A person, or a freeloader, who reads manga at bookstores and doesn't buy them. The term is more often used to refer to those that read the manga in the aisles, often sitting or lying on the floor to read, thereby blocking access to the shelves, however some people use the term to refer to anyone who reads entire manga in store (without paying for them), even if they sit in designated sitting reading areas. Manga cows are detested by some bookstore clientèle for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they do not contribute to the financial success of the manga industry, they sometimes block the aisles, and they sometimes damage the books they read.

Before anybody says anything, I own some manga. I do have Golgo 13... 12 volumes of it anyway, I'm still missing Vol. 7, but if this describes you... you'll be seeing my rage face.

When a game is constantly delayed, there's no denying that it has automatic hype. After all, Daikatana, Half-Life 2, Too Human, and Duke Nukem Forever are victims of this. Daikatana ended up being a total failure after 3 years of delays, Half-Life 2 exceeded expectations and lived up to the hype after a 5 year development fiasco, and Duke Nukem Forever is still in development after 10 years of development. So what about Too Human? Well, the story of Too Human is just as epic as any of the other three games, but after nine years of development and nine years of automatic hype... it does not live up to expectations all that well. A little more time probably could have made this game of the year material.

Given the fact that this game involves Norse mythology and Sci-Fi, you'd expect an epic storyline of gods waging war. What you get is Baldur being assigned to protect the human race from its eradication from alien machines. The human gods use cybernetic implants for their powers, and the machines are harvesting humans to become more human, while Baldur is deemed "Too Human" because his enhancements are not as godlike as the other Norse gods. They have the setup for a great storyline, but the idea of you being a god can only mean one thing... oh yeah, you're going to feel like a god playing this game.

Too Human is an action game that backs itself up with a few interesting features, but they unbalance the gameplay in your favor. Instead of mashing buttons for melee attacks, you instead use the right analog stick for all your melee combat needs. It's a great way to avoid button mashing, but in some situations, don't come crying to me if you get a blister from the fast-paced action. I said it's a great change of gameplay style, but at the same time, whatever direction you press, Baldur will dash in that direction requiring almost no effort in combat to use the left analog stick paired with the melee stick. If that's not your schtick, you can always use guns, with both triggers firing individual pistols. The guns in this game are rather weak, and just like Mass Effect, you have an unlimited supply of ammunition. Baldur himself can be one of 5 classes, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, such as the Defender being able to tank, but he's not good with weapons. The only class that can actually heal itself is the Bio-Engineer, so the other four classes are the most likely to die unless you find enough health orbs. Take caution though, you'll be dying quite a lot at points and the Valkyries will carry your body to Valhalla. You know, it's an awesome looking death when you see them carry you away, but it's a lot like the Vita-Chambers in Bioshock as in no death penalty. It's so unrewarding, and almost unsatisfying. There's an RPG element to the game where you level up, and this unlocks armors, weapons, and skills. Unfortunately the game will scale the enemies so that they're always evenly matched with you... WHAT'S THE POINT IN THIS? There is an online coop mode, but this will eliminate any sense of a storyline by cutting out cutscenes, and it's only limited to 2 players.

From an artistic standpoint, the game looks incredible. The idea of Norse mythology in a cybernetic world allows for a lot of creativity. Loki looks great when his cybernetics are sticking out of his body. All of the environments themselves are gorgeous, especially when you go into "Cyberspace" to seek help from the Norns. There's a lot of color here, so it's not your typical monotone-ish game where it's mostly brown. From a technical standpoint, I wish I could say it looks great, but the cameras are usually so far from the action that you don't get to see some enemies up close. Speaking of the cameras, they did fix them for the final release, so the Isometric camera doesn't end up in a random spot. Still, it remains with a solid, playable frame rate of 30 frames per second, and your death is entirely awesome in motion. The voice acting is superb, and a lot of effort has gone into the voice work. When I first saw Loki, I was expecting him to have this raspy voice because of his lanky build and long hair, but he's got a deep voice that suits him well. Thor is a man with a commanding voice, but sometimes I think the performance is over the top. This game gets LOUD!! I'm not kidding when I say the sound effects are absolutely satisfying, and so loud that you could tear a house down if you're not careful with volume control.

To sum it up, Too Human had a 9 year development cycle, and with 9 years of development, they couldn't reach Game of the Year material. I'm sure there's a great game hidden here somewhere and maybe I missed it, but I was let down. It wasn't like Operation Darkness, where the game was terrible in every aspect because I want to at least finish the game so I'll be ready for more. The potential for a great game is here, but if Silicon Knights is serious about making this a trilogy, they've got a lot of work to do if they want Game of the Year.

You know... GTA gets a ton of flak for giving you the option to kill cops. You don't have to kill cops people... but OH GOD...

http://sonichugame.blogspot.com/

Let me explain, see Christian Weston Chandler is a self-diagnosed Asspie who is looking for a boyfriend-free girl. Listen to this:
Today, I was at the new Target store, across from Forest Lakes, just hanging around, not bothering anyone. And, from out of the blue, these two Manajerks asked me to leave, because they said that I was loitering; I was NOT! I was there hoping to find an 18-23-year old, Boyfriend-Free girl, like I usually do. Then, from out of the blue, after I told them off, they came back with two Jerkops! And, during the middle of my speech, they chased me, pulled my pants, and pinned me to the floor. As I struggled, they handcuffed my wrists and legs, and they hog-tied me! Not only did I felt humiliated from being the victim, but I was angry at them! Not only for handcuffing me, but once again thwarting my efforts in trying to find a Boyfriend-Free Girl. They drove me to the county jail, but fortunately, they did not keep me there; I was released to my family. But now I'll have to go to court in the future. So now, I feel very miserable, sad, lonely and rejected.

Obviously Chris-Chan is using his Aspergers as an excuse for his creepy behavior. So now Chris has made it his goal in life to kill every single police officer that he can find, because the Police apparently hate a Pikachu/Sonic fusion, and virgins as well. Ever stop to think that maybe the reason they wanted you to leave was because you weren't really looking around in the store, or waiting for somebody to come out of the bathroom, but rather just standing around with a sign pointing to you? It would be the equivalent of me wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, standing in the DVD section with a big sign saying "Scientology is a Crime" and letting people know that Tom Cruise is a Scilon and warning people not to buy his DVDs. I know the difference between right and wrong... MOSTLY. When he said they chased him, it's pretty clear that's the equivalent of... *GASP!* RESISTING ARREST!!! Oh boy... somebody's in trouble.

Unless you've been living under an internets rock, you know by now The Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic have been in a feud that makes WWE's writers look incompetent. There are people who don't understand the whole thing is a joke between the two, and it's a blast. The deal was NC challenged AVGN to review the worst nostalgic movie ever, and NC would review the worst nostalgic video game ever. Both have their reviews up, and for your viewing pleasure, I will weigh in who I thought was the better man.

Angry Video Game Nerd - Ricky 1
Honestly, what was he thinking when he picked Ricky 1? I had NEVER heard of this movie at all until recently when he brought it up... in fact, not that many people really remember it because of its obscurity and direct-to-VHS quality. The idea of nostalgia is to take us down memory lane, and this movie, in my opinion, does not qualify as nostalgia. I would have gotten some enjoyment out of a review of one of the Robocop movies since everyone had seen those at least once in their life, and I actually kind of liked Robocop 2. So... I can't really say much about the subject, but the review itself is... not that good, honestly. I've noticed, and I'm sure you have too, that ever since AVGN went to Game Trailers and gets paid for his silly act, he doesn't seem to put the same passion and effort into trying to be funny. He simply didn't nail it with this review.

Nostalgia Critic - Bebe's Kids
There are people out there that honestly thought Bebe's Kids was a great movie, and was excellence in animation. Nostalgia Critic thinks otherwise though, so he decides to take us down memory lane by reviewing the classic SNES game Bebe's Kids. Ok I lied about the game being "classic", it's a terrible game. Through the whole review, Nostalgia Critic shows a lot of anger as he wants to destroy the game, but keeps pressing on to play it. Of course at the end when he's making progress, he completely loses it and destroys the game. His review is loud, and entertaining, but I think it would have worked just as well if it was NC himself and not spoofing AVGN.

So... who really wins here? Nostalgia Critic, hands down. He picked actual nostalgia, and I got a huge laugh out of his video compared to AVGN where I was just constantly going "What?" Maybe AVGN should hire NC to write a script.

Yeah, I recently went back and bought an NES because I am a total nostalgiafag. Well actually, it's because I already have the latest gear, so I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane. So, I bought a console along with Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, Rad Racer, and Road Blasters. Rad Racer starts up right away, but trying to get Golgo 13 to start was a bitch. I had to perform a certain number of blowjobs on the cartridge before the damn thing would start. Now I'm starting to understand why I was very skeptical on the N64 using cartridges when it came out.

What's the point of making your Live Journal friends only? What could you possibly have to hide from everyone? Is it all the Encyclopedia Dramatica worthy stuff you write and reply with? Seriously, other than your identity, what do you have to hide from the public? If the entry itself was meant for only certain people, ok, but is it necessary to make entries once public friends only? If you don't want to be harassed by an ED user and end up with an article on ED... don't bring up the name anonymous, or make anonymous a tag. It's that simple, but if you did that there wouldn't be any lulz to be had.

Wow... I really don't know what to say about this next gem. I was honestly looking forward to playing it when I heard about the real-time inventory system, not thinking about the problems because it was a fresh idea. Unfortunately just because you have a fresh idea, it doesn't automatically make it a good game. Atari's Eden Games studio decided to bring back Alone in the Dark after its long slumber which almost seemed eternal. Now... you know me and the press, I don't always agree with them. Seeing this game get scores as low as 3/10, my mind was boggled. Then after I heard about how Armake21 liked it quite a lot... I was even more motivated to prove IGN wrong... unfortunately, I think I have to succumb to the power of the press, they are right about this one.

In the 19th century, Central Park was supposed to be a safe haven for everyone. Inside Central Park lay some deep, dark, mysterious secrets kept hidden and protected by a select group of influential people. Lately, Central Park has been infested by evil, and monsters are killing everyone and setting everything on fire. On one fateful night, a man named Edward is about to discover the truth behind the happenings. Despite calling this game "Alone in the Dark" you aren't alone and it's not entirely dark since there's enough fire to always provide light, they should have called it "Through the Fire and Flames." As far as the story progression goes, it tries to be a cinematic masterpiece like GTA4 attempted, only AitD decided to model itself like a TV show and present itself as being episodic ala Phantasy Star Universe. The story is loaded with twists up the butt, and is probably the best part of the whole game... WHICH ISN'T SAYING MUCH!

As far as gameplay goes, it's a survival horror game much like the Resident Evil series where you fight off the occasional zombies, only it seems more like the first Resident Evil, meaning the same issues are present, but 50 times worse. The main character, Edward, moves like a freaking tank, making it almost impossible to make progress because if you're walking straight and want to go right, he has to slug his way to the direction you want him to go. Sometimes you are given a third person over the shoulder view which is the new thing to do with games, and I have no problem with it, but sometimes the game gives you fixed camera angles like Resident Evil. Just like Resident Evil, the camera angles are ATROCIOUS and DISORIENTING in that it picks the worst possible viewing angle which will obscure everything you need to see. When you're actually in the dark, you can either get yourself a torch to see your path which burns forever, or you can use a flashlight which goes through one entire battery in 1 minute, making the flashlight as reliable as the Game Gear's battery life. Keep in mind, those batteries have to be picked up in the game, there's no way to let it sit there and hope the battery recharges. If you somehow survived long enough to fight a monster, you'll be impressed to find out it's not like any other game you've ever played. In Resident Evil, you mostly found yourself shooting zombies in the head to kill them quickly, but in Alone in the Dark, a well placed headshot does not kill a zombie. In fact... you can pick up a Katana and slice the enemy all day long, and it won't die! The only way to kill an enemy in this game is to set them on fire by either lighting them with a burning object, or tossing them into a large fire. This game is all about the fire, it's everywhere, and it's the only useful environmental weapon in the game since it's the only weapon that kills major enemies. The real-time inventory system sounded like a good idea, but you're forgetting that it's real-time, meaning you open your jacket to look through your small inventory while enemies are approaching you, leaving you vulnerable when you want to try and douse your bullets with Nitro to create explosive rounds, which I don't get because if you put nitroglycerin on bullets shouldn't that make the gun itself explode? As I said, the inventory sounds like a good idea, but trying to cycle through all your items while enemies are all around you is impossible because when you're hit, you lose focus and try to get Edward to slug his way to a safe place. If you've survived your combat, you'll be pleased to know there are driving sequences and trust me when I say they're the worst physics I've ever seen, completely surpassing Gran Turismo for worst physics in driving. The car itself makes some horribly sharp turns, so if you want to turn right, your car will almost literally be facing right as soon as you move the analog stick to the right. It seems Atari and Eden Games forgot to understand that a car does not control the same as a human character, and to make things even more unrealistic, the car has a life system as well. It's one of thsoe when you're hurt badly find a safe place to recover systems, which is hilarious when your car is smoking badly and finding your health regenerate is hilarious. The one thing that really annoys me is when you jump in the car, everything slows down because the game wants to be a cinematic masterpiece. One of the features in this game is the chapter skip function that allows me to go where I please, but this should only be used for reviewers like me who need to know how everything works in a game. For the average user, they'll jump all the way to the last chapter in the game and say "I beat it."

I should also mention that this game has so many bugs, that it's almost defective. During the driving sequence when you exit the parking garage, the glitches became obvious. For whatever reason as I was driving, my car was falling apart, I don't know why. At the first turn, the road was starting to get all deformed, and if your timing is SLIGHTLY off, you're dead, you won't get to the second turn in time. If you make it though, things only get worse from there. On the first dramatic jump, the game switches to a camera angle where it shows a side view of the car, AND A TURN IS COMING UP, SO QUICK, TURN THE CAR IN THE AIR! Seriously, the first time this came up, I completely missed the turn. After the second jump... things just got worse. Remember how I mentioned the car was falling apart as I was driving? Well, when I took off, a part of the car would somehow find its way underneath the front of the car so that when I landed, I'd come to a complete stop, then the road would shoot me into the air, and I'd be dead. Now then... here's where some more glitches occur. At one point on the third turn, as I made my turn I apparently hit something invisible that caused my car to spin out. After getting past that third jump properly, there is a point in the game where rather than the road launching you in the air, the streets begin to collapse. At one point, I ran into one of the large cracks, and I was stuck in the road and could not get out, so I had to sit there until the entire road collapsed. This wasn't the only instance where I got stuck on something, getting jammed in the road happened twice. Two times at this same spot, I got stuck on top of a car. I ended up hitting the side of a car, and I somehow managed to get on top of another car, and my wheels were on NOTHING. I could not get off the car, so I had to wait for the road to collapse. After surviving a broken driving sequence, I noticed on foot that the cabinets in the public restroom have unlimited supplies of medical spray, bandages, and explosive fluid, even though you can only carry so much.

So yeah Armake21, I couldn't get past it on the first go, so according to you, I should stop playing video games if I remember that video correctly.

Surprisingly enough, the graphics are pretty good. It looked incredible until I noticed the screen tearing and framerate drops when things got way out of hand. Still, those fire effects are just beautiful to see in high definition, and probably some of the best you'll ever see in a game at this point. The characters are modeled nicely, and what's interesting is Edward actually has visible wounds when he's attacked, and they stay on him until you heal them. The soundtrack is sparse in this game, but from what I heard was just as generic as horror movies, playing at dramatic cues, building up to the drama, etc. The voice acting itself is not the best, Edward sounds way too generic and ordinary like he has no personality, and your female companion is relatively annoying to the point of my ears possibly bleeding. The sound of the walls cracking, and buildings falling apart was very satisfying to hear. If I had a surround sound system, I'd think my house was falling apart!

So we can sum up that Alone in the Dark is really not Alone in the Dark but rather "With Buddies in the Flames" considering you're not alone in this game, and it's never dark since there's fire everywhere. It seems Atari put out a game designed to show off how well it could create fire effects, but forgot to make a game that was playable. It isn't broken like Operation Darkness to a point where I hated it so much I wanted to do bad things to it, but it's just terrible. If Atari and Eden Games wanted to revive AitD, why would they use the Uwe Boll movie as inspiration since it had almost nothing to do with the previous Alone in the Dark games. It could have been good, but Atari said "Screw it, the release date is coming, we're going to release it on that day, and not polish." Yet another big budget failure, and it's tainted my 360 and my Xbox Live Gamertag. For once, I'm seeing eye to eye with the press on a game, and I still wonder why Armake21 liked this game...

I have to warn you... what you are about to see may disturb you, make you feel insanely uncomfortable and possibly contemplate suicide.

( Click here if you dare! )
Before you say anything, no I'm not good at painting doll faces either, but I believe that I'm at least one, if not two steps above this.

So... the Avatar finale aired and the Zutara ship sank like a rock. So what happened as a result? Zutara wrote off the finale as being horrible because of this, saying it was cheesy, and pathetic. I'd like to see YOU write an epic ending-- oh wait, your idea of an epic ending is Zuko and Katara getting married and having Firebending Water Babies amirite? The way you were acting prior to this was you acted as if Mike and Bryan owed you Zutara and that they should listen to you. Let me tell you something, they don't owe you a damn thing, it was their show, not yours. So if you want to disrespect them for an ending of epic proportions... well I'm not going to stop you, but if you are seriously crying in real life over not getting a Zutara ending... you're just a problem on the internet and Anonymous will be dealing with you accordingly if they aren't already doing so right now. Now if you'll excuse me... I've got an LJ to rework!

This is by far my biggest review yet... after all, it's only been called one of the best games ever made.

Funnily enough, I wasn't particularly interested in GTA IV when it was announced, to be honest I had another game on my mind, called Too Human. While waiting for Too Human though, I thought I could tide myself over with something, and GTA IV happened to be my target because of how ambitious the press made this game sound. Before the game was released, I looked at early reviews that proclaimed this game to be one of the best games ever made and that they couldn't find a single flaw with it. Could it be that a developer FINALLY made a perfect game that is flawless? COULD IT BE THAT WE HAVE STUMBLED UPON THE GREATEST GAME EVER MADE? IS THIS THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS???????? No... GTA IV is by no means a bad game, but it's not deserving of all the perfect scores the press and rabid fanboys give this game.

You take the role of Niko Bellic, a fresh off the boat European who is trying to escape his horrible past by pursuing the American Dream in Liberty City, which surprisingly is modeled after New York this time... my how times have changed in Liberty City to be able to change its whole lay out. Now, I've never played a GTA game beyond GTA III, but in my opinion GTA III almost felt like it had no sense of real story or characters. Rockstar got its act together and brought in characters that feel real, and an actual storyline that makes you want to finish the game and find out how Niko turns out in the end. This game is humorous when it needs to be, and does such an incredible job. It offers genuine laughs, especially when it involves Niko's cousin Roman, who always seems to end up in the worst situations ever where he starts to panic like crazy, yet somehow is able to laugh it off in only a matter of minutes. Before you say anything, yes the story and dialogue makes for a great action movie, but we all know how movies based on video games turn out, right?

It plays like any GTA game before it; drive this guy from point A to point B, go follow this guy and kill him, kill that guy before he gets away, blow up that building, kill all these guys, go get something for this guy, you get the idea by now, right? There's nothing wrong with this, after all it's a formula for GTA, but if they made this game nothing more than a graphical update of GTA III, it'd get stale fast. HOWEVER while the formula is intact, trying to complete these missions sometimes becomes a big f***ing chore thanks to poor combat systems. The worst is the unarmed combat, in that it's very sluggish and unresponsive. You basically lock on to a guy and wail away, and you can mash the buttons all you want, but sometimes it won't respond. When I say the melee combat is sluggish, I mean that when Niko throws a punch, it doesn't look like he's hitting anybody that hard. I know some of you are thinking "Why not draw a gun and end it like that?" In some places, you're not allowed to carry a gun, so melee is sometimes the only option you have to kill a guy, or in this case immobilize them. Armed combat isn't all that great either, mainly due to some severe issues with the lock-on and cover systems. The cover system was obviously thrown on at the last minute to compete with other third person games that use cover systems like Kane & Lynch, Gears of War, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune use. In GTA IV it is rather slow as Niko slugs in and out of cover, and I mean he does it SLOWLY. If this were real life, he'd be DEAD fast. The same thing goes for rolling to dodge gunfire. Niko rolls slowly as well, which surprises me considering if he's rolling at a slow speed, why can't the enemies hit him, are they really that stupid? Now as far as the lock-on goes, it has problems up its butt like you wouldn't believe. Pressing the trigger down half way allows you to aim manually, while pressing it all the way causes auto lock-on, something that some consider a blessing, but in this game it turns out to be the ultimate curse you can't lift or remove. In one instance, I had a bunch of guys in a warehouse to deal with, and as I was slugging along in and out of cover, auto locking-on, the system decided to constantly switch targets on me, causing me to lose focus completely, but it would also stay locked onto a dead guy. When me and a bunch of baddies were in cover, I kept trying to auto target one guy I had a clear shot with, but the game kept focusing on another guy like I should have killed him first, and I didn't have a clear shot at him. Somehow, all those fools at the press were willing to overlook these issues because of the fact the city felt like it was alive. NEWSFLASH, NPC CIVILIANS DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE GAMEPLAY IN HERE. IGN finds it awesome how one girl was looking in her rear view mirror when a guy crashes into her, and he runs out of his car to see if she's ok. Anybody can program interactions like this, it isn't exactly rocket science. I should also mention that the cops in this game are really, really brutal. At one point, I was calling my cousin Roman for a cab ride to get to my destination, then I see this cop chasing some guy, and the cop bumps into me and falls on his face. While I'm sitting there waiting for the cab, the cop sets his sights on me and attempts to arrest me, just because I was "responsible" for his fall. Man, that was such a crime to have a bunch of cops come after me just because a cop ran into me and fell on his face. Believe me when I say there are so many ways to get side tracked in this game, because you can now hang out with people, surf the internet, shoot pool, go bowling, and date a pretty girl. WHAT FUN! Driving still works rather well though, and thanks to an awesome physics engine you can now fling yourself off a motorcycle 38 ft into the air, and face plant onto the road, and survive with a decent amount of health left over. Now I know you're thinking "it's a video game, it doesn't need to be realistic," but if I can't survive a 30 ft. drop in Call of Duty 4, I shouldn't be able to survive ANY 30 ft. drops.

GTA IV finally gives the GTA fans an online multiplayer, and it turns out it's not that bad once you get past the fact that everybody playing this game thinks they're all "hood" and "gangsta" when they're probably a bunch of wusses in real life. There's a free mode, where you and 15 others just run around ALL OF LIBERTY CITY doing whatever you like. You can set up drag races, your own crazy shooting games, or just go around Liberty City. If you want more organized games, they have standard deathmatch and team deathmatch, which is great, especially when you get a bus and everybody's trying to blow you up so they can go on a killing spree with the bus. There's a mode where you do Mafia work, where your boss will call you on your Badger phone and tell you to complete a task. By doing so, you score a bigger cash bonus, and you can work as a team, or go solo against the world. Turf Wars is a basic Capture a Point and maintain control, a.k.a. Domination. Carjack City involves going after a specifically marked car, and trying to return it to your boss in as good a condition as possible. The Cops and Crooks mode is reminiscent of Kane & Lynch's Fragile Alliance mode, but there's no backstabbing involved, and one team plays a bunch of robbers and the other a bunch of cops. C&C is my favorite mode so far, but you should consider giving all the multiplayer modes a shot, they're actually pretty fun.

This is a very beautiful game, no doubt about it. One thing I will guarantee is you'll be able to spot several NYC landmarks thanks to Liberty City's new layout. It still amazes me in that after only so many years, the city has gone through a massive overhaul. This game looks so beautiful, that I am simply amazed at how smooth it runs without a single hitch. The radio station music really leaves something to be desired, so I leave it on Public Liberty Radio, and it's really hilarious. The voice acting is great, every accent sounds very real, but at the same time that becomes a bad thing, because for the love of me I can't understand my Rastafarian friend Lil' Jacob!

So yeah, GTA IV is not a perfect game, I just tore it a new one by mentioning every issue with the gameplay and I still think it's a damn good game because when the lock-on isn't screwing up every chance it gets, the game turns out to play rather well. All the pressies are willing to overlook the issues I mentioned, and still give it a perfect score, because of the interactivity and AI of the NPC civilians. Well, I'm not willing to overlook those issues because of that, this is a video game, not a simulation of real life!

Everybody will make an attempt to cash in on a game's past success. Take a look at the original Robotron in the arcade, several years later they attempted to cash in on it with Robotron 64 and Robotron X. Here we have Sega doing the same thing, only instead of cashing in on a single game, they're desperately cashing in on a franchise. It's just a shame that they had to do this and not release House of the Dead 4. Released for the Wii, House of the Dead 2 and 3 Return is a simple cash-in on the HotD name, but if you've already experienced the console ports of HotD 2 and 3 on Dreamcast and Xbox, then there's no point in playing these games.

House of the Dead 2 pretty much has you taking on the role of AMS agents James and Gary as you go through a European city shooting zombies down to "prevent the confusion in the city" and stop a man named Goldman. House of the Dead 3 has you taking on the role of Lisa Rogan and G as you enter what appears to be a research facility, and attempt to save Lisa's father, who you played as in the original House of the Dead. These stories are simple, and the transitional cutscenes usually help to convey some of the story, but it's borderline ridiculous, especially House of the Dead 2 when Goldman looks like some rich businessman hell bent on unleashing a killer horde of zombies. In HotD3, the cutscenes explain A LOT about what happened in HotD1, so now we know why Curien went insane and started unleashing hordes of zombies. There isn't much to say here, it's a light gun game so story was minimal, but if Namco could present a decent storyline with Time Crisis, surely Sega could do just as good with House of the Dead!

As I mentioned earlier, it's a light gun game, and I have to say they handled things VERY WELL with the Wiimote. I've said it 20 times before, and I'll say it again, this is what the Wii was meant for. Unfortunately, this is also a bad thing to say because this is just two direct ports of the console releases. The arcade, original, boss, and time attack modes from the Dreamcast and Xbox ports are here. The original mode for House of the Dead 2 allowed you to play the game with extra perks such as more bullets, more credits, more health, more power in your bullets, you get the idea. One of the biggest problems I have with HotD2 is the second boss, simply because of an in-game issue. His weak point is his chest, and when he starts jumping in the air, it's exposed for a small second, but his lifebar covers the point that it's hard to hit sometimes! House of the Dead 3 offers an extreme mode which adds motion control and tougher enemies. Nothing special really, there's nothing new in these packages but if you never got the chance to play these, you know have the chance! If you can get a friend, then this game is more fun, or you could grab a second Wiimote and dual wield for more excitement and kick serious zombie butt! The only thing I'm left asking is why isn't House of the Dead 1 on here? My guess is this... House of the Dead 2 and 3 were already on the Xbox, as when you beat HotD3 you could unlock a port of HotD2, so it was just a matter of coding the game for the Wii, but having HotD2 unlocked from the start. HotD1 was ported on the Saturn, where it was one of the worst looking games ever, and Sega couldn't be bothered to give us a proper port of HotD1 with its Model 2 arcade board graphics.

As I said earlier, these are direct ports, meaning no touch ups in the graphics department. The games are showing their age severely, as HotD2 has a few textures that haven't been buffered, meaning the textures aren't smoothed out with 3D acceleration. HotD3 was a first-gen Xbox game, and I'm kinda shocked to see this game ported without any downscaling. Everyone seemed to believe that the Wii was not capable of anything better than PS2 quality graphics, but this game proves that's a lie, it's capable of original Xbox graphics. Unfortunately, HotD3 comes off as being too cartoony at times, I guess that's G's fault for having Xbox hueg hands since he's probably the only guy who could hold the original Xbox controller. You've heard it everywhere, and from me, HotD2 features some of the worst voice acting in the history of mankind. I wish I could give you some audio clips, because not only is the acting corny, but the dialogue is HORRIBLE as well! HotD3 isn't as much a joke, the acting is much better, and the dialogue is an improvement, but sometimes comes off as cheesy. I honestly prefer HotD2's soundtrack, it's a more techno-ish sound and features remixes of songs from the last game, and the final boss music from HotD1, which is still awesome boss fight music. That's not to say HotD3 has a bad soundtrack, it's pretty decent and helps to set the mood. I just think HotD2 was more fitting.

So basically, for $30, it may be worth your time if you never experienced these games before. If you've already played them, this is something you might want to consider passing on, unless you're a die hard HotD fan. Still, for that price it's a good compilation, and I only hope this will encourage Sega to get off their butts and port House of the Dead 4 onto one of the consoles. I still need to ask... when the hell are we going to get a proper port of the original House of the Dead? Oh, and HotD2 has load times on the Wii...

Anyone here familiar with the term "Hype train?" Well, I know a guy at work who fell victim to the hype train that was called "Army of Two." Army of Two is a game by those scum at EA who decided to hype this game to hell and back, and made the mistake of not thinking as they developed this game. Considering all the hype a co-worker gave me about this game saying it was the best game he ever played, I picked it up and braced myself for the worst. After playing it, I want my $60 back for what is quite possibly the poorest execution for a game that relies on co-op play.

Army of Two is about two mercenaries who were ex-military guys, and their 16 year journey to essentially clean out warzones by killing a bunch of bad guys and making money in the process. Along the way, they learn that something is wrong and there is a government conspiracy, in a twisted tale of lies, betrayl... ah you get the idea! It's the same story that tries to throw some kind of a twist in it, and if you didn't see it coming you might want to play more mercenary hired by military games. Too bad the characters really leave something to be desired, one guy looks like he's been taking too many steroids, and the other looks like a high school kid who didn't amount to anything. The storyline could almost damage foreign relations in comparison to CoD4 which didn't border along the lines of bad taste.

As I mentioned earlier, this game is entirely built around co-op play. I've played Kane & Lynch co-op, and we had no problems communicating, but let me explain. Here, you have to rely on your partner in certain situations such as having one of you push a switch to open a door so the other can join you, or to give him a boost so he can take down enemies that are in a place you can't reach alone. These sound like good ideas, but they are broken by the co-op mechanic. For example, when I had to give my friend a boost jump, he got annihilated on the ledge, and I couldn't reach him after that, which essentially broke the game. That was the last time I would play co-op, because I'd hate to be at a situation involving switches and doors. If you have an AI partner it isn't any better. At one point I was injured and called my AI partner to get his butt over and heal me because I was dying, it took him two minutes to start pulling me to safety. As if that wasn't stupid enough, the game has this mechanic called Aggro, and what this essentially means is if somebody's firing a hailstorm of bullets with a really powerful weapon, all the enemies will focus fire on him and you can flank the enemy. It's virtual invisibility and makes the game WAY too easy at times, because you can fire in short bursts while your partner is firing bullets like no tomorrow, and they'll still focus on him. Sometimes though, they spot you, even if he's on full aggro, but this doesn't exactly break the game in any way like the coop spots can. The weapons themselves can be upgraded, but the weapons can be quite costly, but this isn't the worst aspect. The worst aspect is the ability to "BLING OUT" your gun! I kid you not, if you've always had dreams of owning a gun made of 24 karat gold and diamond studs, now you can live the dream!

This is a somewhat beautiful game in a visual aspect. The character models are incredible, sometimes bordering on photorealistic, and the armor and face masks the two characters wear are awesome looking. It's just a shame that all the levels look too much like stages ripped straight out of Gears of War. I can barely hear the music half the time simply due to the fact that there's too much gunfire in the heat of battle. Still, those gunfire sounds are pretty powerful, but the voice acting just screams "Macho" more than Gears of War did.

Simply put, Army of Two is a game that tries to bring something new to the co-op gameplay world, but ultimately fell flat on its face because it didn't offer anything new. If they had more complex level design that required more boosting and back-to-back gameplay that made use of the co-op abilities, it would have been better, but probably felt gimmicky at the same time. I'm being really mean to this game though, simply because I spent $60 on it, and I really want those $60 back after all the hype EA shoved down my throat saying this would be the greatest game ever released. It presents some great ideas, but is just executed horribly.

Hey there. I've been using Second Life from time to time, and I've found a lot of problems with people in the damn thing, and this is what I'll be doing right now. The first issue I have with Second Life is... BLING. It seriously needs to be banned for all the right reasons. First off, my SL will sometimes start to stutter after I leave my computer going for an extended period of time, and what happens is the effects get so oversized, it's blinding. Second off, it's not even attractive at all, it's simply stupid looking. I've seen some Gangsta "chains" where each link on the chain has a bling effect. It's completely distracting, and gives me a MAJOR headache when I see it because the effect is too intense. Then you have the SL women who insist on buying stuff that blings, such as diamond studded shoes, belly rings (Another thing I REALLY hate), and simple jewelry. The intensity level on the shoes is always too high, and if I'm trying to pay attention to somebody in a conversation, the Bling becomes a total distraction from the conversation. The worst thing I saw was somebody had bling in their EYES. Seriously, what are you adding to yourself with bling? You're not sexy with it, you're not cool with it, it's not going to make you look like a rich person in the program. I refuse to "bling out" my avatar like a lot of people are doing. ALL BLING MUST BE BANNED.

During the release of Halo 3, I did want to pick this up, but for some reason, when I saw PGR4, I was left wondering which one is more worth it? In the end, I ended up picking PGR4 because to be honest I wasn't in a rush for Halo 3, but that I just wanted it for the sake of reviewing and find out if it's as good as everyone says. That's for another review, this is the PGR4 review. When PGR3 launched with the 360, it was a glorious looking game, but that was all I could say about it, the game had almost no true depth to its singleplayer, it felt a little disappointing. Does PGR4 improve over PGR3?? Absolutely, sometimes beyond it.

First of all, before we get too deep into analyzing, this is an arcade racer. The driving in this game is not the most realistic, it's not Forza or Gran Turismo in terms of the actual racing, this game is ridiculously fast. It's really fun, but the physics in this game can get a little wacky sometimes. The tracks themselves are really narrow, and can be the end result of some of the worst traffic I've ever encountered in a racing game considering there are guard rails and only three cars sandwiched together can barely fit! This game is all about the driving skill, in that the more style and flair you have when driving, you'll up your Kudos which are essentially POINTS that you can use to unlock various things such as more cars, more tracks, and a few extra modes of play. What's new to PGR4 is the inclusion of MOTORCYCLES! The first thing I did when I bought this game was ride a motorcycle, and then I realized how insanely difficult it is to ride the damn bike. It's easy to recover from a crash when you drive a car, but when you ride a bike, a crash can send you falling off the bike and you have to sit there for a few seconds as if the game were saying "HAHAHA YOU FELL OFF THE BIKE LOL XD" This also introduces the use of weather effects in a PGR game, and you can set the level of effect from light to heavy, making it that much harder. Trust me when I say that driving in heavy snow at 160 mph is very stupidly dangerous and you should never attempt it in real life unless you're a rally racer.

The standard arcade mode is basically like PGR3's in that you progress through a series of events which all vary. It's not just a matter of track, or weather, or car class, but it's also objective based. There's standard street racing, but there will also be some hot laps, and challenges where you must avoid knocking over traffic cones, or try and stop the clock by earning Kudos. Its not a shallow arcade racer at all, there's some level of depth here, and the harder the difficulty, the more absurd the goal can get, but it is possible to beat. Where this game truly shines is the career mode. You travel around the world, trying to reach the top of the ranks through events. It may seem like the arcade mode at first, but it goes a bit farther than that. Sometimes you will be presented with absurd challenges to earn secret cars. One of these involved me racing a 1950's race car in snow on Nürburgring, and trust me when I say this is ridiculously hard! The higher your rank on the leaderboard, the more challenging the game can get if you choose to do the harder races. There are also championships that can be won, to get big rank point increases, so long as you have either enough rank points, or qualify with a good hot lap time for the event if you do not have the rank points. It reminds me a bit of Enthusia's career mode, but less complicated.

The online multiplayer is expanded a bit. If you can play the mode in arcade, you will most likely be able to play it in multiplayer, but that's not all the modes you get. The cat and mouse mode from PGR3 returns, but this also adds a new mode of play which must be unlocked called Bulldog. Bulldog is like a game of flashlight tag where you drive around tagging the other racers, creating more bulldogs as you go along an open track. I don't play this too often, mainly because I'd rather play a real race than a silly game of tag with insanely fast cars. The only thing you have to really worry about are the people online, some of them like to play rough and crash into you intentionally with the pit maneuver just so they can secure a first place position.

Graphically, this game is near-photorealistic. It runs a smooth 30 frames per second without slowing down at all, even when it gets intense. The weather effects in this game are incredible, there's nothing like seeing rain drops on a car for once. The music in this game is once again, very well picked licensed tunes from several different genres. From classical Beethoven and Bach, to today's hits by My Chemical Romance. If they are not to your liking, you can always use your own songs off your Xbox 360 harddrive or external media device. The crashing sounds in this game are much better compared to PGR3. In PGR3, everytime you hit a wall, it sounded like somebody was breaking a Wine Goblet. This time, you hear a loud, satisfying thud of what sounds like a car hitting a wall.

Overall, it's more of the same as PGR3, but improves on it with a better selection of cars, more style, and better singleplayer elements. You still have to deal with those annoying online players who are constantly attempting pit maneuvers on you, which is the only thing ruining that aspect. The good news is they're not found often, but when you find one, it generally gets you angry because they ruin it for everyone. It's a graphically amazing game, but at the same time, a bit lacking in new game modes. It's quite fun, and a well developed game, but it's the last PGR game that Bizarre Creations is making. Who knows what PGR5 will be like in somebody else's hands...

Almost ready to start the video reviewing show! Just need to do a little bit of cleaning up, i.e. dumping useless boxes, clearing desk of junk. Pretty soon, I'll be taking you back to the past to play the shitty games that suck ass. Ha ha ha, just kidding. I'll be doing a little bit of everything actually. I can't promise anything special other than the show will make you think of me as a sellout and a walking billboard for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Apparently, my 360 is running fine all of a sudden. Why it was freaking out, I DON'T KNOW! It's hilarious though because when it started freaking, I was trying to kill the damn thing, but it just wouldn't die. There was no way of killing that damn thing even though it was on the verge of death. Well, this gives me more time to play Will That Damn Devil Ever Cry 4.

I think my 360 may be bricked! Well, at least getting there anyway, it seems to lock up after too much gameplay. Damned failure rates. Oh well, at least this will give me a chance to catch up on my other consoles.

This is a list of games I own for consoles that I possess, this is not including Xbox Live Arcade and Virtual Console:

Atari 2600
Asteroids
Atlantis
Berserk
Centipede
Defender
Donkey Kong
Galaxian
Night Driver
Pac-Man
Pitfall
Space Invaders
Video Chess
Yars' Revenge

Sega Saturn
Duke Nukem 3D
Gungriffon
Mechwarrior
Sega Rally Championship
Sega Touring Car Championship
Virtual On Cyber Troopers

Sega Dreamcast
Capcom vs. SNK
Chu Chu Rocket
Crazy Taxi
Evolution 2 Far Off Promise
Gundam Side Story 0079 Rise from the Ashes
Industrial Spy: Operation Espionage
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Phantasy Star Online
Sega Rally 2
Shenmue
Skies of Arcadia
Sonic Adventure 2
Virtual On Oratorio Tangram
Zombie Revenge

Xbox 360
Bioshock
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare
Final Fantasy XI
Forza Motorsport 2
Kane & Lynch Dead Men
Mass Effect
The Orange Box
Project Gotham Racing 4
Rock Band
Sega Rally Revo

Nintendo Wii
Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3
The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
Sonic and the Secret Rings
Super Mario Galaxy

Nintendo DS
Brain Age 2 More Training in Minutes a Day
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Imagination Invaders

Not much, is it? My kingdom for more consoles...

Yes, this is a Golgo 13 thread, but it's a Golgo 13 thread unlike any you've ever seen before!!

A little bit of history... Golgo 13 was created in 1968 by Takao Saito. Said manga was made in Japan, and is still going on to this day. In the 1980's Golgo 13 started making his way to US shores in graphic novels which are now impossible to find, and he's also been in some video games. He's still popular in Japan with no signs of losing steam, and still has his following in the US.

So let's continue to what happened today that left me confused. I went to 4chan's /co/ (comics and cartoons) board like I always do, and I opened a discussion about how /co/ felt about Golgo 13. /co/ happened to have an interesting discussion about the character, and everyone in general liked Golgo 13 as a whole. So let's fast forward a few hours later, when I crossed into /a/ (Anime and Manga) where I opened the same discussion to the whole board. /a/ ended up turning the thread into an "old school" picture thread. Nobody at /a/ seemed to want to discuss Golgo 13.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't /a/ be familiar with Golgo 13 given that it's a MANGA that was MADE IN JAPAN? Maybe I'm crossing the line here, but why can a board devoted to Western media have a real discussion about a piece of Eastern media? I'M TOTALLY CONFUSED!!