, here's the list from bad to worse.

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
Sonic Unleashed
X-Blades
Pimp My Ride
Bomberman: Act Zero
Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
Vampire Rain

NOTE: That new Batman game is awesome. The review is coming soon.

Transformers 2: Quickie

I told myself I wouldn't do another quickie after the Godfather 2 review, but I don't have much to say about this game. All you do is shoot other robots. You can choose to do the Autobots or Decepticons' campaign, but the game is still the same: shoot everyone or protect something by shooting everyone. Despite the complete lack of gameplay variety, it's not really that bad. If you go into it with the mindset that is just a bunch of robots fighting, you might find it initially enjoyable. The downside is it gets old quick, but that's okay because the game isn't that long to begin with. Actually, that's not okay seeing as how the game is 60 fuckin bucks. As for transforming, I found it fuckin useless. With the exception of the tutorial stage and the ocean stages, I never had to transform once. While we're on the subject, who's fuckin idea was it to make the fire button and the transform button THE SAME FUCKIN BUTTON! You have to hold LT while pressing RT to fire, but if you forget, then RT will transform you. If you do wanna transform, you have to hold down the RT to stay transformed. You can't stop the vehicles either; RT is also your accelerator. So, if you let go of the RT to try and stop, you'll transform back to your robot state. What a load of shit. Other than that, it's an okay game to entertain the kids with.

Rating: Meh

NOTE: Are you fuckin happy now Travis? I reviewed the fuckin game.

'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.

Onechanbara (W) (STS)

Wow. I didn't think I would have to touch this game. Back when I did my STS segment, I left this out because I couldn't continue to play shitty games anymore. Now that I'm actively looking for shit, we come to it again. So, how is Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad? Well, besides having a name so long I couldn't fit it in the title, OneSantaBarbra isn't as bad as all the critics made it sound. Don't get me worng; it's still a steaming pile of shit that been left out in the sun all day to cook, but it's not the worst. Damn Larry, is there any game that can remove you from that spot?

....Boobs...again...

What's the story like? I have no freakin clue. I can't make sense of the story. I found out this is the third game in the series, so I guess you need to play the first two to get the back story. If that's the case, then why release this one to the states and not the others? Well, whatever. Let's just get to gameplay. Remember how to play Turtles in Time? It's just like that. You press X until you're bored, then press X until you're even more bored. You can get through most of the game by pressing nothing but X. The boss fights are a bit more complicated, but you get my point. Onechanbarberchair seems like the kind of game where you can really open up on a crowd with massive combos, but it doesn't. The enemies are piss easy. They don't go down easy (they're zombies by the way), but they don't necessarily attack you with great urgency either. So, you spend most of the game hacking through legions of the undead. Sounds like fun. Should be fun. Just not fun. Onechewbaca has one interesting feature. The women absorb the zombie blood into their skin. When they absorb enough, they transform into crazy bitches that are faster and deal more damage. In this mode though, it drains your health. Most people cry that it's the stupidest power-up ever, but I have to disagree on that because it's not a power-up. The one thing I did understand from the story is that their blood is curse, so when you transform, you're not technically powering up; you're cursed. It was (I'm guessing) designed to be something you wanted to avoid, and I can respect that thought process to a point.

This is why we don't free Willy

My biggest problem with the game isn't the combat. It's the fact that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO DO! Onechansformers fails at telling you what you need to know. I can't understand why there's no tutorial. Even the instruction manual doesn't tell you shit, except the button layout. I found out there's an inventory screen by accident. I was trying to hit the big button to bring up the dashboard, and I hit the back button instead. Isn't that something that should have been brought to my attention earlier. Good luck finding your way around because the game doesn't tell you where you need to go. It has a map, but it doesn't tell you where your next objective is unless you're in the same area. I hope you enjoy walking around in circles because you will be walking around in circles because you will be walking around in circles because you will be walking around in cirlces because you will be walking around in circles because you will be walking around in circles because you will be....FUCK!

This game also has a dress-up mode, which panders to the perverts who make up the target demographic. So, if your favorite girl isn't slutty enough, you can change that. You have to unlock the clothes by playing through story mode first, though. It also has 2-player split screen which a lot of games don't have anymore. I decided to try in out with Neil. Neil, what do you think?

[Neil]: I fuckin hate this game.

Good point Neil.

[Neil]: The fuckin graphics look like my PS2, the fuckin camera is too damn close to the girl, AND WHY THE FUCK IS MY SWORD STUCK IN THIS GUYS TORSO!?

Oh yea, in Onecharboiled, your sword will collect blood on it. When the sword has too much blood on it, it can get stuck in someone. You have to remember to periodically clean your sword, or else...

[Neil]: GOD DAMN LOADING TIME! The graphics look like shit, and the background isn't even detailed much, so why the fuck DOES IT HAVE TO LOAD ALL THE DAMN TIME!? GTA4 doesn't load unless you do a mission. Gears of War barely loads at all. Those games look 3 times better than this, SO WHY DOES THIS ONE HAVE TO LOAD!? AAAAAAAAHHHHH!

See, Neil isn't used to playing shitty games, so he can't handle it like I can.

A vampire's buffet

Onechatroom probably should have stayed over in Japan because there's no love for it here. You can't even find this game used because nobody would buy it (except my dumbass). With that said, it's nowhere near the worst game for the Xbox360. I can't even really give it the red rings of death rating.

Rating: Ass (Sexy ass, but ass nonetheless)

So here's the order of which these games are awful from bad to worse:

Ocechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
Sonic Unleashed
X-Blades
Pimp My Ride
Bomberman: Act Zero
Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

We still have a few games to go, including one blue rodent who's making his second appearance on this list.

NOTE: The cowboy hat and bikini combo is so last year.