New New?

This is an odd time in my gaming career and in my adventures as the Do-Nothing-Man. Disinterest has infected my perspective of gaming. I mentioned earlier that I'm consistently playing Diablo 3 on my computer and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness on my hacked PSP. That's it.

I've taken little breaks to play things like Aliens: Colonial Marines and The Walking Dead. I even sat down to play Halo 4 with my roommate for the first time in several months last weekend. The point is: I haven't been playing much. And, I'm not necessarily happy with what I have been playing.

Even with games like Diablo and Disgaea, the repetitive nature of each game is wearing on me. On both of these titles, it's the grinding and leveling up that initially peaked my interest; however, I find myself only able to stand Disgaea in smaller and smaller segments. Clear a couple levels in the Item World, and then I'm putting my PSP to sleep. Diablo 3 is getting a similar treatment; I measure my playing time in accumulated gold. Once I acquire 100,000 gold in a play session, I'm done. Paragon levels don't even interest me anymore. In both games, I'm chilling in the end-game, doing only the things that I want to do. And I'm still getting a little burnt out.

What I've noticed while playing these two favorites is that I'm in no mood for marathon gaming sessions. A couple years ago, I could sit and play Fallout 3 all freakin' day. That doesn't happen anymore. Part of it could be that I have a standing desk now; when I'm playing Diablo 3, I'm on my feet. Not sitting on my ass. But I've had the standing set-up for over a year and when D3 first came out, I was playing marathon sessions to power level my crazy Witch Doctor.

The PSP is a little different; I'm usually playing Disgaea while sitting on our porch (now things are warming up) or while in bed right before going to sleep. Plus, that little machine is hacked, so I'm constantly tinkering with it while it's connected to my computer. I need to learn how to take my own screenshots. There must be a way.

I thought, for the longest time, that I could be a perfectly content gamer only playing Disgaea and Diablo (at the time I was thinking of Diablo 2), maybe include a Resident Evil 2 play-through every so often. Disgaea and Diablo will always be go-to games for me for me, but maybe it's time for me to branch out and play something that's completely outside of my gaming repertoire.

What a weird word.

Xeno-swag: Anticipating Aliens

Certain franchises just stick with me. Perhaps the one that I chatter on about the most is Resident Evil. The RE universe has stuck with me because it used to frighten me; the games don't do that anymore, but I still play. Before Resident Evil came along, Aliens satisfied that fun and frightful itch. Yes, I was way too young to be watching rated-R movies, but I did anyway. And man, I loved the Alien franchise back then.

Actually, I still love the Alien universe. Whether it's Ridley Scott's Alien or Joss Whedon's Alien: Resurrection (he wrote the screenplay) or the retarded little brothers Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, I have thoroughly enjoyed all the films. I can't say that I've spent too much time with the games: I completely missed out on the early Nintendo and Sega cartridge games and the AVP PC games were quick romps (if that) because I wasn't interested in their stories.

February marks the return to the Alien universe with Aliens: Colonial Marines, a first-person-shooter and spiritual sequel to James Cameron's Aliens; it's the one of the few video games without all the muddled predator pollution. I am one to ignore the FPS genre, but I will make an exception for Aliens: Colonial Marines because I really want to know what happened after the terraforming reactor and colony on LV-426 were supposedly destroyed.

Picking between the Xbox and the PS3 will be a tough choice, but the pre-order deals look pretty amazing. I'm a total sucker for gamer swag (especially games/franchises that I love) and ACM has a $99.99 treasure trove. The Aliens: Colonial Marines Collector's Edition comes with a statue of a power-loader fending off an alien. Patches and in-game items and characters, including Sgt. Apone and Pvt. Hudson. Man, I hope that includes their voices.

After hunting around online, I had to go with Amazon's pre-order because both Best Buy and Gamestop's pre-order allocations were all used up. Dry. This might be the hardest collector's edition to get your hands on right now. Here's to hoping that the aliens thrill and terrify just as they did when I first saw Alien.

For once, I am looking forward to February.

Nothing Is Sacred

Let's just say, I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom decided to remake Resident Evil 2.

After running into this post on Destructoid, I decided that it makes financial sense. After the rage subsided, I came to that conclusion. RE2 is my favorite Resident Evil game; it's quite possibly my favorite video game ever. I don't venture over to Gamespot very often, but the article about Capcom appealing for fan support is pretty lacking. The comments, however, are awesome. It's a healthy mix of action-RE enthusiasts and the classic-RE lovers (that's me). I don't have much to say about this; I could go into another Resident Evil rant, but I think I've said all there is to say. When I find something else to add, you can bet that I'll post it here.

In other news, the Columbus Comic Con is this weekend in the gloomy autumn buckeye state. For right now, I'm planning on attending and taking some sweet pictures.

I've never actually been to a comic convention before. The experience is the big draw for me; I'm not going to see a particular artist or celebrity. However, I would wait in line to see a couple guests. The Boondock Saints will be there, which is cool. If I could get all three of those guys to sign my Saints DVD that would be awesome. But honestly, I'd be happy just shaking their hands and telling them that I'm a fan.

The other person I'm semi-interested in meeting is Arthur Suydam; he's a cover artist. I know of him from Marvel Zombies and Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth. His Deadpool movie parody covers are my favorite.

Unfortunately, Ohio doesn’t get the big spectacle that the San Diego Comic Con gets. Ohio disappoints me. But it is Ohio. My expectations are not lofty.

Resident Evil 6 Demo: The Rule of Thirds

After a boring, 8-hour work day, I came home yesterday knowing that the Resident Evil 6 demo was going live. I hopped onto the PlayStation and I found nothing. No Resident Evil 6 Demo to download. WTF, I thought to myself. Eh, it's probably just Sony being Sony and effing something up. I'll play Skyrim instead (yeah, I haven't killed a dragon in months).

So I killed a dragon outside of Riften. Then I looked at my to-do list of quests and thought they all seemed mundane. Pausing, I checked the Internet for any news about Sony not having the RE6 demo (couldn't find any) and I switched to a Skyrim wiki and landed on a page about the Ghostblade. That's what I need, the Ghostblade. So I played until I obtained the Ghostblade.

An hour or two later, with the Ghostblade in my hot little hands, I checked PSN again and the RE6 demo was there. Spooky. So I downloaded it and played it. Here are my thoughts:

Finally, I can set aside all my speculation and muckraking - I have played a demo for Resident Evil 6 and it wasn't that bad. I'll get into more detail below, but I generally enjoyed the appetizer experience contained within the demo. As a preview for all three main campaigns, the demo lets you play as Chris, Leon, and Jake (their partners we're also selectable, but I only played the main characters). Each campaign is different and each character plays differently (we already knew that) but there is wide gulf that separates them, wider then I suspected.

Twenty Minutes of Chris

Band of Bros

No, I'm not abbreviating "brothers" here or alluding to the epic series. This is the BRO GAMER campaign. "Is he always this awesome?" says the rookie BSA moron as Chris Redfield walks away. Yes rookie...Chris is so awesome that he's probably the only one who will survive this mission. This means you’re going to die a horrible death at the hands of zombie hulk.

The running and gunning in Chris's twenty minutes felt exactly like RE5, but slightly faster. Switching weapons has the same intuitive directional pad controls as RE5. Healing was less intuitive until I realized herbs were picked up and compressed into Tic-Tac form. You have to go into your inventory to combine herbs and load them into your Tic-Tac container. The pop-a-health-Tic-Tac button is R2 and you can pig out like fat kid with Pez dispenser (as long as your container is loaded).

I used Chris's pistol more than his automatic weapon; the machine gun hopped around as you fired (I guess that's realism for you). Anyway, I was able to pick off a rocket launcher goon all the way across the map with the pistol as I was killing time while the BSA rookie was planting charges or something. Timed survival seemed to be a common theme. Twenty minutes of Chris's foray into the world of Call of Duty wasn't bad. But I don't know if I can survive the brotastic bullshit for an entire campaign; I played Chris's first because I knew it would be the hardest for me to stomach. And I was right.

Twenty Minutes of Jake

Zombie Tyranitars

Of the three characters, I am the most curious about Jake Muller, the supposed son of Albert Wesker. The demo didn't give away much of Jake's story; he is paired with Sherry Birkin and that can't be for no reason at all.

Jake's gameplay featured the most variety and the most surprising enemies. He comes fully loaded with a pistol, hand-cannon (think elephant gun, stranger), machine gun, sniper rifle, and hand-to-hand. Yes, you have to equip hand-to-hand. Jake's twenty minutes trained me in the ways of melee and close combat of RE6 and that's only because it was the best way to deal with the zombie lizards.

More like zombie tyranitars. Almost every infected enemy crusted over after you defeated them. Some of the crusties then broke apart revealing this new enemy. Sure, I could've wasted all my ammo on the zombie tyranitars, but it was most effective to engage the beasts in hand-to-hand and beat the brains out of them. More satisfying too.

Jake's run felt more familiar then Chris's; it actually felt the most like RE4 when you get onto the island. And I'm okay with that. I can only hope that Jake's story is well hashed out in the full game. After all, he has his father's shoes to fill.

Twenty Minutes of Leon

My Knife and the Ghostblade

I almost played as Leon S. Kennedy first, but I'm glad I didn't; I saved the best for last. Leon's twenty minutes felt like classic Resident Evil crossed with RE4.

I remember when books were used to hide things like keys, emblems, and clues.

The opening cut-scene drew from the first zombie encounter in the mansion back in 1997. Only I didn't actually get to shoot the zombie...cut-scene Leon shot the zombie and he looked cool doing it too. You then assume control of Leon on a college campus with a new flesh-bag partner (who isn't completely worthless) and joining the team again, codec-style is Hunnigan. Yesh!

Leon comes equipped with a pistol and his combat knife. I switched to the combat knife right away because the pistol only had forty bullets. Better conserve ammo, I thought. It was a good feeling, one I've not felt since Code Veronica. The zombies are zombies, occasionally they'll be carrying something that you can snatch away and use against them only once. I used the knife and the melee attacks for Leon's entire twenty minutes. Awesome. But I did notice the new stamina bar, which I drained quickly going all up-close-and-personal with the undead. My partner did help me get out of some tight spots and I had to use grapple quick-time events to get the touchy-feely zombies off me.

Resident Evil 6 now includes decorative urinal cakes.

The demo ended with an awkward quick-time event in a police car looking for the keys as zombies attacked and climbed all over the cruiser. Annoying, but it was tense. Leon's run was definitely my favorite; I might even play it again. I might even use his partner...I forget her name already and I don't feel like googling it.

Two Thirds Satisfied

One Third Worried

That seems to be a good summary of my experiences with the Resident Evil 6 demo. Overall, I was happy with it. Chris's campaign bothers me and it will probably still bother me when I play it in full. However, if I hadn't already pre-ordered Resident Evil 6, this demo would've sealed the deal. I am looking forward to playing the full game on October 2.

I Am Weak: Forgive My Flip-Flopping

It happens every fall; the do-nothing feeling sweeps over me and all I want to do is watch the gray sky rain and play video games.

My autumn line-up is pretty much in stone: Resident Evil 6, Doom 3 BFG Edition, and Halo 4.

Yes, I know I caved to Capcom on the whole RE6 thing, but I'm choosing to remain an annoyed yet optimistic fan of the series. With a replay of Resident Evil 4 nudging out Diablo 3 for my prime-time gaming slot, I'm reminded of how "fun" the over-the-shoulder-action-horror Resident Evil can be. Sure, I still miss the fixed camera and the atmosphere of the early games, but I am enjoying RE4. Again.

It also helps that one of my good friends is picking up RE6 and we're planning on co-opping through it. I know I'm definitely excited about playing RE6 with another long-time Resident Evil fan. This guy and I played through RE2, RE3, and Code Veronica together, passing the controller back and forth. That's how we had to co-op back in the '90s.

The Mercenaries Mode is another factor in RE6's favor. Ever since Resident Evil 3, I have enjoyed the Mercenaries minigame though it has changed considerably since then. I wish I could customize the load-out for each of the mercenaries, but that's never been an option, ever. So I'll just stay in my corner and whine about it.

Plus, the new RE6 demo actually drops today. Look at me, being all timely and current. If I'm not engrossed in RE4, I'll be downloading that tonight; might even write about it later.

Doom 3 and Halo 4 are going to be big-budget diversions; I've already played and beaten Doom 3 on the Xbox (it'll be fun to revisit in the dark and in HD) and Halo 4 is just for the online multiplayer (maybe I'll actually complete a Halo single player campaign, probably not).

The Nostalgia Sell: Resident Evil 6

It's time for more of this Resident Evil crapfest. Is crapfest a word? It should be, because it paints a perfect picture of how Capcom has transformed Resident Evil. Quite a feat, if you ask me; if Capcom set out to maim the Resident Evil franchise, then they deserve to celebrate, because they have ruined a magnificent series of games.

The truly sad part of all this: I still like Resident Evil games. I can't say love. I used to love Resident Evil back in the PlayStation days. So when I saw this on Amazon, I was excited. Harkening back to my craving for sweet pre-order bonuses, when I saw the Resident Evil Anthology pack, I thought: that's a super-awesome deal. Forget Leon's jacket, an Africa necklace, or a mini Chris Redfield (and think other shiny pre-order goodies), let's give out the other RE games.

The Resident Evil Anthology: at first glance, this looked like an amazing deal. Then my common sense started tingling.

Wait a minute...
This contains six Resident Evil games. Three of my favorite games (the first three) and three that I'm not all that crazy about.

Wait a minute...
I already own all of these games (in disk form) except the 6th one.

Wait a minute...
Resident Evil 6 costs $59.99 alone, which means they're charging thirty bucks for the five other games.

Wait a minute...
That means Resident Evil 6 is insanely over-priced.

Nostalgia clouded my judgment, nearly causing me to make a bad decision. Touché, Capcom. You almost had me there. Marketing strategy suggests that when we look at this bundle, we think we're getting all this awesome stuff with the new game. The reversal (and maybe closer to the truth, I fear) is that Capcom is re-selling what made Resident Evil so great and tacking on RE5 and RE6 like the backwards little runts that they are.

Kind of like the Indiana Jones 4 Pack. Nobody's going to buy Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by itself. So they have to bundle it with the other three good movies.

I'm being pretty harsh here. I haven't played Resident Evil 6 nor have I played its demo. I've seen some cool gameplay footage over at Kotaku and that's about it. The bottom line is that I'm not fond of the Resident Evil action game. And I hope Capcom doesn't turn Resident Evil 6 into a knock off of Call of Duty Zombies.

There's Too Much M in UMD

It's March. I guess I'm supposed to be mad or something. Let's see, is there anything I can be mad about? Technically, this March celebrates my one year anniversery of ceasing to be the Do Nothing Man. I can't really complain about that; even though I'm employed, I still do plenty of nothing.

The fact that the PS Vita isn't getting the UMD transfer passport program in the states kind of pisses me off. I mean, makes me mad, march mad. Too much M.

Anyway, I have a decent UMD library. And I bought what will probably be my last UMD PSP game this week from Amazon. That makes the count twenty games with three UMD Resident Evil movies for a total twenty-three part collection.

What about another type of madness? What if the UMD had actually succeeded? Knocking off DVDs and CDs as perfered media, there would be packs of ten blank UMDs and a special drive for computers (or you could take the stupid plastic shell off the disc). Car UMD players and special visor sleeves. Out there, occupying the infinite space between the atoms of our universe, exists another universe where the UMD dominated. Think about that. That's madness.

Eventually the physical disc format will completely die, but I wish the UMD had caught fire and lived until the age of the Blu-ray. Blu-UMD? Think of all the crazy data we could've squeezed onto those cute little discs.

Destroy the Secret Raccoon Civilization! Oh wait..

On Tuesday, during my lunch break I jetted over to Best Buy to pick up my reserved copy of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (the special edition) which I will, from here on, refer to as RE:ORC because its short and orcs are awesome. Anyway, I did my best not to check out any reviews of the game, but I did inadvertently skim the beginning of the joystiq review while scrolling down their post line up. Sorry. That was my bad. I've quarantined myself from the Internet so I can play the game and give my unadulterated opinion on the long-awaited return to Raccoon City.

Clearly, every Resident Evil game should include hidden taxidermied raccoons from here on out.

After three days of killing and being killed in RE:ORC, I can say that I'm enjoying the game. This game won't pull the foul-mouthed children from their Halos or CoDs (which is a good thing in my opinion) and therefore RE:ORC won't explode in the world of online multiplayer. The problem though, is that there's not enough campaign meat to justify the weak multiplayer effort.

The campaign is lackluster fan service to say the least. I've only played up until the beginning of the 5th mission, which is where you watch Leon and Claire crash their police car into a wall. Then you watch the trucker zombie run over their crash with his semi. "Command" immediately says to kill that cop. And now I'm chasing Leon through a series of parking garages. But the journey to this point was good; it wasn't bad. As far as shooters go, the missions are straight forward with plenty of flesh bags (infected and regular) to kill. The humans that get in U.S.S.'s way won't be getting awards for their smarts, but they make up for this lack of intelligence with hit points. They are stupidly hard, like three-shotgun-blasts-to-the-face-and-still-kicking hard. The zombies and monsters, on the other hand, scale in difficulty: zombies are the easiest and hunters are the hardest, which holds true to the classic Resident Evil style. Plus, it feels good shotgun zombies, lickers, and hunters all in one game. RE:ORC feels like a Resident Evil game, in that respect.

Who leaves incendiary grenades on a fire truck? That's just wrong.

Unfortunately though, most of the game doesn't feel like a Resident Evil game. There's ammo and health sprays everywhere. It's like the currency of Raccoon City was ammunition and you get to take every zombie's wallet after you kill it. Random attache cases and ammo boxes also pop up, so every U.S.S. team member has infinite ammo. The amount of health, sprays and herbs, is significantly less than the amount ammo, but to a Resident Evil veteran, RE:ORC has a veritable forest of green herbs. The game never frightens, let alone horrifies, (although there are parasites that look speciously like face-huggers and face-huggers are effing terrifying) and survival doesn't seem difficult. So, I can't in good judgement, call this game a survival-horror game.

I also have some reservations calling this game a squad-based shooter. Yes, there are three computer-controlled teammates, but there is very little squad control. If you've unlocked all the different abilities and weapons, you can equip your squad with goodies, but that's it. The good news is that your three squad mates are significantly less stupid than the gun-toting humans who get in your way. Imagine a competent Sheva divided equally into three people, well that's your squad. They're dumb, but not completely useless. You can sit back and let your squad do everything, but it's more fun to kill stuff yourself and it's much faster (besides you get more xp, yay). The U.S.S. squad will deal damage, but they can't clear an entire room. And they die, either by a tyrant playing patty-cake their skulls or by turning into a zombie themselves (then you get to kill them). As soon as they're dead, you can run up, hold a button, and BAMF! They're back.

So, infinite ammo, near infinite health, and infinite lives for your party. This doesn't sound like Resident Evil at all. And it's not. But for that brief moment, when I'm unloading shotgun rounds into an un-phased tyrant while he lifts his fists to smash me into the floor, I hold the controller just a little tighter, and remember the good times.

Pick A Side, Buy With Pride

So I've got a crap-ton of 3DS links and articles tabbed up in one Chrome window and a second Chrome window filled with another crap-ton of PS Vita links and articles. The question is: If I can only have one, which portable gaming device should it be?

Erroring on the side of caution, I'm always happy to wait on the brand new console and let its first batch of bugs work through the system. This means that I feel comfortable picking up a Nintendo 3DS right now. It's rookie year is almost over and there's one particular Resident Evil game that I want to play.

The PS Vita, on the other hand, is the shiny new toy. I played with one at a Best Buy while it was attached to a young man like a high-tech ball and chain. Did I mention shiny? It was shiny.

Only the Little Deviants game was playable, but I fiddled with camera (wasn't impressed) and the UI (enough to know that I still prefer buttons over touch screen tapping) and thoroughly annoyed the machine's fleshy anchor. The only launch-day game I'm interested in is the new Lumines: Electronic Symphony. Gravity Rush also looks neat, but that's it. New game prices are over-priced for games that just look neat. Of course, there's a Disgaea 3 port in the pipe, but I didn't really care for Disgaea 3 on the PS3, so I'm not biting at the moment. Just looking.

The big question right now: What are the chances that Resident Evil Revelations will end up on the PSV? I hope that those chances are good. However, an excellent counter point is that no Resident Evil game appeared on the PSP in its entire lifetime. I'm not counting the PS1 "classic" downloadables. Here's to hoping.

For now, I can stick with my trusty silver PSP. But if Nintendo cuts the price of the 3DS to compete with the PSV, I might have to cave.

Resident Evil Rising

Ug. Two posts about pokemon. How lame. Let's talk about zombies.

Resident Evil 6 was recently announced. I'm curious. That's about all I can say about a game series that I used to love. Don't get me wrong, I still love Resident Evil (1, 2, 3, Code Veronica, and 4). I guess there's even a trading card game. Nuts.

Right now there are three Resident Evil games out in limbo for me. One is out and two are about to be released in the next two months. I'm talking about Mercenaries, Revelations, and Operation Raccoon City. Two of these outliers are for the Nintendo 3DS. That instantly makes me cringe. But let's break these down.

Starting with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, this little guy came out over the summer and tripped tons of used game land mines with the controversial save feature. I don't care about that. What really pissed me off about this was Mercenaries started as the mini game at the end of RE3 and was further hashed out at the end of RE4. I really find it hard to believe that this title can stand alone as its own game without a story arc laying the foundation. When this came out for the 3Ds, it didn't make me want to buy a 3Ds. On the contrary, it made me go back to RE3 and RE4 and play the Mercenaries mode.

Over the years, Resident Evil has definitely shifted from the actual survival horror genre into the action survival horror space. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is meant to satisfy that action survival horror audience. I can't complain too much about the third person over-the-shoulder shooter style (because I liked it in RE4), but I did get tired of it in RE5. However the action-oriented game play makes for great co-op. The setting, story, inventory, and lack of zombies in RE5 bothered me, but I loved playing it co-op with my best friend (and fellow Resident Evil fan); I hope Operation Raccoon City will offer a similar experience. Additionally, it takes place around RE2 and RE3 (two of my favorites) and has zombies. And then there's the pre-order swag. Look at all this RE bling.

My only worry, stemming from playing as Jack Krauser in the RE4 Mercenaries, is that all these super-powered Umbrella spec-ops characters are going to have clunky controls to execute their special abilities. I don't want to play with six different Krausers.

Last is the upcoming 3Ds title: Resident Evil: Revelations, this game makes me extremely nervous. Here's why:

I don't always use twitter for this kind of thing, but when I do, I'm never afraid to ask the guys of the 404. Revelations claims to return to RE's roots while keeping the over-the-shoulder visual style. I don't think the zombies are coming back, but this game does take place on a cruise ship, which reminds me of past games. But it also reminds me of Deep Rising. What a horribly hilarious movie! Which also sounds like Dead Rising, another zombie game. Shit is getting weird. I better call it a day.

Will Resident Evil: Revelations force me to shell out the cash for a Nintendo 3Ds? We'll see.