The long awaited convention video.

We travel to Botcon, accomplish nothing, leave satisfied.

Sorry I’m late this week fans.  I had a few job interviews and whatnot, but here I am.  This week’s $20 GOTW celebrates America’s love affair with 80’s action movies.  You know, the kind with one man against a crime syndicate, shooting up a whole bunch of $!#t.  Dead to rights was a game that came out in the second year of the Xbox’s life cycle.  What’s surprising about it is that it was made by Namco, an Japanese company.  At the time, they had Americanized action down pat.  It would be released on PS2, Gamecube, and PC several months later with new features such as the ability to bypass some of the more annoying minigames.  You play as Jack Slate, a former cop out to clear his name and avenge his father’s death.  Your quest for revenge takes you throughout Grant City’s slums all the way to the top of it’s criminal empire, as crooked cops, businessmen, foreign white slavers (yes you read that right), and even the mayor are wrapped up in the conspiracy.  It implimented the popular “bullet time” gameplay device, something which would be whored out in several other games.  Also of note were the cool disarm moves, where with a button combination and quick reflexes, you could disarm an opponent and kill him with his own weapon.  Your canine friend Shadow also helps out in some of these sequences, hitting up an opponent and taking his weapon for you to use.  As mentioned before the game uses several minigames to keep the action from getting stale.  These minigames involve disarming bombs, participating in boxing matches, and even a gallery-shooting level.  It was followed up with a rather dissappointing sequel last year, and a planned spinoff, “Grant City Anti-Crime”, was cancelled altogether.  Even so, if you love all out balls-to-the wall shooting, you can’t go wrong with this.  It may not reinvent the wheel, but damn if it ain’t fun.

Even though Batman is one of the most prolific names in movies, comics, and TV, his history in video games has been somewhat less than encouraging as of late, as evidenced by the recent Batman Begins game. However, things weren’t always like this. Lets head back to a time when Batman games were *gasp* good.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Nearly 3 years after the release of the Black Album, Jay-Z has released a new single.
“Show Me What You Got” is a classic banger from producer Just Blaze, and we could expect nothing less. A video for the song has been shot and will appear on MTV monday, and on YouTube within minutes, no doubt.

Jay-Z’s very public retirement has had him taking over Def Jam and even appearing in NBA Live 07, though few believed he would leave rapping behind, as he continued to appear on albums by the likes of Kanye West and Beyonce.

MTV reports Hova’s long rumoured comeback album, Kingdom Come will be released November 23rd.

Justice League Heroes (the X-Men Legends-like game for DC characters) finally has a trailer letting us see some of the characters in action – specifically Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, Zatanna, and Martian Manhunter. It’s not going to change the face of gaming or anything, but it certainly looks to deliver the exact type of gameplay I’m expecting.

Also, there’s some stills of the game available for your perusal here. Plus, they talk about the game a little, but I have no stomach for this “reading” business. Just the pretty pictures.

Sure you know about the Gradius series, but what do you know of Konami’s other shooter, Axelay?  This SNES shooter showcased some cool mode-7 effects, awesome stages, and had a catchy soundtrack.  Stages in the game were both side-scrolling and horizontal, and there were some kick-ass boss fights, such as the lava man shown on the cover.  You could select you weapons at the beginnng of each level, although some of them had limited ammo.  Some of the people who worked on this game left to form Treasure, which produced the cult classic Gunstar Heroes.  Not a whole lot else to say about this game, so check out the ROM, or pray that Konami brings it to Wii’s virtual console.

In 2003, Nintendo released Warioware Inc, a bizzare and unique pacakge unlike anything seen so far on the Game Boy Advance. It was a collection of ‘microgames’, short games that were to be completed in a few seconds. These games included jumping over a moving vehicle, dodging arrows, wiping the snot from a nose of an anime girl, and even excerpts from classic Nintendo games. There was nothing like it, and still isn’t. When the DS was announced, I suspected that there would be a version of Warioware which would take full advantage of the system’s capabilities, and sure enough, here it is.

Warioware touched makes use of the stylus and microphone for an all new and bizzare collection of minigames. You use the stylus to cut up food, unroll toilet paper, put out fires using a statue of a urinating child, and other bizzare activities. Each set of games is grouped according to thier main function. For instance, Jimmy’s games involve rubbing, while Mona’s involve quick cutting motions. You unlock more stuff throughout the game, including more minigames, and ‘toys’ which show off fun little things you can do with the DS. For those looking for something unique, you can’t go wrong with this. Also, check out Warioware twisted on GBA, and Warioware smooth moves comming soon to Wii.

Burger King will be offering 4$ X-Box and X-Box 360 games along with their value meals according to Gamespot. There will be 3 games which will be total Burger King propaganda featuring none other than the extremely creepy Burger King driving bumper cars, racing bikes and most disturbingly of all sneaking around and force feeding people Burger King food.

As if the King wasn’t a bone chilling enough character that I would put on par with your average clown when it comes to creepiness but now to top it off he wants to assault my colon by force feeding me those horrible Burgers?

I think this promotion is a great idea except that I don’t have an X-Box and I don’t get Burger King promotional items since the gut wrenching Pokemon promo of 1999. These issues shouldn’t affect most people…

As cheap and propagandaish as this may seem we’re still talking about what is essentially a 4$ game. Under 10$ including the meal. It’s hard to beat that.

Thanks to spooie for the heads up