Angry Birds is $50?

An insanely addicting game that YES, I loved at one point too. I downloaded the free demo and once I fell in love shelled out the big buck to get the game on my iPhone. Because it's a dollar who cares? Now ask me if I would have done the same thing if it was $50.

The creator of the game Activision released this statement on Oct. 29th:

"Angry Birds Star Wars is available now for a suggested retail price of $49.99 for Wii U, $39.99 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation®3 system, PlayStation®Vita system and Wii, and $29.99 for Nintendo 3DS. The PlayStation®4 system and Xbox One versions will be available for each console’s respective launch in November, both priced at $49.99."

What? It's cool that it's Star Wars themed too, but wait, wasn't that version on the iPhone also?

Personally I think it's just another corporate move to see how much money they can sell something for before people have had enough. And with a brand like Angry Birds, that has become so big and recognizable, there's no doubt in my mind people will be buying this game. Some not even realizing that deep within the app store on their phone, lies the same game. For one dollar.

-CS

Left 4 Dead 2

With today being Halloween I decided to blog a game that ties into the horror category.  The game I chose was Left 4 Dead 2.  In this game you are placed into a world over run by zombies and its up to you with the help of your teammates to navigate your way through zombie infested areas in order to reach the safe zone.  This game is a first person shooter and a hack and slash so the action is fast paced.  Created by Valve in 2009.
 Based in the Southern part of America.In this game you play as either Coach who is an African American male he was a coach at the high school he worked at.  Rochelle who is a young African American women. Nick who is a Caucausian male who is your typical rich gambler type and Ellis who is a caucausian hill billy.
In this game you can choose to play as one of them at the start of the mission.  Zombies in this game are your typical zombies who are infected with the rage virus this means they aren't your slow paced zombies.  Zombies come charging at you full once they see you and they also attack in numbers so teamwork is the key to survival in this game.  Without the use of your teammates your gonna end up being "zom bate"  The game was programmed to give you a different experince each time you played this means that certian things in the map may change such as different rooms being barracaded, zombies spawn in different locations and certian weapons area based on how you are playing the game.  Health items such as medpacks, and pills are also affected by the different location spawning.
This game contains single player mode and multiplayer.  In single player you work your way through the campaign.  Online you can ethier play the campaign with people or do a verse match where one side is zombies and the other side is survivors.  The game contains a mode called realism in this the game becames realistic in the fact that only shooting zombies in the head will stop them and you can't pause the game until you complete this mission so you need to keep moving.  Left 4 Dead 2 is an amazing game that provides hours of entertainment. Anyone who enjoys tons of zombie killing with a variety of weapons such as guns and blunt objects will enjoy this game.
Jv

GTA 4

So the other day I was at Game stop in the mall where I came across Grand Theft Auto IV and Episodes from Liberty City (the two expansions for GTA 4). It was only 25 dollars so I decided to buy it.  GTA 4 came out back in 2008 with its expansions following later in the year.  This game drops you into Liberty City (Which is suppose to be New York City).  Originally Rockstar wanted to make New York the actual city in the game but city officials felt that having NYC star in GTA 4 would give the city a bad name.  Hence the creation of Liberty City.   Like other GTAs you have to do a variety of missions while exploring the open city and all its glory.  GTA 4 has more crude humor, some of the things people say in the game are very bizarre.  The civilians in the game are somewhat dumb witted giving the game more humor.  There is nothing like hearing some crackheads shouting or causing some disturbance in traffic and hearing someone yell "Cmon I need to take a dump" or some other random stuff to give you a good laugh.  As soon as the game loaded up I was absorbed back into the craziness that the city contains. After playing GTA 5 you realize how much lower the graphics were in GTA 4 but this is no reason to put this game on the back burner. In GTA 4 it is also much easier to make money where almost everyone drops at least 20 bucks or more.  It is much more easier to stay alive in GTA 4 then it is in GTA 5 though this may add and unrealistic feel to the game still no reason not to like it.  In my opinion GTA 4 is a game that is worth every cent and I never will regret it.
JV

Call Of Duty: Ghosts

If I could be honest here, The Call of Duty franchise hasn't captivated me for a while. That being out there, I'm not going to be getting Ghosts. There's just nothing to special about a game when all I can think positively about it is how it's going to clear up the Grand Theft Auto servers.

There's just so many new guns, maps, perks, and designing of a little avatar I can take before I just get bored with it. But what makes it so different? Essentially all Super Mario games are the same. Just running through the levels to try to save a princess. Or you could even go further and say Tetris, Pacman, or Candy Crush are the most repetitive games out there. I understand that and believe me I'm actually a huge fan of the solo play in Call of Duty and am the biggest poster boy for nazi zombies there ever was. Zombie mode is the greatest thing in a Call of Duty game since the helicopter missions.

I think what killed Call of Duty for me was the expanding online play. Call of Duty 4 was so simple compared to how elaborate it became with javelins, care packages, and 25 kill streak rewards that are impossible to reach. At least for me. I just think the customization expanded so much I could barely follow it because as much as I enjoyed playing it, I haven't been a diehard fan since Call of Duty 4 and all that elaborate new stuff just turned me away.

-CS

My Top 5 Zelda Games

Legend of Zelda is the best game series ever. Done. Discussion is over, and i could end the blog here also but, there's just so much awesomness in each game that narrowing down to 5 is nothing short of a miracle!

5)Wind Waker

Let me be the first to say when this first came out I had a very hard time accepting the graphics. Yes, you should never judge something by its cover, especially something that has not let you down ever in the past, but what can I say I was 12.  Also important to note I did have to play this game a few times before actually appreciating its story but in the end, it won me over! I started to love this game right at the beginning where you're shot from the canon and land in the fortress to find your sister. Sneaking around without a sword. Totally different than sneaking around Gerudo Fortress because giant pig monsters. To make this short what Wind Waker lacked for me visually it made up with giant awesome bosses and an underwater Hyrule Castle. So awesome

4)Twilight Princess

A game I was so stoked for its release. This game sold me right away with the whole dark world adventure right at the begining of the game. I liked how it went back to the "ocarina of time hyrule" but even without that familiarity factor running around with Midna as a wearwolf turned out to be one of the greatest adventures. Also Zant. And battling Stallord while using the spinner to attack his spine? SOLD!

 3)Ocarina of Time

The greatest game of all time. For me it was also. Even after beating it 67 times it cant get old. For me this was the first game I ever knew, so it will always have a special place with me. I actually had some trouble with this game in the beginning to the point that I would beat the game as far as I could without attaining the bow and arrows cause I HATED the forest temple. I mean Hate. More than the water temple(which is not that bad). I hated the shadows of claws from the ceiling, I hated the twisted hallways, and for whatever reason I never realized by myself you can move those giant blocks. ya know the ones in like, the third room? Terrible. But, when I finally slayed Phantom Ganondorf those feelings of hate turned love, because its my greatest accomplishment to date. shut up.

2)Skyward Sword

In short, my opinion is that they finally found the happy medium between every other Zelda game and incorporated it into this game. I know a lot of critics and fans hate on this game and probably because of the repetition of going back to the desert the forest and the volcano. O and don't click on Hero mode at the end if you haven't finished the side quests. That being said this Zelda game was way more of a challenge for me than any other I've ever played. Mainly because the enemies got just a little bit smarter and blindly waving your sword at them blindly wont be a definite kill. The upgradable shields and weapons made it so much more satisfying and when you finally get the Hylian shield you feel as though you deserve it!

1)Majora's Mask

The darkest and most original Zelda game. A game so in depth and scary you completely disregard the timer clicking away at the bottom of the screen. I've read a million theories on this game of how this game is just the four stages of death, and how Link wandered so far into the lost woods he is just becoming a Stalfos. Which is supported a little bit by the appearance of the Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess. The death theory also explains why everyone looks the same as Ocarina of Time, as Link is just in a "limbo" state that his mind just creates images that he's know. Collecting masks with individual abilities and used for different tasks is just a better goal  than running around trying to rescue Zelda. What really sealed the deal for me was Goht the mechanical bull. Never had I had so much fun fighting a boss in a game as I did rolling around as a Goron trying to catch the bull. Also Goron races. I think mainly I'm just a giant fan of being the Goron!

-CS

GTA Online Likes and Dislikes

Grand Theft Auto online so far is a huge success as people rank up in the world.  The things I enjoy about Grand Theft auto online are the fact that it places you into a world similar as that to single player where it contains its own missions and activities you can engage in.  The ability to play with up to 16 players in a mission makes them more intense and interesting.  Giving missions a different twist to them other than playing with AI programed teammates who do the same thing every time.  Another cool feature I enjoy in GTA online is the feature of passive mode for a fee of 100 dollars (in game of course) you have the option to go into passive mode this allows you to stop dying ether by accidents or by other players.  It is a good feature if you would just like to keep to yourself and  would like to just drive around and enjoy the sites of Los Santos and Blaine County.  In passive mode you will not be able to equip a weapon which also prevents you from killing anyone with a weapon.
Through the use of your phone in the game you are able to send messeages to other people in the same server and invite them to do missions and talk to them.  The ablility to rank up your characters skills  gives the game a nice feel to character building making it seem like your character is growing and  become more attuned to the world around them.
A dislike that I have for the online of the game is that if you are not in passive mode any player can come up pop you in the head and then take your  money.  Granted that is part of the game and feature many people enjoy it can get annoying though if you need to go idle and walk away from your system espically if you dont want to waste the money on passive mode.  An upside to being "ganked" is that if a character harashes you enough or takes enough money you can place a bounty on there heads. Which will direct other players to try and take them out for the reward.  Another dislike is that higher levels prey upon the lower levels.  Meaning  that higher levels have better gear and guns and them use that to there advatange going after noobs (new comers). Despite the few dislikes i have based on my opinion GTA online is an experience that any GTA fan would like to enjoy.

JV

Grand Theft Auto Online continued.

With each passing day more and more people join the online craze of Grand Theft Auto Online.  With the every increasing amount of players on the servers the match making system has gotten better.  More people means more Grand Theft Auto madness on the servers.  Once in the world players can choose to go on a variety of missions this could range from races, death match, team death match, and other missions that have actual objectives that need to be completed.  Once you get underway in the game past the first few missions that require you to buy new clothes.  Afterwards you get the option to customize your own vehicle at the Los Santos Customs (Grand Theft Autos auto body shop).  Choose your vehicle wisely because all the majority of your upgrades you can do for free for the first vehicle but afterwards it cost a lot of cash.  You can also choose to put insurance on your custom vehicle this will allow it to be reclaimed if someone steals it or if it gets totaled in any type of way.  It does cost money to get your custom vehicle back so be careful of your driving.
Money is king in Grand Theft Auto that goes for both the single and multi-player.  In order to advance and get the big bucks you need to start out small and work your way up.  Once you get enough money you will be able to get apartments and garages for your character then you can invite people over and plan out heists and other jobs.  Remember to visit the ATM s in the game cause if you have money on your character and your killed you will drop some of this money the best way to avoid this is go to the ATM either at a store or use your phone. Once money is deposited into the bank you can still make majority of legal purchases like using a debit card.  The only way to get your money back if you loose some is to find the person who took it and kill them but this can cause a lot of problems so be careful.

JV

New & Classic!

Quite the exciting week in gaming for the week of 10/13. The perfect mashup of new and exciting to go along with classic games sort of getting one last chance at glory!

Halo 3:  That's right, the 2007 masterpiece that has Master Chief returning to a covenant infested earth, has made a huge splash this week! Why's that?  Because it's FREE! That is correct, until the end of October, Halo 3 is going to be a free download on Xbox Live for anyone who has an Xbox Live Gold Membership. While I was never very big on playing through the story, Halo 3 was great because of the online play! It was absolutely beautiful with the great maps, and  remember griffball? What a beautiful game!

Wonder Trading: The beautiful new concept that's more addictive than gambling. Wonder Trading is an in game app with Pokemon X &  Y where trainers pick any Pokemon they want and get paired up with another trainer randomly selected. The two then switch Pokemon all within a quick 10 second process. What makes it so addicting is that you never know what the other person has chosen to give you! Sure, you'll have to sit through getting a bunch of Pokemon could care less about, but it's so worth it once you get your favorite, or one that's completely new!

Free PS4: Yes, more free! Taco Bell is giving away specially branded boxes that each come with a special code that could be redeemed for a new Playstation 4 console-before it's released on November 15th!  According to joystiq.com, there is a winner about every 15 minutes, which makes for a lot of happy people, since this campaign will run through till November 10th!

-CS

NY Comic Con 2013

The biggest nerd convention of the year was this past weekend as NY Comic Con came to the Javits Center in Manhattan. Something about dressing up as your favorite fictional character and getting to meet some of the great minds behind video games and TV shows made it feel like Christmas came early to New York. The big drawing attractions this year, besides the Walking Dead panel was the section Nintendo had set up.

While I went on the same day that the most anticipated game of the year was released (Pokemon X & Y), they had huge promotions for the games on the previous days here; they let people actually preview and PLAY through it. This captured the day for me more than anything else. There was also the new Legend of Zelda, new Super Smash Bros, and the new Super Mario games, but Pokemon by far stole the show.

-CS

Grand Theft Auto Online Experince

I have been playing Grand Theft Auto online for few days now since it came out.  The game drops you into the city of Los Santos part of Blaine County in the San Andreas area.  In the game you can be placed into a server with up 16 other players or you can choose to start a solo session where you will be the only person in the server.  When you first start the online part of the game you have the ability to create your own character (male or female) and customize them to look the way you want.  My character is a male in his late 20's who looks like guy that can be clean cut and work a legal job.  You then choose where you want to put your skill points in order to create your characters skills to your liking.
Throughout the game though you do rank up and increase your skills.  My rank in the game is only level 8 there are some people on the game who are already level 25 and higher.  Compared to most characters my character is not nearly as good as other people but I enjoy the way I have made my character.  The way you create your character chooses the types of clothing you start out with at the beginning of the game but after a few missions you can go to the store and buy some new clothing.  My character when he first started out he was wearing a tuxedo after a few missions I was able to go to the discount clothing store and pick out some new clothes.  I chose to wear a black t-shirt with jeans and sneakers giving my character a more average guy look who is ready to cause some chaos in the city of Los Santos.  I was then able to choose a car that you make as your own custom vehicle.  So far the game experience is a lot of fun and I would recommend it to anyone who has an internet connection and owns the game.

JV

First weeks of Grand Theft Auto Online

When Grand Theft Auto 5 was released on September 17th Rockstar only released the single player version of the game.  This was due to the fact that the online need more tweaking and fixing in order to avoid many glitches that would cause popularity to decrease.  On October 1st Grand Theft Auto online was released. All people who buy Grand Theft Auto 5 will have access to Grand Theft Auto Online (If you are connected to the internet).  In this online version of the game players are dropped into worlds that can hold up to 16 players they then can race, do missions, rob convenient stores and other various activities. The world is the same exact one as used in single player.

When the online version first came out over million people raced online to try and get into the servers this cause the servers to become overloaded and many people to experience problems. These problems ranged from certain missions not loading up correctly, people not being able to access content, long wait times to get into missions and various server errors.  When I loaded into the online version for the first time I experienced a wait time of 15 minutes before the first mission was ready to be accessed.

Since the release of online past that first day the problems with the servers have seemed to go down drastically as the game company smooths out and polishes over the glitches in order to provide smoother game play. The first few weeks of the online is called the stress test this is where the creators will see how everything is operating and what improvements they need to make to keep the game up to speed.  The idea of Grand Theft Auto Online is not a new concept, according to Rockstar North's president Leslie Benzies as stated in a Game Informer magazine the idea of Grand Theft Auto Online has been an idea that Rockstar wanted to achieve since the released of Grand Theft Auto III.  They felt that they have never made an online experience that was in par with their single player experience till now.  "We've always wanted to create a world with the complexity single player with the addition of real players" says Benzies. With the release of Grand Theft Auto Online Benzies believes that they have come very close to achieving close to their dreams.

JV

Grand Theft Auto 5 Likes and Dislikes

Grand Theft Auto 5 drops you into the city of Los Santos and the San Andreas area.  Like all games there are features that make people like them, but also may make them dislike something about it.  These likes and dislikes are based on my own personal opinion. The likes could include that, in this game you are placed in the largest Grand Theft Auto map ever created. You then have the ability to adventure into this virtual area and explore and see all it has to offer. Vehicles in the game are sorted more by which section they would generally be in depending on the environment.

The ability to play three different characters allows for you to interchange without being forced to play as one character the entire game.  This also allows you to experience the game in different ways depending on which character you are playing.  Each character has their own unique feel to them which allows to experience the game more towards the lifestyle of that character. When you switch characters a short cut scene takes place to show what that character is doing. This gives the feel that the characters are doing their own things while another character is in use. The ability to switch characters is also available when you are doing missions which allows you to experience missions from different points of view.  The police have also become smarter than previous Grand Thefts Autos, they will try to ram you off the road and will deploy spike strips.

Somethings I dislike is the fact that Grand Theft Auto is more serious than the previous games of its series.  Where Grand Theft Auto 4 had more crude humor, GTA 5 still has it but took the approach to be more like actual life than a game thus lowering the amount of it.  It is also much easier to die in GTA 5 then it was in GTA 4.  Minor details like this though will not ruin the experience that GTA 5 was created to deliver.

JV

3 more days till Pokémon X and Y

So the countdown is winding down and the long awaited release of the new generation of Pokemon is finally here. Now, lost among the big news releases such as about  70 new species, mega evolutions, fairy types, and the glamouruos 3D world, are a bunch of smaller editions that will seemingly make a huge difference in the game.

Super Training- Finally, a way to EV train a Pokemon without mindlessly battling the same Pokemon over and over. With this, trainers are going to be able to use their Pokemon in what I can only see as a mini game right now. A Pokemon battling a giant balloon Pokemon in a soccer type match? Sounds like something right out of an old Mario Party game. To which I say, good job Game Freak.

Exp. Share- Unlike in the other generations, the exp. share is going to let you distribute experience equally among the inactive members currently in your party. It's going to give 50% of the experience to the Pokemon in battle and then distribute the rest among your whole team. Depending how early in the game we get this, it could definitely be useful when I show up to the first gym with 2 level 20's and 4 level 5's.

Trainer Customization- Not that it affects the game in any way other than design, but choosing the outfits is still something awesome. I was always a fan of the free design games-from designing a theme park in Roller Coaster Tycoon, to just changing Link's tunic color in Ocarina of Time. Regardless, character customization gets an A+ on my grading scale.


-CS

Grand Theft Auto 5

For the past 21 days people around the world have been enjoying the new Grand Theft Auto.  Since September 17th millions of copies of this game have been sold. Grand Theft Auto 5 was created by the gaming company Rockstar.   Grand Theft Auto 5 drops you into the city of Los Santos in the San Andreas area. Grand Theft Auto 5 came out five years after the release of Grand Theft Auto 4. The long waiting period with the constant bad news that the release date was pushed back for years made this game all the more worth it . In this game you are placed in control of 3 different characters who you can play at any time once they are unlocked.  You then can go on a wide variety of missions, in an open world that allows you to explore whatever you want when you want.  Along the way of exploring you may encounter random events. These could include helping people, or robbing an armored truck and other various events.  The main story line of the game the three playable characters are intertwined where they encounter each other and provide a variety of services to each other.  At the same time though the characters undergo their own missions that are especially created for them.  According to the website Destructoid who rated the game 9 out of 10 said, "All three characters, in their respective ways, feel representative of the Grand Theft Auto series as a whole, and contribute to making GTA V what it is." Other review from Joystiq who rated the game 4.5/5 said, "Grand Theft Auto 5 is an ambitious game, attempting to meld three very different characters together to tell one encompassing story of survival in what amounts to the worst place in America." Aside from doing missions and random encounters a variety of activities are available to do such as playing darts, tennis or golf. Overall majority of the people who enjoyed the previous GTAs will enjoy this one.

JV

Level 1

Hello all, we are Charles and Justin,  both students that are currently enrolled in Farmingdale State University.

A blog about all things gaming. Game Reviews! New and classic! Which things are going to be hot and which are going to flop. All the opinions and nonsense that you'd hear on Xbox Live, but in blog form! Every system, any game, good or bad, it's in the name.