Basically, you’re a test subject of Aperture Science and you need to make your way from test room to test room using these portals. Some of the maps provide obvious solutions while others really require you to think and devise a plan of escape. Throughout the levels you’ll use your portal gun to not only help you get from room to room, but also to active lifts, move weighted companion cubes onto switches and more. The main goal is to complete the testing courses and get the cake. Yummy!

I actually felt like a smarter person when I finally completed the 19 maps. You actually have to think about how to get to the end of the level rather then just blast your way through it. The humorous dialog in the game made me not walk away as well. Instead of getting frustrated I found myself just laughing at some of the commentary and continuing to work my way out. The game actually had a completely different ending then I thought it would, which made it all the more fun. I am definitely looking forward to a Portal 2! One thing I didn’t understand though is why it takes up 5GBs of disk space for 19 maps. While extremely detailed that’s quite a lot of space. Either way, I really enjoyed the game, and I even picked up my own Companion Cube from the Valve Store as well!

The game itself plays very similarly to Grand Theft Auto. As John Marston you’ll meet new people and run through various missions. Even the controls in the game are just about the same as those found in the GTA series. One big difference in the controls is how you access your weapons. In RDR you hit the Left Button and you can see an overview of the weapons you have as well as you’re able to select which one to you. I find the fact that Rockstar kept the control scheme the same really nice as it’s just one less thing which I need to learn and remember (and to likely confuse with another game I’m playing at the moment).

Red Dead Redemption doesn’t have an exceptionally amazing, super outstanding story-line, but I really enjoyed it. Even though it followed the same outline that most GTA games use, the fact that it was in a completely different setting then most any games I’ve played made it really fun and enjoyable to play through. The last western game I remember playing was GUN which I too really enjoyed. The biggest thing about Red Dead Redemption that I liked was the fact that I could just hop on my horse and just ride out into the middle of nowhere; a personal real life dream that I hold and hope I can do one day. Riding out under the stars in the middle of the desert was absolutely amazing and looked beautiful on my 1080p projector. The sound and graphics in this game are top-notch and really sucked me in and make me feel like I was really there riding alongside John.

The game itself focuses on getting your family back from the grip of the US government. They’ve basically taken them hostage (John’s wife, Abigail and son, Jack). They ask that you take out your former gang-mates to clear your name. 95% of the game you spend tracking them down and killing them (there’s only 3 of them) and for the last bit you get to spend with your family working on a couple fun missions with them. I think the fact that they included these end missions instead of ending it when you finish off the last of John’s gang is great. You feel even closer to John and it solidifies the bond you have with him as a person. To be honest, this actually feels like it could be a true story. I really felt like I spent time with John out in the wild west, fighting off badies, breaking horses, hunting animals, helping people in need.

The game did have a few frustrating moments. My horses tended to jump over fences or low walls when I really didn’t want them too. The crouching position and hiding behind a crate or wall had some weird effects and got me killed a few times. John also seemed to have delayed actions when I wanted him to popup from hiding to shoot at an enemy resulting in almost death multiple times. I also had some issues with hogtying enemies. He would rope them but they would just stand up and proceed to shoot at me quicker then I could rope them again or switch weapons resulting in death a few times. I also found a few of the missions to be a bit tedious and some of them really left me quite a long way off from the next mission. I definitely found myself wondering why John continued help people in the game when they would be obviously no help to him. I wish it would have been possible to tell them to piss off while still being able to proceed further in the game.

The range and variety of places you can go in this game astound me. Everything from the hot deserts of Mexico up into what seem to be the cold snowy Rockie mountains. The way they ease you into each temperate zone is really well done too. It’s smooth and realistic even though it’s rather quick when you think about it. I am very impressed with the graphics in the game. The textures are really well done. I should mention I did run into a couple instances where some textures were not rendered leaving a pretty bland looking building or landscape.

I think one of my most favorite things besides just riding out under the night skies was to break horses. I really felt a sense of accomplishment after breaking a wild horse and taking it as my own. Overall Red Dead Redemption is an outstanding game. This is one game you definitely want to try at least once. I’m actually looking forward to playing some of the free roam mode as well as the new downloadable missions. While I won’t go into details to how the game ended, I must say, I think I would like to see a sequel. Rockstar really did a fantastic job with this game.

That said, Crackdown 2 takes a bit of a turn and introduces a bit of a different gameplay then the first game. An organization, The Cell has taken over most of Pacific City and has shutdown all the reactors which you need to reclaim. When you reclaim a section a beacon is then deployed which you need to activate. The game also introduces a new breed of hell dubbed “the freaks”. These mutants are a product of the organization you work for. With each beacon activation you clear out the freaks from that section of the city.

Basically your objectives in the game are to reclaim the reactors, activate the beacons and get rid of the freaks. There are also points in the city controlled by The Cell which you can reclaim as well. The game keeps true to it’s original version by including agility races and car races each which when won boost your driving and agility abilities. The abilities ‘leveling’ is something that I really like and could even be considered a reason as to why I like the Crackdown series over Grand Theft Auto. It adds another element to the game, and makes it a bit more fun and rewarding.

There were a couple difficult and frustrating parts within the game. I found myself having to play a few areas multiple times because of poor camera angles or odd controls or unusually difficult enemies. The most frustrating parts I think were a few of the beacon activations as well as some of the end level areas. I would get a bunch of enemies that surrounded me and each of them would have
a rocket or grenade launcher and would be continuously firing on me so I could never stand up to move or run away. I also found the last mission to be a bit of a pain. I think I must have played through that one 10+ times before I finally got it right.

Overall I am very impressed with the game. It was a lot of fun to play. The world of Crackdown 2 is huge and a real pleasure to play in. The game includes a bunch of new weapons and cars. The story line was a nice change from the usual ‘track down bosses and beat them to win’. I for one am definitely looking forward to a Crackdown 3!

The game includes some achievements as well. It probably only took me an hour or so to complete the whole game, which is a bit saddening. It would have been nice to see more levels, I believe there’s really only 4 (with 4-5 parts to each level). It would have also been nice to see a wider variety of weapons and ways to protect your house. The variety of zombies could have been a bit more as well. For only 0.99 cents you can’t go wrong through.

Just having the Homebrew Channel doesn’t do a whole lot on it’s own, you actually need some applications to make it useful. The only applications I was really interested in were the Configurable USB Loader and the WAD Manager.

The Configurable USB Loader lets me load up ISO files of Nintendo Wii games. Great for making backups and storing your Nintendo Wii disks. It also loads and runs the games faster and smoother. I’ve got an 80GB USB drive I’m using to store my games on right now. I use WBFS Manager for OS X (which was a real pain to track down and find) to get my games onto the USB drive. The application runs on your Mac OS X computer and allows you to mount your WBFS formatted drive and then move your ISO/image files to your USB drive. The WBFS isn’t recognized by OS X, which is why you need this application. There’s definitely applications for Windows, you’ve just got to find them. With the Configuration USB Loader application you can also copy your own Nintendo Wii games to your own USB drive. I really find that to be a nice feature. The interface of the application itself is also quite nice. I haven’t played with it too much, but it looks like there’s a built-in cheats system which is really going to help me fly through a bunch of these games!

The WAD Manager is great because you can install WAD files, which to me are mostly Virtual Console games. Again, I use this for backup purposes. I’ve purchased a few Virtual Console games off the Wii Marketplace, so now being able to have the ability to actually get the WAD files for them is something I find useful. I don’t have to worry if my Wii crashes or something, I’ll always have the WAD files of the games themselves.

That said, I now have all of my consoles except my Sony Playstation 3 modified. I really find this stuff to be fun. It’s interesting to see a piece of hardware run software made by people outside the mainstream. Now, just because the whole process for me was relatively easy, it’s not the same for everyone. My friend said he spent 6-7 hours getting his Nintendo Wii to work right. It was a process that included downgrading firmwares, flashing different versions of firmwares, etc. I think I got lucky because of the age of my Nintendo Wii (it was one of the original units) and the version of the Nintendo firmware it was running. Luckily I had someone who’d done the process so the whole thing probably took no more then 30-45 minutes (from installing BootMii/Homebrew to getting the applications installed).

Useful Links:
BootMii
Homebrew Channel
Installing Waninkoko’s IOS249 for use with USB Loader
Configurable USB Loader Install
Wii Hacking Forum

After playing the little flash version of the game that PopCap has online I went out and spent the $3 on the game. Completely worth it! While there’s a couple frustrating spots in the game which required me to play a level 3 or 4 times to complete them most levels are pretty easy to complete as long as you’ve got your tactics down. The game overall is really simple though. You need to protect your home from the invading zombies. You have a wide variety of different plants which you can plant to protect your home. Plants range from the simple pea shooter to fun plants like the venus fly traps and cat tails. Just as your plants vary, so do the zombies. There’s normal zombies, to zombies driving zambonies, to Michael Jackson zombies and more.

The game also include achievements so I felt a little bit better about having spent all that time playing the game. At least now I can show off some of the achievements I got! When you complete the game you unlock the Quick Play mode which allows you to select between levels and the mini-games. The ability to go back and reply any of these levels is really great as well as choose any of the mini-games. It adds a lot of replay to the game itself. It also makes grabbing some of those achievements a lot easier.

For the $3 I spent on the game, I’d say it was well worth it. I’ve definitely gotten my monies worth and I highly recommend this game to anyone with an iPhone/iPod touch (or PC/Mac). When and if I ever get the Apple iPad I’ll be purchasing the higher definition version of the game as well. Check out the Plants vs. Zombies website if you haven’t already and try out the online version they’ve got up. You’ll get hooked!

After completing Final Fantasy IX I was going to work on Final Fantasy X-2 but I’d been kind of Final Fantasy’d out. After asking for a couple ideas of what to play instead, Bayonetta popped up a couple times. I didn’t know much about the game, but I had read and heard it was pretty bad-ass…

Bad-ass barely scratches the surface of how bad-ass this game really is. Within the first few minutes of playable time, you can already call upon these huge demons that reside within Bayonetta. I think one of the first ones that’s she’s able to summon is my favorite. It’s like a vicious dog, dragon, demon that will eat you up! The game play is very similar to that of the Devil May Cry series. It’s basically just and action packed story with a pretty decent story-line.

Bayonetta’s story is a bit difficult to grasp in the beginning and it was only towards the end that I really started to understand what was going on. It does feel like it hurts the game overall, because as much fun as blowing shit up is, it’s hard when you can only partially understand what’s going on. Eventually though, it does come together, you may even experience that “Ah-Hah!” moment.

The controls within the game are quite simple to learn and use. There’s tons of different combos you can unleash upon your foes, and the finishing or climax moves are really fantastic. However, I did find myself dying multiple times because at several points throughout the game you need to hit or repeatedly hit a button to save yourself from dying. I did feel like 95% of the game I was just button mashing to get through, but then and again, I probably did the same in Devil May Cry. The only point where I really used the combos was during the level loading times. During these times you’re shown on-screen which button combos you can perform and you can practice them while the next level loads. It sure beats staring at the screen and waiting!

Another neat little thing in Bayonetta is that at the end of each level you get to play this arcade shooter. Each kill or hit awards you some points which you can spend on items (power ups, etc). Of course I never really had enough hits to get anything useful so I ended up trading them in for halos. It actually wasn’t until the last or second to last level that I figured out where to spend these halos. You can visit a shop owned by your buddy and he offers you anything from health revitalizing lollipops, to weapon upgrades. You can also collect these record (yes like the music kind) fragments and he’ll take those from you and provide you with new guns and other weapons.

Each level is riddled with various types of enemies and some levels have end-bosses. I attempted to think of what game I could compare these enemies too, but couldn’t think of anything! They’re quite unique, and rather large. One of the first large enemy encounters you have I had thought was going to be the final boss being that he was incredibly large and seemed like the ruler of the world. However he ends up being one of the bosses you meet in a few levels. The final boss is actually someone who’s voice you hear throughout the game. Overall I am really impressed with the character and boss designs. They’re quite unique (trust me you’ll know what I mean when you see a couple of these bosses)! Each boss has a different way to kill them, so it’s does provide you with a good challenge each time. Each normal enemy also has a unique way that you finish them off which I found to be pretty fun.

The graphics and sound in Bayonetta I also to find to be superb. Each level is well design and beautiful in own way, regardless of whether you’re in a forest or a town that’s be burned to the ground. There were a couple instances when the camera and level environment didn’t play nice and several times got me killed. Other then that, A+ work.

Overall I found that Bayonetta was an awesome game and really appreciate the people that recommended it to me. I fear that it would have taken quite a while to get to this game otherwise. If you’re looking for a really fun to play, kick the shit out of everything, make you laugh, fall in love with the girl, awesome kind of game, definitely check this one out!

I won’t review too much of the game, but I must say SquareSoft (yes, this is before they became SquareEnix) did a fantastic job on the soundtrack and graphics for this game. While I know it’s already 2010, the graphics for the games time were quite good and even now the FMVs look really great!

I really enjoyed playing through this story and now my attentions are focused on completed Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy XII so I can see the amazingness of Final Fantasy XIII!

The solution for me was that my party still had Mini cast on them, so the new spell wouldn’t work. After casting Mini on the party again (so they were regular size) I was able to cast Toad without any issues. Another solution was to make sure the “Always on normal status” cheat wasn’t activated if you were using an Action Replay device.

I do hope this helps someone, because I about stuck the game back on the shelf.