Kill Trees, Save Pants, Use Toilet Paper!

Well the title basically says it all, but I'm talking in a financial perspective on video games. What I'm saying is that you should live under a rock and live 2 years behind release dates of game so when you finally hear about them they will be really cheap. I am speaking hypothetically, so don't take my word for it exactly.

How to tell you're a hardcore gamer Part:1

If you are on the edge of you're seat and want to know if you are a hardcore or casual gamer, well you came to the right place. You know you are hardcore if you spend more than 10 hours a week gaming. You know you are casual if the only games you have are XBLA or PSN little downloadable games. That was part one, stay tuned for more ways to tell if you are hardcore or casual.

Halo Wars Demo Impressions

Recently on Xbox Live there came a demo of a little RTS game called Halo Wars. Halo Wars is an RTS game that is supposedly suppose to redesign RTS games on the console, and it definitely delivers. As a hardcore RTS gamer coming to this it was a bit confusing for me because I was used to the crazy hardcore so called "confusing" controls of the games like command and conquer. Overall the demo will please someone just coming into RTS gaming. The game sets a while back from Halo1. The cut scenes look amazing and the animations are just like the FPS versions of the game. The demo lets you play 2 missions and 1 skirmish map, which is chasms, a snow glacier map.The controls are easy and quick to learn. A=select X=move to/attack Y=special attack/move B=cancel LB=select all units LT=I actually don't know get RB=select all units on screen RT=scroll through selected units. That's basically the controls of Halo Wars. So even if you don't like RTSs but you are a Halo fan this is definitely the really long time it takes to download this 1.4 GB file.

Dragon Quest IX Delayed in Japan

As you all may know the Japanese love square enix games, and they love Dragon Quest especially. But unfortunately for our friends in japan, they will have to wait another four whole months to get their Dragon Quest IX on. Dragon Quest IX has been delayed, in Japan, from March 28 all the way to June 11 due to major bugs in the game. Square has not yet released information about the bugs yet, but they must have been major to delay the game for that long of a period of time. You can only imagine what type of bugs, insect bugs? Or the type of bug when you turn on your system the world goes boom. So give a big hug to anybody looking forward to this game, as their addiction will not be out for a while.

Gears of War 2 Reveiw

Well I'll start at the beginning, the Story and Campaign. If you directly jump into this game without playing Gears of War 1 then you may not get a general idea of the storyline. The storyline does have a few kinks where will leave you scratching your head, but nothing dramatic. The story tries to go on to an emotional level at a point, but it just doesn't seem to work.There are a few surprises in store that will definitely please a Gears 1 fan. I'm not going to spoil anything, but the vehicle controls are kinda crap and there aren't too many vehicles that you can ride in-game, which may be a good thing.Now that we have got that out of the way let's move on to the Game play. The controls, first of all, are a bit loose. The "roadie run" is really hard to control, the only way to turn a corner whilst running is having to stop, turn, and then start running again. It's moderately hard to aim as well, maybe not with the zoomed-in sniper rifle, but not with the lancer. The bullets are also slow, making an enemy able to dodge and duck behind cover before the "flying death" gets to him/her.The camera is one thing that is GREAT. The cover is good, chainsaw duals are sweet and the button layout is ok. Now, the game play is one thing, but the Graphics is a force NOT to be reckoned with. Gears of War 2 is probably the best looking game out there along with Crysis an Far Cry 2. The visuals are amazing, and the environments are extremely detailed. The blood and gore is a plus with this game, I've seen many games that try to be gory, but do not succeed, this game succeeds. The only major flaw with the graphics is the texture popping. If you haven't noticed in the beginning of a screen the surfaces may seem bland and not detailed, but after a few seconds the textures will suddenly pop-in. The lighting affects aren't as great as some other games and the weather is always gray clouds which makes the items a dull-gray color as well. Here is one thing that Epic did great on but failed all at the same time, the Multiplayer. The multiplayer side of Gears of War 2 has alot of nice gameplay modes, such as new ones like Submisison. The amount of people has also been raised to 10 instead of 8. A huge part of this game consists in multiplayer, Horde. Yes you can play single player on Horde, but something about playing with four other friends and beating the crap(or geting the crap beaten out of you) by fifty waves of ever increasingly difficult locust is fun. There are things that are very wrong with the multiplayer too, such as lag and connectivity issues. Gamers with a strict connection will experiance difficulties connecting to other host who have the same type of connection. The lag is another thing that turns me off the multipalyer sometimes. Over all this game is a definate buy to fans of any type of shooter. Gears fan and non Gears fan. The story is interesting, the gameplay is nicely put together, the graphics are(once again) the best i've seen this year, and the multiplayer is alot of fun, apart from the lag and connection problems. That is why i am giving Gears of War 2 a(drum roll) 9 out of 10

My first Post.

Hi My name is Joshua Retief, Gamertag:Corgon67 PSN ID:CORGONthegreat. This Blog is based on video game news and reviews, plus my thoughts and ideas. Feel free to comment on my stories and reviews. I am a teenager so that means that you'll get a perspective of a younger yet mature gamer. This site has nothing to do with profanity or adult content. I do have a podcast but it is not yet up and running specificly to this blog. You can find it in the Sarcasticgamer Comminity Casts' in I-tunes. The Podcast is called the LevalUp podcast(Name subject to change).I will post daily and as this blog gets more renown it may turn into a website. I will have extra writers for double the content. Thank you for your time. In the meantime while waiting for posts, play some pacman.