George Lucas has made some mistakes in the past, and while there are certainly some faults in the ragged history of the Star Wars universe, at least it mostly maintained its congruency. In the case of the third installment of the KoTOR series however, I cry foul.

You begin with an Interesting story about finding some alien technology called Mass Effect which enables faster than light travel among other things. This makes the Falcon look like a garbage scow in the Kessler run and helps humanity find a huge space station. The Republic moves to this giant space station and starts calling themselves the Council. You enter the scene as a well known soldier and are soon brought into the fold of the Jedi Order which have changed their name to the Specters and are tasked with saving the universe from the Sith who have been renamed to the Reapers who are being helped by the Trade Federation Battle Droids called the Geth. The tools you have at your disposal to achieve this are an array of guns and grenades and the trusty Force which has been renamed to Biotics (which has been renamed before). You can see already that the frequency of changes made is already weakening the entire Star Wars mythos.

Now that I have that off of my chest, on to the good. The plot is engaging for all of its faults and the graphics are amazing. It is especially enjoyable to engage in conversation which offers a variety of “tones” that you can use in choice menus to change an NPC’s reaction to you. I was often afraid of choosing the more confrontational tones, but found that it was hard to make a wrong decision and this really served to change your reputation of “paragon” and “renegade” which opens certain skill options for you and thus more conversation options. This is different from the previous KoTOR system where doing something bad reduced how good you were; in this system you get the best of both worlds. There is a bit of a minigame where you overcome electronic encryption and door locks by playing Simon Says and I could see how this might be interpreted as a bad door locking scheme, but I was able to see it as a difficulty rating of applying a skill rather than a literal translation. Combat has moved from the turn based system and is now real time restricted by weapon overheating. The way the context of character levels are maintained is the extreme effect of skills on combat effectiveness. This is a welcome upgrade for a realistic feel. One of the coolest aspects is the MAKO. This is a planet rover with an attitude. It brings me back to days of playing Star Control II, only with the car from Aliens instead of a remote control buggy. Awesome!

In the end, the game delivers an open ending, suggesting even more sequels and I was not disappointed in the least. I gladly await the continuation of the KoTOR series and I hope it never strays in its superior game play as time goes on.

Great to get back into one of the best RPG series’ in gaming history	Cannot jump over a 10″ box
The voice acting and dialog is top notch. I never hurried a single line of new dialog as I played	Serious drift from the Star Wars canon
Alien lesbian sex scene!	No freaking lightsabers?!?

-Groggy

Friends, Gamers, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to praise EVE, not to bury it.
The podding that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their debris;
So let it be with EVE. The noble CCP
Hath told you EVE was fair:
If it were so, it was a generous trait,
And generously hath EVE answer’d it.
Here, under leave of CCP and the rest–
For CCP is an honourable team;
So are they all, all honourable devs–
Come I to speak in EVE’s success.
It was difficult, taxing and spitefull to me:
But CCP says it was fair;
And CCP is an honourable team.
It hath wrought many hours stayed at home
Whose ransoms did the pirate coffers fill:
Did this in EVE seem fair?
When that the noob have cried, EVE hath laughed:
Fairness should be made of softer stuff:
Yet CCP says it was fair;
And CCP is an honourable team.
You all did see that on the Lunar cycle
I thrice presented it a kingly monthly sum,
Which it did thrice accept: was this fairness?
Yet CCP says it was fair;
And, sure, it is an honourable team.
I speak not to disprove what CCP spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love it once, not without cause:
What else allowed you to level without logging on?
O brutish rogues! thou art lead to greedy ways,
And corps have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My avatar is in the void there with EVE,
And I must cancel till it come back to me.

Beautiful, realistic art and sense of scale	Sharpest learning curve in history
Level while you are at work!	Horrendous death penalty
One of the best soundtracks in a game, period	The fruitless task of trying to advance to the level of a legacy player is both impossible and frustrating

-Groggy

If you have not heard of The Orange Box then really, you need to go out more, or stay in more as the case may be. A fantastic deal, Valve has re-published their Half-Life 2 franchise along with two new games, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. At $10 per game, all of which score extremely high in their own right, you are basically stealing from yourself by not buying it. I am only going to talk about Portal today though.

On its own, Portal is a fantastic game. The only reason this could not be sold as a stand-alone game is the length. You will finish it within 3 to 6 hours, but on the other hand, can’t you do the same with Heavenly Sword? The entertaining aspects range from creepy to clever to absolutely hilarious. Few games will bring me to audible laughter and this one had me close to stitches. In fact, I hereby name it “Funniest Game of the Year”. “The cake is a lie!” Priceless! This is what catches most people by surprise, but there is another factor of the game that is less noticeable, but possibly more worthy of note: Immersiveness.

I know I have talked about this term before but I am afraid that the word’s exact meaning might be lost on some so I want to be very clear. The ability to use your imagination to place yourself into a virtual world, just as you do when you read, is a crucial part of game play. In the early days, rough pixelated shapes captured our imagination, but the illusion of that world was fragile and hard to relate with. As technology has grown, the distinction between reality and the electronic worlds we play in have closed on each other with alarming beauty. It is now much harder to spot flaws in a virtual interpretation of life, and thus better at producing the emotions and fears you would experience in real life situation. Horror games rival their sibling movies in evoking fear, while people are emotionally torn by the plights of their MMO characters. All of this is the product of the advancements in immersiveness. What are the things that have helped advance this subtle but ever-important feature?

1) Realistic graphics

This is the easiest advancement to cite as it’s, well, visible. We have gone from restrictions of color count to how realistic whiskers look.

Good Example: Beowulf. It was basically a video game.

2) Accurate physics

Nothing breaks your immersion in a game like flawed gravitational response or crappy liquid movement.

Bad Example: Star Wars Episodes I, II and III. I know they were also movies, just stay with me here.

3) Sound.

If you do not have a surround sound system, this is likely to be lost on you. Advancement in sound technology has allowed fully realistic directional sound sources, so hearing something just behind your left ear means you better turn around!

Good Example: Halo 3. Try playing this without sound sometime. It’s like going blind.

4) Writing.

This is no technological marvel, and some games have had great writing from the beginning. Still, if you lack a plot or if it is so ridiculous that suspension of disbelief is impossible, it’s going to be hard to care about the game or getting to the end of it.

Good Example: Bioshock. Creepy.

5) Environment interaction.

Nothing says, “I don’t care about your gaming experience,” than a 10″ rock that you can’t get past because there is no jump functionality.

Bad Example: Most RPGs. These are some of my favorite games, and I know that the terrain restrictions are useful for linear progression restriction and puzzles, but there are better ways.

6) Interface.

The more interface controls you have, the less real it seems. Do you have a health meter floating above your head?

Bad Example: Everquest

Oh … what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Portal. It would have been better on the Wii.

Nothing is funnier than a passive-aggressive AI who is trying to kill you for scientific purposes!	Short
Great game for friends to play	No weapon upgrades
Immersive lack of interface	I was really expecting some cake at the end

-Groggy

Oblivion was one of the first games released for XBox 360 and it is amazing what they have accomplished. The graphics are impressive, especially the wilderness. Individual blades of grass are carefully rendered into an enticing attraction that begs you to go run up and click on it. And oh yes, you will. Even the rich storyline and unfathomable number of quests is boggling. The amount of text the writers had to crank out has likely lead to more than a few compensation checks.

The game is, on the surface, a huge, open-ended RPG that is pretty immersive. The underlying structure though, as I soon realized, is that this is a single-player party game with more mini-games than Mario Party 8. Here is a list of those mini games:

Realize your armor is broken in least amount of time game
Get out of a bad auto save situation with least number of repeat deaths game
Find out what all of your buttons do without stabbing a NPC game
Fully explore all 22 menus game
Pick a lock in under 10 minutes and using less than 30 lock picks game
Try to resist picking every plant and mushroom in view game
Pick a lock and go to jail game
Pick a pocket and go to jail game
Accidentally click on a cup in front of a guard and go to jail game
Meet a guard on an empty street and go to jail game
Go to jail and go to jail game

And the grand-daddy of all mini-games:

The turn into a vampire and try not to take the game out of the console and break it in half game.

Seriously, that vampirism thing was a pain in the ass.

It isn’t all fun and games though, there are a a ton of quests as far as the eye can see. The learning curve for understanding how to efficiently move and do quests is sharp, but that is part of the journey I guess. I have not finished the game yet and I really don’t want to speed that up. Exploring this rich world is right up my alley and I’ll be sad when every stone has been turned over and every … freaking vampire slain.

Wow is this place big	Will take you 16 hours to figure out what the markers on the compass mean
Seriously, there is less text in a set of encyclopedias	Person with OCD will be stuck in a field of nightshade flowers for an hour
Lots of guilds to join. Can you become an Eagle Scout? Quite likely	When Ann Rice wrote about vampires being romantic and wonderful, she was lying.

-Groggy

Everyone has had their first virtual bar. Maybe it was the Pig & Whistle in UO summoning bunnies and stumbling into corners. Perhaps after a long day of grinding you summoned beer in the Blind Fish in Neriak while the monk feigned drunk on the table. Did you rock out on an ommni box in the Tatooine Cantina or were approached in an inappropriate manner in the Lion’s Pride Inn in Goldshire? Whoever has had this experience will cherish it for a lifetime.

Sometimes, however, it is not always possible to meet up with your friends on these virtual havens for sin and debauchery. A downed hub at a LAN party, a power outage, maybe not enough computers for everyone to go bar hopping in Jordheim. Well search no further! Now from Slugfest Games comes The Red Dragon Inn!

What they have done here is create a game that, if electronic means are not available, you can set up in the mundane world of your kitchen and unleash your virtual party animal. They have thoughtfully provided four character classes for a rounded party able to take on any pub environment. Dierdra the priestess, Fiona the warrior, Zot the wizard and Gerki the rogue are the current available choices. The lack of character appearance and gender options is easy to look past after tipping back a few shots of Dragon’s Blood and we expect that these features will be improved in coming expansions.

There are plenty of things to do at the inn. Seducing your enemies with your sublime beauty, unleashing an insane rabbit, palming cards from the deck or smashing a stein into the skull of your opponent just to name a few. Putting your friends under the table or out on their duff is only part of the fun. The back-stabbing, insults and brash vulgarity following each action is a liberating release for the budding extrovert and don’t worry about replay value, re-rolling your character is only a shuffle away. The best part is, there is no monthly fee!

So, if you are one to have people over and sometimes worry that your server might be down for an update or the new guy will be too low level to enter the city, consider The Red Dragon Inn as a highly fulfilling backup plan for your virtual needs.

A fantastic line of virtual vintages	It does not involve a keyboard or mouse
No hardware of software dependencies	No way to secretly imagine that the female character is really female
Yes, it can be effortlessly converted into an actual drinking game … about drinking	… Whoops, gotta go, the server is back up

-Groggy

My anticipation of this game was one of the things that finally pushed me to purchase an XBox 360. From the moment I started the game I knew that my purchase had been justified. I could start by talking about the awesome graphics and realistic water effects, but as you well may know, graphics mean very little to me. What does mean a lot is immersiveness and a rich story line, both of which this game seemed to have in spades.

After a traumatic and unabashedly unexplained entrance into the world of Rapture, things are immediately creepy. The steampunk 50s aesthetics are immediately apparent with the scratchy audio and speakeasy decor. The only problem is, it’s not very lively. From there the creepiness mounts as you are introduced to various homicidal maniacs, deranged scientists and egotistical psychopaths. The images you are subjected to are enough to stir a few nightmares and induce heebie-jeebies during bathroom breaks. The story is not presented in the more traditional method of cut scenes and NPC interactions. Moments like this do happen but are rare. Instead most of the story is unfolded through the use of various tape recorders placed throughout the game. They are little clips of dialog from a wide verity of residents, some living, some dead, some you will eventually put to rest. It gives many perspectives on the story but leaves many blanks, which gives you a chance to piece together the story as you dash around killing genetically altered byproducts of a utopia gone wrong. The story ultimately arrives at some jarring realizations, twists and turns and a very satisfying finish. Satisfying at least if you do a certain something right, and if you did it wrong you deserve what you get you sick bastard.

If you were expecting a humorous review, I am afraid this time I am going to have to disappoint you. I was unable to think of anything funny about a game this fabulous, this terrifying and this flawless. I was able, however, to procure a secret cheat code that has previously never been released to the public. At great professional and financial risk to myself I am providing this code to you now.

From the title screen enter the following code:

D up, D up, D down, D down, D right, D left, Y, A, X, B, RB, LB, LT+RT, L stick press, R stick 1/2 way to the right, back, A+X, B+Y

If you enter it correctly you will hear the Big Daddy moan. This will unlock all of the unlockable doors throughout the game, all of which hide a secret tape recorder. Finding all of them will also unlock the secret achievement “OCD”.

In the likely event that you are not planning on re-playing the game but would still like to hear the messages on those tape recorders, I am providing them here. ALERT! These are spoilers, so if you have not completed the game you should NOT listen to these!

Medical Pavilion, Pharmacy	Neptune’s Bounty, Cigar store	Neptune’s Bounty, Liquor store
Smuggler’s Hideout, Splicer hideout	Smuggler’s Hideout, Under the docks	Arcadia, Train car in tunnel 2
Farmer’s Market, Bee hive	Farmer’s Market, brewery	Fort Frolic, Backstage
Fort Frolic, dressing room bathroom	Hephaestus, Glass case	Rapture Control Central, power station, underwater
Olympus Heights, Behind desk	Point Prometheus, mess hall

Incredible story line	Killing little girls for slugs
Most immersive game ever played	Induces nightmares
Flawlessly constructed	Not much funny about it

-Groggy

Deciding between Guitar Hero III, Rock Band and Band Geek was a really tough choice. In the end I decided to go with Band Geek because it had the most instruments, and for a mere $399, that’s less than $30 per instrument. What a deal! The box arrived in the mail and it was HUGE! I expected it to be big but I guess packing the game and twelve instruments into a container is harder than it sounds. I quickly unpacked it all. Everything was there; the trombone, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, violin, cello, snare, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and xylophone all looked great! It was just a matter of calling up 11 of my closest friends to come over and start jamming.

Once I had bribed everyone with Mountain Dew and Doritos, we got down to playing. The first negative aspect of the game I noticed was that you have to wait an hour and a half before you get to play the song. While this is certainly realistic, some sort of an after school practice mode would be welcome so you don’t have to wait that long. This was easily forgivable after we started the song however. We started with “Anchors Aweigh” which was a rousing disaster. Matt forgot to turn on his oboe along with four others who forgot to sync them (not naming any names!). After enduring the humiliating muffled whispers of negativity from the crowd, we started the next song, “You’ve Got To Be A Football Hero”. We nailed it! Everyone seemed to be on their game for this one. At one point Vinny was falling behind on the triangle, but there is a feature in the game where the woodwind section can tilt their instruments back and forth to give a falling player a boost and pull them back into the game, avoiding the opposing team’s jeering. Another thing we noticed was how loud a dozen people clicking and smacking the plastic controllers can be. I bet if we turned off the sound we would sound like a busy hive of alien bipedal insectoids! After our fourth successful piece we were challenged by none other than Ohio State University! We were in the big leagues now!

We have not tried online play but a lot of us really felt that the camaraderie of being in the same room together was a much more powerful experience than we could imagine being split across the planet trying to ply our trade. The experience was not only fulfilling but it was such a social event that there is no question the twelve of us are hooked. With plans on meeting every Wednesday night and a new vacuum cleaner to get the Doritos out of the carpet, I am sure this game will have a place on top of the game stack for years to come.

Lots of instruments	Hard to gather a whole band
Awesome game play	Feeding said band members
Fantastic social camaraderie	Cleaning up after said band members

-Groggy

What a cute game this is! You get to garden and raise animals! This game which has the most adorable appearance, however, has some really strange and horrifying aspects as well.

To say that this game is odd in the conflict it creates emotionally would be an understatement. At first, it’s just a few little worms running around. Build them a house and hey, why don’t you have them mate? Sure! And then, why don’t you have the father mate with his … progeny… Hey, what gender are these anyway? Did I just spy on them having sex? Well, that’s cool I guess. If Marlin Perkins can do it, so can I. So then more animals join and you have to feed some of your smaller animals to the bigger ones in order to make them happy or get them in the mood to mate. I guess that’s okay, they don’t seem to mind very much. The more animals you get the more you start finding that some species don’t like other species and you end up trying disparately micro-managing them to keep them from killing each other, often with little or no success. I hear there are these things called fences but I wasn’t having much luck using them. Not only are the piñatas themselves a hassle wrapped in crepe paper, but there is this really snotty lady who tromps through your garden reminding you of how inferior you are. There are a TON of shopkeepers and such to interact with that sometimes it is a little overwhelming. After a while there are even prospectors asking you to produce a certain number of your hard earned animals for them, to be shipped off to children intent on murdering them for their innards.

I might have come into the game underestimating the learning curve, deceived by the brightly colored exterior. None the less, I did spend a good 16 hours straight playing it! If anything it is extremely addicting, and I wish I had it for longer than I did. I might go as far as purchasing the game, though I do not know into what kind of dark pit of madness I may descend. Overall, this game wins the award for strangest game ever and I am glad I played it. I still think of my little murderous, incestuous, self-destructive animals and wonder how they are getting along on that little virtual farm in my console’s memory chip. I wonder longingly, and then try to think of something pleasant to even it out.

Cuuuuute!	Incest
My very own garden!	Fratricide
Strange dramatic neighbors!	Cannibalism

-Groggy

I was a big fan of the first Halo game. We would often gather at my house with two big screen TVs and play team death matches. Good times. Halo 2 rolled around and I was not really satisfied with the weapon balance and considered it to be a minor upgrade in graphics, major downgrade in game play. With both games present we usually preferred Halo 1 overall. So now Halo 3 is out and they have really learned from both games and have captured the best of both worlds. A fine job! The weapons are balanced, but unique enough to have their own situational purposes. No more sniper pistol of doom, no more 5 versions of the same machine gun. The maps are well thought out, and interesting (though I miss Boarding Action). The new video features are going to please a lot of machinima directors and the Forge has already produced some top-notch player-made maps available for easy download from the Bungie website. The best part is probably the very easy to use online features. We had no problem whatsoever creating games with friends, random people or in the ranked ladder. They give a sense of achievement with the ranks and experience that allows you to feel you are progressing and gauge how good your opponents are going to be.

Now, let’s get down to brass tacks. We all know that the real reason we play Halo is the tea-bagging. Well, Bungie has not disappointed here either. The crouch functionality on the controller is easy to use with quick response, so the triple-dip can be performed in a mere fraction of a second after delivering the killing blow or even done in a “drive-by bagging” manner in the rare event that someone neglects their rights as the pwner to the pwnee. In addition to that, Bungie has added some incredible options for changing your appearance as far as armor color, emblem, species, gender, armor type, etc.. I mention this because they have also added the undocumented feature of teabag flavor varieties. By merely changing your armor color, it changes the flavor of your implement of steeping. Corresponding flavors are:

Red - Bloody ass
Orange - Strange ass
Yellow - Creamy ass
Green - Moldy ass
Blue - Cool mint ass
Purple - Old ass
Brown - Original ass
Pink - Bubble gum

Each flavor is a veritable explosion of humiliation that is sure to bring a smile to the surliest of victims.

In closing I would like to say, if you like a good, solid FPS with easy access to a huge community of players, and you enjoy humiliating them with your virtual scrotum, this is the game for you!

Graphics	No raspberry flavor
Great online functionality	No button for sugar or spoon
Obviously a finished product	No counter for ‘baggings

-Groggy