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Entries by Brendan T. Smith (238)

Tuesday
May042010

Street Fighter IV iPhone Review

Street Fighter on the iPhone is something that by all rights should not even exist, much less in any form that actually resembles what a normal human being would consider a playable game. It should be a cheap cash in. It should be an abomination. It should have no redeeming value whatsoever.

I mean, come on. It's Street Fighter! On the iPhone! We are talking about a fighting game that represents the ultimate in precision controls, precise timing, and skillful input. Slapping a game like that onto a portable device with no physical buttons should be nothing short of blasphemous.

But yet, here we are. Street Fighter has been released for Apple's touchscreen device, and it doesn't suck. Color me surprised.

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Monday
May032010

Movies Can Never Be Art - So Says Me

Author's note: If you read more than a couple lines of this and don't realize I'm being facetious, then please go away. This article is a deliberate parody wherein I try my damndest to sound and monumentally stupid as I think Roger Ebert does in his blog post where he argues that games can never be art. No, I'm not going to link to his article because he's a closed-minded, out-of-touch hack that doesn't deserve the meager traffic I wouldn't send his way because no one reads this website.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that I’m vastly more intelligent than everyone else I’ve ever met. 

I mean, obviously. 

So it stands to reason that my opinion is the only one that actually matters. You’re welcome to consider it pretty much the textbook that defines our world. I highly encourage you to compare your own opinions to mine and see where you’re wrong. There are bound to be plenty of areas in which your opinion needs correcting, and nobody wants you to look like a misguided fool by showing the public that you disagree with me.

Maybe I should provide a handy checklist.

Nah, that would probably take too long.

Anyhow, I have recently had an amazing revelation that I knew I just had to share with the world. It has changed the way I view both art and entertainment. It has altered how I perceive the world around me. It had added an entirely new category onto the list of things which I do not understand and therefore rightfully despise. 

More importantly, it has kept me from having to waste any of my precious time watching those blasted moving picture thingamajigs. Anyone who spends their time watching fake people do fake things in a fake world according to the whim of some poor joke of a “writer”, who probably spends most of his meager salary on brownies and marijuana that he consumes in rabid binges while pretending that he doesn’t need any of that “human contact” that he’s heard so much about, is clearly a moron.

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Friday
Apr162010

Twilight: Journey Into the Abyss (Part Twenty-One)

Wow. I had forgotten what a horrible, unforgivable cliffhanger I ended on last time. Oops. Sorry about that. Well, without further ado. 

Here we go again.

Chapter Thirteen

Alternate motive: “Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn’t get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon.”

This had nothing to do with his stupidly shiny skin, of course. I just find his gorgeous arm hair absolutely fascinating for some reason.

Get the shovel!: “His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.”

Thar be diamonds in that there skin! Get the shovels, boys! We’re going on a mining expedition. That boy oughta be worth millions.

MILLIONS, I SAY! Muahahaha!

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Thursday
Apr152010

Lamenting a Lost, Assuredly Mediocre Friend

Why would anyone in their right mind lament the loss of a game like to DN forever? This title was the laughingstock of the industry for too many years to bother counting. This title had more broken promises that every politician in Washington put together. This title, more than anything else, looked to be based on a style of gameplay that was laughably outdated from anything that could even remotely be considered modern.

I'm not debating a word of any of that. In fact, that last bit about the updated gameplay is precisely why I wish the game had managed to do the impossible and actually land on store shelves.

See, I've noticed a disturbing trend in first person shooter games lately. With every new release comes more boring space Marines, more sickening trips through fake World War II games glorifying a horrible war, and more games for us to bring the maddening trend of realism in their gameplay design.

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Tuesday
Apr062010

Conquering the Vile Buzzword: Cinematic Gaming Realized

I’ve always hated the term “cinematic” when applied to videogames. 

Why is it, exactly, that the interactive entertainment industry has such a self-confidence problem that it feels the need to invoke a term that implies that, to be worthy of note, games must ape the best qualities of movies instead of playing to their own strengths?

The term always makes me think of franchises like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid; games that are known for being as much non-interactive cutscene as they are actual gameplay. Or it might conjure the image of Devil May Cry or others of its ilk that seem to revel in taking the coolest moments out of the player’s control and placing them in movies, as if afraid letting the player have fun would have spoiled the cool action movie moment the developers had in mind.

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