Marky Mark as Nathan Drake?! I don't feel these vibrations.

As reported here:

http://kotaku.com/5698269/mark-wahlberg-will-be-nathan-drake-deniro-could-be-drakes-dad

I have nothing against Mark Wahlberg. I think he's a pretty good actor and I've enjoyed a number of his movies.

However, I love Uncharted. The games are simply amazing. The stories, the characters, graphics, game play, etc, etc, etc. Everything about them are just fantastic.

I don't have high hopes for this. Especialy the mention that Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci will play his "father" and "uncle." What gives. Both great actors with great movies under their belts. But, I can't see either guy the Uncharted universe.

So, here's my casting choices:

Nathan Drake: Nolan North
Sully: Bruce Campbell
Elena: Kristen Bell
Zoe: Claudia Black
Harry Flynn: James Marsters

Maybe not perfect, but it's my blog.

Just chock this up to another Hollywood video game adaptation that misses the mark.

No More Games for 2010?

I picked up Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood on Tuesday. After using $40 in gaming coupons from K-Mart I walked out of the store really happy with my purchase. The game has been getting fantastic reviews and I may actually take a dip into the multiplayer pool since it sounds like it's a pretty different experience from the normal "run & gun" most games present. The only thing standing between me and getting my stabby on is Vanquish, which I am about half way through and should have completed next weekend. A pesky family trip this weekend is keeping me from any gaming at all.

This purchase may just mark the end of my video games for 2010. Sure, I still want to pick up a few odds and ends, mostly Alan Wake and Deadly Conspiracy and possibly Splatterhouse next week, but for the most part I think I am good to go until Dead Space 2 is out at the end of January.

So, basically two months of uninterrupted game play. The shelf can only hopefully get smaller for the next 70 or so days.

2011 looks like it is shaping up pretty nicely too. Looking forward to Dead Space 2, L.A. Noire, The ICO/Shadow of the Colossus HD re-release, Gears of War 3, Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3, The Last Guardian and I'm sure a slew more I am either forgetting about or that haven't been announced yet but I know I will want.

It's been a very slow process but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

More Bang for Your Buck?

Two games knocked out this weekend. I don't know if I will be able to do that again. It's a weird feeling.

Before this current generation of systems, most video games were released at a $50 price point. When the 360 hit, games went up to $60 each. The PS3 followed suit. That's quite a price increase, $10. No $55 rest stop, just ten smackers extra down.

For $60, you should really get more steak than sizzle. And, sometimes you do. This week, unfortunately, you don't. Or at least, I didn't.

Let's start off with game number one, or what I did on Saturday.

Game Title: Enslaved, Odyssey to the West

Developed By: Ninja Theory

I started the weekend with Ninja Theory's "Enslaved, Odyssey to the West," a post-apocalyptic take on the old Chinese myth "Journey to the West." Now, I'll be honest, most of my knowledge of Journey to the West comes from knowing it was one of the inspirations for Akira Toriyama's "Dragon Ball" series. Son Goku has a tail, an extending staff, and a flying cloud. All of this is present in Enslaved too, Monkey has a "tail", his staff can shoot plasma bolts, and his has an electronic disk that can skim over certain types of terrain that he calls "Cloud."

In our story, Monkey has been captured by slaving collecting Mechs. Why are they collecting slaves? We don't know. He encounters a young girl named Trip, who's good with technology (hey, it's the "Bulma" character from Dragon Ball) and they narrowly survive escaping the ship slaver ship before it crashes (thanks to some sabotage by Trip). Trip creates a headband that she uses to enslave Monkey, it's tied by her biometric system so if she dies, he dies. She can also kill him if he travels too far away from her.

Thus begins the duos journey through a destroyed New York City, to Trip's village, and into the wasteland beyond to discover exactly what "Pyramid" is.

The game reminded me much of Uncharted with it's beautiful visuals and easy to learn game controls. Having played Ninja Theory's previous PS3 outing "Heavenly Sword" I knew they were no slouches in these departments. The story was interesting, and it kept me wanting to keep playing all day. The only time I grew frustrated was when the level of difficulty seemed to suddenly ramp up from Chapter 5 to Chapter 6.

The voice acting was good, and with Andy Serkis (the actor behind Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies) doing Monkeys mo-cap animation, you can't complain. I also wonder exactly how much time was spent making Trip's butt so perfect (sorry, perv alert).

My biggest complaint was I went through the story in under 10 hours. Pretty much one sitting. I say pretty much, because I played Chapter 1 last weekend to get a feel for the game. I feel a bit cheated that $60 only equated to 10 hours of game play. Sure, there's going back through on Hard and trying to achieve some more trophies, but I'm on a schedule here.

If you're interested in Enslaved, I recommend it for the great game play and gorgeous graphics but suggest waiting until it's dropped to around $30 because of the amount of time it takes to finish.

At least it was 1o hours well spent. Unlike Game 2, or, how I spent Sunday.

Game Title: Star Wars, The Force Unleashed II

Developed By: LucasArts

Here we have a follow up to Star Wars, The Force Unleashed, an enjoyable if albeit buggy outing in the Star Wars Extended Universe. The first game ended with the death of the main character, Starkiller. Yet, here's a sequel, with Starkiller back. How did he survive.

Clones.

Remember a time when there were only three Star Wars movies and the only thing we really knew about clones was that Luke's father and Obi-Wan had fought during the Clone Wars? Now there has been a movie released about it and various spin-offs. The whole clone thing has lost it's mystique in the SW universe, at least for me.

So, here we are, Force Unleashed 2, Vader is on Kamino, at the cloning facility, and here's Starkiller, still alive. Or is he a clone? Or, was the character from the first game the clone. Is Vader pulling the ultimate Jedi Mind Trick on Starkiller? Let's find out.

The game has some improvements over the very buggy first game. I never fell to my death, the jump mechanic had been greatly improved, and I didn't encounter any broken maps or have to restart the game because of bug made a end boss fall out of the screen.

While the game improved on mechanics, it's about half the length of the first game. Four levels is all we gets (Kamino, a Cloud City type place that leads to an arena, Dagobah, a star cruiser, and back to Kamino for the finale). Who cares about the so-so graphics, the okay story, and the improved game play when you can finish the game in under six hours. I've read some reports of 4 hours but I was trying to get some of the trophies for killing Stormtroopers in various fun ways with Jedi Powers so it took me 6. For a blockbuster release like the Force Unleashed 2, that's simply inexcusable for a $60 price tag. This should have been FU 1.5 or some more DLC for $20, not a $60 game. For shame, LucasArts.

The game winds up open-ended to boot and I don't know if I'll be back for a Force Unleashed 3, if and when it is released.

Definitely hold off on this game until it's in the $20 range. It's not worth full price at all.

All-in-all, a productive weekend video game wise but a disappointing weekend due to the length of both games. I feel like for 60 bones each, I should get a little more bang for my buck. However, this time, all I got was a whole lot of sizzle with Force Unleashed 2 and a quick appetizer with Enslaved.

Next Level: Vanquish

Want to know more? http://enslaved.namco.com/ www.lucasarts.com/games/theforceunleashed2/

Temporary distractions: Rock Band 3

Game Title: Rock Band 3

Developed by: Harmonix

I decided to fire up Rock Band 3, and the 360 for the first time in a few months, before I became too involved with Enslaved. Rock Band is one of those games that will never be part of the Shelf of Shame. It's something I pick up to kill time, play maybe 30 minutes or an hour at a time, and then put back down. To me, it's not a series with a definite end game; only something to be enjoyed. I've never tried to become really good at Rock Band, just settling for being great on medium guitar/bass, playing drums when I have some extra energy because Easy is hard for me, and singing my little Jack Black wannabe head off when we have "Rock Club."

Yes, I do a pretty impressive rendition of Master Exploder. Long Live the D!

Anyways, I had my wonderful wife pick up Rock Band 3 (and Force Unleashed 2) on Day 1 so I could get the $20 gaming coupons from each game at K-Mart. If you're reading this and want good video game deals, check out K-Mart. They've started giving out $20-25 gaming coupons, that stack, with AAA game releases. Let me put it this way... I'll only be paying about $5 for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood when it's out in two weeks thanks for K-Marts gaming coupons.

Wow, another tangent. Allow me to digress.

I fired up Rock Band 3, paid the extra 1o bones to export over the Rock Band 2 tracklist, and went to town. The first thing I noticed was that the career challenges were different. No longer are you just playing to earn as many points as possible and five stars. You are now playing for Spades too, which are awarded for completing certain tasks during each set list. Sometimes it's how long you can keep Overdrive going, or how many times you can activate Overdrive in one song, or keeping your unbroken note streak going. It's a nice change and make you work extra hard to get 100% on each song.

Other changes, which never really effected the games, are when the song in the set list changes from a male to female vocalist, the avatar also changes from a dude to a chick. And, as fun as it always was to watch the big lumberjack dude sing Paramore, it was always a tiny sore point. It has been fixed.

The largest change, for my Medium godliness that is, is the addition of the fifth (orange) note on the Medium setting. I was never able to get more coordination down enough to play these games on Hard, and since I play them for enjoyment I was always perfectly fine with just being an amazing Medium guitar guy. Alas, no longer will I only play four notes. All songs that come on the Rock Band 3 disk, and I'm going to assume any new DLC, has the fifth note in them, though not in any great abundance and it never gets too tricky. I see this as I a way for those who do want to eventually graduate to Hard setting to ease into it.

Enjoying the setlist too. I mean, Rock Lobster! Sold. Whip It! Gold Record, baby.

So, when Saturday hits, I'll be back on Enslaved and back onto the Shelf. However, until then, any downtime I have, will be dedicated to rocking and audience of one, out cat Monica.

Gears of Warbots.

Game Title: Transformers: War for Cybertron

Developed by: High Moon Studios

If there is one thing I love more than video games (and maybe even my wife) it's Transformers. I've been with the franchise since it started back in 1984, when I was 8. My love of Optimus Prime, Starscream, and all the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons never died.

I have a very odd relationship with Transformers though. As much as I love them, I only love certain "eras" of the franchise, most specifically the original G1 era, and even more specifically, the G1 era leading up to and including the 1986 animated feature film. Anything from the 1986 toyline on, my interest wains. Needless to say, because of this, I had never played a Transformers video game.

Until now...

When War for Cybertron was first announced, I was excited. After the last four years of suffering through Bayformers and all their little point angles and wrecking ball gonads, here we have the original bots, in Cybertronian mode, looking like their old selves again. Megatron with a fusion cannon on his arm, check. Starscream with an actual face so we can see his smarmy smirk, double check. A Bumblebee that doesn't sound like R2-D2 retarded cousin, triple check.

I dove right in to the narrative, goosebumps aplenty as the familiar voice of Peter Cullen's Optimus Prime (the one and only Prime) boomed over my home theatre system. Over the next 10 levels, my love for Transformers was further cemented into the bedrock of my geek foundation.

I enjoyed the game play, though it is very similar to other third person shooters like Gears of War or Resident Evil 5. The graphics were stellar, with the transformations from robot to vehicle and back handled by one button (and including smooth animation to boot), and the story was interesting enough to not be a rehash of something we've already seen before. Who hasn't wanted more on the war that started everything. We've always just had bits and pieces and now here's a whole game!

The game starts off with the Decepticons. Megatron and a couple of minions infiltrating an orbital station that can produce Dark Energon. Megatron succeeds in gaining control of the Dark Energon and begins using it to corrupt Cybertron's core. As the story progresses, we see Megatron bring the Autobots to their knees, defeating their leader, Zeta Prime, and capturing their powerhouse guardian, Omega Supreme. Can the soldier known only as Optimus and his ragtag group of Autobots turn the tide of the Decepticon onslaught and save Cybertron? Play and find out.

The only part of the game I can't comment on is the multiplayer. I've no interest in it.

From level design to character avatars to story, Transformers; War for Cybertron is a definite must play, especially if you love the characters like I do.

Next level: Enslaved: Journey to the West