Smarmy Jerkface Dot Com

I'm not talking about video games here ever again.

Since I've been blogging I've noticed that people really seem to dig when I talk about haircuts or dump trucks or how worshiping a dead NASCAR driver is retarded, but as soon as I mention video games, everyone just rolls their eyes and ignores what I have to say.  My audience, such as it is, enjoys the bad movie talk and my run ins with rednecks at gas stations, but whenever I start talking about gaming, it's a traffic killer.

Also around the time of this realization, I'd been itching to create something new.  Some of you might know that I ran one of the first movie/DVD review websites on the web that was worth a damn, from about 1996-2004.  Towards the end though I'd gotten to a rather dark place in my personal life and that coupled with a few other factors led to the site's demise.  It's been something I've regretted ever since.

Creating yet another movie review site was not something that appealed to me.  Been there, done that, and I just don't have the love for movies that I used to.  Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the cinema, but when you've sworn off going to movie theaters entirely it severely limits what you can do.  And unfortunately the internet is still of the mindset of "If it's not a new release, we don't give a shit."

After ending my previous website I did some freelance work for DVD Talk and Video Game Talk.  Now I've been a member of their forums for over 10 years, and have grown to enjoy the group of people there quite a bit.  And in their video game community, for example, a lot of members were doing some really great work on their own, whether it be reviewing or podcasting or even creating game-based music.

When it seemed as though Video Game Talk was being abandoned, I made a push to take it over and rebuild it with content from all the forum members who were already creating content elsewhere.  The response I got to that was essentially "Yeah we're not going to do anything with it, and neither are you."

I still felt that these people's work was worth showcasing though, and so I created Gamers With Casts.  The goal is to showcase 4-5 regularly updated podcasts along with reviews and articles from myself and others, and to use everyone's individual followings to bolster the audiences of everyone else.  Share Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, etc.

So now when I want to ramble about games, I'll do it there.  If you're one of the silent followers of mine who also enjoys gaming, I invite you to check us out.  Why not watch the promo I made for the site, then click on some linkage.

Site: www.gamerswithcasts.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/gamerswithcasts
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Gamers-With-Casts/354608111429

Thus ends Pocket of Sanity's coverage of the video game industry.  Thanks!

The "pile of shame" is literally a pile of unplayed video games that
every true gamer has.  We buy games we want to play but then get caught
up in something else and most of us never get back to the pile.  I'm
stopping the cycle and playing through all my old games before I allow
myself to buy new ones.

If you didn't already know this about me, I tend to be drawn to movies and games that no one else has ever heard of.  I'm not entirely sure why that is, I guess sometimes I just like trying to discover hidden gems instead of going with the flow.  Unfortunately this game is no gem.

Onechanbara is an ongoing budget line of games in Japan, two of which have been released here in the States.  And damned if I know what the hell is going on in the Xbox 360 edition, Bikini Samurai Squad.  While there are English subtitles, all the voice acting in the game is Japanese, and each mission is preceded by a loooooong, scrolling wall of text that might as well not even be translated because it never makes a lick of sense.  (You can read about the series here on Wikipedia, it's the best I can do.)

Basically here's the deal: you're a scantily clad zombie killer, and along with your equally inappropriately dressed kid sister, you roam the streets hacking and slashing zombies.  Lots of zombies.  Literally thousands of zombies in each level.  Sometimes you're on a motorcycle while you're killing zombies.  Sometimes the zombies are dogs or policemen who have grown to twice their normal size.  And the zombies always spawn from the ground, no matter if you're standing on grass or concrete or on the fifth floor of a building.  The zombies ALWAYS come from underground.  There's even a scene in a hospital where you're in a morgue, and instead of the zombies coming from the vaults they're coming from underground.  They'll just bury you anywhere in Japan, it seems.

Please don't misunderstand, I'm all for totally over the top absurdity in video games.  In one of this game's cut scenes for example, you're trapped in the back of an armored car, and you escape by literally slicing the truck in half with your sword and jumping out.  I'm okay with that.  That's what made this game bearable, for a brief time.

Graphically the game is all over the place.  The cut scenes are decently done CGI (aside from some pretty bad screen tearing), and had the game looked like the cut scenes throughout it would have helped matters.  Instead the actual gameplay looks like a pretty Sega Dreamcast game. Unfortunately it also plays like a game from a few console generations ago too.

The main problem is that the gameplay is beyond repetitive.  Each level features at least one but sometimes more "zombie arenas".  You reach a certain point where spikes come up from the ground, trapping you inside with hundreds of constantly spawning zombies.  To get out of each area you eventually have to destroy a mini-boss zombie, but the game never tells you this.  So for the first few levels you could stay inside one of these things for 20-30 minutes wondering if the spawning will ever end.  Also, normal attacks aren't enough to kill these mini-bosses, you have to use combos that have you pressing two buttons on the controller at once.  Again though, the game never tells you this, or even that you CAN do this.

But my main question about Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is this… what the hell is up with Japan?  Certain japanese games seem to take being a pervert to a whole new level.  For example, boob jiggle.  Japanese game developers have almost elevated this particular type of physics-based coding to an art form.  What I want to know is if boob jiggle code programming is entry level grunt work or is it something you get promoted to.  I'm betting it's the top job in the programming department.  Something you strive for all your life.

Now watch this video, which is the game's first or second cutscene, and tell me if it doesn't just creep you out with how pervy it is.  In case you can't guess, it's NSFW:

Even weirder than that is the "Dress Up" mode in the game, where after unlocking outfits and makeup during the game itself you can dress up your character and have a little hack 'n' slash fashion show.  I'm sorry, I like skin and all, but video game skin just doesn't do it for me.

By around level six or so I decided life was just too short and abandoned the game.  The story was non-existent, the gameplay repetitive and frustrating, and the way the characters are being displayed was downright embarrassing.  And you only score achievements if you either finish the entire game or finish each level on three different difficult levels.  Fuck that noise, ain't happening.  Listed it on Half.com and within an hour I sold it for twice as much as I paid for it.  Silver lining achievement unlocked.

The "pile of shame" is literally a pile of unplayed video games that
every true gamer has.  We buy games we want to play but then get caught
up in something else and most of us never get back to the pile.  I'm
stopping the cycle and playing through all my old games before I allow
myself to buy new ones.

I am a fairly hardcore Guitar Hero and Rock Band player.  I play guitar/bass, almost always on Hard, and can play for hours at a time.  I realize I'm not a real rock star, but I enjoy the level of interactivity with songs that I enjoy listening to.

The reason I've embraced the Rock Band series over the Guitar Hero games is that Rock Band "speaks" to me more than the other.  What I mean by that is that Rock Band just feels right.  I feel like I'm playing along with lots of my favorite songs.  Guitar Hero, on the other hand, features a lot of songs from genres I cannot stand, and charts those songs in the most frustrating ways, seemingly catering to hardcore music gamers who end up building robots to play the game for them.  I'm not knocking Guitar Hero for this, I'm simply stating why one series works better for me than another.

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is a collection of songs from the first three games in the series, along with a handful from GH: Aerosmith and GH Encore: Rocks the 80s.  All 48 songs now include full band support, and unlike in the past, all the songs are master recordings from the original artists.

I didn't start this series until Guitar Hero 2 came out for the 360, and therefore was never able to play the first game or the 80s edition since they were Playstation only releases.  Unfortunately, the bulk of the songs in the playlist come from the games I've already played to death, and considering that I only play guitar/bass, the game essentially offered me nothing new.

Playing through the career mode quickly became a tedious chore, as the songs got worse and worse as I progressed, eventually becoming nothing but the finger-melting squeal-fests that I can't stand.  And of course the game concludes with "Through the Fire and Flames" which if that song was a person I'd punch it in the ovaries.

For a small fee there is an export feature where you can download 21 of the 48 songs to your hard drive to play in newer Guitar Hero games, and that was fine for me.  I got to export "Freebird" and "Nothin' But a Good Time", which is probably all I would play anyway.  After the export, there was no reason for me to keep the game, and I managed to sell it on Half.com for three times what I paid for it.

So yes, this became the first Guitar Hero or Rock Band game that I didn't keep in my library.  I think that says it all.

My only New Year's resolution this year was to play through games in my pile of shame and sell them off before buying more.  And well, technically I've done that.  But I might have screwed up the ratio a little bit…

First off I totally blame my spouse, who bought me both Mass Effect 2 and Bayonetta for my birthday / Valentine's Day.  But then I also got some birthday cash in the mail, and well there was a sale at Gamestop and New Egg, and so purchases had to be made.

But worthwhile purchases!  Games that sound so absurd that there was no way I could NOT play them!  Games like 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which finds Fiddy in Iraq trying to get paid for a concert.  Or Operation Darkness, which takes place during World War II but features Hitler, zombies, werewolves, vampires, Jack the Ripper and dragons!  Holy shit!

The most absurd purchase though looks to be Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad.  Just look at this video!

The "pile of shame" is literally a pile of unplayed video games that every true gamer has.  We buy games we want to play but then get caught up in something else and most of us never get back to the pile.  I'm stopping the cycle and playing through all my old games before I allow myself to buy new ones.

Yes that's right, Halo.  As in the biggest scf-fi shooter of the modern gaming era.  As in the reason people bought an original Xbox.  Hell, it was the reason I picked up an original Xbox.  I've had it and Halo since launch actually.  And I'm just now playing it.

The Halo universe spans multiple games, books, videos and various other media.  As a result, the story is probably pretty fleshed out by now.  Please understand that the original game is all I know of the Halo-verse though and so forgive me when I say that the story of Halo is actually a little confusing.  Don't get me wrong, it's not headbashingly stupid or anything.  It's just that, at times, the story seemed to either wander off or throw out a ton of details in a fit of fury. 

Also, it didn't help that every time there was a cut scene someone wanted to come in and talk to me, and so I wasn't able to entirely focus on the story.  So, you know, not faulting the game really.  What I could gather though was that you're this revered dude named Master Chief and you kick ass and take names.  With bullets.  I'll allow it.

One thing that bothered me during the first half of the game were the enemies that you're mowing down at regular intervals.  The majority of your kills come from this little cowardly alien race that quite frankly sound like you've walked into a preschool and started blasting the children and their mogwai pets.  It was a little disconcerting at times, and I don't even like kids.

And I admit that for a time I wasn't being blown away by the game, until I got to the stage known as The Flood.  From there on?  Awesomeness.  Pure awesomeness.

Now here's the main reason why Halo is justifiably as acclaimed as it is.  It works.  Everything about it works.  Even if this is (or was) your first time playing a first person shooter, everything about it feels just about as it should.  The controls (although a tad floaty) feel right.  There's nothing too complex going on.  You're not worrying about leveling up or juggling inventory or weapons.  Checkpoints auto-save you at regular and appropriate intervals.  And to think this was an Xbox launch title.  They nailed it right out of the chute.  And I'm guessing one could argue that except for Halo 2, no one else got anywhere close during the console's entire lifespan.

Speaking of Halo 2, I guess I have to play it now.  Good thing I've also owned that one since the day it was released…