One Square Forward, Two Squares Back: Advance Wars in a Nutshell

I’m going to assume some familiarity with Advance Wars among the reading public. After all, if you want to find out what the game is, read all the other reviews which essentially describe what the game is rather than honestly reviewing anything about it.

Advance wars was originally a promising little game for the Gameboy Advance (minor digression on the soullessness of Nintendo making 5-6 Gameboy iterations). However as anyone could see playing for a few minutes, the game’s multiplayer (obviously the soul of a strategy game) was seriously unbalanced with a few CO’s (you pick your CO who gives you certain benefits and drawbacks to your forces; they also have a special power you can use when you’ve dealt and received enough damage, much like a limit break in the Final Fantasy universe) being dominant over the other chumps and a few units being the best. Hence one could say this game showed promise. Sadly this promise was not delivered upon, as no fundamental changes were made to gameplay in the next installment, Advance Wars 2, which featured the same fundamental mechanics, plus a few more CO’s of varying worth and a reworking of some CO’s to make things more balanced. Needless to say, the issue of balance was not addressed in any serious way. The only unit added was an even bigger tank, the neo-tank, I suppose to make other units feel even worse about themselves.
This game plays like it was made by some Chair Force general trying to prove the superiority of air units over, well, anything. Certainly the Navy comes in for a bruising in this game, as the units are expensive, worthless, and generally defenseless to boot. At any rate, the next installment, not counting the laughable Gamecube cash-in “tactical” (as in, you made a severe tactical error buying this game) FPS, just added a boatload of new, completely random units and a mess of CO’s and combinations for Dual Strike (using 2 CO’s at once).
Of course this just made the game more of a clusterfunk and addressed none of the fundamental issues plaguing the game. There is no reliable anti-tank unit, direct units rule over indirects like artillery, the air units are absurdly powerful especially when used by a CO who gets a bonus for using them, etc. Apparently there is an even newer game out which no one is going to play. I figure after three strikes, you’re out. These aren’t efforts you can just rack up because they mean nothing, like DUI’s or something.

-Alex Hufford

All I Want for Half-Christmas

The long-awaited GTA IV launch is just days away now, and I have to tell you - I'm damned excited. And it looks like I'm not the only one.



Well, to no one's great surprise, GTAIV is being hailed as the best game in the last decade by the reviewers over at IGN. I have to say, they couldn't have picked a crappier release date for the game. With finals week looming over me like, um, something big that looms over things, I've got a bit of a wait ahead of me before I can experience all the debauchery of my new favorite game (that's right, I'm calling it right now - this game is going to rule so hard). So woe has become me.
I hope everybody else out there has had the good sense to graduate from college or drop out in anticipation of the game of 2008. Oh, and how about one of those motherships from Independence Day for that metaphor before? I like that.

Team Carbon at Dangerous Gaming?

Did two members of Team Carbon actually post a comment on Dangerous Gaming, or is this another elaborate hoax perpetrated by the insidious fans of the site? The world may never know...

By now you've probably read the snarky comment left on my article about a recent LAN party I attended - and damn near won (according to some sources at least). The comment purports to come from none other than Karma and Shockwave themselves and praises me for my innate Halo skillz as well as my devilish good looks. So, taken at face value the comment seems like a perfectly valid love letter from two of my biggest fans. I get these types of things all the time, I just don't feel the need to brag about it, that's all.
Well, several loyal readers (including, but not limited to, my own mother) have voiced skepticism over the authenticity of the comment. Since the comment was posted under the all too familiar name "Anonymous", I guess for some it has called up bad memories of the controversy surrounding Dangerous Gaming's earlier Shakespeare-gate scandal. It has also been pointed out that it's extremely unlikely that Team Carbon would have even been able to find the site, given our near non-existent status on the Internets.
In any event, I shall continue to wait for my rightfully earned copy of Army of Two and my warm sodas until Judgement Day if necessary.

Team Carbon at Virginia Tech

Okay, well half of Team Carbon came to Virginia Tech last night in order to have their you-know-whats handed to them by yours truly.

In a startling upset, I was defeated by a team composed of two professional Halo players (Karma and Shockwave of Team Carbon) and two complete chaunces. I was none too thrilled as you can imagine, but then I thought: "What if I had beat them, how cool would that have been?". Yeah, I didn't really get much comfort out of that.
On what one could consider the plus side, the prizes handed out last night for first place were meager indeed - the winning team of four took home one copy of Army of Two and as many free t-shirts as they could carry. Yeah, you read that right...one copy, like, to split. One copy of a game that no one likes anyway. Oh, and four warm energy drinks.
So, in a sense, I did win last night, because I got to laugh as I thought of the winning team stepping up to claim their prize (I didn't stay to watch after my team was pushed out of the losers bracket - I got something in my eye and had to go wash it out with my own tears), only to receive a game that they could maybe fetch fifty bucks for on Ebay. That's not even enough for the money Karma spent in gas to get down to Bleaksburg.
On a personal note, sorry to all my loyal readers who have been itching for some fresh posts, I promise to work harder to make Alex work harder for me.

Too Dangerous For Words: Crab Battle!!!

Words cannot describe how amazingly funny this video is.

Yeah, that just happened. Anyway, in the next week or so I'm going to be bringing some fresh articles to Dangerous Gaming, so sit tight (and the writing staff is hard at work preparing a deliciously funny send-off of the Advance Wars series, question one: Why is it still called Advance Wars on the DS? Ever think about that one?). Anyway, RIP Snake.

Something Dangerous: Casual Gaming for Ididiots

Just a short but sweet article discussing one of the greatest games in recent memory (let's pretend that we're that guy from Momento and recent memory extends only to the last fourteen seconds).

The internet is full of them (no, not dirty sites, but it's got its fair share of those too). I'm referring of course to irreverent flash games. And yesterday I stumbled across maybe the finest example of post-modernist humor that has ever graced a video game.
What it lacks in comprehensibility, it more than makes up for in sheer awesomeness. With no further ado, I give to you: Fruit Mystery.
Yeah, it's that good. So good that I'm going to kick off for the rest of the day and play it myself.

Jeremiad: On the Accidental Genius that was Halo 1

Everyone talks about the Halo trilogy as if it’s some amazing thing. Now before we go any further let me make clear I’ve played more than my share of Halo. I’m not a hater, more like a jilted lover.

At any rate, even the tiniest child can make fun of the science fiction mishmash that was the last two story campaigns, or say, the sloppy, half-rate job Bungie did in redoing Halo 2 from its original exciting trailer to the un-rendered cutscene joke and gameplay letdown that it turned out to be. The stunning mediocrity of H2 and H3 makes it abundantly clear that the multiplayer brilliance of H1 was a pure accident!

Moreover, no accident were the laughably bad three (yes, three, I know what I’m talking about) repeat campaign levels-out of ten in Halo 1, this makes about a third of the campaign a product of laziness. Were we willing to forgive them? Sure. But no one ever listed Two Betrayals, Captain Keyes, or The Maw as exciting levels, since you were just doing what you had already done backwards.

As for the multiplayer, this also was a total accident. The pistol was an unbelievable weapon, the first of its kind for a FPS. It was revolutionary in that this weapon meant that with a certain learned skill (using a pistol, which was quite hard considering you have to lead them, strafe, and try for headshots) you could give yourself a fighting chance to beat anyone else on the map.

What this meant was that the jerk hogging the rockets could get owned by you even if you just spawned. This also further divided the best from the rest, as any poor sap who’s played H1 against anyone good will tell you. They will complain about how it’s not fair, the pistol IS JUST TOO POWERFUL, and they can’t handle it. What they really mean is that they can’t handle your game, YOU ARE TOO POWERFUL, and this hurts their already frail ego. What they want is some button-mash game where a neophyte can pick it up and play with the best- i.e. they expect a competitive video game to be like nothing else competitive.

Reflect, for a moment: do you expect to be good at martial arts having never had a lesson? With just as much justification you could complain about judo chops from some black belt as being too powerful. But, as with Halo, the master would only laugh at you.

At any rate in H2 the pistol was gone, replaced with the Battle Rifle. Also gone was the necessity to lead your shots, due to the massive infusion of auto-aim into the game engine. The Battle Rifle was also weaker, shooting less far and taking four perfect shots to kill, not three, and these shots took longer. Add to this mix the unbelievably silly Sword and melee attacks that could kill in two hits, and you have a slugfest. Gone is the weapon of a more refined age. . .all that’s left is an uncultured tool running around with the sword.

Of course there was also the plasma pistol + Battle Rifle combo, which was slightly more credible but a joke as well, as the plasma pistol would almost never miss, and all you had to do then was hit then once in the head. In short, in H2 the role of the ‘skill’ weapon was drastically reduced, even in a Slayer Pro game type where you start with a Battle Rifle, and what was left was an FPS not important for any gameplay reason, but rather only infamous for its amazing underperformance, and a remarkably clunky and thoughtless online interface (for example only letting you choose Bungie’s game types unless invited to a custom game with friends). Add to this the nickel-and-dime tactics of the world’s most sinister corporation in selling you some extra maps (which were either uninspired or H1 remakes, like Warlock) and you’ve got a sour taste in your mouth.

This trend only continues in H3, where Bungie apparently decided to throw as much cutting room floor material into the game as possible. This merits little to no response. No one is impressed by the Warthog, or the Spartan Laser, or the pistol and assault rifle returning. If anything it just makes the game even worse from a gameplay perspective, and lets it look sloppy while continuing its tailspin. In sum, let this be a tale of hubris and ignorance- a company unwittingly made the most complex and deep FPS of all time, then frittered away that reputation even with its most dangerous fans. This is, to my knowledge, the only honest and intelligent review detailing the trainwreck of the Halo franchise.

-Alex Hufford

First Impressions: Crisis Core

Sure Final Fantasy VII isn't on everyone's list as the finest RPG ever created, but then again, not everyone can be right.

Okay, so I'm ten hours into Crisis Core and I have to say - I'm lovin' every minute of it. It's really got to be one of the best PSP games ever, eclipsed (in my mind) only by Chains of Olympus. The production values here are comparable to a lot of "real" console games, and the story so far is top notch. I won't spoil anything for you; suffice it to say, this is the best Final Fantasy VII story since, well, Final Fantasy VII.
So as the game opens players take the reins as Zack Fair, a character that anyone who's played the original should remember as Cloud's ill-fated buddy from Shin-Ra (and the previous wielder of the Buster Sword). You are an aspiring SOLDIER, hoping to make it into the highest class of warrior known only as the 1sts (firsts).
The game begins with a cutscene very reminescent of the opening in VII. Zack leads an assault on a train as it hurtles through Midgar. And kills people. And then kills a giant monster. And by then you should be comfortable knowing that the game is going to rule.
Anyway,
In conclusion (remember doing that with your papers in highschool?), if you own a PSP (you must be out there somewhere), then you absolutely owe it to yourself to check this game out. Seriously, what are you still reading for? Go, buy it, play it.

Dangerous Gaming Signs New Writer

The poster of several sarcastic remarks has finally been tracked down. It was, as originally postulated, a smarmy relative of the author named Alex Hufford. Instead of beating him to death with salami nun-chucks, Chris Lewis has decided to let Alex work off his sins in Hell (or on the pages of Dangerous Gaming, you know, whatever works).

Be warned dear readers, Alex will probably bring with him a brand of sarcasm so complex as to be completely meaningless. If anyone has a problem with his sometimes immensely dense wit, well, there's always the comment box under his articles. Also, be aware - if people indicate that they like his writing better than mine, he's so totally fired it's not even funny.
We'll probably hear from Alex in the next week or so, so keep your eyes peeled (how's that for a disgusting turn of phrase? I've always thought so at least). He'll be covering recent developments in gaming, and laying the smack down on some of your favorite hits like Halo 3. Actually, he'll probably bring some balance to the Dangerous Gaming force, considering the gushing reviews I've been writing of late (lay off me, I only pay for games that I like). In any event, it should be a lot of fun.
Here's a brief little bio about Alex: He's into revolutions, he likes strikers (I'm not talking about the Mario game, although he likes that too), and his dad writes a blog on racquet sports which I find most excellent.
In other news, I've just cracked into the first couple of hours of Crisis Core, so look for a first impressions article tomorrow.
Believe it or not, that's a pretty accurate representation of what this Hufford kid looks like.

Afternoon of Darkness a Misnomer

Okay, so here it is, a ridiculously tardy review of Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for the PSP.

First off, Afternoon of Darkness is almost as misleading a title as Hour of Darkness was for the PS2 iteration of Disgaea. A better title would have been something to the effect of Disgaea: The Rest of Your Life of Darkness. The game is a total time-suck (what, there's no wiki entry for time-suck? Oh well, check out the article on there about Mister Mosquito instead). I've already dumped fifteen hours into the story and I haven't even cracked the half-way point.

But, as far as life-consuming games go, Disgaea is certainly one of the better strategy RPGs I've ever played (the other one would be Final Fantasy Tactics, so it's not saying much). The combat system takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it you'll be tossing your allies all over the place, racking up combos like there's no tomorrow. It's a quirky title, but it carries a lot of charm in both the story and the gameplay.

For those that haven't the cash or the inclination to own a PSP, you'll be able to check it out on your puny DS pretty soon. Sorry for the lack of review in this review. You'd probably be better off checking out the metascore or something.

Brave New Dangerous Gaming

Dangerous Gaming just got a new look. Site traffic increases ten-fold.

Well, there's a new look around here and it's all thanks to the wonderfully talented art staff. So a heartfelt thanks goes out to my sister. Also, I don't know about you guys, but I love the hell out of the terrifying Boo. The only thing I'm wondering about is what the hell is that thing over Bowser's head? Looks like a polka-dot exclamation point from where I'm sitting.
Also, is it too busy? I fell like by the time you're done reading it, you're dead.
Anyway, real news will resume tomorrow with a look at Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for the PSP. After that, expect a bunch more irrelevant articles and a few barbed comments. That is all.



Here's a fun video to divert you from other - and probably more worthwhile - pursuits. Watch carefully.