Why We Must Go Nuclear

We need to go nuclear so that we can fight Global Warming so that we can keep playing computer games. 


Now I know some Ukranian and Japanese and Earth people may think this is not the way to go. But they're wrong.


Here's why: according to the people who live in university buildings, the world is going to end if we don't stop Global Warming next year (Scientific Formula: Current Year + 1 = Next Year). And according to Germans, the only way to get us off greenhouse gases is to go nuclear. So we must go nuclear.


I will admit though, I'm not sure exactly what they mean by "go nuclear." I know going it would fix our energy/global warming problems, but does it mean we build nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons? 


I'm just kidding, of course. They mean both. 

First let's deal with the nuclear weapons bit. We already have a billion of them. So we're safe there. Now let's move on to the nuclear power plant bit.

I understand that some of you may think nuclear power plants are bad, with their mutating our children into five-headed people qualities (although, five heads are better than one; just sayin'). Plus the plants explode and destroy the nations they're in. Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. But I bet, if you read through my summary of the nuclear power plants incidents, you'll find that said incidents are, in the future, quite avoidable.

1) The 3-Mile Island Nuclear hoedown: This, readers, was caused by the company not training its employees how to do the things necessary to run a nuclear power plant. For one thing, nobody told them where the plant was. So they were unable to run the plant. Then suddenly on the news there's this nuclear meltdown, and the workers were like, "Oh! It's in Pennsylvania!"

2) The Chernobyl Thingy: Basically, this one occurred because the interface between the power plant workers and the nuclear meltdown was completely unintuitive. For one thing, whenever the plant had an issue, the plant's main screen would light up and show the workers these options: "Battleship"; "Chess"; "Pong"; "War and Peace (the video game)." And you'd think they'd pick Pong. But in Pong they had to win many matches before the plant would say what the issue was. So they normally picked Battleship. Anyways, it was because of this system that they couldn't stop the plant from exploding.

3) The Fukushima Nuclear Tsunami Incident: Basically the problem with this plant was that it was in Japan.

So there! All we need to do to prevent nuclear power plant-related nuclear reactor meltdowns is to make sure we: one, train the nuclear power plant workers; two, make it so the workers don't have to beat video games to see the status of their plants; and three, not have any of these plants in Japan. It's not like Japan needs electricity.

And we have to do this. Otherwise we will either be forced to abandon electrical devices "at the last minute" and not be able to play computer games, or we'll be destroyed by Global Warming and not be able to play computer games. Either of those would make life not worth living.

Why People Still Can't Have It All

Three days ago I was using the bathroom, if you know what I mean. And what I mean is, when I was finished pooping (into the toilet), I reached for the toilet paper and found that it wasn't there. I froze, of course. I mean, I stood still for a moment. I looked at the thing that normally holds the toilet paper, and just stared, stricken, at the brown cardboard cylinder, for I had realized the horror, that I could not have everything I would want in life.

Eventually, I did get TP. It took a minute of strange walking. Hmm...I guess that kind of ruins the point of this essay....Anyways....Um....Forget everything you've read so far. The point of this essay is that people, whether they be big or small, rich or tall, intelligent or retarded, cannot have everything they want. And because this is a games website, I want to stress that this goes especially for gamers. Like, for example, when I was a kid, I played way too much Diablo II and StarCraft and Unreal Tournament and Medal of Honor and Homeworld Cataclysm and Red Alert 2 and Age of Empires 2 and Operation Flashpoint and Warcraft III and Wing Commander: Prophecy and StarFox 64 and Ken Griffey Jr's  MLB (N64). I want a time machine whereby I can travel back and advise myself not to play too much of those games and to not play Ken Griffey Jr's MLB (N64). But, although I want a time machine, I just don't have one. You see? I'm saying that I can't have everything I want and therefore neither can you. Not that you can't have what you want just because I can't have what I want. I just mean you can't have everything you want....

Now that you understand what I'm saying, let me give you another example of other real people not getting everything they want.

We had Buddy interview people of his choosing to do this for you:

Mr. Sordofstabin: "Well my wife and I used to have many an adventure in the World of Warcraft."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Yeah we used ta play da game a lot."


Mr. Sordofstabin: "I was an attorney of the office of Big & Boobies."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Yeah he used ta make a lot o' da mahney."


Mr. Sordofstabin: "One day, from my wife, twins were born."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Oh yeah they was beautiful. Wan was a girl, and wan was not."


Mr. Sordofstabin: "Eventually I stopped leaving for the office. It cut too much into my time in the World of Warcraft."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Yeah, I stopped workin' in da haus'."

Mr. Sordofstabin: "We got our adventures in the land of Azeroth to be what we desired: sixteen hours a day."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Oh yeah, da house looked laik a hole, and smelt laik wan, too."


Mr. Sordofstabin: "Then our babies died."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Yeah, we was sad. They had kild demselves. I had ta stop playin' WoW ta dispose of der bodies."


Mr. Sordofstabin: "Well you got what you came for. Can we end this? I had no knowledge they allowed visitors here beyond the time of ten day hours."


Mrs. Sordofstabin: "Yeah. I hate id when dey hit me wid da black sticks."


Uh.

Right.

Buddy found and interviewed those people. Good job, Buddy. What was the point we were?...Oh yes! People can't have everything they want. The Sordofstabins?....Wow. I mean, they wanted to have children and maintain a house and play eighteen hours of World of Warcraft per day and...yeh.

Bioware Fixes Mass Effect 3 Endings. Fans Still Pissed.

This week Bioware amended the endings to the ending of the Mass Effect trilogy; despite this, thousands of fans remain angry and depressed.

Earlier this year when Bioware released Mass Effect 3, thousands of fans became outraged over the three, brusque, nearly identical endings to what was a one-hundred+ hour trilogy that made players feel like they were actually living a hero's life. Players stated that the endings left them with negative feelings, such as "a need for more closure" and "a sense of meaninglessness" and "a crushing sadness that left me crying in dark corners." 

Mass Effect player John Boringson explains, "I've played and replayed Mass Effects one and two multiple times so that I [Commander Shepard] could have the best ending for me, my friends, and the galaxy. Bioware told us that the decisions we made would affect how it all ends. But all I got was the realization that my life is s***."


Thousands of explanations similar to Mr. Boringson's flooded the Internet for weeks after the game's release. Most of the messages were more concise than Boringson's, stating things like, "f*** Bioware," and "hope everyone at Bioware dies," and "nothing ever mattered..." Mass Effect fan Bob Losermun even went as far as to take the issue to the United States government. In his letter he wrote, "Please, government, make Bioware fix the Mass Effect 3 endings. If they don't fix it, I will die." 


The new endings are now out and can be downloaded and played in the game, or viewed on the Internet. Every plot hole has been filled. There's plenty of "closure." And, in the Stage Zero opinion, although they maintain Bioware's tradition of okay writing, the new endings are good. The. New. Endings. Are. Good. AND PEOPLE ARE CRYING ABOUT THEM. Wow.

Tekken Producer Tells Fans to "Shut the fuck up you whiny fucks!"

Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada, in a response to hundreds of letters asking his company to only use the voice work from previous Tekken games in the new one, has told fans to "Shut the fuck up you whiny fucks."

Mr. Harada's latest comments come after he had already responded to over a thousand letters and ripped his hair out.

"We have new voice work. We already paid for it. Tell your readers to deal with it." Said the exasperated boss to the games press. "I can't believe they actually take the time to write these letters." He then showed us some of the letters, many of which had large, greasy finger prints on them.

"Some of these are really bizarre." Continued Mr. Harada. "This one says, 'When I make out with my daughter, I like listening to the old voices from Tekken, so I turn on an old Tekken game and play it with my free hand. But I just bought a PS3 and I want a [sic] the better graphics Tekken. But I want the old voices, too, because it turns me on. Please put the old voices in the next Tekken.'" After reading this the producer said to us, "That fans of this game can be like this makes me regret my life. I am considering suicide."

So we at Stage Zero want to make this a public service announcement. Please do not send letters to Namco Bandai about how you are pedophiles with your children. And also don't ask for the old Tekken voices in the next Tekken. This may cause someone to lose their life. Plus the new voices will probably be better anyway.

In other news, on Monday Diablo III's game director Jay Wilson responded to angry fans who live in the  Battle.net comments section, by saying, "Come choke on my dick you useless, virgin, obese sacks of shit."

Square-Enix Reaches Out to Female Gamers by Killing Prostitute Nuns, Beating the Shit Out of Lara Croft

This month Square-Enix released an ad for the new stupid Hitman game plus the E3 presentation of their next big Tomb Raider game. 

Here's the Hitman ad. Yes. Women are so going to pre-order this game.

As for the Tomb Raiderness, Square's done a lot to make the next entry in the series appeal to women. The new Lara Croft is younger, says "sorry" to animals after killing them, will have a hot voice actress, and no longer has nuclear missile-sized titties*. Her garbanzos are smaller now, and this should connect with more women; not that we at Stage Zero are saying that most women's garbanzos are lesser than the big garbanzos of women who have big garbanzos. We think small garbanzos are great! They're awesome!

Anyways, Square-Enix has also made it so that Lara demonstrates tons of girl power™, mostly by having her get raped. Not literally raped, of course. The journalists at the E3 presentation weren't applauding a female video game protagonist getting raped. That would be aaawk-waaard. No, what happened was we saw the new Lara get brutalized more than any other gaming protagonist in any other game ever. Am I wrong about that? Doesn't matter. Lara gets totally raped up. Thus women will definitely love this game. Only Kratos (a buff, half-naked guy) comes close to getting as raped as Lara; Kratos gets a pillar and a sword thrust through his abdomen; Lara gets a spike stuck thrust into her body, plus a million other things. According to the YouTube comments sections, many male gamers are excited for this game.

Stay tuned to Stage Zero for more stories of feminism in gaming.

*"titties" means "garbanzos," i.e. boobage.

Why You Shouldn't Eat A Gaming Computer

There's a great problem in our country (The United States of America), and it is ruining the lives of many United States of Americans, by killing them. Yes, you know what it is. It's the eating of gaming computers.

Obesity, generally caused by the habitual overeating of less then wholesome foods, has been a problem in our country for years, but now we are on the brink of national destruction via this new trend. The eating of too much people-bloating food was one thing. The eating of large boxes of plastic and metal that in the past couldn't fit into people's mouths is even worse. I mean, it's a gaming computer. It's equal to three American meals in one. And it's getting eaten! Even most nutrition experts agree that it shouldn't be possible. Yet it's happening, and the rate at which it happens increases everyday.

We must all encourage anyone we suspect of an eating problem to NOT eat any gaming computer. Here is some of what you can say to save someone's life:

1) Say, "Do not eat a computer." Even just trying to fit a regular computer into one's mouth is (usually) extremely painful. Plus computers are relatively expensive (five hundred dollars for a low-end gaming PC these days).

2) Inform them that the human body cannot digest computers. The things tend to get stuck in some part of the digestive system (usually the face), and cause many unwanted symptoms, such as facial cramps, choking, problems with sight, cavities, drastic increase in weight, and death.

3) While computers are expensive, food is cheap. Even Walmart sells organic food. Again, make sure the person you're helping understands that computers are expensive and are neither food nor organic.

And that should work. If it doesn't, call 911 and say, "My (friend/relative/fellow American/guest from foreign country) is trying to eat a gaming computer!" Make sure you mention that it's a gaming computer. If they think it's a regular computer, your call will get redirected to the nearest poison control center.

THE FINAL STAGE ZERO POST ABOUT DIABLO (WARNING: NOT HUMOROUS)

Today we discuss whether or not Diablo III really is better than Diablo II, with a focus on death and dying.

"How can you even bring this up?" You ask. "Diablo III is the latest and best take on its genre. Or maybe I'm trying to say that Diablo II was dark and scary and trying to do new things while Diablo III is elegant and colorful and all about doing almost nothing new."

You are correct. But that doesn't get to the core of what makes those games better or worse than the other. It is how the games handle death and dying differently that makes one superior (to the other). Let us actually begin.

The modes. The Diablos II and III are basically two games in two. Or four games. Whatever! Two's called the "Hardcore Mode" and the other two's called the "Not Hardcore Mode." This is why when we begin comparing Diablo II and Diablo III, we'll actually be comparing their takes on those (two?) modes! ARGH!

1. Why Diablo II's Not Hardcore Mode (NHM) provides a better experience than Diablo III's Not Hardcore Mode: It's because Diablo III abandoned the The Average Enemy is Dangerous So You Better Spam Your Health Potions system. Instead it uses the God of War Health Orb and You-Can't-Spam-Your-Healing-Potions systems. At first, I did like the new systems; they made the boss battles have a sense of I-can't-just-press-the-health-drinking-button-to-win; plus I didn't have to waste time making potions of rejuvenation.

But it also made all the non-boss battles either too easy in all of Normal Difficulty, or, with the higher difficulty elite monsters, impossibly hard without the right loot, which takes forever to get. Or in short: Diablo III's monsters end up being too easy or too hard, while Diablo II's monsters are variations of "about right," unless you play D2's Barbarian (google iron maiden Diablo II).

But that's actually not really why Diablo III's NHM is worse than Diablo II's; Blizzard has recently patched Diablo III so that the higher level, epic monsters aren't so ludicrously difficult; it doesn't change the fact that Diablo III's normal difficulty is stupidly, boringly easy, but...oh well, at least a D3 player can say, "Well, the graphics are prettier, and it's easier to start a game with my friends and get items - via the auction house. And the interface is pretty."

The best way to convince yourself that Diablo II's NHM is better is to realize that, until you get to level 53 in Diablo III, D3 doesn't punish you for dying (and yes this is a bad thing). In Diablo II, dying would cost you XP, a chunk of the gold you were carrying, damage to the stuff you wore and wielded, and temporary nudity which would result in you having to retrieve your items from your corpse. In Diablo III, the punishment is minor damage to your adorned, wielded stuff....and that's it; repairs cost nearly nothing until you've played through 2.5 of the game's difficulties. Diablo III (in not hardcore mode) takes forever to provide the thrills of risk.

2. NOW ON TO HARDCORE MODE! Which game's is better?

Diablo III's. The auction house shortens the time it takes to get the items you need to beat the game.

3. And now, the final word on Diablo: which game is better? D2 or D3?

Answer: Who cares? Both games are a waste of the times of 99+% of everyone who plays them. Neither game is particularly fun and neither provide great social experiences; and no, I do not consider giving friends "legendary" loot great social experiences, especially since all it does is motivate them to bore themselves in a boring game even more.


And it doesn't help the case for these games that the only intellectual growth they offer goes in the form of, "Stop playing me! Life's too short!"

Diablo III Review Score Updated AGAIN?

NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First off, we don't do scores at Stage Zero. That 90% of the reviews on this site end in review scores isn't evidence against the fact that we don't do scores. We've never done scores. What are scores?

Yet I'm feeling an urge to change the Diablo III review (thinking of alternative word) vagina. I won't change it, of course. You see, I went to bootcamp where, for weeks, they taught us not to change our vaginas of games. And now you know why our Diablo III review vagina has never been changed and why it will remain what it was and is.

So then, why mention this at all? 


It's because the top Diablo III player in the world, Kripp (actual name), recently explained that, yes, the weeks-worth-of-time-saving way to beat Hardcore mode is to play all of Softcore mode. This means playing the game on all its difficulties, twice. 


This is evil, because softcore mode is boring. Hardcore is how I like it and how you like it. Don't pretend you don't feel the same (wink wink).


Where was I? Ah! Mr. Kripp. Yes, he not just said you have to play softcore, too, to not lose your sanity dying in hardcore mode, but he also said you have to play softcore with the same character class you plan to beat Hardcore mode with. It shows you how the monsters fight and allows you to find out what gear is optimal for never dying in Hardcore.


In short, this game is designed to needlessly waste weeks of your time and is thus junk.

Blizzard Releases Diablo Patch Whatever

This week, I think, Blizzard released Patch 1.0.something for Diablo III. Basically it changes the game. Here are some of the changes:

• Inferno difficulty is easier. Who cares.

• Something changed with the grenades.

• There have been changes to the character classes and stuff.

• Repairs cost more not-actually gold.

• The elite, pointless items are easier to get.

• There's something called "The Staff of Herding." Ha ha, I guess.

• The patch notes page has a comments section where children say "FUK U BLIZERD" and talk about how they used to play the game 42 hours a week because they're idiots.

• The game will, overall, be better after a few years. Not that that matters.

Space Pirates and Zombies [& Bounty Hunters] (Review)

Oh! I so wanted to love this game! It was made by two guys. 

"Anything made by two guys. I love." I'd whisper into the ears of girls.


Unfortunately, I can no longer say that sincerely, as it's suddenly false. I am going to spoil the verdict of this review by now stating: Nurp.

I will now use another voice, represented by italics, to explain what's unique about the game.

Space Pirates and Zombies is the epic tale of you doing the same things over and over again for most of sixty seven hours. There will come a moment when one of your friends on Steam will notice that you're playing this game. This friend will be a kid, and he'll say something like, "Hey Paul! That game sounds funny! Is it good?" And you, knowing that this game has only been fun for four of the last forty hours, but also you being self-conscious about the fact that you don't want anyone to think you're a loser who's willing to be bored for dozens of hours, just to write a review almost nobody will read, will say, "Oooooh yeeeah! It's sooooo good! It is the computer game equivalent of hot, oil-covered, panther sex! Oh! I totally don't envy anyone who's not playing Space Pirates and Zombies right now! And overall I don't recommend it." At some point you'll send what you'll call "explicit shot shot shots!" of the game even though the kid didn't ask for them.

"Look at those real-time graphics!" You'll tell the kid. "You get to play with one ship at a time. You can switch - so freely - between them. You'll eventually be able to bring fleets of four. Little ships. Big ships! You can swap resources with space stations and pick up 'goons' (wink) to 'crew' your 'ships' (wink wink)." 


But then I realized....you realize you're sounding too much like a pedophile, and you'll fix the tone by saying, "Ships can get zombified. Self-destruct or vent the crews. How's school goin'?"

Luckily for you he's logged off. No pressure to warn him of the game's leveling up addictiveness. RPG addiction...


And that's the good of the game in a nutshell! Or, in a smaller nutshell: "The game provides a totally unique experience. Can you think of any other game that has you play out space battles amidst a zombie apocalypse?"

"....Homeworld: Cataclysm?"

.....Okay yeah, that's one. But this game lets you choose to travel to nearly identical star systems! And you get to play the same missions over and over again as a means to "quickly" build up resources! And you can trade the same items over and over and over! OKAY I GIVE UP! I WANT MY LIFE BACK! (SIXTY-SEVEN HOURS!!!!!!!!!)

Let me describe how exactly this game will waste 90% of the time you put into it by noting something Tom Chick said. Tom Chick, as you know, is the best games journalist in the universe. He rated Space Pirates and Zombies an "A" (which is a good score), and named it the 2nd best game of 2011. For that reason I bought it.

The only unhappy thing he had to say about SPAZ was that it might be "too grindy for some players."

"Ha ha!" I said. "I can take a little "too grindy for some players'!"

What I didn't know was that by "grindy" he meant: "The vast majority of SPAZ's gameplay requires that you do little thinking and exercise little skill."

"How does SPAZ manage to achieve this?" You ask.

Well, the battles you must fight to beat the game are best beaten by performing a strategy, such as: "Wait for the enemies to kill each other; stay cloaked; tell your ships to 'hold fire.'" Or "Play as a carrier and fly away from the enemy while launching missiles at them until they die." Or "Something else that's also simple to execute and works in those situations in which the carrier strategy doesn't work."

Now, I'm not saying there's no depth to the gameplay. With all the different weapons, which affect different things on different enemies, and with the cloaking and the jettisonable armor, and with the shields, and the drones. And did I mention that the game features self-destruct?! That's practically synonymous for "depth." The game has the depth.

But at the same time, it doesn't, because most of the battles involve so many ships that your piloting skills become not really important, while your Remembering-The-Strategy-That-Is-Easy-To-Perform skill is super important. And since you probably have an I.Q. over "3," this ends up making SPAZ's gameplay experience not so deep. Unless you think assigning experience points to skills is the deepest of deep gameplay, in which case, yep, this game provides a wonderful experience.

The game ends with a unique yet anti-climactic battle. This could be because I was playing it on "Normal difficulty." Or maybe it's because the final showdown was easier than half of the last 67 hours of battles. I don't know.

And that's the review! I wish I had loved the game. Two guys made it. And I played it for 67 hours.......67 hours.

[According to Tom Chick it even gets the Zombie mythology right. And according to my brain, I don't care!]

Verdict: Sixty-Seven Hours....Sixty-Seven Hours......Sixty-Seven Hours.

BREAK!

I am writing on another blog for a bit.

EA Announces Pee In Your Mouth

For months EA has been trying to convince the world that they are not the company known as "Electronic Arts" but rather a non-profit (of the losing money kind) that supports electronic arts. They even went as far as to fund some indie games and release an "indie bundle." And they even charged for it the low price of fifteen dollars!

Ha ha! Just kidding! Actually they charged seventy dollars, and a cat.

The official response from the world to EA's indie attempt was: "A CAT?!!"

Yes, it's been a tough year for the non-profit. But they are finally on the verge of resurrecting their image from the graveyard of disgrace, and turning it into the zombie of mirth, by doing the most artsy, philanthropic thingy in the company's non-profit's history.

Two days ago, EA quietly announced that they are funding and marketing Pee in Your Mouth. An indie game.

To learn more about this -- yesterday we sent Buddy to California to interview EA about the project (they won't answer our emails and phone calls; in fact, nobody does; nobody reads our blog...). But, because of our strapped budget, we decided that Buddy should go by Greyhound bus. And, unfortuntately, we found out -- via a computer in the local unlocked neighbor's house -- that EA posted e-very-y-thing about the project on the web. And Buddy's still out there, on a bus. Probably in Arizona by now.

Anyways, EA says, on the choosing of the project, that they spent a week googling all the indie game projects in the world, and (this is what finally gives them their indie cred) at random they chose to support one. And they just happened to choose Pee in Your Mouth.

Pee in Your Mouth's only designer, John John John, states in the official EA announcement post: "It is my dream come true. I am so excited to bring this game to the world. There are so many games that let you be a general or a president or a soldier or whatever. But my game will let you be someone who drinks pee."

EA says they plan to spend forty million dollars (U.S.) in developing and marketing Pee in Your Mouth. It will utilize the motion sensor technologies of the Kinect, PlayStation Move, and the Nintendo Wii.

VALVe Hires An Apocalypse

Valve has done something completely out of their happiness-promoting character. They have hired an economist. Yes. This bizarre move apparently has something to do with economic research (i.e. boring), and, in the "but" sense of the word "and," the details spell potential unhappy doom.

Their economist's name is Yanis Varouououfakis, and reports are coming in saying that he is Greek. Now if "Greek Economist" isn't enough to make you poo your pants, then just remember that Valve has hired one.

Another sign that this could be the end of everything is how the guy looks. Just look at the guy's profile pic:

Image: Yanis Varouououfakis (Source: Valve Software)

I'm not promoting that we "judge books by their covers," as the saying goes; but, at least to me,  Mr. Varouououfakis has an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Kratos, the Mr. God of War. And the last time we saw someone who looked like Kratos, the world ended, and the Gods died; not very positive results (sarcastic voice).

And if that doesn't scare you, then this will. It's what the Kratos said in his first Valve blog post:

"This is how my relationship with Valve blah blah blah. Valve’s burning desire to blah in something much bigger than just video games."

Did you notice the words he and not I just bolded, underlined, and italicized?  Well if you did, you'll also notice that this man believes, somehow, that there is something "bigger" than "just" video games.   

Also, he's married. Remember what happens when you mix Kratos with married? (Answer: Apocalypse)

Assassin's Creed III Voice Cast Revealed!

Ubisoft today released its voice cast list for Assassin's Creed III. And we at Stage Zero are not happy with it:

Jessica Drake
Jenna Haze
Sasha Grey
Tori Black
Ocean Aletta
Bree Olson
Tom Byron
Katsumi
Alexis Texas
Lexi Belle
Monique Alexander
Kayden Kross
Jennifer Hale

Only one male in the cast! What an outrage! What an insult! Sure we always knew that the Assassin's Creed series was designed for women, with its rugged, well dressed, horse riding protagonists killing all the poorly dressed, boring, asshole (stereotype) men, but this is more than just mere appealing to women. This is SEXISM against men. In protest I will never play the game. I somehow even feel sorry for Mr. Tom Byron. No doubt he'll feel like the man who survived while his brothers were left behind.

Saints Row: The Third (The Review)

Unlike Grand Theft Auto IV, Saints Row is a game featuring 100% more tigers in your car, 100% more laser jets, 100% more zombies, 100% more luchador gangsters, 100% more goth/geek/electronica-loving gangsters, 100% more Japanese ads for illegal energy drinks starring gangsters, and 100% more fun. Yet, it is a Grand Theft Auto game. Here's some proof:

This is a map of Steelport; it's the city in the game (Source: Internet).

Saints Row: The 3rd lets you wield purple dildo bats (and other things) as weapons. You have probably heard of purple dildo bats. That would be because of this game. There's also liberal use of the term "motherfucker"; and many beautiful, big-boobed women walk the streets wearing only thongs and bras and angel wings.

But these are not the only reasons why Saints Row: The Third is great and way better than Grand Theft Auto IV.

Remember the snap-to-cover system I hate? Well Saints Row doesn't have it; and (not surprisingly) it controls so much better than every game with a cover system. In SR I can just crouch, via pressing the dedicated crouch button. I can crouch behind cover, reducing my chances of being hit, and it's so elegant. It is such an advance over the snap-to-cover system of Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter, Gears of War, Red Dead Redemption, and GTA IV, that I want to end this sentence reminding you that the Playstation 2 GTAs (and every shooter before this console generation) did not have the evil snap-cover thing.

"Why then" you ask, "did the GTA devs go the snappy route?

I've got two theories -- one: Rockstar wanted to make their game to look more realistic in order to make their game look more realistic; and two: the masses believed they liked the snap-to-cover system.

I don't know which of these reasons was the real one, but lets roll with the too-realistic one, because it segways into my next point, which is: Saints Row's vehicles drive the way you wish vehicles in real life would drive: unrealistically. Saints Row's cars do not easily skid. Its autos take lots of damage before exploding. Vehicles don't flip over easily. BDSM gimps dragging carts, like horses, explode. And any tire can be armed with a spike. While GTA IV tries hard to make your car obey the boring laws of reality, Saints Row tries hard enough to break them.

Another thing Saints Row does better is difficulty curve. The main story missions follow the classic, gradually-increasing-in-difficulty one, with the optional side missions being labeled "easy," "medium" and "hard." GTA IV meanwhile follows the real-life difficulty curve; for a bit it will feel ridiculously easy, and then ROCK-EATINGLY HARD! WHY?!! And then easy again for a long time. And then HAAARD! FOR HOURS! And then incredibly easy for a mome-HAAARD!!

Another reason Saints Row is better is that it makes sense. Yes, despite having missions in which you have cars 'n trucks run over you so that you can bankrupt your health insurance company, Saints Row generally makes sense while GTA IV does not. Remember how GTA's player protagonist Niko Bellic was depicted as this thinking, morally complex man? He would say things that made you think: "Hmmm...maybe he's not a psycho mass murderer," and then you'd hijack a dozen cars and run over a thousand people. Well, Saints Row avoids this schizophrenic story-telling by making it quite clear that The Steelport Saints are a bunch of egocentric, people-killing yahoos who are only interested in money, whores, and their celebrity status as criminals. You learn that some of the Saints care about each other, yes, but regarding those outside their clique, as long as the whores and money and fame come their way, everything is right.

Not to say GTA IV is a bad game. Although it does rely on the snap-to-cover system, so it kind of is. No, seriousness, okay; GTA IV provides one of the great satires of American Capitalism, and it happened to come out right before the Recession began. (Not that I'm hinting that GTA IV was a possibly cause of the Recession. Though it was a record-breaking seller, and it wasn't short. Plus it relied on that cover system....)

GTA IV does have better radio than Saints Row.

Speaking of Saints Row, another way by which it's better is its smart phone. Both games give you virtual smart phones, but in Saints Row, calling someone actually gets useful stuff delivered to your location, such as gang members (from your gang), or a helicopter gunship, or a tank. In GTA IV, NPCs would often call you and ask if you'd like to drive them to some boring place and build virtual relationships with them. "Hey Nico! Want to go to the pub and make the player watch you drink something that they won't be able to taste?"

But, woefully, it is now time I should say some hateful things about Saints Row, starting with its better-than-GTA IV's smart phone. Its annoyance occurs when you call an ally for help and they're "busy." "Beep beep beep," It says. This is what we call, in humanland, a pointless "waste of your time"; And it's somehow realistic. I also don't like that some of the main story missions are exactly the same as some of the side missions. The game is at least an hour too long. Also, I don't like how lines get repeated during some battles, especially early in the game.

And that's it!

The game features something called "Whored Mode" for single and multiplayer. Basically it is what it sounds like, yet it's not nearly as fun as the main game.

Apparently there's also a coop, campaign mode. But I couldn't get it working, so don't take my word for it.

And now, onwards to the end of the Gears of War Healing and Cover System, Third Person Shooters Review (Part 2). Saints Row: The Third does use the auto-healing system, and it works. You know how, in Gears of War, you'll get hit, and then you'll just remain under cover and wait for your health to regenerate, and then you'll shoot at the enemy and then do all this a thousand more times until you've beaten the game? Well in Saints Row cover is fun, in part because it's hard to find. If you're taking too much damage, you'll end up running around the place in frantic excitement/fear; perhaps you'll hijack a passing car (perhaps with enemies in it!) just to stop the receiving of pain and restart the auto-healing. And none of these methods are guaranteed to work. The autohealing system, combined with the not-having-a-snap-to-cover system, well, works.

I like to think that one of the original causers for Halo's auto-healing was to make it so the XBOX player wouldn't die as much due to their bad FPS controls. I.e., with good FPS controls, health packs are funner. But in a GTA-style game, regenerating health makes sense. A level designer shouldn't have to figure out where to place health in a dynamic, city-sized, free world game, that largely has no levels.

You've probably noticed that I prefer this game to Grand Theft Auto IV. But that's not doing it justice. Saints Row: The Third is better than every Grand Theft Auto game. And the coolest thing is it was made by Volition, the creators of the classic space fighter sim Freespace 2. What makes this cool, other than seeing a relatively small developer being the best in two different genres, is knowing that finally they got paid. Freespace 2, as good as it was, sold something like twelve copies (I bought one! Me!). Saints Row, though, has sold something like six billion copies. That's almost six billion more than twelve! It makes me proud.

Verdict:  It's one of the best games ever made, but has somethings preventing it from being palatable to everyone.   Available for PS3, PC, and XBOX 360

How to Choose Your Mouse and Keyboard

Hello everybody! Today I give you mice and keyboards-buying advice. Specifically for gaming. Beginning with mice.

There are two schools of thought on mice. One's called the Get-a-Comfortable-Laser-Mouse-that-Is-Durable-and-Works University of Smart People, and then there's the other called the We'll-Buy-Anything-if-It's-Dark-and-Made-by-Razer Kindergarten Class of Yay It's Recess.

Now, many of you who have seen the prices of Razer mice might be thinking, "Why would anyone be childish enough to buy a Razer mouse?" And the answer has to do with The Claw. That is, the shape your hand makes as you hold the mouse (think "talons" -- or "eagle hands"). Many hardcore gamers in the First-person shooting and real-time strategy communities like claw-inducing mice because....well......I actually don't know why. In fact in my experience, claw mice seem most effective at making long, click-heavy game sessions uncomfortable.

Not that I'm saying the Razer school is completely wrong and composed of easily-manipulated, primarily male money-wasters. Razer mice are light, built to last, are easy to clean, and look silly with their 'snake' LED lights. Also they come in black. You can buy them on the Internet.

Both schools of thought happen to be against insertable weights. Weights make things heavier.

If you like to snipe others (in games), you might want to look at the R.A.T. 7, as it has a dedicated sniper button that raises and lowers the mouse sensitivity between two configurable settings. And when you've finished looking at the R.A.T. 7, go buy some other mouse, as many R.A.T. 7s tend to develop tracking issues. Mine did. It cost $99.

The best advice of all is to get rich and buy all the best-reviewed mice and then dump all the ones you don't like onto starving, poor people. Also, you could look for a store that lets you hold the mice, click the mice, pet the mice.

And now, keyboards!

There are many schools of thought on keyboarding, and I've compiled what I believe are their least silly views.

Least silly view number one: More than anything else, you want a keyboard that won't break. And yes, all keyboards are designed to break.

The next views worth looking at concern weight and stuff.

Do you walk, instead of drive, to millions of LAN parties? If so, you should get a light keyboard.

Do your LAN parties feature very little table space? Then get a small, quiet keyboard.

Otherwise you want a big, heavy, mechanical keyboard. The kind that can be used as a melee weapon and whose key-pressings sound like banging rocks.

And that's it! This post ends with answers to frequently asked askings:

A) Should I get a wired mouse or a wireless mouse?
A) Yes.

A) Should I get a keyboard with LED lights or no?
A) Ask your primary care provider.

A) Should I get a high-quality mousepad for a low price?
A) No.

The New NEW Ratings System

Because I don't like assigning objective scores to subjective reviews, I'm not assigning any more of them until my boss tells me to, and I am my boss.

But I will do something much more useful for you than review scores. I will write what's called a "verdict," and it will feature words. These are better because they will immediately sum up, with more specificity than a score, how good the game would be to you, based on my amazing knowing-your-feelings powers.

Or, to save time, I'll copy and paste the word parts of these, which I'm copying and pasting from my previous ratings system post:

10/10 means that the game's one of the very best things ever made and that everyone who has any interest in computer games should try it. 


9/10 means that it's one of the best games ever made, but has something, or somethings, preventing it from being palatable to every gamer. 


8 out of 10 means it's really good. It may not be one of the best games ever, but you'll almost certainly like it. 


7 out of 10 means it can provide a pretty good experience but has some serious problems. 


6 out of 10 means it's good (barely). 


5/10 would make the game so-so, or "almost certainly a waste of your time." 


4/10 equals bad (do not get). 


3/10 equals very bad.


2/10 equals terrible. 


1/10 is one of the worst games ever made. 


0/10 is it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Even during peace time.

A Beginner's Guide to Space Pirates and Zombies

First I want to get out of the way the idea that SPAZ is a great game. There are great things in it, yes, but overall it's not. I'll explain why you should never play it, ever, in the review.

And now that I've gotten you excited about Space Pirates and Zombies, heer iz yor beeginnerz gauyd!

First off, do not play on a large galaxy. Playing on one will mean that you'll just have to grind more to find upgrades for your ships. The game scatters upgrades around the galaxy, and a "small galaxy" is a big enough place to do a scavenger hunt.

Next tip: In the galactic and systems maps, you'll see dollar signs next to stars and planets. These indicate where upgrades are. The game will tell you this, but I ignored the game and now hate myself. Do what I say so that you'll avoid hating yourself.

Another tip: The game will tell you that you should field the biggest ships you can. What it's really saying is that you shouldn't, because you don't have enough money. In the fun fights where your enemies have ships as strong (or stronger) than yours, your ships are going to get murdered, and the big ships cost something like forty or a billion times as much as the smaller ones. In general the most cost effective strategy involves one big ship and no more big ships.

Subsequent tip: Press F2 and tell big damaged ships to flee for repairs.

Tip #11: Play this game during a vacation in which you want to be depressed. It's a long, often dull, addictive game. It's comparable to soloing Diablo III and data entry.

Final Tip: When you run out of the game's in-game currency "Rez" (basically rocks) go to a mining base, and have your rez-collecting ships collect from the endless supply of rocks. It may take awhile for them to collect the desired amount of rez, but you can do something else while they work. You can exercise. You can read. You can set the game to windowed mode and surf the Internet or play a better game.

Vanquish Review

The Gears of War games are good but nothing special. GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption are beautifully-written but boring. No Halo-style-healing & shoot-from-behind-cover, 3rd person shooter has made it onto Paul's great list. Until now?

No.

Let's do something different this time. Let's call this "The Halo Healing System/Shoot-From-Behind-Cover, 3rd-Person Shooter Review (Part 1)." And let's picture the Gears of War designers talking about how to make their game not boring.

Gears Dev 1 says to Gears Dev 2: "Gears Dev 2, I've noticed that the hide behind cover and wait for your health to regenerate system makes the tension the health-pack system had not exist! Our game currently comes down to shooting the enemies and ducking whenever they shoot at you. It's stuck in Obvious Dominant Strategy land. What should we do?"

Gears Dev 2: "Let's throw in some big bullet sponge monsters that'll force the player to expose themself to fire as they try to take it down. That'll throw in moments of risk.  ALSO! LET'S THROW IN FAST MOVING, SMALL ALIENS THAT DO LOTS OF DAMAGE!" (glee)

Gears Dev 1: "Sure, okay, and let's make sure we don't do that too much, 'cause then the game will lack variety."

Gears Dev 2: "Ah! I see what you mean. Well, let's also add some turret and driving sections. Plus boss battles. And give the player lots of weapons. Make sure there are some quiet sections, too. And also, make almost every 'character' a steroid-using, racial or alien stereotype, who speaks with the accent of a large truck."

Gears Dev 2: "That...is genius! We're going to make so much money!"

And eventually it came out and made so much money. But it was nothing really special. And no, I didn't care that it was "the goriest, bloodiest thing ever and had the best graphics at the time" because it wasn't and it didn't.

NOT that I'm saying the Gears of Wars were bad games. They were good. But this was in spite of what Gears Dev 1 was worried about.

And now we have the Japanese take on the genre, Vanquish.

In Vanquish you play as "Sam Gideon," and your mission is to vanquish a Russian, terrorist, robot army on a super weapon city in space that had just vanquished most of San Francisco. Your main personality trait is smoking, wearing a prototype mecha-suit, vanquishing enemies via your guns, and caring (yes, he's a little complex). Just like Gears of War you'll often be fighting alongside other soldiers, or United States Marines as United States Marines like to be called, and these men are led by the angry LTC Robert Burns, who is a half-man, half-minigun character. Your contemporary president is an incredibly dumb blonde. And your aid, "Elena Ivanovna," who is said to have an I.Q. of 180, is a hot, blonde, stupid head. Etc. It all could have been one of the best comedy video games ever, but thanks to terrible writing, isn't. Oh well.

The game has two mechanics which distinguish it from Gears of War. One is your mecha-suit's ability to make Bullet Time. If your suit isn't currently over-heated (or currently hurting and making the screen turn red, like in too many other games), you'll have the ability to slow down time. Sometimes you'll automatically slow down time when your health goes too low. It looks cool in the same way Max Payne's bullet time does; or for you movies people, like The Matrix.

The other mechanic is the jetting across the ground one. When Sam gets down on his knees, he can jet across the ground at 100 mph. And it's kind of cool. Who wouldn't want to jet across the ground at 100mph on their shins and knees?

These powers can be used simultaneously but not wantonly. They draw on the same energy source of not-being-over-heated and not-being-over-pained. And unlike Gears of War's visual gimmicks, it actually affects gameplay.

[Not to say Vanquish is better than Gears of War, because it isn't.]

For some reason Platinum Games (the developers of Vanquish) decided to apply the most boring color scheme to their game. Grey. The environment varies from light to dark grey. Your allies are grey. The enemies are red, blue, and grey. And there's a fifteen minute-bit with grass and trees (they're green).

Also their game doesn't have any sort of co-op. I don't see that as a bad thing in itself, but at the same time, the Gears of Wars have co-op, which gives their about-as-good-as-Vanquish campaigns something extra.

But really, what keeps all these games from greatness is the Halo-healing, chest-high-walls system, founder of that easy-to-pull-off-dominant-strategy, even on hard difficulty. It's a hopelessly unexciting thing, often made annoying by little things, like the western Gears of War-style games' tendency to have you hide behind the wrong cover, despite you thinking you pressed the buttons in the right ways and at the right times next to the right cover; or Vanquish's left stick, which tends to make you accidentally leave your cover -- instead of just crawling along it -- which is particularly dangerous when many of the enemies' shots cause sudden death in Hard difficulty (which, by the way, is the difficulty you'll need to play it on, because "Normal" is "Too Easy," as usual).

There was one moment in Vanquish when I thought there was hope for the genre, though; the final boss battle, which involves two man-sized, fast-moving, flying, super robots, armed with swords and insta-kill lasers. Their level features cover that not only moves up, but sometimes moves down. It all forces you to play at your 110% (on Hard difficulty), and I was, finally, after more than a hundred hours of these games, put into that psychological state of Flow.

But after a while I couldn't stand not being able to move the camera at the speeds a computer mouse would allow. I would be moving fast around the map, dodging lasers and sword slashes, and wham! I'd bump into a wall that wasn't there before; I was moving towards it, not seeing it in its popped up state, because the camera couldn't turn as fast as my shin-skiing would move me. And after crashing into it I would be killed by a laser.

Now, I know that the Vanquish pros (of which there are three) would comment something like, "Well you're just not very good at the level. Play it a couple more hours and you'll know where you should be looking always and when what walls will go up and down."

7/10

Vanquish is available for XBOX 360. You hadn't heard of it before because it's called Vanquish.