It’s been a little more then  a year since it happened last time. This isn’t just a tale of my sadness. Apparently things have changed, Things that may help consoles find their way home quicker.

The way console repairs have gone from the very first red ring is a long process. You call Microsoft, do some ineffective trouble shooting, get a box shipped to you, send it back and wait for them to return your fixed console. Apparently, now they will email you a shipping label for you print out and get your own box. Sure your gonna spend some dollars on a box, unless, you know, you still have the box from the first time your console crapped out. On the upside it should take a week out of the process.

Maybe one day they will jump on board with the program Harmonix runs for Rock Band equipment. Pay a deposit ship me a new one, when I send back my busted one return my deposit. Yeah its a pipe dream but I boy can dream.

Stay tuned for all the latest news on my broken stuff!

I am an admitted fan of Homestar Runner and his gang of lovable misfits. And for fan of the site this game proves to have the same style and humor the flash toons are well known for. People without a good knowledge of the series will find some funny stuff but will probably be well out of the loop to the running gags and hidden fan service. Problem cause by the very fact this is an adventure game are inevitable. The StrongBad’s humor crammed into a 5 minute short is great, but stretched over a few hours or so with long pauses as you stumble to fine the correct solutions to puzzles just doesn’t hold up as well. Hopefully the fallowing episodes in the season will pick up and a bit a bit more exciting.

The gameplay is true to very standard point and click adventure traditions. You’ll find yourself traveling around Strong Bad’s town of Freecountry USA hitting hunting for the tools you need to solve Strong Bad’s problems. The puzzles your tackling are made decidedly harder due to the off the wall nature of the Homestar Runner universe. Many times solutions aren’t clear and you’ll be stuck trying each item in your inventory on every object in the area just to move along.

It’s easy to see alot went into this season premier. You’ll get great  new vocal and music work my the series creators. One of the outstanding additions is Snake Boxer 5. You’ll be boxing snakes in a game very true to the spirit of the, then amazing, games you wasted hours with on your Atari.

Really the Strong point of this game is it’s depiction of the Homestar Runner universe. So if your a fan of the site’s brand of humor you’ll be right at home and this is a must have. If you don’t know who Pom Pom and The Cheat are you might be out in the cold. There is a lot of promise here and hopefully the series will improve over this slightly rocky start. And if any one can pull that off, Taletall Games and the Brothers Chaps are the people who can pull it off.

+ True to the site’s humor
+ Good production values
- Little on the short side
- Probably won’t make you a Strong Bad fan if you aren’t already one

Grade: C

The first great Live Arcade game is back and better then ever. It’s time to get back in shape with Geometry Wars 2.

The first Geometry Wars did a lot without too much. It really made people sit up and notice the, then fledgling, Xbox Live Arcade. It’s success also lead to the revival of games like Smash TV and later the over saturation of shooters with Undertow and Rocketmen.

The sequel brings a lot more to the table then it’s predecessor did. Most noticeably is the new gametypes. You’ll now have six ways to play Geometry Wars so people of all skill levels will find something they can enjoy. Standouts among the new modes are King, which litters the field with circular safe zones. Enemies can’t enter these areas, and you can’t shoot while outside of them. As you spend time in each space they quickly shrink and disappear. This forces you to plan quickly, shoot yourself a path to the next safe zone and dash to it while your weapons are disabled.

The other big stand out takes the pacifism achievement of the first game and rolls it out into its own mode. You have one life and no guns and tons of enemies to fend off. Your only weapons are gates scattered around the level as you pass thought they will explode and clear the area around them. Quickly identifying clear routes and baiting in more enemies for bigger scores defiantly tests your reflexes.

This update also sports tons of other features. A new coat of neon paint  and some great audio work really helps the game feel fresh. Also included is multiplayer . Sadly this feature is limited to local matches with no online play. It’s easy to overlook when you take a second and think about the split second timing this game involves and the insane amount of objects on screen in later stages. Any amount of lag would ruin the experience.

Geometry Wars 2 keeps everything that made the first game so addictive and fun, throws in a ton more, and ratchets the whole experience up to make for one of the best games available on the Live Arcade service.

+ Awesome new game modes

+ New music and visuals

+ Good value

+ Fun Multiplayer

- No online play

Grade: A

For those newcomers with no previous knowledge 1942 is a 2D top down World War two themed shoot-em-up. Each level your lone plane will fight off wave after wave of enemies and tackle gigantic bosses. 1942: Joint Strike is more a sequel then an remake.

The whole game is presented with slick looking 3D visuals but is played for a classic top down 2d perspective. Enemies, explosions and environment all look nice. They are far from amazing but they are very good for a top down shooter. A few time during the game you get a small cutscene of your plane flying in low over some terrain or battleship and it really lets you see some of the detail that went into the stages.

You’ll also have a few choices for the sweet ride your gonna pilot. The 3 aircraft to chose from all have different ratings for attack, defense, and special power. And while the differences between them isn’t huge it is enough to give the game some extra replayability and help you play to your strengths. Like most shooters as you fly through the levels your pick up power-ups. Here these don’t just make you shots stronger but they can drastically changes the way you tackle enemies. The laser shot is great for cutting thought enemy formations, but lacks the coverage of the spread shot. Better chose wisely.

The biggest addition to this game is the team work element. You will each be able to use a secondary attack called a Joint Strike. You will have a few choices to pick on these as well, such as Chain Lighting, which  connects your ships with a long net of energy frying any who might get entangled. Using this system leads to some good team work but doesn’t put it center stage so that an online game with an uncooperative stranger will ruin the experience.

All told 1942: Joint Strike is more then competent, and the new mechanics give the game just enough of a fresh feeling. Joint Strike also comes in a bit on the short side. It is also a lot easier then other games in the genre, don’t look for the difficulty if Ikaruga here.

8 years since the last game in the series, and more then two decades since the original Capcom has gone out and made a new entry in a long running franchise feel fresh and fun, yes still have the touch of nostalgia classic gamers crave. While not a must buy, you could do a lot worse for ten bucks on Live Arcade.

+ Great co-op gameplay

+ Worthy update to the 1942 series

+ Good visuals

- Only six stages

- Little on the easy side

Grade: B

Make sure to check back during the week for more info about what’s going on at the biggest event in video games.

EDIT: Ben called it on the new dashboard, lets see what else comes true.

Story is a central focus for Battlefield: Bad Company, a first for the series. Usually Battlefield games focus exclusively on a deep multi-player section, with no campaign offering at all. In this game, however, you’re lacing up your boots as  the newest addition to the infamous “B” Company, Preston Marlowe. “B” Company, or Bad Company, is where the military dumps its troublemakers.  Filling out your squad is your hard-nosed leader Sergeant Redford, the lovably nerdy Sweetwater, and demolitions “expert” Haggard. All these characters have great voice work and good animation during the in-engine cutscenes.   You  really come to like all your squad mates by the end of the story. The obvious inspiration for the narrative here comes from classic war movies, most notably “Three Kings” and “Kelly’s Heroes”. On your first mission you find mercenaries employed by the mysterious Legionnaire, who pays his private army in gold. A little taste of gold leads your squad on a tear across the countryside, chasing a truck loaded with gold bullion. I won’t go to deep into details, but the twists and turns serve well to keep the story engaging and fresh the whole way thought.

Combat is intense and filled with outrageous action. The biggest feature of Bad Company’s combat is destructibility. With the power of the new Frostbite engine, walls provide little more then temporary shelter. Explosions and heavy weapon fire will tear apart structures forcing you to adapt your tactics constantly. You really feel like you have numerous of way to attack any given situation. Running along behind a fence as an enemy machine gun tears your flimsy wooden cover to shreds is truly exhilarating. Walls, trees and roofs are all yours to demolish. Sniper in a window bugging you? Switch to your grenade launcher and aim for the window; if it doesn’t go in the window, who cares? It’s gonna take out a sizable chunk of that wall and leave you with an unobstructed sniper shaped target to fill with bullets.  The games guns feel powerful, and there are tons of them. No worrying about ammo conservation; every area you come too will have a few ammo dumps, encouraging you to go nuts blowing the place to bits.

Those fragmenting walls and toppling trees really look beautiful. While not the most beautiful FPS you’ve seen lately, it’s defiantly a cut above most. Explosions and lighting effects are intense and when combined with the incredible sound design lead to a very immersive experience. Helping you settle into this world are massive environments that will play host to your battles. Each mission consists of huge map, although at first you’ll have a small portion of this area encompassing your objective available. Completing that objective will open up more of the map for you to move on to future goals. The boundaries of these maps are very big and you will usually have to work to find the edges. Occasionally you might bump up against the edge of where the game wants you to be and it will warn you to get back on track, failing to do so will result in your death.

Death is, however, hardly permanent in Bad Company. Seemingly as a hold-over the the multiplayer space, when you die you are just respawned back at your last checkpoint, and when you get back to your point of demise all is just as it was. Enemies killed are still dead; buildings you wrecked are still in shambles. This sort of gives you the odd ability to just die your way  through difficult parts of the game.

Battlefield multiplayer mainstay mode Conquest has been dumped in favor of new mode Gold Rush. This is a simple attack and defend game type. One team tries to assault a set of crates and plant explosives on them, and the other works to stop them. Sounds simple right? The real depth comes from the customizable class system. Similarly to other games, like Call of Duty 4, as you play you’ll unlock new weapons and abilities, such as calling in an artillery strike or health boost. This mode is a ton of fun with all the classes fun to play and the destruction still in effect. The fun and depth of the online experience mean this game won’t be getting old anytime soon.

+ Great story

+ Amazing destruction abilities

+ Good voice acting

+ Solid multi player

- Campaign respawns make missions too easy

Grade: A

It was charming to see a star like David Hayter take time to just sit down and take all sorts of random questions from his adoring fans. And when I say “adoring”, I’m not kidding in the slightest. Guys wanna be him, girls wanna be with him. Ladies were getting choked up and on the brink of crying just trying to ask questions. He really wasn’t helping them either, randomly dropping into Snake’s voice or saying a line from any of his numerous movie roles.

He spent time talking about how he got into voice acting, saying he didn’t really try out for Lupin’s voice he just happened to be in the studio and the producer thought he sounded right. Also mentioned that he more or less “just fell into” scriptwriting.

A few interesting take-aways:

• Thinks Hugh Jackman would be a good choice to play Snake in an MGS movie
• Never met Hideo Kojima till MGS 4
• Loves all the parody Metal Gear stuff, especially Metal Gear Awesome and Crab Battle!!!
• Is working on a script for a Lost Planet: Extreme Condition movie
• Grand Theft Auto 4 one of his favorite games
• Considers his voice work in Smash Brothers Brawl a “huge honor”

All said, it was quite an experience seeing someone like David Hayter come down to sit in front of a huge crowd and answer any question that was thrown at him.  He pandered to the crowd and was very quick to give fans all they could every dream of hearing. The way he talks about acting in old movies, like Guyver, all the way up to current and future projects, you can really tell David Hayter is a man who loves his work, and loves his fans even more.