Alive Forever

Alive 4 Ever is a game that borrows heavily from the Xbox 360 title Left 4 Dead. From the zombierrific premise to the inclusion of a 4 in the title this iPhone game is basically an over the top (as in the camera is on top) version of the Left 4 Dead without the camaraderie that the Xbox title is able to achieve on its Live multiplayer.

We can go on and on about how much Alive 4 Ever borrows from Left 4 Dead but that wouldn't be any fun. The actual game though: lots of fun! ok maybe not "lots" but it is sorta fun. It's customizable as fuck, four different characters representing at least three ethnicities and at least two genders, hoards of zombies coming at you, loads of weapons, 30 stages. For an iPhone game its huge. It's fun, and I believe its like a dollar so have at it.

But the real reason for the post? I was playing this thing today and as I was scrolling through the available characters I passed by the one pictured above (the girl) and it turns out her name is Anna Lennox. For some strange fucking reason my immediate thought was "Isn't that the singer for the Eurythmics?" now I'm not a fan of the Eurythmics and I seriously doubt that I've ever conscientiously listened to a Eurythmics song but it turns out that yeah, their singer is Annie Lennox. Well played Alive 4 Ever. Your move Eurythmics.

Anyway, not much more to say, I give this game six out of seven stars.

Tetris! in First Person!

Well prepare to get nauseous. Someone has finally taken Tetris and made it into a first person game. Now this doesn't mean you'll be maneuvering a figure composed of four squares through an urban warfare setting armed only with a gun and the knowledge that you can always respawn. No, it means that now its the screen doing the rotating and not the figure.

It's fun, sure, but it also makes you want to throw up. The upside? well its a new spin to Tetris and its free to play. It's not available on a console or iphone (yet) all you have to do is go to the following link. It'll transport you to a magical place in which TV screens were still square, the NES was the balls and Maxell had the recordable VHS market cornered.

First Person Tetris

Power Ups

Alright today we take a look at the new power ups available in Super Mario Bros Wii. We do not spend time on mushrooms, invincibility stars, Yoshi or the kick ass fire flower because those are not exclusive nor new to this game. Sure its very much the case that the fire flower is the greatest power up ever, and it remains so in this game, but for now we take a look at the three new upgrades.

The Ice Flower - Like the fire flower but instead of throwing little fire pellets Mario, Luigi and their unnamed fungi cohorts throw (get ready for it) ice. The ice freezes enemies but it does not eliminate them automatically. Instead the player has the ability to pick up the newly created ice block and hurl it at someone or something. This does come in handy sometimes but I'd rather just have the baddie gone for good. The other upside to the ice is that some baddies that are immune to the fire pellets are frozen by the ice (bones, bullets, thwomps come to mind). I'm happy to report that Boo remains immune to just about everything.

Penguin Suit - Well its tradition that Mario turns into some sort of animal and for this game that animal is a penguin. When dressed as a penguin Mario walks funny, is able to throw ice projectiles like with the ice flower and is able to swim faster and more easily. Underwater it basically serves the same purpose as the frog suit did in Mario 3. Its great for swimming, its as good as the ice flower but it unfortunately does not help with the slippery floors in the ice world. This severely devalues this power up, its sparse availability devalues it even further.

Propeller Suit - The best new power up in the game. It comes in a form of a mushroom that flies up when it pops out of the power block. Once caught Mario dons a red speed suit with a pretty cool helmet (with a propeller at the top of it) that allows Mario to fly up and then float down in a semi controllable fashion. Yes previous games allowed full on directional flight while this only lets you basically jump really long distances but its still really useful in certain situations. This game has an unusually large amount of platforms and shit that moves, if you have a propeller mushroom you can just fly from safe spot to safe spot. Ii you're playing multiplayer you only need one suit to get through. The amount of awesome in this powerup is truly difficult to quantify.

So there it is. We've seen weirder stuff in previous games, flying raccoons, Terminator Mario, Giant Mario, Tiny Mario (which returns in this game) so a flying suit and ice flowers really arent out of the ordinary. Poweups have always added to the individual charm of each Mario game, these new additions represent the Wii version well.

Loser of the Week: The American people in 1998. Turns out Mark McGwire used steroids for the longer part of his career including the Home Run chase of 1998. In other news the Earth is round, the sky is blue. In retrospect we were duped into thinking we were witnessing history, in fact we were witnessing the apex of the steroid era. I don't have an issue with the whole "cheating" thing because technically steroids were legal at the time but it still kinda sucks when we consider that even though Babe Ruth and Roger Maris were doing it in simple times they were also doing it on nothing but beer and hot dogs.

Picture Post 9

Not sure whats going on here? yeah me neither.

Go here for the answer. (nsfw unless you work at a factory that allows, nay celebrates, 8 bit nudity).

Dirty Pirate, Poet

You know you're a video game nerd when someone asks you something about the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and you automatically picture his namesake from the Soul Calibur series.

Ok I'll grant you that Miguel de Cervantes is an obscure character to most Americans, especially to those Americans preoccupied with fighting games but I'm not most Americans. I (almost) minored in Spanish in college, I took and mastered AP classes in both Spanish Language and Literature! I'm the cousin of a pretentious poser who every year goes to the Mexican bourgeois booze and book fest known as the "Cervantino". I should know better.

But Cervantes (the character) has a certain charm to him. I remember my first encounter with him and the soul series, playing at a ragtag arcade establishment in Tijuana after school. Of course the original Soul Blade was primitive by today's standards but it looked amazing then. The inclusion of a Spanish named character was something to be amazed about, it didnt matter that he was essentially just a dirty pirate, he was still essentially a badass and in an odd way he represented "my people". It was the beginning of an odd fascination/love for the series which goes on up to today.

NHL 09 on the Cheap

A few months back I wrote an entry detailing how REDACTED was selling NHL 07 for the stupidly amazing price of $30 American despite the fact that the title had been out for more than three years and other retailers, online and otherwise, offered the same title for a lot less. As is customary for myself I made a bunch of quips about how outdated this place is, how they're going out of business and so on.

While this might still be technically true I now feel obligated to share an update on this situation. Turns out that about a month and a half after my post graced the front of the internet I found NHL 09 at the same store for $5.99. I of course had a surrogate buy it for me instantly. Now, while this is truly a noteworthy occurrence, I should also note that NHL 07 remains available for $30.

What does this all mean? well that one of my initial thoughts was accurate: its not that the place still wants that much for a three year old outdated game but rather their pricing system was horribly outdated when it came to software. NHL 07 fell through the cracks and was never marked down. NHL 09, on the other hand, was marked down as soon as NHL 10 came out.

So at least their situation is getting better. REDACTED was (and still is) getting eaten alive by more savvy retailers such as Wal Mart and Target not to mention the online competitors. The biggest problem here, aside from the loss of revenue, is that this situation did not help this place shake off its image as an old, outdated store in which your parents used to shop but you wouldn't be caught dead in. Everybody's parents eventually die and once that happens you've just lost your base.

It's a good sign that they're getting their shit together but by no means does this make REDACTED even relevant as compared to the realities of today's mercantile situation.

Fuck Yeah

Great meme...or the greatest meme?