Puzzle Quest

Here's GZ's great review of the Puzzle Quest game that you can find on multiple consoles. I just recently purchased Puzzle Quest for the Sony PSP after months of great word of mouth and pressure from my friends to try it out. They claimed that it's a great new style of game with an interesting mesh of RPG and Puzzle style game elements. I saw it at Best Buy for a few bucks and figured what the hell let's give it a shot finally. I'd have to agree with most of the praise it's been getting. The gameplay is truly unique, I have never played anything like it. I think of it as a cross between an RPG and Bejewelled, which i know might sound stupid, but the guys at D3 pull it off remarkably well.

The whole idea of the game is you can pick your main character from one of 4-5 different classes and you pretty much go on a pretty generic sword and sorcery type of journey. But really it wasn't the story that really grabbed ahold of me, it was the aforementioned puzzle elements mixed with RPG battles that really makes me want to play this game for hours on end. The game is pretty easy to figure out after about an hour or so of playing. With that said the game is extremely long, especially for a puzzle game, by RPG standards its about a normal length.

OK, so riddle me this, what is the point of the extra characters that tag along with you on this journey? I have gotten a few so far and they literally add nothing to the game besides dialogue and plot development. I read in the manual that these guys are supposed to do something in battle depending on who's in the party, but I have seen no difference in the way the battles turn out or happen. I don;t know if this a bug in the game, but it's a pretty massive one in that it renders that part of the game entirely useless and my guess is that it will come back to haunt later on.

Why? Because this game is hard as shit. Literally harder then week old shit. I either suck really really bad or this game is really that fucking hard. The computer seems to know exactly what is coming next as far as the jewels and skulls and all the other shit. Seriously there are times where I do not get to do anything for 10 minutes because the computer sits there and gets extra moves from 4 of a kinds for freakin ever. It's the same as playing pool with a professional, once someone is on a roll you will lose without ever actually playing the god damn game. This infuriates me, I don't think i have ever been so pissed off at a game in my life. It's insanely difficult, but that's part of the allure of the game, there really isn't any penalty for getting your ass kicked every time you pick the game up. It tricks you into still playing the game even after you just claimed you would put a baby's head on a pike if you don't win this time around.

Just writing about it pisses me off.

3/5

Good: Great and interesting gameplay, the music is awesome.
Bad: Extreme difficulty curve along with random noticeable bugs
Ugly: Orcs

The Incredible Hulk DVD Announced

I saw that over at /Film The Incredible Hulk DVD specifications have been announced along with what I assume is a tentative release date. This is a DVD release that I for one am extremely excited about. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie and it surprised me. It surprised me because of the absolute mediocrity of Ang Lee's version and I wasn't quite sold on Ed Norton as Banner/Hulk. Needless to say this version has little to nothing to do with Hulk. Sure, there are a few nods and pokes at the previous adaptation, however the creators completely make this film it's own beast. Norton is great, Tim Roth is amazing and the writing is so much better then expected. It does have some pacing issues and some of the dialogue can be on the corny side, but I find the movie extremely fun, I had a blast watching the movie. Most of this is due to the great action sequences created by Louis Leterrier and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. Everything from the college action set to the special effects filled finale was well shot and well handled.

I want to speak for a second about the thing I think I liked the most about the movie. What Marvel has done with interweaving all of the recent movies together using various characters and nods to the other "Avengers" is absolutely genius, they finally got some great directors who share their visions and have some great ideas about how to handle the all encompassing Marvel universe. I am of course talking about the special cameo appearance of another Marvel character, I won't spoil it for anyone who's not seen the movie, but needless to say you see it coming but are still cheering like mad when it happens. I've heard that there may be a special sequence included on the DVD that was excluded from the theatrical release involving the appearance of another Marvel character that further connects this film universe.

The Incredible Hulk DVD is set to release on October 21st, 2008.

New Dragonball Trailer?

So ComingSoon.net is reporting that there will be a new Dragonball movie trailer attached to the upcoming film adaptation of Max Payne. The movie looks cheesy as hell from the few pictures that I have seen released thus far. I don't really know what to think about this one yet. Could it be actually entertaining, sctrach that, I know it will be entertaining, but could it actually be good? All I know is I pretty much loathe the guy playing Goku(yeah I watched the series when I was younger, sue me), he looks silly. On a related note Max Payne looks awesome. Dragonball is scheduled for release on April 3rd, 2009.

Gears of War 2

Bleszinski's brain. Please if you are going to say something is going to be longer than the original then make it longer than the original, don't say "it's going to be longer" and make it 7 hours as opposed to 6 hours, which is roughly the amount of time it took me to beat the first game. To be fair though, I suck at video games and played it on the easiest difficulty.

I love love love the idea behind making the Gears of War series, by all means this should be one of my most loved and cherished games. I mean he took the futuristic 'roided out style of all the sci fi action games coming out and added a Saving Private Ryan cinematic "brothers in arms" feel. See here for more information.

However, when I played the game I wasn't thinking, "damn this is a great game", I was thinking "damn this would make a great 2 hour movie", a scifi epic of massive proportions. And that was the issue when I beat Gears of War, sure it was fun, bloody as hell, but as far as games are concerned it didn't really add all that much to the genre. The cinematic feel was a welcome addition to gaming but in reality it's being done better by other people, such as Bioshock, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid. I know I am going to get hated for this, but GOW was such an average and short game, I'd rather watch it again then play it again. So my wish to Cliff, is please make the badass game that we know you can make, it's ok to be cinematic but try and knock us on our asses with innovative gameplay as well that will make me come back for seconds.