GO!! Mega Otaku Game-Reviewer Alpha

These days we've been hearing the debate about video games getting easier. I'm not going to get into this debate here, perhaps another time, or perhaps never. It's not an issue that bothers me, trends are trends, and modern hard-core gamers expect more of an interactive movie than a game of repetitive action, seeking, finding, puzzle-solving, and the like. It comes with the technology. But let's just quickly compare something like Uncharted or Batman: Arkham Asylum with... The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. That's right, just like I said. I have played and beaten all three of these (actually 4, I didn't indicate WHICH Uncharted, there are currently 2 titles). The one I beat most recently was... The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, a.k.a. "Zelda 3D". You see I never finished it back in the Nintendo 64 days, it was just too damned confusing. You would have to be a MENSA-level genius to complete this game without a walk-through (or at least a serious ...

I am going to pretend I'm getting old. Actually, there isn't much to pretend. I'm middle-aged, and today I look around at young people with their modern consoles, sitting in front of their flat-screen High-Definition televisions jamming on their controllers or flailing around with motion controls. They are lucky. They will live further into the future than I, and they will see devices I can only imagine. But I, too, am lucky. You see, I was there for the Glory Days of the video game arcades. I bore witness to the birth of an industry. I share much in common with the first folks who got to see television for the first time. Those early adopters of the television must have been dazzled by the new wonder machine that brought video right into their homes, just as my generation was dazzled by the wonder machines that brought video gaming into our homes. But that will have to wait for another post. First, let's be honest. Those early consoles, at the beginning, did a mediocre...

The Nintendo DS firmly and soundly beat the Sony PSP in the "last generation" of portable handhelds . Now we prepare for a new handheld battle, between the Nintendo 3 DS and the Sony Playstation Vita. And... that's it? No, that's not it... the portable gaming market has been changed by the arrival of the smart-phone, the iPod Touch and the tablet. I said "arrival" because these devices have been "coming" for some time now. Serious phone gaming was first really attempted by Nokia in 2004 with the N-Gage, a cell phone with a little card bay design similar to the current DS card bay that played games stored on cards. Of course this thing was a flop, but hey, it was a first attempt. Nokia , and others, saw a day coming when cell phones would be the hand-held gaming device of choice. While Nokia may have made all the wrong moves with their N-Gage, their general idea was correct. I believe the N-Gage would be considered a "2G" phone, ...

Sony designed the PS3 with a proprietary processing technology known as the "Cell Processor". This technology amounts to 7 cores running at 3.2 GHz . (It is true that there are 8 cores, but one is always off or on "standby".) This is my understanding of it, and while the details of the thing can be debated, the focus here is on Sony's proposed 10-year life cycle for it's PS3. This is something that, since the beginning of the PS3's life, I personally have doubted and seen as moot. First, let's look at what Sony meant when they were talking about the PS3's proposed 10 year life cycle. Did they mean that the PS3 should be in it's 10t h year before the PS4 is released? Or did they merely mean that they would support the PS3 for 10 years? First let us examine the latter: There are several consoles that have already been supported for 10 years. Sony's own PS1 and PS2 had support for at least 10 years each. Before that, Nintendo's NES h...

I've been a fan of Tomb Raider since there's been Tomb Raider. I remember Laura Croft gracing cover after cover of the video game magazines. I remember playing the first game, coming almost to the end but being out of the damned little save diamonds. Then Tomb Raider II and III came along, more of the same, but still interesting enough. After that the series fell deep into a hole of it's own with The Last Revelation and Chronicles, finally hitting the bottom of the chasm with Angel of Darkness. Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld followed, certainly superior to Angel of Darkness but still it had lost it's flavor. Certainly this kind of action-adventure genre was evolving with the likes of the amazing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Re-boots are springing up these days. The old Mortal Kombat series has re-emerged with a smashing re-boot: Mortal Kombat . The Devil May Cry series is going to get a re-boot. So will other games as this trend will probably continue. I love...

I use a Tracfone . It's the LG 500G model, it does cheesy mobile web, has a camera for video and still shots, supports up to 4 gigabyte micro-SD, has a full QWERTY keypad and Bluetooth . I buy prepaid cards and use them for minutes, mobile-web with Facebook , and a few cheesy games. The phone itself cost me $30. Many opt for the all-in-one smart phones, with the 4G and the touch screen and the monthly bill that I find just too damned expensive. I'm sorry, I do. But there are reasons why I take this position. The most obvious is the cost, the monthly bill. The $70 I'd be paying for a decent, meaningful tier of service could be better spent on video games, past or present. But the other reasons extend from the cost. You see I cannot justify it because I never embraced the "all-in-one" mentality that drives smart phone sales. It is true many like the handheld entertainment and communication device that is a smart phone, but I have always held fast to the logic that y...