Once, while playing Ground Zero Texas, I died before the opening credits had finished. In the company of my gaming friends, this only solidified my aura of “bad gamer.” Did this scar me? Nominally. But my love of FMV games lives on to this day. Granted, this love is nostalgic. I remember purchasing a copy of the PC game “Johnny Mnemonic”, essentially an hour long first person movie/choose your own adventure, after seeing the actual film. Oddly, the game had better acting. In any case, I love me some old fashioned FMV  gaming.

If any of you’re like me (and isn’t everyone, really?) you will immediately purchase “Hysteria Project” when it releases on PSN today. The game is a “mini”, playable on both the PS3 and PSP. It’s an adventure game in the loosest of definitions, where you’re trying to escape an unexplained hachet wielding mad-man. And yes, the entire game is in full motion video. And yes, when you finish the game you’ll understand why the format didn’t survive the nineties. The game is, however, still excellent.

This game has two advantages that outweigh its antiquated mechanics. One, its two bucks. So once you load your proverbial Playstation wallet with the required minimum of five dollars, you can buy this game and get a television show for later. Think of it as a double feature.

Two, it will take you an hour (at worst) to complete it. This combined with the price make the game an attractive offer, as the game “Crime Patrol” would have been if it didn’t cost you fifty bucks for a half hour of fun. That is the biggest difference between then and now, aside from the crap economy and immigration laws, but I digress…..

In truth, the game is mediocre. It boils down to a series of questions (half of which seem to be about turning left or right) that lead you to a new video sequence. It appears that the game is EXTREMELY linear, and with enough effort you can trial and error your way to the end. As I read this paragraph to myself, this sounds like it rates “root canal” on the fun scale, so hear me out. If you have ever played a Sega CD game, buy this. If you had a Phillips Cd-i, buy this. If you owned a 3DO and played anything other than “Killing Time”, buy this. “Hysteria Project” is an excellent reminder of the games played before 3D processors and polygons became the norm.

Before playing “Hysteria Project”, I had forgotten about the fun I had as a kid trying to plow through games like “Corpse Killer” or “Night Trap.” For less than a cold beer, you can get a taste of that fun again. Please do so.

Remember that with PSN, we vote with our wallets. If people continue to purchase original, creative material like “Hysteria Project” and “Linger in Shadows”, Sony will continue seeking it out, in turn providing income for the independent developers who are creative enough to make an otherwise outdated concept fun.

And yes, this game has been on the iPhone for a while now. Not everyone has the same cool tech shit that you do, okay smart-ass?

Answering my own question, I will tell you that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is running on MT Framework 2.0.

Super Street Fighter 4 was designed on its own engine, apparently called the “Street Fighter” engine. Clever.

If you’ve played the demos for Lost Planet 2, you have seen the new MT engine in action – and it does look good. Not a noticeable change in texture detail, but the foliage and debris has gotten a lot of attention. Also, they claim to have gotten the new engine to run EXACTLY the same on PS3 vs. 360. Playing RE5 on both systems, you’ll see frame drops in the PS3, while the 360 suffers from screen tearing. Both systems got it pretty bad in spots. I’ve seen some frame drops in the Lost Planet demos when the action gets intense, but not as bad as RE5 running on the previous MT Framework. So maybe they’re on to something.

In any case, running a 2.5 D fighting game on the engine will be fun to watch. I look forward to seeing it side by side with SF4. If there is any concern, note that “Bionic Commando Rearmed” was running on Grin’s Diesel engine, the same engine that ran the 3D remake of Bionic Commando, and that game looked stellar. Also, Shadow Complex was running on Unreal 3, another engine used for mostly 3D purposes.

So, locking the camera down in a 3D engine to make a 2D experience has been, historically, awesome. Can’t wait to see it in action, and to kick some Marvel ass playing as Chris Redfield.

……..no. You don’t.

As of late, I’ve gotten three separate friend requests (all from playing BBC2) that contained the message “Hey, wanna game share?” What the hell is this all about?

Well, it’s all about sharing your PSN ID with complete strangers, and then allowing them to download your previously purchased games from the PSN store. Note, you are allowed five downloads of each title. Provided you don’t care about losing a few of those, most games can be re-downloaded to any system that is logged-in to PSN with your account.  This practice has been around since the inception of PSN, but when Capcom decided to release “Final Fight 2″ they put an internet check into the game – i.e. you have to be logged in for the game to work. You know, just like that whole Ubisoft debacle a few months ago. It’s speculated that this was done for the sole purpose of denying users the ability to “share” the game with friends.

Capcom has since apologized, but for not telling people this was the case. They have no intention of removing the DRM from the game, but have every intention of making it well known that the DRM exists.

And I say “good show” to them. Do yourself a favor and wade through some discussion forums on “game sharing.” Read what people are saying about it, and note that most users who argue that it’s perfectly acceptable do so in a manner that makes them sound like six year old boys. Try this one, if you’d like. It opens with a zinger from David Jaffe, making his position on the matter perfectly clear. Oh, but wait…..scroll down some and read the comments. One person makes a particularly eloquent point, noting that if “Calling All Cars” hadn’t been a shitty game, he wouldn’t have gotten it without paying for it.

That’s all well and good – it seems as if he’s making a statement about the power of the consumer, justifying his actions and method by making it seem like the developer is responsible for making a product that people won’t mind paying for. Personally, this is the main reason I would like to see every title on PSN have a demo. But, sadly, this person does not make his argument in any sensible fashion, and ends his post by calling Jaffe a gay slur.

Good job, game sharers. I am genuinely surprised that Capcom isn’t paying you any mind, as you sound like such a well adjusted bunch. Perhaps if you call them “faggots” enough times, they’ll give you every game they’ve ever made for free.

On a side note, I replaced the HD on my PS3 a couple months ago, and had to re-download all of my PSN games to get them back on it. So, now I only have four downloads left. Don’t you want to save those for when you need them? What if my HD takes a dive and I have to do it again? What if I buy a new PS3, as I don’t have a slim and kind of want one? That’s  why you get five downloads.

Assholes.

Look at this… Just give it a good long look.

Look familiar at all ?

Try looking at this…

They look so much like the same damned thing…. you ask, “you want ice cream?” Both of them say yes…..

Now sameness isn’t necessarily a bad thing…. But sameness usually leads to boredom, over saturation, and stagnation. Take the street fighter series for example. After many rehashes of the same Street Fighter 3 alpha style a change was made. The art direction of Street Fighter IV was surprisingly refreshing, adding dimension to a 2D fighter that I thought didn’t really need to be brought into 3D. Though unneeded it managed to inject some new life into the series and bring it to an even more main stream audience.

Now with Capcom still high off the fumes of the millions of dollars they made with the remake, they have decided to cash in on yet another fighting franchise of old.

BUT instead of spending the time to create a genuinely new direction for MvsC3, it seems as though they’ve settled on rehashing the same SFIV gimmick and plastering it on to all of our favorite marvel superheros. I wasn’t tired of the old style yet. Hell we haven’t gotten a true sequel to MvsC in 10 years ….

Can I have this style back please? ^^ I very much enjoyed it.

Something about this makes me feel….dirty. It appears the crew at Gizmodo have stumbled upon a lost prototype for the new iphone. They have gone as far as confirming with Apple that yes, an engineer misplaced a prototype. They have dissected it and verified that the internal components are indeed from Apple.

And they have done what any good samaritan would do if they recovered someones precious lost item – they have posted it on their website for all to see.

I can’t imagine this going well. In fact, I would venture to guess that the people running the site have already been knocked unconscious, possibly by Jobs himself, as he begins the imminent dismantling of their servers.

I would make fun of the Apple employee who was unfortunate enough to forget this thing in a Redwood bar, but I have a moral issue with joking about the recently deceased, as I would assume that person is.

Seriously…….how fucked are these guys?

Hey, summer is fast approaching – and that means Los Angeles will soon be home to another exhibitor packed gala event we like to call E3.

Lets start the bets, shall we?

Up first, lets get the impending let-downs out of the way :

The PSP2 will be revealed. Yeah!                  It will only have one analogue stick. Boo.

The 360 Slim will be revealed. Score!                          It will not have built in Wi-Fi. Boo.

And there you have it. I’ve just made four predictions, two of which are known rumors, and the other two came out of my ass.

I would like to take this opportunity to let everyone know that I’m changing my name to “Pichael Machter.” If it’s all the same to you, I would like to nominate “Big Mac” as my nickname. “Mac Daddy” is runner up.

More bets to come……(Oh, and always bet on Mac.)

I would like to vent, if that’s alright with you.

I have spent too many hours playing Battlefield:Bad Company 2. Almost every hour has been spent playing Rush or Conquest matches online. I purchased the game at full price not too long after it was released, and have no qualms about ignoring the single player campaign. This, my friends, is a bummer. Not because I am neglecting a fabulous, adult storyline, or innovative mechanics and controls that will make me rethink what a first person shooter is, but a bummer because I spent almost seventy bucks (thanks, Chicago sales tax) to ignore one half of this game. So, I decided to give it a shot.

And fuck that, everyone. On normal difficulty, I have died about twenty times before reaching the end of the second mission. Yeah, I know, I’m not the second coming of video game Christ. I’m not great at them. I get it.

But you know what? Most people aren’t. I know some people who are good….really good. I don’t want to be one of them. You must dedicate a good portion of time to keep your hand eye co-ordination and muscle memory as sharp as possible, and if that’s your thing then rock on. Sometimes, I enjoy sunshine. Sue me.

If we can agree that the average consumer will be mediocre when playing a game, then we can agree that BBC2 is absurdly difficult. The first game suffered from the same problem – omnipotent enemy A.I. that could snipe you from two miles down the road by using x-ray vision to see through a foot of concrete barrier. This was brought up in most reviews of that game.

They didn’t listen.

In the end, I don’t care. The amount of fun I get out of the multiplayer merits the price tag alone. It’s stable, well run, always on, and I rarely get dropped from the server. And, as happens frequently, when I get sniped from the across the map by a competing player, someone put the effort into spotting me and lining up a shot. That doesn’t bother me in the least.

I’ll probably try to hammer through the single player game with the difficulty set to easy. Like a pussy. Thanks, DICE. Hey, if you guys can find a way to make me feel any worse about myself as a gamer, chances are I’ll pick up the third one when it comes out, in spite of my complaints, which I’m sure won’t be addressed. My crack-like addiction to Rush mode trumps all. Thanks.

Dicks.

The fact that Michael Pachter gets a steady paycheck to say these things and I can’t get a student loan continues to make me contemplate suicide. Or more drinking. Probably the latter.

Seriously, read this article and discover the secrets of mind readers and fortune tellers world wide ; stating the obvious as newly discovered fact.

Prepare to be amazed…..

Slowly but surely……

Move your cursor on up to the “Nit-picky Reviews” tab to see what we’ve got.

Oh, and we review games that we want you to play (or not play), not solely new titles.

Rock.

Since I haven’t been the most aggressive blogger as of late, I want to apologize for my lack of care as it relates to Collision Detective.

And, while we’re talking about latency……

Should we be taking bets on the functionality of this beast? And, before I get fan-boy’d into oblivion, I feel the same question should be asked of Sony’s Move. I’m not really a fan of either, but I appreciate any technology that does something to further hardware development. We’ll have to wait until both items are released before we can judge the merit of either – but its fun to speculate, ain’t it?

My guess for both : The requirements for “perfect operating conditions” prove too much for most people to provide. Unless the camera is positioned just so, and the lighting is just right, and you don’t wear a Hawaiian shirt while you use it…….the lag is still noticeable.