Did Capcom Pull the Wool OVer Our Eyes on Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

For nearly one year, Capcom spoon fed us information about Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, from new characters, their movesets, and fighting mechanics. From classic Ghosts and Goblins hero Arthur to the 4th wall breaking Deadpool, the game looked to please everyone with fond memories of the shenanigans in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Then the game released.

Diary of a Video Noob Part One: Opening the Box and Settling In

After months of watching some great YouTube directors upload great video game plays and commentaries, I finally have my chance to try my hand at breaking into the video game play commentary racket thanks to the miracle of Christmas.

 Terrific. Terrific.

Arcade Infinity Closing Its Doors: The End of an Era

I've probably been to Arcade Infinity five times in my entire life. Once was with my girlfriend, the next was with a close friend of mine and her friend, then I went there with an idea for a feature story, then I was with a group of friends who were all into the culture of the fighting game scene, and lastly I went by myself just to take in the sights and sounds.

AI is a good 45 minute drive away from my home. This is the main reason I don't go too often. But come this January 15, I will go for my sixth and final time. AI has had it's fair share of skilled players, celebrities, and crowds walk through its doors, but after the 15th those doors will close forever. A long history of rent hikes and waning business has finally driven AI's health bar down to zero and it was down to its last round.

Minecraft's Boo! Update Explored: The First 5 Minutes

My first clue that Minecraft's Boo! update had dropped is when I decided to hop on to harvest more obsidian only to find my .exe launcher failing to connect. Chances are, when new stuff is happening, people are flooding the servers.

So when I finally got Minecraft loaded up and found my launcher downloading updates, I got excited.

Yup. I built this before the update was even out in preparation.

What To Play In Halo: Reach If You Hate Shooters

The combat style in Halo was never my favorite thing about the game. With large health pools because of shields and a dependance on head shots for other game types, I personally find it hard to savor a kill even when it's in my favor when it takes 5 seconds to get it.

That why my favorite game types don't necessarily depend on traditional deathmatch tropes. Take a tip from me, if you want to try Halo even though you hate Halo, stay away from playlists like team slayer and game variants like team SWAT. Try these and you may grow to love Halo for what I like it for: the unpredictable carnage and not the kills.

I'm Missing Out on the Xbox Summer of Arcade

By itself, $15 doesn't  bother me too much. One Xbox arcade game is fine and dandy. But three games?

I know Limbo is good. The trial already told me that the atmosphere accomplished so much with only two shades and a lack of BGM. But I have to make economic decisions. I'm not interested at all in Tomb Raider and the last three seem to offer me a lot of bang for my buck. Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and Monday Night Combat.

Ok, so Hydro Thunder and Harmony of Despair have received sketchy reviews, but I am the target demographic those games cater to. I loved Hydro Thunder when it was a sit down arcade cabinet, complete with wheel and throttle with light up red button. I was proud of the fact that I knew how to select the secret boat, Tinytanic. I've loved pretty much every Castlevania since Symphony of the Night. Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia, all Castlevnia games I loved that weren't exactly very different from one another. And Monday Night Combat? Please, I've been following that since it's announcement. What was that? Two years ago? Finally, Team Fortress 2 but on a console and supported for by the developer post-launch (those guys on the Orange Box still don't have the Backburner I hear).

But $45? I'm struggling with this price tag. Even after receiving a solution, promised credit to Gamestop and Amazon, this credit has yet to appear before me to actually use (they're still enroute from shipping).

Until then, I'm either going to keep going back again and again to their trial demos or will stick with Blazblue: Continuum Shift.

A Week of Bad Company 2

About 4 months after Modern Warfare 2 released, I sold it to a friend of mine. This was about half the time I owned Call of Duty 4, and I simply sold that game for its age. I was sick and tired of the constant killstreaks in the air. Sure I can shoot them down with stinger missiles, but playing pick up with strangers and watching them act as kill fodder doesn't help things.

I was tired of chopper gunners, noob tubers, knife monkeys, and quick scopers.

Then I got Bad Company 2 as a reward for taking part in a play test for an EA game.

Play Testing Today

I'm eligible for select play testing of a game in it's beta stages and apparently I'll discuss games I've already played in a focus group as well. I think that's as far I can go in describing this. Why? Because I have to sign a confidentiality waiver before taking part in the testing.

I've taken media law as an undergraduate and understand most of these legal ramifications involved. As a journalist, we have certain freedoms to further our job of news and yet at the same time there are legal boundaries in place that keep journalistic integrity separate from things such as trade secrets, copyright, as well as press embargoes.

I guess I'll figure out what I can and can't talk about later tonight after my play testing finishes and I get a good look at what my contract entails.

Super Street Fighter IV: relearning everything from scratch

I'm amazed at how my view of Street Fighter has become refreshed with Super Street Fighter IV. Nothing overly major was changed. What has changed are only smaller tweaks to the overall game, but it's amazing how different a character like Rufus, my main pick from the previous game, can be so different with just a different ultra move.

From Final Fantasy to Pokemon

A game that takes a decidedly different approach to its franchise and a game that doesn't stray very far at all from the formula. The firestorm of a debate that was created in FFXIII's wake was simply astounding and created a lot of genuinely important discussion when it came to Western and Japanese game design. It really opened my eyes as to just how different us bumbling Americans are from the Japanese forefathers of gaming.

I find it interesting that both games are of established franchises with enormous expectations set upon them and yet the initial response to both is essentially two sides of a coin. FFXIII has divided players on their opinion while Soulsilver and Heartgold has begrudgingly united people. I wanted to run through the differences and similarities between these two rpgs and see if there's anything that can be distinguished from the two.

Tricking out Team Fortress 2

I've been spending a lot of time on Team Fortress 2 since the Sniper vs. Spy update landed and after weeks of playing, I've gotten around to even reskinning several things in my game. Nothing too extravagant, but just little things to make the experience more subtle.

Heatshielding shotgun
This might be a bit much, but since I like playing support engi and battle engi sometimes, I thought skinning my shotgun would be a good idea since I'll really be spending a lot of time with it. Nothing's more rewarding then luring a scout back with your shotgun only for him to get riddled by my sentry.

The Backstabber's knife
The spy is a gentleman first, assassin second, scoundrel third, and a prick fourth. His default butterfly knife seems a bit too plain and out of character for a person of his caliber. When I think butterfly knife, I don't think pinstripe suit. This skin makes the butterfly knife look like the gentleman's sophisticated butterfly knife. The gold band in the middle really sells it.

Four-slot grenade launcher
This is a necessity, not an option to me. The grenade launcher shoots 4 grenades, and yet the model has six slots. This stems from the beta having six slots but reducing it to four when the retail version launched for balancing reasons. There's really no excuse for Valve to simply leave a six-slot grenade launcher shooting four. INEXCUSABLE!

Western revolver
With the Ambassador out, using either the revolver or the unlockable is a big toss up in terms of ability. However, in terms of sexiness, the Ambassador wins hands down. That's why the western styled revolver puts some style into your by-the-book revolver. The Ambassador isn't the only gun that can do engravings!

Whack-on monkey wrench
Short but sweet: monkey wrenches always need to be red. They just look cooler that.

Orange illuminated builder/destroy PDA
Now that this skin is up, I forget what the original PDAs looked like. The big thing is that this skin taught me how to remove the obtrusive option overlay that tells you which number is which building. After you spend an hour playing engi, you instantly memorize how the buttons go (1. sentry, 2. dispenser, 3. & 4. teleporter entrance and exit respectively). These PDAs are skinned so that you cna have a reminder whenever you need it, but with the building hud down, I can actually see trouble heading at me while trying to build. Also, it lights up under low light conditions!

Golden Lady Ambassador
Let's face it; just like the incorrect six-slot grenade launcher, the Ambassador suffers some serious visual problems. There's no hole for the bullets to shoot through, the skin reflects incorrectly sometimes, and the texture of the gun overall is kind of crappy. The Golden Lady remedies those problems and highlights the most important feature of the Ambassador: a gold engraving of the Scout's mom off the beautiful silver finish.

skins courtesy of the fpsbanana community.