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The Dog Days of Summer

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June 6, 2010

Originally Published: June 4, 2010, on Examiner.com, Original-Gamer.com, PlayerAffinity.com, ESPNNewYork.com, and Lundberg.me

“What do we perceive as real?”

That is the key question that the folks from Eidos and Io Interactive asked themselves when they sat down to make Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days. With that integral concept in mind, they set out to create a third-person shooter that was not only responsive and entertaining, but also engrossing and ground breaking in the way it was “shot” and how it unfolded.

I had a chance to sit down a few weeks ago with Karsten Lund, Kane and Lynch 2’s Game Director, to talk to him about the plot of the game, the multiplayer, and what we could expect in general from Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days when we see it hit store shelves in August.

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From My Mom’s Basement – Ep 24 – Evil Apple Empire

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Originally Published: June 1, 2010, on Lundberg.me, Sportsrev.TV, and NationalLampoon.com

This week I reviewed Batman: Detective Comics #865 and UFC Undisputed 2010. My hot chick pick of the week this week is British model and reality TV star Sophie Reade.

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Ground and Pound

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Originally Published: June 1, 2010, on Examiner.com, PlayerAffinity.com, and ESPNNewYork.com

They are modern day gladiators as fans cheer for knockout blows and bone breaking submissions. It is the fastest growing sport in America and is wowing fans with both the technical precision and sheer brutality its athletes need in order to just be competitive, never mind to try to reach superstar status. Of course, I am talking about MMA and its premiere league, the UFC. As with every sport in modern America though, you haven’t really made the full impact your capable of on the popular culture until you have a successful video game franchise. With that, I present to you the second video game installment of the UFC: UFC Undisputed 2010 from THQ.

The first thing you notice as soon as you pop in UFC: Undisputed 2010 are the near-flawless graphics. Accurate facial designs and tattoos of every UFC fighter through every division makes you feel as if you are watching a live Pay-Per-View event at times. Cuts gushing open, blood splattering and staining the canvas, and bruised ribs shine as highlights of a great visual package. Add in live movies of the UFC ring girls (I love Arianny Celeste) introducing the Classic Matches mode and the game is as beautiful as all those girls.

The audio is spectacular as well. Great, fluid play-by-play and analysis by Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan that even takes your previous matches into account when commenting, something no other sports game really does. Include Bruce Buffer as the ring announcer and quality audio clips from every fighter for pre- and post-match interviews, including UFC President Dana White, and the audio is well played all around.

As with every other sports sim, the storyline is really determined by the results of your own play as you try to write your own story in career mode. If you keep winning, you’ll get title shots and be able to change weight classes and maybe even become a hall-of-famer. If you keep losing, you’ll wallow in the depths of the unknown and remain a nobody.

The biggest questions I had with UFC: Undisputed 2010 came with the decisions made about gameplay. I understand how difficult MMA is. It’s not something you can just pick up and play. You can’t just go outside, tape up your ankles, and start trying to choke out your brother whereas most other sports you just need a ball. Video games though should be something you can just pick up and play and you cannot do that at all with this game. The tutorial is something you’ll probably need to go through three or four times before you can even begin to understand how to perform basic techniques like throws and submission maneuvers and the amount of countering down by the computer can become frustrating even on easier game modes. If you don’t put your time in to learn the basic moves this will turn into a old school button masher for you very quickly.

This lack of pick up and play is a tremendous negative in terms of trying to draw in casual fans. The hardcore fans though will appreciate the work that has to go into making your created fighter the best he can be. The deep, detailed career mode that can follow you from being a scrub to a superstar, including what sponsors take an interest in you as you customize your own gear, is probably the greatest individual career mode I’ve ever seen in a sports game. Include sim modes where you can use an already existing fighter, ranging from Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir to Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, and BJ Penn, to go after their respective weight classes’ title, to a gauntlet like title defense mode where you have to whittle away twelve competitors in a row and there is enough depth to this game to keep the hardcore fan coming back. But there’s even more! The Classic Matches mode where you relive and, in some cases, rewrite classic UFC matches to earn customization rewards, gives you a rarely seen total amount of depth from a fighting game.

And you can’t forget about the online play. Not only can you take your favorite fighters, real or created, up against other people, you can even join or start your own MMA camp. You can invite your friends to train with you and hone your skills for online play as you try to let people know that you are not only the ultimate fighter, you’re the ultimate trainer as well.

After devoting much of my Memorial Day weekend to this game, I can say that if you are a fan of the UFC, you’re going to love this game. If not, the difficult control schemes could leave you frustrated enough that you might not want to pick it up again, even with the glowing positives that you’ll notice from the second you get to the title screen. If you are on the fence about this game, not being able to just pick up and play is a big enough negative that might make you want to rent this before you make it a full-blown purchase.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 9.0: Near-flawless graphics in terms of rendering and arenas and the fighters are so detailed that you would think you’re watching an actual Pay-Per-View.

Audio: 10.0: Great music sets the theme for these modern day gladiators and when combined with tremendous voice over work from every person involved with the UFC makes this one of the better sounding games out there.

Plot/Plot Development: N/A: It’s a sports sim and therefore you make your own plot.

Gameplay: 6.5: The only real negative for this game is that you can’t just pick it up and start playing. Having to devote a lot of time to tutorials and building up your fighters and technique might turn off more casual fans.

Replay Value: 9.0: An in-depth career mode, title and title defense modes, and classic matches mode coupled with online play that includes building your own MMA camp will keep hardcore fans practicing their submission maneuvers long into the night.

Overall (not an average): 7.0: The lack of accessibility to casual fans and newcomers will turn this into something we don’t see much of nowadays, a button masher. Being unable to just pick up and play this takes it down a notch from a must buy to a must rent and is only recommended for the ultimate fan of the UFC.

UFC Undisputed 2010 is available now for PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360.

-Ray Carsillo

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Better than a Babe Ruth League

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Originally Published: May 28, 2010, on Examiner.com, PlayerAffinity.com, and ESPNNewYork.com

I still reminisce every now and then about the glorious springs of my youth when baseball season would start and once our local organized little leagues were finished, my friends and I would head down to the park and play stick ball on abandoned tennis courts, wiffle ball on side streets, or home run derby on empty diamonds. Something that’s going to make me reminisce a little bit more about those days is the latest entry into the Backyard Sports series, Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers.

Before reading my full review of the game, be sure to check out my interview with the producer of Sandlot Sluggers, Roland Lesterlin.

The first thing you notice about Sandlot Sluggers is how great looking this game is, especially for the Xbox 360. The graphics are bright and colorful and the cut scenes for the story mode (more on that in a second) are done in stylized outlines and shadows that give it a unique and pleasing visual presence. There are a couple of glitches when you’re playing sometimes, but other than that the game is just plain pretty.

The audio is also very solid and rounds out the peripherals nicely. With cute commentary from the local old men who serve as the announcers for your games to the simple menu instrumentals, the game isn’t an audio revolution, but it works and is probably what you would expect from a game geared more towards teaching kids about sports and sportsmanship.

The biggest improvement to the series though comes with the brand new story mode (told you I’d get to it) that helps to deviate this game from your normal baseball sim. Playing the role of the new kid after fully customizing your look from the color of your glove to your head shape, it is up to you to unite the local kids into a team of superstars to take down Jimmy Knuckles and his squad of bullies who have pummeled all other teams into submission. Only by beating the teams of the eight other good kids can you recruit them onto your squad and gain access to Knuckles’ diamond behind the local school. Coupled with mini-games after every couple of victories to improve your squad’s equipment, the story mode is a great way to give life to the characters as well as to teach your little one the ins and outs of the game of baseball.

The gameplay is solid baseball action mixed in with the classic power-ups and special abilities you’ve come to expect from the Backyard Sports series. From booger balls that cover the screen and make it impossible to see the ball to icicle bats that freeze the first fielder to touch the ball, the new power-ups add a great element of randomness and a true sense of “it ain’t over till it’s over” to the game. And they might just help mom or dad keep them even with their little slugger.

Each field you play in also has its own unique qualities that add to the gameplay. From Pablo’s dog grabbing balls that go near his doghouse for ground rule doubles to balls bouncing into the playground’s sandbox for automatic triples, the field you play in adds to the unique strategies that can come into play.

There were a couple of negatives I saw to the gameplay as well though. The most obvious negative is the fact that a run doesn’t count if the final out is made on the base paths. The baseball rule is that if the run scores before the third out, the run counts. It was very irritating to get into rundowns trying to stretch a single into a double and then find out that the runner from third crossed home, but it never counted because I made the third out.

Speaking of running blunders, another glitch that drove me nuts was if I got caught stealing for the third out of an inning, the batter at the plate would be skipped over instead of leading off the next inning. This glitch baffled me and really made me think twice about when and whom I would run with. These glitches took away from the experience some and made me a little hesitant when it came to showing little kids this as a tool to teach them about baseball.

Another positive for the game though is the replay value. Along with the story mode, there are your typical season and playoff modes to continue taking on the local teams, and access to the mini-games including a baseball themed version of hot potato and a Simon-esque game of throwing the right pitch when it is called for. This should keep your little one popping this game back into their system for a while.

For what it is, Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers is probably the best game yet released by the folks behind the Backyard Sports franchise. It probably won’t hold the attention of an older and more hardcore baseball fan for very long, but is perfect as an introduction into baseball and baseball video games for younger kids and for parents to relate to their children. Include simpler one-button modes for even younger kids and this game will definitely appeal to every pre-pubescent little leaguer out there.

Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers is available now for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 9.0: Bright colors, stylized graphics for cut scenes, and a minimal of glitches make this a beautiful looking game for kids.

Audio: 7.5: Nothing groundbreaking in the audio department, but nothing sub-par either. The announcers end up repeating themselves like in every other sport game ever, but aside from that the audio is solid.

Plot/Plot Development: 7.5: Predictable, but perfect for children as the story mode touts lessons of teamwork and understanding. Jimmy Knuckles never saw it coming.

Gameplay: 7.0: Good for the most part, but running glitches will really take away from the baseball experience for people who really know the game. The power-ups and unique stadiums though help to cover up some of those shortcomings with the unpredictability they inject into the game.

Replay Value: 8.0: Average replay value for a sports game gets bumped up due to the inclusion of a story mode. Coupled with mini-games and a season and playoffs mode and this game will keep your youngster entertained for a while.

Overall (not an average): 8.0: Due to some glitches and a lack of true mass appeal, I can’t give this game a perfect score, but for what it is and the audience it is targeted at, Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers is a sure fire home run. Your little ones will love the characters and swinging for the fences in this family friendly baseball sim.

-Ray Carsillo

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Pwning the President’s Politics

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Originally Published: May 27, 2010, on TalkXbox.com

I’ve been professionally writing about video games for almost two years now and I’ve never felt the need to incorporate politics into my articles (I did write an editorial back in 2008 on the election, but games never came into it). Two weeks ago though, our president made some comments that really got under my skin.

For those of you who may be unaware, President Obama was giving a commencement speech at Hampton University in Virginia when he began talking about the bombardment of the masses by varying news and information reports from every technological orifice imaginable. Now, this is a valid point and I do personally believe that society does have a problem, at times, when it comes to filtering its news. But he said it in a way that, basically, throws video games under the bus for a lot of our information consumption problems.

His exact words that I am calling into question were: “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.” Personally, as someone whose life is dedicated to the reporting of and playing of video games, I took serious offense to this statement.

Firstly, the comment makes our president look like a Luddite and that he is out of touch with the constantly evolving technology that our lifestyles now demand. Secondly, as our president has admitted on camera to his BlackBerry addiction, to bash modern technology and those of us who use it, but to also admit to relying on it like a crutch himself, makes him look like a hypocrite.

Now I’m not knocking the President just to do so, the point simply is that most of us can process information effectively in today’s society and still play games. In fact, I’m sure many of the students he was talking to were gamers (maybe even gaming during his boring speech). For many of us, it is called a hobby (and a lucky few, a job). Most of us do not confine ourselves to our mothers’ basements surrounded by empty Red Bull cans and Doritos bags (and those of us who do are usually getting paid to do so)! Many people play video games and have a full social life. I know successful, intelligent people from a female medical doctor that likes to fly with Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 2 (yes, she’s married guys) to hockey players who double as Dark Jedi Masters in their spare time in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to army specialists who practice maneuvers with zombie hordes in Left 4 Dead 2.

Video games are simply a safe, entertaining way, to pass time by oneself or with friends. I’m sorry that we’ve moved beyond the printing press Mr. President. Maybe you should look into banning movies, reality TV, trashy romance novels, the Internet, or any other of the plethora of things that people do for entertainment. Or maybe you’re just frustrated that Midway Games, who were based out of your hometown of Chicago, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Either way, games are here to stay and are nowhere near the reason why the economy hasn’t rebounded yet, unemployment is through the roof, and Iran is getting their hands on low-grade plutonium. Maybe, Mr. President if you added President Mahmoud Ahmadinjejad (the President of Iran) to your Xbox Live friends list and played him for a few hours in NBA Live (we’ll make Bill Clinton an unlockable like in the old NBA Jam if it’ll help) he’d be more willing to listen to those sanctions you’re always going on about. Until then, choose your words more wisely because as someone who is using his gaming column to criticize your words, I feel pretty damn empowered. Game on! 

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From My Mom’s Basement – Ep 23 – Vacation’s Over

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Originally Published: May 25, 2010, on Lundberg.me, NationalLampoon.com, and SportsRev.TV

This week I reviewed Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Batman/Superman #72 from DC Comics. My hot chick pick of the week is Nilanti Narain.

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Eat Out Your Heart Mario Kart

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Originally Published: May 24, 2010, on Lundberg.me, Examiner.com, ESPNNewYork.com, Original-Gamer.com, and PlayerAffinity.com

I had a chance to sit down with Indycar and NASCAR racecar driver Danica Patrick. It wasn’t to talk about the Indianapolis 500 or her transition to NASCAR or even those provocative GoDaddy.com Super Bowl commercials.

If you know anything about me at this point, you know it had to be about a video game. The video game in question, in which the very lovely Danica stars as the final boss, is called Blur.

Blur is a graphically beautiful game that has the real-time damage features of games like Need for Speed combined with the multiplayer and weapon caused chaos of Mario Kart.

Check out my interview with Danica below and then get ready to go out and grab an electric shooting Lotus or super turbo charged Mustang as Blur hits store shelves May 25th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

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Never to be Forgotten

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Originally Published: May 20, 2010, on Lundberg.me, Examiner.com, ESPNNewYork.com, and PlayerAffinity.com

Note: This review was done with the Xbox 360 version. The Xbox 360, PS3, and PC versions are very different from the Wii, PSP, and DS versions.

The Prince of Persia series of the last generation of consoles was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed series to come out during its era and so it was no surprise that Ubisoft would want to somehow continue it on the current generation of consoles. The problem was that there was really no room to continue the story after it was so perfectly tied together with its final chapter. The solution? An interquel! Thus, we have the Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.

Naturally, the only place to expand on the trilogy would be in the seven year gap between the first chapter in the trilogy, The Sands of Time, and the second chapter, The Warrior Within, since the third chapter, The Two Thrones, took place immediately after Warrior Within and left no room for expansion (unless they wanted to go more in-depth about the Prince and Kaileena’s relationship on that boat of theirs& probably not a lot of gameplay there, but it might’ve provided for some interesting mini-games). In order to leave more room for later expansion and maybe the return of the Warrior Within’s nemesis, the Dahaka, Forgotten Sands takes place immediately after Sands of Time.

Now that we’ve banged out the timeline continuity, let’s get into the actual story. Our young hero, still not nearly as jaded as we would find him to be in Warrior Within, is sent by his father immediately after the events of Sands of Time to meet his brother, Malik, in the hopes that some of his leadership skills would rub off on our young prince. Upon arriving in his brother’s kingdom, the Prince finds Malik’s capital under siege and immediately puts to use his infamous agility as he begins to scour the city for his brother.

Once he catches up to Malik, the Prince finds that Malik is so desperate to win the battle, knowing that his forces have been nearly wiped out, that in a last ditch effort before retreat, Malik reveals to the Prince an ancient seal he has inherited. This seal supposedly will unlock the gates to a mystical sand army that the once great King Solomon had control over. Malik figures if he could control the army, he could turn the tide of war. It wouldn’t be much of a game though if Malik’s plan came to fruition.

As soon as the seal is inserted, it snaps in two as sand begins pouring out into the treasure room of Malik’s palace. The Prince, once again played by Yuri Lowenthal, quips that it always seems to be sand as only he and Malik are saved from the gruesome fate of being turned into sand statues by the remaining magic in the two halves of the seal. The Prince must now find a way to re-imprison the sand army that is running havoc around Malik’s city while discovering the secrets of King Solomon’s ancient city.

If you are a fan of the Prince of Persia trilogy from the last generation of consoles, then you will absolutely love Forgotten Sands. The Prince flows just as smoothly as ever as he uses his infamous agility to still hop along walls, columns, and flagpoles with as much as grace as in any previous game in the trilogy. There have also been new fighting mechanics added to the game as the Prince now uses not only his entire body and environment as a weapon with his typical jump kicks and acrobatic swinging sword somersaults, but several new powers that he acquires over the course of the game.

There is still the classic rewinding of time introduced way back in Sands of Time, but now there is also the ability to control the elements of wind, water, fire, and earth as the Prince’s new medallion made out of his half of the seal allows him an entire new power set. This new power set also allows for brand new puzzles for the Prince to traverse. Abilities like being able to freeze and unfreeze water has the Prince bouncing back and forth between frozen water ropes and trying to perfectly time when to turn waterfalls into walls and back. Also, being able to reverse time for not only the Prince, but also structures in the environment, creates a whole new challenge in terms of “looking before you leap”.

These new powers also help in the pumped up fights that the modern consoles can handle. There are times now where you are facing entire rooms full of twenty or thirty sand soldiers now, instead of only five or six like in most points in the original trilogy, so being able to call up stone armor or create a whirlwind around the Prince can really help even the odds.

The game also shines in terms of graphics on modern consoles. Never has a Prince of Persia game (even compared to the one that came out in December of 2008) looked so good. From facial expressions to Malik’s collapsing palace, Forgotten Sands is a visual gem. When you throw in a fantastic score and great voice acting from all those involved, including Yuri Lowenthal returning as the voice of the Prince, and this game’s peripherals are top-notch.

Of course, no game is perfect though. Even with all the great gameplay elements of the original trilogy successfully being ported over to this new chapter along with some tremendous additions in terms of puzzle solving, the game still has a couple of faults. Some irritating mid-jump glitches can make the already frustrating traps even more difficult to traverse.

More frustration comes through with the fact that even though the new systems can support more enemies, many of them are just as simple minded as ever and fall like bowling pins as they are knocked over by the agility of a well-trained Prince. The lack of enemy A.I. helps contribute to the fact that the story mode should only be about a 10-hour romp for most experienced players.

Another weak point of the game is that there isn’t much to keep you playing this beyond the short story mode. There isn’t even a hard mode. There is a second mode called “Enemy Tides” that you can unlock after beating the story mode where you try to defeat eight waves of enemies as quickly as possible, but you’ll be so experienced with your powers by the time you finish the game that you should blow through it on your first try with little difficulty. There are some collectibles and the hopes of powering up your Prince more to maybe bring you back for a second playthrough, but this is unlikely.

After having several intense playing sessions with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands I have to say that if you are a fan of the series, then this is a must pick up. If this is your first foray into this series, I would recommend a rental first, but this is still a game that most every action/adventure gamer should enjoy.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 10.0: From the smallest grain of sand on the ground to Malik’s collapsing palace, and with spectacular faces and models for all the characters, Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands is one of the best looking games out there now.

Audio: 10.0: Spot-on SFX, a fantastic score that perfectly sets the mood, and superb voice acting from all those involved, including the return of Yuri Lowenthal as the Prince, and the game is a treat for your ears.

Plot/Plot Development: 9.0: I admit that I was a little hesitant with the fact that the newest Prince of Persia game was going to be an interquel, but the folks at Ubisoft did a really good job tying it into the first game. The only problem I have with it is that I would have liked to have seen a tease of the Dahaka at some point since he is such a major force in the Prince’s life later on.

Gameplay: 8.0: The gameplay is very good and the action is as always tremendous in a Prince game. Unfortunately, poor enemy A.I., some glitches, and only 10 hours of gameplay knocks this down a little.

Replay Value: 4.0: This is where the game really falls flat. The “Enemy Tides” survival mode was a nice idea, and I’m sure there will be a little DLC later on, but no hard mode and a minimal of collectibles in the story mode will keep you from playing this after getting through the story.

Overall (not an average): 8.0: A fantastic game to play through the story once, but unless you are an established fan of the Prince of Persia series you should rent this before full out buying it. Still though, this is at least a must experience for every action/adventure fan out there.

-Ray Carsillo

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The Deadliest Interviewer!

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Originally Published: May 18, 2010, on ESPNNewYork.com and PlayerAffinity.com

If we ever wanted to find out who was the deadliest anything, we would most likely go to my latest interviewee. He is a professional Biomedical Engineer and one of the hosts for SpikeTV’s Deadliest Warrior, Geoff Desmoulin.

On Deadliest Warrior, which is now in its second season (first season available on DVD) and airs every Tuesday night at 10 PM on SpikeTV, Geoff, along with Max Geiger, Dr. Dorian, and some sweet analytical software, take some of histories greatest individual warriors and warrior groups and pit them against each other in mythological match-ups to determine the age old question: “Who is DEADLIEST?”

I had a chance though to ask Geoff some other questions like how he got involved with Deadliest Warrior and if we can ever hope to see some fictional characters make their way into the Deadliest Warrior fight club, where many of the shows’ weapons tests are conducted.

CLICK HERE – to hear Part 1 of my interview with Deadliest Warrior host, Geoff Desmoulin.

CLICK HERE – to hear Part 2 of my interview with Deadliest Warrior host, Geoff Desmoulin.

CLICK HERE – to hear Part 3 of my interview with Deadliest Warrior host, Geoff Desmoulin.

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From My Mom’s Basement – Ep 22 – Ray, Wake Up!

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Originally Published: May 11, 2010, on NationalLampoon.com, Lundberg.me, and SportsRev.TV

This week I reviewed Iron Man 2: The Game, Alan Wake for Xbox 360, and Brightest Day #1. My hot chick pick of the week is UFC Ring Girl, Arianny Celeste.

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