My Time on Giant Bomb's Thursday Night Throwdown

Watch live video from Giant Bomb Live! on Justin.tv

Today has been Mortal Kombat II day for me as I played this game (PSN version) for Giant Bomb's Thursday Night Throwdown featuring that and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (XBLA). It feels great to participate along for the shenanigans with the Giant Bomb guys as I got my turn to face Brad Shoemaker about 29 minutes into the video above. It was a close one, but Brad did beat me with Reptile while I was Sub-Zero. It was indeed a competitive fight from beginning to end, but I guessed wrong in certain situations a couple times which costed me the match. What I mean by guessing wrong is not freezing when Reptile was going for the acid split to get the better trade and also I didn't capitalize of a puddle opportunity in the final round as Reptile went the wrong way I wanted him to be. That was a fun experience and I gained props and respect among the Giant Bomb crew for a good game. Actually, playing Mortal Kombat II again today has been fun times throughout getting reacquainted with the game and noticing how fun it still is today. If only I still had my 360 to play Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 against Jeff Grestmann, but its all good as I had my moment to shine. In the meantime, enjoy the carnage the guys unleashed on the internets as they are legit players being that they are big fans of the game.


Watch live video from Giant Bomb Live! on Justin.tv

Video of the Day... aka more Playstation Move Hype

Playstation Move is launching next month and Kevin Butler is at it once again. I must say, this is a smart video by SCEA as they know what it takes to market with commercials.

Mega Man Universe Gameplay Trailers = Huh??

Gameplay footage of Mega Man Universe finally showed up on the interwebs and answers some questions like what in the world is this game gonna be. So far, it looks like a HD Remix of the franchise, but retaining some of the 8-bit flavor. It still plays like the 8-bit games, but the mix of old and new art can be weird especially at the current generation of games we are at now. This reminds of the Capcom vs. SNK games where there is a mix of old and new sprites into one game as it kind of messes up the core style of the graphics. It might be the case here with Mega Man Universe seeing various versions of Mega Man (even the bad box art version of the first game) and teasing playable Ryu. All in all, it looks like a Mega Man game in HD and that's fine by me so far.

Mega Man Universe at IGN.com

Kirby's Epic Yarn = Still the Nintendo Sleeper to Watch Out For.

Now that Metroid Other M is out, we await what's next in the fall for Nintendo. Other than the sure big money hits like Donkey Kong Country Returns and even Wii Party (because anything Wii-something will sell other than Wii Music as the exception - then again, its not bundled with anything, so that might flop), the sleeper of Nintendo's lineup is Kirby's Epic Yarn, which comes out in October. Epic Yarn to me is like the "Paper Mario" of the Kirby franchise as its the Kirby formula, but changed up a bit and also very artsy, which is indeed the case. It wowed the press at E3 with its originality and I hope the audience will catch on to it besides hardcore Nintendo fans that have been waiting for a true Kirby game like this since well Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (I played that game and it was okay, but not great). This will be likely my next Wii game after Other M unless I get something else.

Metroid Other M Review Coming Soon...

Warning - The clip below = Major SPOILERS!!! (Well just by the video description alone)

Just a quick post that my Metroid Other M review will be up soon as I will beat it likely tonight (yes I passed the part in the clip above). In the meantime, if you feel like being spoiled, there's one of the big moments of the game...

Vanquish Demo Hands-On

If you can't see anything in my gameplay video of the demo, there is a direct feed version of someone else playing below.

The Vanquish demo came out yesterday on the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network as people like me were eagerly curious how this stylish cover-based shooter will play like. Even before the hype, count on Mikami (of Resident Evil fame) and Platinum Games to deliver the goods as they are so far with this demo. With Bayonetta and MadWorld off their belts, Platinum has been becoming a crowd favorite developer these days with known guys at the helm and just making everything crazy as Vanquish is no different. A Japanese take on a Western-dominated genre like cover-based shooters can be easy to write off, but Vanquish is a solid shooter with its own crazy take on the genre just by the futuristic approach. The demo is pretty much a simple mission of defeating waves of enemies as no story is being fleshed out, which is okay as it gets straight to the action right away. Sam moves slowly with the equipment he has on, but he can boost away (well this game's version of the "roadie run") to cover to take out enemies. The conventual weapons are there from a standard assault rifle, grenades, heavy machine gun, and shotgun as they are self-explanatory these days in shooters, but each have their uses at proper times in the action. If you played any cover-based shooter before, you will feel right at home with Vanquish even though the controls may be different from what you're used to, so you may need to find a control type to be accustomed to (I prefer the one where the L2 and R2 triggers are the aim and shoot buttons). The action does get insane with opposing fire from every angle and enemy missiles raining down like crazy, but evading all this insanity is simple enough unless you're getting one hit killed and also going to AR mode, which slows down the action after evading. The core gameplay does seem to work fine in Vanquish as shooter fans will eat it up as its another solid one to play through despite the Japanese-like cheesy story. Graphically, Vanquish looks good for the most part even though the game runs at 30 frames per second. The characters look pretty sharp and the action seems to hold up at that consistent framerate. Sound-wise the characters do sound like generic soldiers you're used to in shooters and the music is your typical orchestral fare as expected from games like this. So far, Vanquish seems to be a fun shooter that is diverse from the crowd of other games like that with its stylish and futuristic approach. Even though it comes out in October, a time where its really competitive, I'm curious whether or not it will find its core audience or it will be just another flavor of the week deal and we all move on to something else.

Mortal Kombat + Disturbed = A New Trailer...

Well a new Mortal Kombat trailer showed up on the interwebs which features a new Disturbed song (why not considering their new album just came out today). This is a pretty much a new teaser, so we have to wait for more new stuff soon.