The Onion: Modern Warfare

Apparently today is a big day in video game land as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released to throngs of anxious fanboys waiting to get a glimpse of life on the barracks. I must admit all this love for this game sorta appeared out of nowhere, it seems like three or so weeks ago everybody started talking about, Wal Mart started making some of their annoying "did you get ______ yet" commercials that only air during Madden season and people were going gaga over a special package that gives you actual night vision goggles. Because that's what you need.

Anyway you can always count on The Onion to lampoon such an occurrence. This time they've produced a video talking about Modern Warfare 3 which promises the most realistic military gameplay ever. Everything from "waiting around for hours" and "cleaning humvees" to countless fun "hauling equipment" and "filling out paperwork". These are only a few of the jokes in the beginning of the news story. It only gets better. I rarely laugh out loud to anything I read or see online but I was definitely Lol'ing with this video.

I wont embed the video because two video posts in a row would be gauche. Watch for the link at the end of this entry. I'm not against this game per se, I just dont really care much for it. I had the first MW and I played it for a bit before it was stolen by (I assume) some crackhead. Of course I found that it glorified military life to a great extent but I'm not enough of a fucking liberal blowhard to be offended by it. People trying to make the military look badass? my that's shocking! I also find that games in which you control an arm holding a gun don't really hold my attention for very long. Yes at this point in my life I'd rather play a fake guitar than shoot a few fake Afghans.

But getting back to the Onion video, it appears it was somewhat produced with the aide of the developers of this game which means that they at least have a sense of humour and realize that their game might be exaggerate what the military does and are willing to take a few jabs at the whole situation.

Aaaaanyways, watch the video here:
Ultra Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks - The Onion

The Onion: Cyberball

The Onion had another one of their brilliant video game related articles today, this time relaying the story of how there might be a lockout of the 2073 season of Cyberball if the Robot Players union and the league don't reach an agreement. Choice quote here:

"I am unable to detect any gratitude from owners of magnesium wide receivers and titanium running backs who continually execute, on command, motion-based operations with a 350-pound explosive ball. I honestly cannot believe my proximity sensors."

This got me to doing some research on this game (which I had never heard of before) and before I knew it I was playing the damned thing so not only is this an Onion entry but also a review. Two for one, yeah!.

Cyberball is the clever (for the 1980's) name given to an atari football game that featured robots instead of actual human players. There are many number of reasons why this was a wise decision, for one no need to get any license from the NFL or NFLPA, theres also no need to actually try to recreate any likenesses to actual human beings, and the abilities to create pallete swapped clone teams and use ultra bad ass imagery such as this.

The version I played was a demo freely available on the Xbox Live. It maintains the retro (read: cheap) graphics and gameplay but throws in some new artwork (based on this apparently) and menus so you dont feel like you just wasted 400 points on a crap game. Gameplay isn't necessarily crap (it is, after all, a port of an 80's atari game) it's simply limited.

Basically you control a red team playing against a blue one, you play both offense and defense and have the ability to choose one of four plays (there are more than four but there are only four presented at a time) ranging from pass and run to option, blitz and nickel. There are no first downs, rather the teams play with an atomic ball which must warms up after about four downs if the team does not score or get the ball to midfield.

You don't so much play this game as you participate in it. Passing is random, running is vaguely controllable and defense is impossible. Scoring is a bit easy only because it's more difficult to not catch a pass than it is to complete it. It's an interesting experience, one which plays surprisingly smoothly on the Xbox but when all is said and done the game is too dated to be that interesting. After all this kind of thing can now be found on the iPhone, with better gameplay and graphics. Still as a piece of nostalgia its relatively harmless and, I assume, the full game along with the ability to play online (and a variety of teams) makes it somewhat fun.

Here's the Onion article
Cyberball Robot Player's Union Says Lockout Likely In 2073 Season

King of Fighters :(

Went down to the local Babbages E.B Games the other day since I had some disposable income and had heard that they sometimes carry SNES games (though they're mostly sports related) and was surprised to find that King of Fighters XII had already come out, excited I checked the price tag and decided that I did not have that much disposable income and promptly set it back down. I then proceeded to buy this instead.

I realized that I had not seen any actual reviews of the game yet, the previews all focused on how pretty the all-new hand drawn artwork is and while that certainly is the case it was still possible for such a good looking game to suck. And apparently it does.

The first place I looked for a review was the AV Club, the serious wing of The Onion whose reviews have gotten me down to the theaters to watch such films as The Wrestler, Away We Go and a small indy film called Watchmen. In short, I hold their reviews in high regard simply because their tastes mostly agree with mine.

I did find the KOF review and it's not pretty. The game is rushed, its missing some key characters, it has a small roster for a 3 on 3 game, its a money grab, there are too few stages and:

"Even worse, if you aren’t into online play, there’s little comfort to be found in the game’s single-player campaign, a five-stage time-trial championship that can be beaten in 10 minutes, tops. The tournament is interspersed with up-to-the-minute action-news coverage that has the audacity to imply excitement, but is completely generic and unrelated to your gameplay."

Brutal. I am no longer looking forward to this game and I'm not sure I can deal with that. Like I've said tons of time I love pretty art but do I love it enough to spend $60 on a mediocre game? no, $20? probably not, it is therefore entirely possible that I'll have to wait at least a year before it goes below that threshold.

What's even worse is that SNK seems to be missing more often then not when it comes to releasing games on the newer consoles. The Maximum Impact games are horrible, the older fighters are...older and now that the supposed saviour has been released and has failed to do what SFIV did for the Street Fighter franchise the future simply isnt looking too bright for the company. The franchise might have a rabid fanbase but how many lemons can that fanbase suffer through? You get one more chance SNK, make it count.

The Onion: NBA Jam

Great article in today's Onion about Michael Jordan wondering why he isnt in NBA Jam. It was a great 90's quirk that MJ, the biggest athlete in the world in his prime, was never in any NBA games because he was not a part of the NBA players association and anybody that wanted him had to pay him directly for his likeness.

It was weird but then again video games were still for kids and sports figures didn't really care if they were in games, completely different story now of course as Madden's and 2K games have become mainstream icons. Then again the 90's were also a weird time for the NBA, with the pajama uniforms and cartoony logos, maybe Jordan was right in staying the hell away from the whole thing, though I'm sure it was all about money.

A choice quote from the article:

"'Scottie being there makes sense, but Horace Grant? Seriously? And how can Tom Gugliotta be in this game and not me? I could swear they paid me a $100 million licensing fee.'"

NBA Jam, which I nearly bought the other day, was also a quirk of the 90's: a 2 on 2 arcade style basketball game in which certain button combinations allowed one to choose random celebrities, from Will Smith to Bill and Hillary Clinton, some Mortal Kombat characters and probably Spike Lee. Here's the link.

Michael Jordan Wondering Why He Wasnt in NBA Jam - The Onion

Good to see The Onion didn't actually sell off to a Chinese fish salvage consortium.

The Onion: Punch Out

Because The Onion is the best satirical newspaper ever I thought I'd share this great article that details a new documentary about Mike Tyson in Punch Out. Its a few months old, I read it when it was first posted and it was one of the reasons why I started eightbitter.

There is plenty of room to work with when reminiscing about the video games we grew up with, the NES, SNES and Sega generation of the late 80's/early 90's has grown up and become aware of the brilliance of our childhood video games despite their limitations. And we openly mock and venerate them, more so than past Coleco or Atari generations simply because our video games actually looked like video games and not dots or jumbled pixels.

Anyway, read the article its fuckin hilarious, heres an excerpt:

"'MY BODY [WAS] JUST SO TOTALLY COOL,' a wistful Super Macho Man said during promotional interviews. Twenty years after his heyday, the clinically depressed former bodybuilder is confined to a wheelchair, the result of medical complications arising from the weight of his enormous upper torso bearing down upon his tiny legs."

The rest is here

New Mike Tyson Documentary Features Exclusive Interviews With Super Macho Man, King Hippo

By the way that kickass Punch Out scarf can (could) be found here.