Ghostbusters: The Game - First Impressions

This won’t come as a surprise, but Ghostbusters: The Game was made specifically for fans of the film (and its sequel). The game can still be enjoyable for those unfamiliar with the franchise, but the real joy comes from seeing our favorite characters kick some ghost booty after such a long absence. I’m not saying that the gameplay isn’t fun, but it’s definitely not the strength of this game.

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The Elder Scrolls Series Remains Dormant

I am a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls series and find something so beautiful about that world. While I did enjoy Fallout 3, I was really hoping that Bethesda Softworks would start working on the next Elder Scrolls game after finishing their work with Fallout 3 (they officially confirmed that they are done bringing DLC to the game), but that doesn't seem to be the case.

"Don't look for a new Elder Scrolls game in the near future."

That is a direct quote from Todd Howard, executive producer and game director of Bethesda Softworks, taken from his keynote speech at QuakeCon 2009. I know that this doesn't mean that the series is dead by any means, but I do find it a bit disheartening that we won't be seeing anything new in the Elder Scrolls universe for quite some time. Howard chose to only throw some bread crumbs at the gaming populus by saying that "We are working on our next big game but we are not talking about it." I wish their "next big game" was The Elder Scrolls V, but it is Bethesda and I'll take what I can get.

Gaming Memories: Final Fantasy II

When I was in the 10th grade I was an overweight Geek, for those of you counting at home that was 1993; I guess you could say nothing much has changed. I had just received my SNES the previous Christmas and it was heaven. A few years earlier a local department store was closing its doors and inside the store was a whole section of magazines and guides for a ton of video games. I found one for a game called Final Fantasy and convinced my dad to buy it for me; I believe it cost $1 at the time.

I had never seen a game like this before; Wizards, warriors, and thieves. The game seemed huge and I decided I was going to rent this game. I had just picked up my trusty guide and no dragon seemed too dangerous, no stone would be left unturned. I would stop the evil Chaos from destroying the world!

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CGI-Quality Graphics Finally Possible?

This isn't so much a post on whether CGI-quality graphics are now possible in video games, but more of reaction to another story that made this claim (the original story can be found here).

"Ratchet and Clank A Crack in Time finally brings the graphical quality of pre-rendered CGI to video game consoles."

The above statement is taken directly from the original story and though I can't say I disagree with this statement, I find the way it was delivered to be rather odd. The reason I find all this praise and crazy fanboyism odd is that this story directly compares the game with the CGI of Toy Story 2. Maybe it's just me, but I find it almost pointless to praise a video game for delivering graphics of the same quality as a 10 year old movie. Shouldn't we be questioning why there is such a gap in the quality of pre-rendered graphics compared to CGI? It's not that I don't understand why it's more difficult to reach CGI-level graphics, but I just find it odd to praise a game for looking as good as a 10 year old movie.

Bite Down on a Dragon's Sausage [Update]

This is without a doubt the greatest collector's edition that's ever existed...if only it were real. Seriously, who wouldn't want some delicious sausage in their collector's edition?

Update: The video was taken down...I guess it was just too much sausage for most to handle.

A Pixelated Sausage Community Gamertag

I've known about these little group gamertags for a while now, but never thought to create my own for this here little site. It has now been done and as of right now only officially contains we three podcasters: CannoliCrasher(me), Hendersonman, and BigSt3ph3n. The group is open to everyone and I really hope you decide to join us in our shenanigans. This will be a good way for fellow listeners to get to know one another better and possibly get some gaming done as well!

Links and current gamerscore come with more sausage!

The Pixelated Sausage XBL Leaderboard

True Blood = Truly Bad

I never saw True Blood until a few days ago, in fact, I never even heard of the show until recently. I was extremely hopeful for this series and expected to enjoy it, even if it was only because I love vampires. Sadly, I was in for quite a downpour of disappointment.

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What Can One Hundred Dollars Buy?

I have been struggling these past few days with how I should spend a very specific amount of money. That amount would be one hundred thousand dollars!!! Actually, it's only one hundred dollars.

I was seriously thinking about picking up the Guitar Hero: World Tour band kit bundle through Walmart's website for $99, but I wanted to just pick it up in store. This was impossible thanks to the fact that Walmart does not match their prices in store with their prices online. I could purchase it through their website and choose "ship up at store" (which is free) as my shipping method, but why should I have to do that? Why does Walmart feel the need to waste my time (and theirs) just because they won't match their own friggin' prices?

The other game(s) that I was considering instead of Guitar Hero was The Sims 3, as well as the recent "Complete Pack" of Civilization IV. I would have most likely picked up the limited edition of The Sims 3 because I am a bit of a Sims whore, but my fear that the game may not run on my system halted my purchase. The total of these two games would have equaled $110. I did not buy them, nor did I buy Guitar Hero. What did I end up buying you ask? Find out with more sausage...

What I ended up buying was 4 copies of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (w/Subzero animation cell) for the X360 at $15 a pop, Prince of Persia (X360) for $15, Need for Speed: Undercover (X360) for $12, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (NDS) for $5, and Metal Slug 7 (NDS) for $10.

This all ended up costing me roughly $110 after taxes. The awesome part of this tale is that I can pretty much get all of my money back by selling these sealed copies (yes, they are all brand new copies) on eBay for a nice lump o' change. I must thank Target (and small town stupidity) for making this all happen. I may actually go back and pick up some more copies since they still had about 10 copies of MK and PoP each. Thank you Walmart for being completely ridiculous and thank you my computer for being outdated! None of this could have ever happened without you!

I also have to throw a shout out to K-Mart for Metal Slug 7 and a shout out to Shop Ko for Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime.

E3 Thoughts: Microsoft

Here it is, my thoughts on Microsoft's press conference...late and unedited.

Microsoft started off E3 2009 with a fantastic press conference that exceeded practically every expectation. The press conference was not perfect, but it was a great way to start a relatively enjoyable E3.

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Possible Leaked Trailer for Project Trico

Below (with more sausage) is the possible leaked trailer for the upcoming new game from Team ICO, the team that gave us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. All I can say is that it looks pretty damn legit and I hope it's real because I love the premise of what I've seen. Having a companion throughout the game that can't directly talk to the protagonist is really appealing. It reminds me of all those old "human and animal" companion flicks that I used to love as a kid, as well as slightly reminding me of how a character like Wall-E is forced to use other means in order to expression emotion since he cannot speak.

I also just want to say that I hope this trailer is from an early build of the game because it didn't impress me graphically. I'm not saying it looks bad by any means, but it didn't "wow" me like I'd expect from Team ICO, not to mention the fact that this game has been in development for so long. Enough jibber-jabber from moi, enjoy the trailer below!