UTK: Pokemon Platinum

By MrMean

(Still prefers to be called Mr instead of Dr)

6 months after the release in Japan, Gamefreak and Nintendo gratefully bring you Pokemon Platinum, a spinoff of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Pokemon Platinum takes place in the same region as Diamond and Pearl, heck it is the same game but with some minor, yet effective changes. Pokemon Platinum came out on on March 22nd.

Storyline

The storyline is pretty much the same as Diamond and Pearl. Team Galatic is trying to conquer the Sinnoh region by acquiring the three legendaries of the lakes, Azelf, Mesprit and Unxie.  Your role is to mind your own business until you bump into Team Galatic’s Headmaster, Cyrus.

You goal now now is to stop Team Galatic and save all of Sinnoh. You are

OD’s Awesome Survival Guides – MadWorld

By OD

(Welcome to Death Watch!)

It’s a MadWorld ladies and gentlemen! And it only gets madder as you progress into this blood induced sports game of life and death! Oh and cruel and unusual ways to kill your many victims! But are you becoming the victim of your own routines? Barrel over your head? Enemies blocking and dodging too much? Or are you finding it hard to make a kill to get your score up? OD here, and I’m gonna show you how to make the big bucks and big kills in MadWorld!

An Ode To…Mario

By GamerChris (Whoa, three posts in a row…)

So you people may be familliar with the last ‘Ode To…’ with my article about Mega Man 9, and this article is in the same light.

Here’s a little ode to the adventures of Mario in Super Mario Bros. Enjoy.

Princess Is In Another Castle

My feet patter below,
As I run through the land,
Through worlds of forests,
of oceans, of sky and of sand.

I leap over objects,
I continue my quest,
I’m the Knight in Shining Armor,
And…Well you know the rest…

Evil has come,
To the place I call home,
I strive to find it, to stop it,
So I continue to roam.

I know I am close,
I can just feel it,
I am not scared,
Not at all, not a bit.

I enter the fortress,
That looms before me,
I can see fire, and flames,
What a bitch that’ll be.

I go through cautiously,
I gotta take it slow,
With all the fireballs and traps,
I watch my steps as I go.

Finally I find him,
The monster that started this all,
I avoid him and cut the bridge,
And into the lava he did fall.

I am happy, I am glad,
But this isn’t the end,
Must find the Princess,
And wounds left to tend.

I enter the next room to find her,
But there’s a Toad with a parcel,
‘Thank you Mario!…
But our princess…is in another castle!’

By Christopher Francis aka GamerChris

I’m sure Mario is going to be thrilled to know that. He’s only been trying to figure out where that bitch was since 1985. – kawaiininjakat

Under the Knife – MadWorld

By OD

(Go on Jack. Make us happy. Make your fans happy.)

Welcome to Death Watch! Only the baddest of the baddest motha fuckas come out alive in this game of death and violence! And I am your master of decapitations, the Bishop of Blood and Carnage! The Black Baron! So whats it gonna be Kill Seeker? You gonna take a bat and send some mo-fo’s into the bulls eye of a dart board?! Or take a bottle of bud and shake it nice and fast and go sending some punks sorry ass into a giant spike?! Maybe you prefer to be a little bit more creative! And instead you put a tire over the poor asshole, then stab a caution sign right through his head, and finish off the mother fucker by throwing him into a wall of spikes a la Rose Bush! Hell yeah pimps and players let’s start it and all you got to worry about is hitting it and quitin it! Ya feel me!

As you can already tell. I love MadWorld. I loved it so much that I impersonated as the Black Baron for a few seconds there. It would of worked if I didn’t run out of things of what the Black Baron would say. Okay enough about how much I love it, let’s see if this game can make you love it!

Under the Knife – House of the Dead: Overkill

By OD

(I’m gonna rip your mother fucking balls off!)

Put the kids to bed, lock your doors, make sure your profanity hating mother isn’t coming over, and make sure you have enough tissues to clean up the mess when you’re done with this game. House of the Dead is back, and holy shit it is packing more heat than the 4 other HotD titles!  Overkill is the face lift that the series needed, and it didn’t just get a face lift! It completely changed what HotD was! So who here is ready for some Zombie infested, gritty, oldschool, grind house gameplay?

Anyway, House of the Dead: Overkill was created by Headstrong games, a British gaming company who had a die hard obsession with the HotD games. SEGA gave the HotD title to Headstrong and on February 2009, everyone got a piece of what Headstrong games could do with zombies, chicks, profanity, and guns.

My magic bean has grown tall for Majora’s Mask

By Alpha
(more ehhh……)

What can I say about the Legend of Zelda that hasn’t been said before? The series has very rarely ever let me down. Every Zelda title I have ever purchased has at least lived up to it’s price. The series has helped inspire and just hands down elevate the world of video games. From kids dressing up as Link for Halloween to those nerdy mutha fuckas babbling about it’s genius design or it’s “bah bah bad ovverratted gaynezz”, the Legend of Zelda is quite the uhhhh….legend (laugh).

With all of that said, the Legend of Zelda rarely departs from it’s formula. The series manages to keep itself somewhat fresh with each new installment with updated graphics and gameplay mechanics (Ex. “Wow mom, I can finally swing a sword pressing the A button on horseback. I mean, using a bow with a C button was neato, but this is totally well, gollyriffic.”). I’m not saying this is horrible, at least Nintendo tries to change up a few things up. Essentially though, we are all just playing the same game over and over. Then again, that is why most of us have stuck to the series.

There’s No Place Like Homebrew – Legend of Princess

by Beeslo

(are we dying, grandpa?)

Man, its been forever since I last did my TNPLH review of Still Alive for the DS, but I felt it was time to dust it off and give you all a treat.

For those of you who were alive when the Legend of Zelda II first came out for the NES, you were a little disappointed and confused. It wasn’t the now classic bird’s eye viewpoint, the gameplay was more arcade like and the difficulty was ridiculous. Its not to say that as a stand alone game, it wasn’t a great game. But as a sequel, I felt it personally fell short of the original.

But let’s pretend it hadn’t been released for the NES, but instead was released for the SNES.  Avid homebrew creator, Konjak has done just that by creating a very Zelda II like game but with stunning graphics, terrific music and some of the best fast pace, arcade action since Gunstar Heroes. The game makes no hiding the fact that its a blantant rip-off of Zelda (I mean, its name is Legend of Princess), and it protects itself hilariously by giving the main character pink hair, parodying his victory stance with his sword and best of all, orchestrating a completely “original” musical score which obviously borrows certain melodies from the Zelda franchise.

Misc. Gaming – Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop Music Video

By OD

( MORE ZOMBIES! I SAID MORE DAMN IT! )

Just in case 08′ didn’t give you enough zombies or un-dead creatures to slaughter, Capcom is here to help that urge. While RE5 isn’t going to be out until around Spring, Dead Risings “Chop Till You Drop” will be coming to the Wii in February. Just so you know this Dead Rising is a re-make of the original 360 title, adding Wii controls and some extra goodies as well.  So to hype the release of the game, Capcom has gone into great lengths to make a J-Rock music video for the game. Now watch as all of Dead Rising’s characters and zombies bang their heads and beat each other sensless!

Under the Knife – Desert Strike (SNES/Genesis)

by Beeslo

(zombie wants gggggaaammmeeessss)

Let’s take a moment and look back to the age of videogames that existed during the early 90′s. Families were split. Friendships destroyed. Groups of people divided. It was a turbulent time during the Nintendo/Sega War. I was a Nintendo fanboy to the core. Mario vs. Sonic? Well, one battled an evil, obese scientist and the other battled a fire-breathing dragon/dinosaur/turtle tyrant who has spikes on his back. Exactly.

But I did have some friends who owned a Sega Genesis, deep in denial over their silly purchase (3 buttons? Wimps. Try six.) but one of my misguided pals did have one certain game that I instantly fell in love with. Nope. Not Vectorman, Sonic or any other lame Genesis game. But an awesome game called Desert Strike.

Little Miss Gloom Plays…

by Little Miss Gloom
(It’s a man baaaaaaby!)

So I was sitting around with my good friends, Coolspot and KawaiiNinjaKatt, talking about Actraiser. I brought up the fact that I am not an overly big fan of the platforming parts, because I felt many of the enemies were cheap, and have unavoidable attacks. Not only that, but the God character you play as seems weaker than he really should be.

KNK, in all her glorious AWESOME (and I mean that quite seriously, and in the highest regards), bitch-slapped me into submission by saying that she could play Actraiser, start to finish, without taking a single hit of damage — and eventually mused about doing a Let’s Play on the game.

Now, for those of you who do not know what one of these are, a Let’s Play, (or LP, as most people refer to them as), are a type of visual project brought on by the gaming culture, most recognized on ye olde Youtube. Essentially, what a Let’s Play is, is a playthrough of a video game, recorded for people who either have no time to game, cannot afford to purchase games yet still wish to relish in what is/was being offered on the market, or do not want to spend the money on something they may not enjoy playing themselves in the long run. There are a number of reasons people in the gaming community create Let’s Plays, but the previously mentioned are the main.

Under The Knife: Tales of Symphonia

By CanuckGamer
(Why was the ‘Cube so lacking in RPGs?)

Introduction

Every once in awhile, there comes along a game so great, you just can’t pass it up. Tales of Symphonia for the Nintendo GameCube is, without a doubt, one of those games. Released in 2004, it soon established itself as the premiere RPG on the console (although it didn’t have much competition). Only a year later, it was put on the Player’s Choice titles and is now available for a mind-bogglingly good $20.

Misc Media: The Bike Hero Saga

By GamerChris

(Can 5-Star Through the Fire and Flames and any other song on GHII and GHIII…on medium…)

So many of you may be familiar with the Bike Hero video recently released with someone riding his bike through the night with the note chart for Prisoner of Society by The Living End in Guitar Hero Word Tour drawn on his bike ride path, lighting up coloured lights on his bike and essentially playing the song with his bike, complete with special effects like star power and the 50, 100 and 500 note combos. If not here is the video:

Not so long afterwards this stunt turned out to be viral marketing and was done with the help of some computers. It’s a shame that it wasn’t just some guy doing this with some friends for fun but it was cool never the less. Some other people however have not responded quite the way I have to this revelation. One of these people happens to be Freddy Wong.

Who’s Freddy Wong? Well in my own opinion he’s the greatest Guitar Hero player around. He might not have the technical capabilities of iamchris4life on YouTube (Who I believe had a world record for his skills), but Mr. Wong is definitely the most entertaining player of the game I’ve seen with his stunts and showing off.

What does Freddy have to say to Bike Hero? ‘What up, viral marketing douchebags?’ In a recent video he responded to this stunt, saying that he will now show them how to play Bike Hero on expert. How can he possibly do this? By playing Through the Fire and Flames, on a bike, with the GHIII guitar peripheral, at night, following a TV. Hit the jump to watch some greatness.

Outpatient Article: Under The Knife – Sword Master (NES) Review

By Krooze L-Roy

(parenthesis are jails for words [and brackets are prisons])

While I find it impossible to believe that Sword Master has, at any point in history, been someone’s favorite game, neither can I visualize any form of creature who couldn’t get at least thirty solid minutes of good fun out of it.

A moments repose on the title screen will initiate perhaps the greatest story sequence ever programmed into a video game cartridge. Delivered without the tiresome burden of text, this sequence is a montage of overtly fearsome demons, openly evil wizards, unambiguously distressed damsels, and a phalanx of what are unmistakably skeleton warriors, all set to a rousing piece of adventurous music. This a game that knows it’s own identity.

Gameplay is equally direct, to the point where I don’t need to waste any valuable language in describing it, since the above screenshot tells you absolutely everything you need to know. Be this as it may, there’s a bit more depth than you may be inclined to believe, and the game is far from brainless. You character is in possession of an EXP gauge, so right there the game is every bit as brainy as any RPG. Sword fights too are more than the button mashing you’d probably expect, requiring fancy jumping strikes, hasty retreats, well-timed blocks, and potent overhead swings. These fights can actually be fairly intense and challenging.

Under The Knife: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

By CanuckGamer
(Mental stimulation FTW)

[Introduction]

Welcome to my review of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones for the Gameboy Advance. Now, you’re probably thinking, “What the hell is Fire Emblem?”, and if you are, shame on you. Fire Emblem is a wonderful Strategy/RPG series that started in Japan in 1990. Sacred Stones is the 8th game in the series, the second to be released in outside of Japan, and came out in 2005. Now let’s crack this baby open.

Misc Gaming: Ikaruga: A lifestyle, a religion

By Alpha
(Thursday is my day.)

In a day and age where the majority of video games have based their purpose solely on having us breeze through an experience, Ikaruga was there to throw us back again; back to a different time and period. A time when practice, consistency, discipline, and dedication all needed to be applied to complete a game. A time when video games were merely all great tests of skill.

So, what exactly is the allure of Ikaruga? Why do so many spend countless hours day in and day out practicing and honing their skills at this game? Bragging rights? A sense of completion? Or is it just the simple dream of achieving the impossible, or in this case the almost impossible? I understand that many shmups are just as difficult, and possibly even more difficult than this game. Ikaruga though, in it’s popularity, somehow took the position down the line as the poster child for impossible shumps. With that said, out of all the reason I believe people play Ikaruga, overcoming the impossible seems to be the biggest draw for myself personally, and for the many that do play it.

Rocky, The Mighty Ducks, Rudy, The Replacements, When We Were Kings, all movies, but why, why am I listing these movies? Well, looking closer, these movies have a tendency to push back and move beyond their medium’s curtain. They move beyond the state of motion pictures, they become and stay as small glimpses into our society’s infatuation of taking on and following the role of an underdog. Overcoming enormous obstacles has become quite the common staple and cliche in the entertainment world. Not only does the story of Ikaruga adopt this, but the interaction with the game and player outside the interactive realm does as well. Pursuing Ikaruga‘s completion takes commitment. Except this time, there are no training montages.