SMASH MOUTH FOOTBALL AND FATALITIES

Midway Games is known for making some of the best arcade style games ever. I recently had the opportunity to sit down at the Arena Nightclub on W. 41st St. between 6thAve. and Broadway in NYC and try out the next installments in two of their powerhouse franchises, Blitz the League II and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

I can’t give a full review on these games, since I only had the chance to play unfinished demos, but I will rate what I saw.

THESE GAMES ROCKED! Blitz the League II brings back all the smash mouth, in your face action from the first, and adds some replay value by giving you a three season franchise mode. Along with strippers, steroids, and a few new crushing injuries that would make even the toughest dude squirm, this game delivers all the goods. I gave it an initial 9 out of 10. I’ll give a full review when it comes out October 13, 2008.

The Blitz franchise also brought back our favorite fictional football character based on a real badass dude, Quentin Sands played by NFL Hall of Famer and defensive legend, Lawrence Taylor. I had a chance to catch up with Lawrence Taylor for a couple minutes about the game and football. Take a look at the video above for more.

Aside from Lawrence Taylor, I also caught up with Jacob Beucler, the Senior Associate Producer of Blitz the League II to get a few more details about the game that we couldn’t get through an exhibition demo. Here is what he had to say.


Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is one of the most anticipated games of the upcoming holiday season. Rumors have been swirling around the internet since this game was announced in terms of story, characters, and everything else you could think to make stuff up about. Although it had a few glitches, it still has a few more months of development before it’s released with that final polish we expect from a Mortal Kombat game.

This game will dominate though and my early review is another 9 out of 10. It looked beautiful and for the most part it played beautifully. I can’t wait to see the full story mode though to see exactly how these two very different franchises meet head to head. I had a chance to get some of the story from Brian LeBaron, the Lead Designer on Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Here is what he had to say.


Although I gave both quick reviews, expect the full breakdown of these games when they are released this fall.

-Ray Carsillo

BRING ON THE TURDUCKEN!!

Every year, right around the middle of August, the sounds of shoulder pads clashing, helmets cracking, and buttons clicking can be heard nationwide. That’s right! Football season is back and, with it, EA punts out yet another installment of the most successful franchise in gaming history, Madden.

For as many gamers that are out there that go out and get it every year like it’s a migration pattern, there are just as many who have grown tired of the series and of dropping $50-$60 on updated rosters. And for as much as John Madden gets mocked for his football commentary, he is a smart business man and knew his series needed a facelift.

So what exactly did they add or change to revitalize a series that has gone 20 games deep? Well, for starters, they created what they call a “revolutionary” A.I. system that conforms to your style of play. Before you’re even allowed to play a game, you are thrust into a series of mini-games to test your running game, passing game, run defense, and pass defense. Depending on how you do in each of these games, the game will change the level at which the computer will react to the plays you call.

This had a lot of people excited because one of the problems that many people faced, myself included, is that you would find the glitches, the handful of plays that would always work and allow you to run up the score and shut down the opponent even on the hardest difficulty level.

Unfortunately, this new A.I. is nothing to be excited about. Even if you should struggle with the mini-games, it would only take you a season or two for all you Madden veterans to max out the A.I. and get it back to the same exact point that you were at with all the other games. The glitches are gone for the most part, and it is nice that it forces you to mix up your plays a little more, but anyone who knows football, or specifically football games, should not end up too stressed over it.

Speaking of the mini-games, why are they hologram outlines? I was happy with the mini-games showing the actual players on the field. The neon hologram field is hard to see and makes it difficult to tell where exactly you are in relation to the ball, making the mini-games much harder than the actual game itself.

Speaking about hard to see, how about almost everything that is smaller than the players’ heads? When looking for the right play in the playbook, the button that corresponds to the appropriate receiver is too small to decipher because the playbook itself has been shrunk to ¼ the size of the screen when it used to be twice as big. What did they do with the extra space? They gave you a stat tracker. Now, if Madden had any affect on my fantasy team, then I would love to know all my stats up to the second, but otherwise, it is unnecessary, especially when the sacrifice is being able to see what play I am selecting. On more than one occasion I have selected the wrong play just because I could not read if it was a run or pass. In the game’s defense, I do not have a HD TV. But my TV is 36”; not small by any standards and I still couldn’t see and since the majority of people do not have an HD TV yet, we should not need one to read what play we are picking.

Aside from this, all the favorite modes are back. Franchise, Exhibition, a revamped Superstar mode, and they even threw in the Coach only mode instead of making it a completely separate game.

With all systems being online capable now, the Online Play mode is a big feature. This was something that needed to be fixed and wasn’t. What needs to be fixed? Simply that every time I start pummeling an opponent online, they jack out and I do not get the win, even if I still select that they get the loss (I show no mercy when it comes to that!). There should be a rule where if the game gets through the 1st half, it should still count as a win for the player who was winning at the time. If the player who was winning jacks out after a half, the game does not count for anyone. No losses or wins given. Play with honor or do not play at all!

In conclusion, it was a valiant effort, John, but maybe you should stick to just making up animals and riding on your bus because it failed. You even listened to your harshest critics and cut out your commentary and Al Michaels play-by-play and replaced it with Cris Collinsworth and some guy named Tom. Cris does a great job. Random guy needs some work. The game needed a facelift, John, and it looks like I’m going to have to sue you for malpractice because you botched it up.

Rankings are based on a score of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 6.0: The graphics on the field are solid. Everything you would expect from a game for this console generation. The graphics on the menus and the mini-games are something that look like last generation and that barely gets this an average rating. Very disappointing.

Audio: 9.0: The sound is great. The hits are crisp and loud and make you feel in the game. The commentary from Collinsworth is priceless. The random Tom dude bothers me a little and that keeps it from getting a perfect score. John Madden’s voice helping you navigate the menus to keep him in the game was a nice touch.

Plot/Plot Development: N/A: It is a sports sim. There is no storyline or plot beyond the one you create by how you play.

Gameplay: 7.5: The game is great until you max out the A.I. and find the ways around the system. If you are a diehard football fan (or a sore loser) then you have no problem winning all the time with no challenge at all. I can’t give that a perfect score though.

Replay Value: 10.0: Until the next installment comes out, this is football fans’ number one fix Monday – Saturday.

Overall (not an average): 7.0: With the downgrade in graphics, difficult to navigate menus and an overhyped new A.I. system that is almost as bad as the last one, this game is passable at best. Add in the lack of people who like to play fair online and I can’t give this a great overall gaming experience. This is a great reminder why most of us do not buy the game every single year.

-Ray Carsillo

CAGES?! WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ CAGES!!

It started like any other Wednesday. I rolled out of bed some time between 11AM and Noon, showered, dressed, and then began my weekly geek pilgrimages. First, I headed to the comics store to pick up the latest and greatest from “The Big Two”, and then I headed to my local video game retailer. I go on Wednesdays because their distributor rarely delivers the games on the day they are supposed to be released so I have to usually wait an extra day; it is the price I pay for my unquestioning loyalty.

This week I was seeking out Too Human, the newest action/adventure game for the XBOX 360. I had heard good things about the game, and being a geek culture expert, it was my duty to pick it up (expect a review in the next couple of weeks). I arrived at the store and walked to the XBOX 360 section and to my chagrin, the game was not there. I tracked down a clerk and asked if I had gotten the wrong date. He said I was correct, that the game came out this past Tuesday, but that new games were being held in a new section. He directed me to a giant, steel, padlocked cage at the front of the store.

I felt like the creepy old man from the local video store that oozes out of the “adult” section with his “film” nervously tucked under his arm. The fact that I had to hunt down a clerk (or "sales representative" for the politically correct) who then had to hunt down the right set of keys just for me to buy a video game is over the top.

And it isn’t just limited to my store. Best Buy keeps their newest games in a cage past their registers, which makes even less sense. Toys ‘R’ Us keeps all their games behind the counter on a wall so far away that you need a telescope to even see if they have games anymore. GameStop at least keeps empty shells on their shelves, but they confuse you by sprinkling in all their “Reserve Now” cases and “Coming Soon” cases with the legitimate shells to the extent that less informed customers would not know what they are looking at.

Has society really degraded to the point that the products we would like to buy need to be held in lockdown until we decide whether we want to buy them or not? Is everyone really that scared of shoplifters, what with most major stores having security guards, sensors, and eyes roaming everywhere? Is it really necessary for me to enter “Hell in a Cell” just to buy a game? How far off are we that I will have to survive an Undertaker choke slam before I can claim my prize?

And whatever happened to “just browsing”? How can we browse if we can’t see the products you are supposed to be trying to sell? I have bought more games when I have been “just browsing” than any other way. There is a special feeling of actually having the game in your hand and being able to analyze the box art, the key plot points, the screenshots. It’s the same way as when you look on the inside flap of a book to see what it is about before you buy it.

After I finally acquired my copy of Too Human and was able to read the box, I found out that it is the first in a trilogy. It says so right on the case. However, games are in such a lockdown that the G4 Network, a channel devoted to the geek stuff that I sermonize here, reported today that Silicon Knights, the developers of Too Human, have hinted at a sequel being in production. I guess they couldn’t see the boxes either.

-Ray Carsillo

CAN MARVEL KEEP UP THE MOMENTUM? (My review of Secret Invasion #5 of 8)

House of M. Civil War. World War Hulk. These are the past three major Marvel Comics events and they have all come roaring out of the gate and all have had horribly disappointing endings. Booming into view, here comes the biggest event to date, the Skrull Secret Invasion. Several storylines have been devoted to showing how the Skrulls took over and who they took over as the Marvel Universe has been turned on its head and no one knows exactly who to trust.

The mini-series that is pushing the storyline forward is, aptly titled, Secret Invasion, an eight part series. The plot started off rather slowly, but things really kicked up a notch in the last issue as the humans began to finally mount a comeback (very necessary since there are only 3 issues left after this). The super-humans that have not been replaced have at least been incapacitated, including Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, and Black Bolt. Mr. Fantastic is trapped aboard a Skrull warship when he is released by the head of SWORD and he immediately begins working on a device to show the Skrull’s true forms.

He can do this because it is revealed that the reason why he and select others have been left alive was they were considered useful. Mr. Fantastic was left alive for his brain to be put to Skrull use, which also allowed him to see their secrets and, therefore, now allows him to build a device to counteract the Skrull cloaking technology. Black Bolt is alive because he would be used as a weapon to shatter any resistance against the Skrulls when the time is right. Iron Man was left alive because everyone hates him and the Skrulls could never produce that kind of negative propaganda no matter how hard they tried.

Two specific parts of the book were really outstanding and brought a smile to my face. The last page, where Clint Barton (a.k.a. Hawkeye, a.k.a. Ronin) finds out that the woman he thought was his deceased wife come back to him was just another Skrull. After disposing of her, he exclaims that it is his mission now to kill every last Skrull. That was powerful.

The other one was with Maria Hill aboard the downed SHIELD Helicarrier with a Skrull taskforce. Supposedly she is trapped with the taskforce, but then she reveals to the Skrull impersonating Jarvis, Iron Man’s butler, that Nick Fury told her to invest in LMDs (Life Model Decoys), very realistic looking robots that can be controlled from afar. Then as the taskforce is about to kill her, she says “Nick Fury was right” and you find out she was only a robot! She flies off in a jetpack from another part of the ship, blasting Skrulls with a laser cannon as she escapes! That was awesome because it shows that Nick Fury is still one of the most badass characters Marvel has and that it’s about time they are working him back into the fold.

There was so much revealed in this issue that you should really just go pick it up because it is the basis for the end of the Invasion. It laid the groundwork for the resolution to this crisis and it was done in a way that would please every Marvel fan. The only reason why I wrote about this is because it begs the question: Can Marvel actually finish something just as strong as they start it? Can we finally have a major event that we can put our hearts and minds into and not end up disappointed in the end? I said it with Civil War. I said it with World War Hulk. I am going to say it again though and hope I’m right this time. This is what we have been waiting for. The blockbuster event that will sweep us off our feet and truly change the Marvel Universe forever and in a way we will talk about for years to come. And if it isn’t, I might have to begin a Marvel boycott.

-Ray Carsillo

IT’S FATHER/SON DAY AT THE X-MANSION (My review of Cable #6)

It’s been a long time since I reviewed a comic. Not a movie or video game based on one, but a legit comic book. I take a look at Cable #6 because it follows one of the most intriguing X-Men characters ever. Cable is the son of Cyclops and Jean Grey who contracts an unheard of techno-organic virus and is sent to the future to save his life. He then comes back to save the world and spend some time with dear old Dad (especially since his Mom is dead for the time being).

The most recent re-launch of the Cable series deals with the newborn, would be mutant messiah being hunted by many different groups including the X-Man turned traitor, Bishop. In order to save the baby, Cable travels into the future (not his though) to get away from the warring factions after the baby. Bishop though is also from the future. And so begins a battle that literally spans time.

This issue had both good and bad points. It was good because it had two different artists working on it to depict the different times. Ariel Olivetti drew the future scenes with Cable and Michel Lacombe drew the present scenes with Cyclops, both looking fantastic, possibly more so because of the contrast between the two. The present part of the issue was about the changes Cyclops had undergone due to world events recently, how he was coping and changing as a leader, and how he still feels guilty for sending Cable away originally (although it was to save his life), and then sending him away again to save another baby (not his this time). The future parts were fewer and farther between since most of the series up to this point had followed Cable (it is his comic after all, the X-Men already have like six others) and only progressed the conflict with Bishop just enough to remind you that there was a conflict with Bishop.

Now for the bad parts. The Cyclops scenes were great and it was good to touch base with the present to see how Cable’s leaving was affecting the team, but this is his comic. His story did not get advanced at all and I am getting tired of this whole thing with Bishop still being carried on. If it does not get resolved soon, I might have to stop picking this comic up because there has to be more to a series than one good guy fighting a good guy turned bad over and over again. The other characters that Cable bumps into along the way are nice, but it still boils down to Cable vs. Bishop and there is not enough there to maintain a long running series.

In the end, pick this up for the great look into Cyclops’ psyche and to catch up some on the events surrounding the X-Men, but if things do not pick up soon, I would not make this comic a regular buy.

-Ray Carsillo

SINCE WHEN IS PLAYING POKER A SPORT?!

Depending on who you ask, yes, poker is a sport. I know; I couldn’t believe it either. This begs the question then, what constitutes a sport? This debate has reached the lips of many in the past couple of years since channels such as ESPN and Versus are airing things like fishing, hunting, and poker. Is curling a sport since it is included in the Olympics when baseball isn’t? Does something like poker, that deals mostly with luck and features no athleticism at all, demand two weekly hours of primetime coverage on a sports network? Is video gaming a sport when you never leave your chair? I am here to solve this dilemma definitively, once and for all!

When I say definitively, I mean it. I have turned to the internet’s dictionary for the definition of what constitutes a sport and my research astounds me. There are 27 different definitions of “sport”. Hmmm…we’re going to have to whittle this down some. First, anything that isn’t a noun we can throw out since we’re looking for the idea of what “sport” is, so that eliminates 13 definitions. Easy enough. Next we can eliminate anything dealing with botany, which I never even knew had “sports”. Two more down. After that, we can eliminate the people who play sports since we need to know what “sport” is before we can speak of sportsmen or sportsmanship. That cuts the field in half to six. Next we can eliminate the “sport” that deals with making fun of people and that leaves us with two basic definitions.

First: an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

Second: a diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime.

Interesting. According to the first definition, which is usually the most widely accepted, poker and video games would most definitely not be sports. Although they can be highly competitive, neither requires athletic ability. If you tried to use the second definition though then you could list almost anything as a sport. You could therefore say what I do at 2 AM in front of my computer screen in my basement is a sport by the second definition.

…You sick monkeys. I was talking about writing on my blog!

I think that pretty much settles it. The keys to what constitutes a sport is that it must involve two things: a direct, clear-cut competition between two or more individuals or teams of individuals, and it must have some athletic prowess involved that would prevent any regular Joe from becoming an instant superstar. This means that poker and video games are not sports. Sorry Greg “Fossilman” Raymer. Maybe if you ran your fat a** on a treadmill while playing poker, we could call you a sportsman, but until then, you’re just another guy with a bad gimmick that can play a game very well. And maybe the International Olympic Committee should get their heads out of their a**es and re-institute baseball.

-Ray Carsillo