It’s been a while since the first time I’ve heard of Naughty Dog’s PS3 exclusive, The Last of Us. If you’ve read some of my earlier stuff then you already know that I’m a huge zombie fan. I’m probably the only person in the world who says “Oh great, another zombie game/movie/comic” unironically. Come to think of it, I’m the only one who does a lot of things unironically. But anyway, I was a little surprised when I saw the gameplay trailer and seemed to lose all interest in the game. Let me show you:

I’m not sure why I felt so uninterested about the game. Maybe it’s the style the game is. It reminds me of the first Uncharted game, where it has a big and beautiful environment, yet a single  linear path to traverse it. It just seems like I would end up spending a lot of time trying to find where I’m supposed to go. This was only reinforced by the way that the gameplay demo is so scripted. It was as if I were watching a cutscene trailer, not footage of someone playing. It was as if the game wasn’t even being played by a human. But I suppose after a 169-hour energy drink and candy fueled workweek, the part of the programmer that makes him a person has died a long time ago. But I digress.

The story trailer from the Spike VGAs got me a little bit more excited. Just a little bit, though. Originally, it appeared that it was just the two main characters trying to make it through the world months if not years after the breakdown of society has disintegrated into “shoot first, don’t give a crap about asking questions later”. But now it seems that there are some elements of  a post apocalyptic community. This reminds me of The Walking Dead‘s Woodbury. Oh, and for a game that’s called “The Last of Us”, there seems to be a lot of people running around. Will someone please tell Naughty Dog that Steve from Marketing needs to be let go? Anyway, this new information on the story is kind of cool, but for some reason I just can’t get into this game. Maybe it’s my instincts warning me that beyond all logic this game is going to suck. Don’t quote me on that, though.

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Skyrim came out a year ago and I’m probably the only one in the world who hasn’t played it until now. I could only get the game on the PS3 and back then the game was disgusting with bugs for the system. Even though they were pretty hilarious, I wasn’t going to pay $60 for a broken game. Now that the game’s been patched and the glitches have been (mostly) sorted out, I figured that it was safe to buy the game for half off. I’ve played plenty of games, but without a doubt I have more to say about Skyrim than any other game I played.

For those who don’t know, Skyrim is the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series. Just for the record, I know nothing about the series except that Toonami reviewed Morrowind and Ethan McManus nearly killed himself trying to get an early copy of Oblivion. In Skyrim, you’re about to be executed when a dragon swoops down and burns up the whole city. The land of Skyrim is in a civil war, and after you escape you decide which faction to support. Like most people I decided to go with the side that didn’t try to cut off my head. I was surprised how quickly I broke away from any semblance of linearity. I did it so fast that my prison buddy kept talking about his uncle in the next town without even realizing that I had ran off and started mountain climbing. Let me tell you, I am extremely impressed at how beautiful this game is. I actually went around sightseeing before I decided to go to town and get my first mission.

I made my way into Riverwood and befriended a shopkeeper who had been robbed of some golden claws. After being assured that he wasn’t talking about the Shen Gong Wu I told him that I would return it in the next 8-10 years depending on how easily distracted I get. I also decided I wouldn’t rob him blind and kill his sister (yet). You know, there really is something terribly wrong with Riverwood. I got into a fight and killed a guy my first day there. I returned weeks later and his body is still there in the street. What the hell, guys? Are you so lazy you’re just gonna let your neighbor decompose in the middle of town?

Anyways, my advice is to get familiar with the map system as quickly as you can. It took a day and a half of running in circles before I got to the next town. I finally made it to Whiterun, completely by accident and covered in the blood of animals and an elf who looked at me funny. I got there, blinked and before I knew it I killed a dragon and had a personal bodyguard who, with a wink, swore she wasn’t my concubine.  I then backed away slowly and discovered that the knack to flying is not throwing yourself at the ground and missing, but is pissing off a club-wielding giant.

After completing a few quests and liberating countless corpses of their valuables I find myself constantly needing to drop items to keep from overburdening myself. You see, in Skyrim you can pocket just about anything except horses, which you can steal but no matter how hard you try refuse to fit your coat. Since we’re all kleptomaniacs here (right?), it is essential that every adventurer buys a house. Unfortunately, when I talked to the realtor, I found out the house costs about 5 times more than I had. He gave me a couple of hit jobs but they don’t do much. Once I had to kill a bandit leader and got paid 100 gold. That’s highway robbery! The bandit was literally holding more in his pocket when I offed him! A girl who sells fruits and vegetables paid me 250 to punch a guy who was flirting with her. Why can the Jarl’s (mayor’s) right-hand man only pay me 100 for murder? I guess I’ll check out the Companions Guild and see if they’re offering some better work. If not, I’ll just have to steal some keys and rob everyone blind. I was hoping to save that for later but I’m homeless and haven’t slept in ten days.

I’ve had Skyrim since Friday and now all those jokes about people ignoring everything else to play it seem totally reasonable now. I’ve played maybe 15 hours and to say I haven’t even scratched the surface would be an understatement. Once I really got into the game, I subconsciously started thinking of it as a time-consumer right alongside school, work and well, anything that requires me to put on shoes, really. My first time I played seven hours in one sitting and I was totally prepared to play two or three more. Now if you excuse me, I have an appointment with a poorly supervised horse.

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It was like this day would never come but it’s close. Within a month the Wii U will be released in every region and the Eighth Generation of Video Games will be kicked off. I’ve talked about Nintendo and the Eighth Generation before, but I really haven’t said much about the Wii U specifically. My opinion on the console has gained more substance since it was announced back in E3, so I figured it’s about time I wrote about it.

My initial reaction to the Wii U was… well take a look at this. I mean, it just looked so gimmicky. But last week I was at Target, lurking the electronics section like I do whenever I’m forced to go outside, when I saw a kiosk for the Wii U. I picked up the controller and it was way more comfortable than I imagined. That’s not to say it felt good. No, it was too big yet not heavy enough. But I can see myself getting used to it. The thing was sturdy and it’s a pretty attractive piece of technology. I wish I could tell you what I thought of how well I think it can play games, but I can’t.

Allow me to go on a little tangent to let out some of my boiling rage. The kiosk had the Wii U and the controller, but I really didn’t get much out of the experience. Why, you ask? BECAUSE YOU CAN’T USE IT. The only thing the kiosk could do was show game trailers. It’s a quote-unquote “revolutionary” piece of technology and you can only use it as a glorified DVD remote. I seriously think that the Nintendo employee in charge of this was having some kind of existential crisis and decided that the best way to show off the new console was to not let people play any demos or even see what the dashboard looked like. BUT I DIGRESS.

Okay, back to the topic. A while ago I watched an unboxing video of the Wii U and I learned that the deluxe package comes with what’s called a Pro Controller. It’s for those of us who just want to sit down and play a game with not bells and whistles tied to our wrists. This may be the thing I like most about the Wii U. Making this kind of move is like a signal that Nintendo is ready to be taken seriously again in the console war. I hope that other people see is too and it isn’t just my childhood apophenia flaring up again. What I don’t like however, is the design. It looks like one of those third party Xbox 360 controllers you find at the Dollar Store. I guess Nintendo put so much time into the main gamepad they just said “screw it” and mangled some poor Xbox controller.

Last but not least is the games. Unlike the 3DS, the Wii U will be launching with a pretty decent library. That said, it could be better. At the time of launch, people would have played most of these titles on other consoles weeks ago. And yes, that includes the Mario game that Nintendo has been making since 1985. In my eyes, Wii U will live or die on its exclusives and third-party support. That means they need to either come up with new IPs or make games for those that have been collecting dust. It also means that the Nintendo version of triple-A games shouldn’t be watered down versions like they have been for the Wii. If it’s a no-brainer whether to get a game for Xbox or Wii U, it should only be because the Wii U version is so freaking good.

Oh, one more thing. I could write a couple hundred words on what I think about the Wii U’s online components, but I think John Cheese sums it up pretty well in items #5 and #4 of his article. Thanks for reading. What are your thoughts on the Wii U? Leave them below in the comments section.

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Greetings, gamer guys and girls. I am finally reviewing the game that I’ve been geeking over for the last few weeks. Project Zomboid is an indie game produced by The Indie Stone (get it? GET IT!? ). Unlike other games where you’re the conquering hero ridding the world of the undead, Project Zomboid is the story of how you die. There is no winning, only surviving longer than last time.

The main story of the game is called Til Death Do Us Part. You play as Bob Smith, an everyman just trying to get by. In escaping his last safehouse, his wife Kate injured her leg. You have to make this house (that you apparently broke into) a fortress and keep yourself and your wife safe. Or you can just forget about Kate. I’ve smothered her more times than I can count. Some would call it a mercy kill. I call it being stingy with my painkillers. Semantics.

One of the unique things about this game is the crafting system. While it isn’t creative enough for Chuck Greene’s tastes, it’s a lot more practical. With some wood and nails you can make a barricade or a wall. Tear apart your sheets and make bandages. My favorite is, of course, combining cheese with bread to make a cheese sandwich. If you can’t have a cheese sandwich every once in a while then what’s even the point of playing a zombie game?

Another feature you’ll notice is that there are more things affecting your character’s status than in any other game. Click on the heart icon on the left side of your screen and you’ll get a detailed report on your body right down each limb. On the right side you’ll see little moodlets, appearing when your character is anything from “Peckish” to “Utterly Shitfaced”.

I’ve spent hours on this game and it is one of my favorite zombie games. Sometimes I try to go through like I would in a real zombie apocalypse, others I just screw around. I have a great time every playthrough. I suggest this game to anyone reading this article. Tell your friends. You can pick up the game here. The game’s also been greenlighted for Steam, so be on the lookout for that. The game is still being developed, so you play the game as its being built. This of course leads to a lot of bugs and inconsistent versions, so if that turns you off just wait until you can buy it on Steam (also, anyone who buys the game at all will get it for free on Steam). Now if you excuse me, I have to go hide in the bathroom while zombies eat my wife.

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Hey folks. If you’ve been out of the house in the last few weeks (I just got out for the first time since May) you’ll notice that it’s October already. Even though I’m in the age group where Halloween is kind of confusing, I still love the season. I’m a bit of a horror junkie. There was even a year or two in middle school when I was pretty much obsessed with slasher films. It’s only natural that my love for the genre spill over to games. Here is what I’ll be playing this month.

Left 4 Dead 2

If you haven’t played Left 4 Dead then you need to stop reading this article and go buy it. For those of you who have never heard of it (I presume you just recently escaped from an Amish chain-gang), Left 4 Dead 2 is a multiplayer FPS taking place during the zombie apocalypse. The multiplayer aspect of the game is what makes it most unique. The game really stresses the need for teamwork. Most of the boss enemies have the ability to incapacitate you so that, unless someone’s watching your back, you’re helpless as a former jock tears out your rib cage. Just like in high school.

I cannot recommend enough that you get the game for PC. There are hundreds of user-created mods available. It only takes a couple minutes to replace members of your team with Batman and Lora Croft. My personal favorite is the Panic in Pallet Town level. Also, any DLC that you would have to pay for on the Xbox is given away free on Steam. In fact, so many levels from the first game have been ported that buying L4D2 is basically two games in one.

SCP: Containment Breach

I’ve already talked about SCP before, so I’ll be brief. I love this game for the atmosphere and immersion. You’re locked in an underground bunker containing all kinds of freaky monsters that you can’t even begin to explain and you’re desperately trying to find your way out. Even the simple game feature where your character has to blink periodically makes me really get into the game.

Project Zomboid

I’ve been playing Project Zomboid for a few days and it’s really shaping up to be one of my favorite zombie games. In a different take from the typical zombie genre, Project Zomboid is the story of how you died. There is no winning. only surviving longer than you did last time. In the main story, you try to protect yourself along with your wife who is bedridden with a broken leg. I don’t want to say too much about the game because I will be writing about it this month here on The Late Night Gamer and on GamerSyndrome. A lot. 

Despite its primitive graphics, Project Zomboid is more realistic than your average horror game. Your character can injure themselves in multiple areas of their body, you can get get food poisoning that lasts several days, even smother your wife because she slept with Shane as a mercy kill. The game just got greenlighted on Steam and I really suggest you check it out.

What are you guys playing this Halloween? Let me know in the comments or on The Late Night Gamer’s Tumblr.

Anybody miss cheat codes and secrets? It used to be that if you had cheat codes your game would be twice as awesome. Unlimited money? Yes please. Weapon spawns? Just what I needed. Secret characters? Who knew Shrek could skateboard? Well, that was before the internet came along and ruined it.

I never had regular internet as a kid. The occasional times I could get to the computer I would bring a sheet of paper and write down the codes for Megaman or Tony Hawk. The majority of the game secrets I found were from reading GameInformer and watching Cheat! on G4 (you know, before the weekly Cops and Cheaters marathons). But eventually I got internet and a decent computer to view it on. But by time this happened, it felt like it all disappeared. Not many of my games had any particularly great secrets. I think the reason that so many games have stopped this is because the internet spoils it all. In the past a secret in a video game was actually something mysterious, something fantastic. If you wanted to find a hidden character in Street Fighter or whatever you didn’t find it on IGN. Your friend heard a rumor about it and told you. Then you went down to the arcade/7-Eleven and had a stupid grin on your face for a week. Now, you just hop on Google and it’s not even exciting.

I really don’t think this is a problem we can fix. Some games give you some cheat code-esque bonuses for earning achievements, but if you actually have to work for them then it kind of takes the fun out of it. It’s just one of those things that  we’re never going to get back. Oh well, at least we have our memories and old magazines.

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A while ago I watched a pretty good video on YouTube called Should Video Game Characters Age??. When I think about it, this is a really interesting concept. The kids who grew up reading Harry Potter (not me; I was the nerd who read them all within a year) grew up alongside the characters. In the first book (1997/1998) Harry is eleven years old and in the final (2007) he’s seventeen. Not only do the characters themselves grow and mature, so do the plot and themes. The early books were overall more whimsical children’s stories but towards the end there were topics such as race/class warfare and death. This is the best example I can think of that shows how to keep your audience with a story. So why don’t video games do it?

Take a look at some popular franchises (especially Nintendo ones) and see if we can find a pattern. Did you guess what they all have in common? No? I’ll just keep the prize to myself then. For the most part, the age of their protagonists and the tone of the game stay consistent. Some have been around for so long that they’re over a decade older than their target demographic. I don’t have a problem with this, but you really don’t feel as much of a connection to a character who was the same age as you were when you first played the game two kids and a wife ago. This has been done a little bit before. I’ve seen it in Kingdom Hearts 2 and maybe in Jak & Daxter (I say maybe because I never played much). But what if we had a game where the maturing of the character is really a huge focus? As always, I have a great game idea. Maybe if I do this enough someone will pay me… Nah.

We start off with our character. Billy, for boys or Jenny, for girls. Billy and Jenny are 10 years old and they deal with ghosts and monsters in their town. I know it’s vague, but the story isn’t what I’m focusing on right now. The first game is rated E10+ and Billy and Jenny have childish additudes, childish dialogues and childish personalities. Just like the real ten year-olds playing the game. Five years later the sequel comes out. Billy and Jenny are still fighting the ghouls but they’ve matured. Not so much that you forget they’re kids, but just enough that is believable to have happened between ten and fifteen. The game is rated T for teen and has darker themes and a more serious tone. The fact that Billy and Jenny are teenagers will noticably change the gameplay. Since a high school student generally has less restrictions than a ten year-old, the game world will be significantly larger.

Finally we end the trilogy five years after the release of the second game. Jenny and Billy (now Jennifer and William) are young adults just like the kids who played the first game ten years ago. The game is rated M for Mature and it really starts to get dark and serious. There’s murder, religious themes, torture, intelligent glimpses of how the characters have grown and also been affected by these supernatural occurrences. This would be the only game franchise to go this far into following their original customers into adulthood.

Unfortunately, this game may never be made. No one with a budget wants to do anything original. Also, I doubt many studios could really plan a franchise ten years ahead. Even after L.A. Noire was such a big hit, the studio closed its doors. Oh well. It’s not like it’s my first game idea that will never happen.

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 2. Freakazoid

You know how everyone loves how lovable insane Deadpool is? Well if you crank up the insanity by 1000%, give him superpowers that operate on cartoon physics and make him  kid-friendly, you have Freakazoid. Freakazoid was a show on Cartoon Network brought to us by the same people behind Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. There’s even a great scene in Freakazoid where the three essentially go back in time and murder the fourth wall’s parents, but I digress. Click to read the whole article at GamerSyndrome.com

I’ve talked about Halo before. Halo 2 was my first FPS and even today the more popular franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty are boring in comparison. There’s a reason that Halo was the defining franchise for the Xbox. It is the only FPS to have such varied gameplay while having a rich story and universe. It is the only thing that makes me want an Xbox is the upcoming Halo 4. Sure having an Xbox means I can play with my friends online, but if it weren’t for Halo there wouldn’t be any multiplayer game I would want to play. Since Microsoft refuses to play nice and make Halo cross platform or port to PC (a platform they own), those of us with a PS3 are missing out. If any of you have a mind for marketing you’ve noticed something very important. For those of you who don’t, I’ll fill you in. There is a market for an original franchise.

For as long as the Playstation 3 has been out, no one has taken the Halo formula and used it to make a game. Now when I say “Halo formula” I don’t mean I want a Halo clone. I want something original that does right what Halo does right. The way I see it, the Halo formula is as follows:

• Protagonist that the player can project themselves into
• Medium-sized assortment of weapons, each with their own distinct specified purpose, pros and cons
• Quick and easy use of vehicles in single-player and multiplayer
• Rich story and universe that makes room for well-written novels, comics, movies and sequels
• Unique and easily distinguishable enemy classes
• Story mode that makes the game satisfying even if you never touch the multiplayer mode

This is what makes Halo so unique and it’s so simple. You’ll notice that the COD franchise has none of these. Just six bullet points and you have the guidelines to make a great game. This is coming from a guy who isn’t paid to come up with ideas for games. Why hasn’t anyone caught on? Are developers too scared to try to come up with something great? I just don’t understand why that in the last 10 years since Combat Evolved we haven’t had anything pop up that could rival it. Maybe Dust 514 will fill these shoes, but I doubt it. I might as well give up and buy the cheapest Xbox 360 I can find and huddle up with every Halo game I’ve missed. If you don’t hear from me until spring, that’s probably what I’ve done.

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I did today what I do every Sunday: lurk the internet from my bed for a few hours then get up and do my lurking in the basement. Because I have a penchant for low-quality cam recordings of Paranorman where some jerk decided to play their radio at the drive-in (buy a ticket; it’s worth it), I visited The Pirate Bay. On the front page I saw that a game developer had put up an ad letting people know that for today only (lucky me) he was giving away his video game, McPixel. I have to say, it’s one of the… stranger games I’ve played.

You play as the titular character, McPixel (that fellow urinating on the dynamite). You play through a bunch of levels where you have a few seconds to stop an explosion using his wits and amazing crotch-kicking skills. To tell you the truth, at first I thought the aim was to cause the explosion. Old habits die hard, man. McPixel is a puzzle game, so you’re going to have to use your imagination to win. In one level you’ll find yourself on Samuel L. Jackson’s plane with a bomb. I had to kick the bomb into the mouth of the snake and then use the shovel to force the bomb down the snake’s throat, containing the explosion. Still had enough of these motherf**king snakes on this motherf**king plane?

The style of this game is very much adult humor. And by adult humor I mean the kind of stuff on you’d find on cartoons your parents wouldn’t let you watch as a kid that really cater to twelve year-olds more than anyone else. The default result of clicking on a person is to have McPixel kick them in the crotch or butt. Other times you might get flashed by an Inuit lady flash you or, well…

But that’s not to say this game doesn’t have any funny moments. In the volcano level there’s a sign that tells you to throw in a virgin. After seeing that the woman was not a sufficient sacrifice (and unintentionally pleasuring a cow) it turns out that you need to throw yourself in. That kind of humor can only come from real life.

I’m sure that by time you’ve read this article they’re no longer giving the game away for free, and I won’t give you the torrent I used. Sos is cool enough to let you choose your price for the game. You can give him a penny or over nine thousand dollars (his joke, not mine). If you want to pay for this game I suggest at least a couple bucks. I haven’t played the whole game, but there’s probably around ten hours of gameplay on here, plus a bunch of secrets and even free DLC. This may not be one of the best games, but for what it is it’s pretty entertaining. Go to McPixel.net for more.

Also Sos is trying to get this game on Steam, so if you like what you see please take a second to greenlight it.

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