GAME NEWS, REVIEWS AND FEATURES SINCE 2002

Shane Quast

Madden NFL 2004

August 14, 2003

Reviews / Xbox / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

Madden Football is one of the most anxiously awaited games every
year. Gamers everywhere spend hours drooling over the display boxes
in their local video game stores for weeks on end prior to Madden’s
release. Sadly enough the Madden series has been on a slow and steady
decline over the past few seasons. Madden 2002 was hardly any improvement
over 2001, and 2003 was extremely disappointing. The hype surround
Madden 2004 has been huge however, and the fact that it’s following
so closely behind the shot heard round the video game world from
NCAA Football 2004 have this reviewer’s video game sense tingling.

New This Year

This year’s edition of Madden boasts, among other things, the new
“Playmaker” offense and defense. To be honest, the Playmaker
controls only complicate things. I have a hard enough time trying
to find a hole in the defense, let alone guide my blocker to pick
up a defender. Good idea, bad implementation.

One of the best features of Madden has always been the “Franchise
Mode.” In addition to the “Franchise Mode,” this
year has a new “Owner Mode.” The “Owner Mode”
gives you the ability to set ticket prices, set concession prices,
spend money on advertising, build or renovate stadiums, among many
other options. I found this mode to be too in depth. I like running
a franchise, but I have trouble caring about how much big foam fingers
cost at my stadium.

The best thing that EA added this year was the tackling animations.
Defenders will lunge to shove ball carriers out of bounds, drag
a runner down from behind, and even gang up to bring down a running
back. In addition to the new defensive animations the new running
animations are extremely smooth. Stiff arms actually look like stiff
arms and your back will even fight to get extra yardage after a
collision with a defender.

Like a Snail

The most noticeable difference I found this year was that the game
absolutely crawled. It’s an agonizing task just trying to play a
game from start to finish. Your offense crawls to the line, your
defense crawls into their formation and then you have to make two
or three adjustments on every play.

Madden and Michaels only magnify how boring playing the actual
game is. Their commentary is slow and dead; it drowns out the crowd,
which sounds like they couldn’t care at all about what’s happening
in the game. Amazingly enough the home crowds cheers for the visiting
team when they score. Sitting and watching paint dry is about as
exciting as playing a game of Madden 2004.

Running Into A Wall

There are two things I have found extremely difficult in Madden
thus far. One is running the ball. Gaining a hundred yards with
your running back seems like an impossible quest, gaining twenty

yards seems like a more realistic goal. You should be proud of yourself
if your back manages to average two yards a carry for the season.

The second thing that I am incapable of doing is defending against
the pass. The worst pass offense in the league can throw it downfield
all over my secondary. Fortunately I can do the same thing to the
computer’s defense. Basically what you end up with is a final score
of sixty something to fifty something with each team running about
400 plus passing yards. It’s a bit ridiculous.

Another Year, Another Disappointment

I couldn’t be more pissed off that I shelled out fifty of my hard
earned dollars for this piece of crap. It’s not that Madden is a
bad game; it’s just that I am sick of playing the same damn game
every year. It’s almost coming to the point where EA needs to do
the same thing with Madden that they did with the Triple Play series,
scrap it and start over. The worst part is I know their not, and
I know that next year I’m going to forget how much I hated 2004
and get all pumped up about 2005 and be disappointed all over again.
In a perfect world I’d like EA to refund the money I spent on this
game, and refund the gas money it’s going to take me to drive my
ass over to EB Games and trade it in for something that I will actually
enjoy. Do yourself a favor and keep Madden 2003 if you have it,
don’t waste your money.

Week in Review – 06/16/03

June 23, 2003

Features / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

Soda is the hizouse! I know how much everyone needs their monthly
dosage of Soda in the WIR so I won’t deny you any longer. I wanted
to give everyone a heads up as to what’s going on with the SB lately
and in the near future. If you’re a regular reader of the site than
you probably have already heard about the Austin
Gaming Expo we’re scheduled to attend. I have to admit that
I’ve had mixed feelings about us having a booth there, but as the
event gets closer I am getting more excited. Cone came up with some
pretty good ideas for our booth and some things we could give away.
If you’re going to be in the area come by and give us a shout. It’s
only five bucks and we’re always excited to meet a fan. We were
also hoping the have our t-shirts ready for the show. In a way we
do, but it’s not exactly what we were hoping for. We released our
first T-shirt designs this week in the forums, for those of you
who didn’t catch it here
is the link. I already explained to everyone in the forums that
they are iron-on’s, not screen-printing. I have my shirt already
and it looks pretty nice, The Wraith informed me that his washed
really well too. Everyone is more than welcome to check them out
and we hope that you guys are willing to sport our logo and support
our site. Of course all this recent marketing we’ve been doing is
all leading up to one big event; the unveiling of Snackbar V.2.
We’re trying to keep everything about it as much of a secret as
possible so I’m just going to tell you that it’s going to be sweet.

Last week at EB I picked up a copy of NFL 2K3 for the Xbox.
The main reason I bought such an old game is that it was really
freaking cheap, and I’m a sucker for a sports game. I figured that
I’m more than likely going to be the one to right the reviews when
the 2004 football games come out and I haven’t had any experience
with Sega Sports football since 2K1 on the Dreamcast. I played if
for a while, I defiantly got my ten bucks worth out of it. The reason
I mention it is that Sega Sports made an announcement this week
that their sports line will no longer carry the 2Kx title. Since
they already use the “ESPN style presentation” in their
games Sega decided it would be a good idea to try and capture a
larger audience by using the ESPN namesake in their game titles.
For example; this years Sega Sports football game will be titled
ESPN NFL Football 2004. I would tend to agree with Sega Sports
that this is a good move since they are desperately trying to keep
up with EA Sports. Since EA has already told us that they aren’t
going to offer sports games on Live I say anything that increase
Sega Sports’ budget for future games is a good thing.

Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter hit the Xbox and PS2 this week.
I know that many people have been anxiously awaiting this game,
Pretzel included, but I have to go on the record as saying that

I’m not terribly excited. While I don’t dislike First Person Shooters,
it just seems like they are cranked out these days. Every week someone
is all pumped up about another FPS, last week it was Soldier
of Fortune 2. I’m sure that Mace Griffin is going to be a pretty
good game, and I’m not going to jump to any conclusions before I
even play it, but isn’t it time for some creativity? I guess as
long as people keep buying them, companies will keep making them
and we’ll keep reviewing them. It’s a vicious cycle.

In all honestly I’ve pretty much covered every bit of news from
the previous week that I consider important. It seems that I keep
getting stuck with uneventful weeks. I wanted to take a second to
talk about something personal. When Cone, Pic and myself came up
with the idea for Snackbar we never dreamed it would become what
it has in such a short amount of time. The response we’ve gotten
has been overwhelming positive and inspiring. Over the past six
months we’ve welcomed many people into the SB family, and we hope
that our readers have enjoyed seeing our characters develop and
find our style and place in the internet community. The fact that
we’re about to take this thing to the next level is both exciting
and unnerving, we can only hope to receive a fraction of the success
we’ve had so far. Above everyone else I wanted to give The Wraith
a gigantic thanks from the SB crew. He’s the manager at the EB Games
we all shop at and the more involved he’s gotten in the site the
better it’s been. I just wanted to let all our readers know that
he’s one of the major factors that helped us keep ticking and all
the EB guys can take a lot of credit for the success we’ve had in
our first 6 months.

Until next month, Soda Out!

Wakeboarding Unleashed

June 19, 2003

Reviews / Xbox / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

In July’s issue of GMR Magazine, [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] was described as “If Tony Hawk Could Swim.” Obviously the aforementioned description was in reference to this games similarities to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. Given the big name recognition of the Tony Hawk series I feel that it’s unfair to hype a relatively unknown game like this. A similar thing happened when Brute Force was hyped as the “Halo-Killer,” and obviously doesn’t even belong in the same rating scale as Halo. So will [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] suffer this reviewer’s wrath in the same fashion as Brute Force? Hell no, this game fucking kicks ass!

[heading]Who the hell is Shaun Murray?[/heading]

I’m a big fan of video games based on obscure sports. SSX Tricky is high on my list of all time favorites and I couldn’t name one professional snowboarder. Even going back to my Genesis days I thought EA’s Rugby was a classic. I can’t say that I am big fan of wakeboarding, in fact I don’t think I know the first thing about it, but I know that whenever I see clips of it on TV it doesn’t really look all that exciting.

That’s the beauty of video game world; they can take something not that exciting and make it an over-the-top, in your face action fest. [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] is the perfect example of this. The level design is creative, effective, and beautiful. You can grind on everything from moving 18-wheelers to power lines. Every level has enough unique aspects to keep you interested and wanting to desperately see what the next level has to offer.
[i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i]
I give the developer’s a gigantic thumbs up for the graphics on this game. I can only imagine the difficulty of designing an entire game based on the water. From what I’ve seen in the past water is usually one of the worst looking things visually in every game. I find the way the water and wake reacts to the boats movements as close to perfect as possible. Kudos Activision.

[heading]Required Accessories[/heading]

Before you being playing [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] I would recommend picking up some blood pressure medication, a stress doll and possibly a “break proof” controller. Yes, this is one of those games that will have you smashing your controller to the ground frequently, only to have you come back begging and pleading for more seconds later. To unlock different levels and increase character points you must achieve certain goals in the Groove Mode (free ride mode) or complete predefined challenges. Some of these challenges are seemingly impossible and it will take you a good hundred tries to complete them. The amazing part is that it never gets boring. Running through the same challenge for the hundredth time is just as much fun as it was the first time. On the “challenge scale” [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] is as close to finding the perfect balance between too easy and too hard that I have ever encountered.
[i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i]
[heading]And That Rope You’ve Been Hearing So Much About[/heading]

If you’ve heard anything previously to this review about [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] I’m sure that you’ve heard something about the rope. I won’t lie to you; the physics of this thing are unbelievable. You’ll almost feel like you’re really strapped to the back of a boat. You can glide into a turn and build up speed to make a huge launch off of a quarter pipe, and if you don’t think the rope is restricting your airtime, just let it go. You can use the ability to let go of the rope to set up huge catapult launches, bust a few flips, show off some nice grabs and than catch the rope on your way down.

[heading]Xbox Top 10[/heading]

I would consider this one of the best ten titles to own for Xbox right now. I know that’s a pretty lofty claim, but I can make it with full confidence that this game will not dissapoint. If you’re a fan of Tony Hawk you are sure to love this game, and even if you’re not (like myself) [i]Wakeboarding Unleashed[/i] rocks the house.

Soda Fizz – Volume III

May 28, 2003

Editorial / Features / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

CounterStrike (CS) is widely known as one of the
best multiplayer FPS games ever. Unfortunately it is also well known
for being a breeding ground for cheaters, spawn campers, team killers,
and other such fuckheads. Whether or not you’re a fan of CS you
have to admit that it reigned supreme over all FPS’ for a very long
time. Not to mention that it’s damn fun. If any of you have been
a fan of the site for a while you probably have heard me mention
that I almost lost a job due to a CS addiction. It’s a little hard
to explain exactly why every single person at my office played CS
non-stop all night every night, but there were six of us that didn’t
come into work until 5 pm and didn’t leave till 5 am. As if working
that schedule wasn’t boring enough, there was never anything to
do at this particular job. On top of all that no one who was in
charge ever came into the office. So what is the best way for six
computer geeks to entertain themselves who have nothing to do for
twelve hours at a time every day? CS, of course.

Everyone who has ever participated in a LAN party probably has
some pretty funny stories. What was different about this is that
every single night for more than three months the six of us were
eating, breathing, and sleeping CS. Being around each other for
the massive quantity of time that we were we were bound to get on
each other’s nerves. I could probably sit for hours and tell stories
that would make you laugh your ass off, but I will save those all
for another time, possibly another article. There is one particular
incident that will make me laugh until the day I die.

CS was such a way of life for us that after awhile we only referred
to each other by our player handles. Once you reach that stage in
your life you know that you’ve hit a new low. Before SB came about
I used to play under the handle “Dick Armey.” No, ARMEY
isn’t spelled wrong, he’s a senator, watch fucking CNN every once
in awhile. I shared an office with “Kyzer Soze” and “Weasel”
next door; the other three were down the hall.

For some reason Weasel wasn’t very good and he always played in
his office with the door closed. I think he was just annoyed with
the rest of us screaming at each other down the hall all the time.
One time a security guard was checking our office at 3 am and I
was screaming to Fenster down the hall at the top of my lungs, “Plant
the bomb! Plant the mother fucking bomb!”

We all laughed but I don’t think the security guard thought it
was very funny.

One night we were playing as the Counter Terrorists on the Canyon
Siege level. On this particular level all the Counter Terrorists
start out having to run across a canyon on a narrow bridge. If you’re
a CS veteran than you know that the start of every round is like
a rat race to get position before the other team does. Everyone
is off like a bolt of lightning trying to get to their spots.

For some reason Weasel kept spawning closet to the bridge so he
was always the first person to g
o across it. Normally Weasel sucking
didn’t bother anyone, but the bridge over the canyon is only wide
enough for one person to get across at a time. In addition to not
being all that great, Weasel insisted upon running with his gun
instead of his knife. Every CS player knows that you don’t run near
as fast with your gun out. So picture this; the only player of the
team who doesn’t run with his knife out hits the bridge first and
gets the other nine members of his team stuck behind him. The other
team was getting to their points way before we were and we were
getting massacred. Getting beat at any game is never acceptable
to me.

After four rounds of staring at the back of Weasel’s head and getting
really pissed off I yelled to Weasel “If you don’t quit running
with your gun I’m going to shoot you myself.”

I was pretty sure he heard me because I yelled pretty loud. The
next round started and I bought an AWP, just in case. I switched
to my knife and turned to run across the bridge, only to be greeted
by the back of Weasel’s head once again. I would like to make a
disclaimer that I don’t usually condone team killing, but there
are some situations where people are just asking for it. I stopped,
zoomed in and put a nice pretty bullet through the back of Weasel’s
head. Everyone on my team cheered and I could hear Weasel scream
“What the Fuck?” through his office door.

I felt good about myself, perhaps I had taught him a valuable lesson.
Except the next round started and I ran into him again! Apparently
he didn’t learn the first time, so I started to line up another
headshot. By the time I got my scope zoomed in on him I saw his
head explode before I even pulled the trigger. I turned around and
heard Kyzer cracking up. Talk about a “second shooter”
scenario.

We heard Weasel spike his mouse and slam his door open. A second
later he came bursting into our office and lunges at Kyzer. The
lunge turned into a punch landed squarely on the back of Kyzer’s
head. Several swings and vulgarities were exchanged before the conflict
came to a conclusion. I would have tried to break them up but I
found the whole situation way too humorous. I’ll admit that it was
the only time I have ever seen a fist fight during an online game
involving two players on the same team. I would say that’s a rarity
during any game.

The moral of the story my friends, is don’t let your LAN party
turn to violence. If you suck at a game, make sure and get the hell
out of your team’s way. It makes things easier for everyone involved.

Week in Review – 05/19/03

May 27, 2003

Features / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

The Week In Review is a feature that we’ve wanted to bring back
for the past few months. We finally think that we have hammered
out a system that will let us do the WIR every single week in a
timely manner. Personally the WIR is one my favorite things to write
because I get to let the readers know my thoughts on the news from
the gaming industry. It also gives the readers a chance to know
me a little better and what kind of things I like and don’t like.
Sometimes it’s hard to communicate your feelings about a particular
subject if you’re just cranking out reviews all the time. Everyone
enjoy and welcome back to the Week In Review.

Wouldn’t it be my luck that the week we had scheduled to bring
this back is the week after E3? It’s not as though nothing happened,
but anything that was big is old news by now. Mainly the news I
get stuck with after E3 is all the bad news. I can’t imagine that
anyone would stand up at E3 and make an announcement that they have
delayed release of a game for nearly a year. I have a feeling that
wouldn’t go over too well. Everything at E3 is all upbeat and positive.
A few things did happen that actually grabbed my attention though.

Governor Gary Locke, Washington state governor, signed a new bill
into law placing restrictions of the sale of video games depicting
violence against law enforcement agents. I’ve made my feelings about
violence in video games clear in a
previous installment of the WIR, but this is a total load of
shit. Isn’t it illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone under the age
of 18? Drive around a high school sometime and see how well that
law is working. Isn’t it also illegal to sell alcohol to anyone
under the age of the 21? Lord knows none of us ever drank until
we were 21 right? Once again I’d like to reiterate that some things
should be left up to parents. It really bothers me that tax dollars
and government time is being spent on things because parents in
this world are just too damned stupid to figure out that games like
GTA3 aren’t for children.

More bad news for those anxiously awaiting Star Wars Galaxies.
The PS2 and Xbox versions of this game have been put on hold to
put all efforts towards launching the PC version. I wouldn’t hold
my breath on this game getting launched anytime soon. I hate to
beat a dead horse, but is this game ever going to come out? I’ve
seen screen shots, how far away could it possibly be? Speaking of
delays, no Starcraft Ghost in 2003. All I have to say is
this game better be fucking good. It seems like a decade ago that
I saw the in game footage video. I have no idea what could possibly
be taking so long. I am of the thought that I would rather have
them take their time and do it right, it’s just frustrating as hell
to the consumers.

Shout out time! EB Games Huebner Oaks. Not enough good things
I can say about those guys, seriously. If you live in San Antonio
go there, you might get a chan
ce to meet your favorite SB character.
Whoever those two guys were that were talking about my Stake
article in NWN. Pickle has been bitching about that for like
the last week. Anything that makes Pickle that flustered is good
in my book. All the new SB members. Dots and Pretz
have officially been baptized into the SB crew. Basically there
are two ways to get into the crew; 1. Have known us since like middle
school, 2. Marry one of us. So if you’re a hot single chick interested
in being a part of the SB crew Pic and myself are still single;
Wink, wink. Last but not least, our readers. I hate to sound like
a kiss ass but I’ve been hearing nothing but good things from you
guys. It’s great to have your support and you guys make this place
kick ass, not us.

-Soda out

Stake: Fortune Fighter

May 21, 2003

Reviews / Xbox / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

It seems that prior to it’s release Stake
was being hyped as a game that would break genre barriers and bring
us a type of game play we have never experienced before. How did
Gameness Art Software and Metro3D attempt to accomplish this? By
blending the four-player split screen action of a First Person Shooter
(FPS) with the beauty and finesse of a 3D fighting game. Initially
the concept raised my eyebrow a bit so I decided to go ahead and
review this game for the fans.

Shit, My Blender
Is On Fire

The main problem with the blending of
the two genres in Stake is that they forgot to include good graphics,
game play, sound, control, plot and replay ability in the mix. This
game reminds me of something you would see in a movie about a science
experiment gone terribly wrong. Stake would play the role of the
early, deformed mutant experiment that got locked in the basement
when they didn’t really know what they were doing and screwed everything
up.

I desperately wanted to like this game. After a few hours of playing I was desperately thinking
that I must have missed something, there had to be something else
to this game! In the end I was wrong, there is nothing else to this
game. I knew it was supposed to be some sort of party game, but
it didn’t seem like there was really any game at all.

A

X2: Wolverine’s Revenge

May 13, 2003

Reviews / Xbox / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

Games that launch with movies have a history of being amazingly
average. Spiderman, Lord of the Rings, and Harry
Potter quickly come to mind when I think of games that have
suffered this fate recently. There is nothing about these games
that really bothers you, but nothing that really stands out to you
either. This makes for a very bland gaming experience. Most of these
games are forgotten quickly and leave you with no lasting impact.
Will X2: Wolverine’s Revenge suffer the same fate as many
of its predecessors? The SB crew breaks this one down for you.

Insert Action Hero Here

I spent a good part of my day yesterday hanging out with The Wraith
over at EB Games. We discussed many things, from video games, to
The Matrix, to Pretzel’s susceptibility to panic attacks.
It was a good conversation. I made mention to him that I was currently
giving X2 a trial run. He pointed out to me that it was basically
the same game as Spiderman. I partly agree with him. It’s true that
they are both games that were probably rushed during development
to meet unrealistic deadlines. They are both third person action/
adventure games. They both rely on the popularity of the characters
to sell games rather than worry about graphics, game play, or story
development.

How can you argue with the results though? Marvel characters =
game sales. It’s really a simple equation. If I had a say in a game
development company we would be cranking out super hero games. In
comparison with other games they don’t cost as much, don’t take
as long to develop, and sell like crazy. Even I will admit that
if some company released a game-featuring Gambit from the X-men
I’d buy it. I expect the upcoming Hulk game to be more of the same.

This strategy of swapping out graphics and changing the story reminds
me of what Nintendo games were like in 80′s. A successful game like
1942 would come out and would quickly be followed by a string
of games running off basically the same engine (i.e. GunSmoke).
I can’t say I blame the developers on this one. If the consumers
are going to continue to buy the same game over and over again why
would you quit repackaging it?

Left Shoulder Forward

X2′s graphics looked like they were slapped together from leftover
parts of a good game. While playing I get the feeling that the developers
saw something they liked in another game and just decided to throw
it in there. Several times throughout the game you will have to
trudge through the snow to get where you are going. Someone must
have liked the way that you left footprints in the snow in other
games, so they added it. Instead of footprints you leave some sort
of odd gray trench looking thing.

One of the most irritating examples of this is when your character
goes into sneak mode. It reminds me mostly of the “Aura Vision
Mode” in
>Bloodrayne. During sneak mode everything on
your screen turns a tint of orange, everything except Wolverine
himself. Surrounding Wolverine during this mode is a thin line of
white pixels that make him look like he was cut-and-pasted there
using Photoshop. The most frustrating part of this whole “sneak
mode fiasco” is that Wolverine seems to be locked into this
strange walking stance where he leads with his left shoulder.

X2: Wolverine’s Revenge also features the return of the “Hyphen
bullet.” With all the technological advances and all the experience
of the game development industry one would think that you would
be able to come up with something to represent gunfire better than
hyphens. Orange tinted hyphens at that. The hyphen bullet is one
of those things that make my unforgivable sin list. It just shouldn’t
be done, ever, under any circumstances.

There are parts in the game where the graphics look pretty slick
and overall I wouldn’t call the graphics poor. As I said earlier,
it just looks slapped together. Some of the stealth kills and finishing
moves are very nice to look at, but after 50 times or so it gets
a little monotonous. I would say in the end that the graphics are
exactly what I would have expected from a game like this, nothing
too great, nothing too bad. Bland.

Less Hack, More Slash

I don’t know about you, but if someone hits me as hard as they
can in the chest with a butcher knife I do one of two things; 1)
fall to the ground screaming in pain, or 2) run for dear life and
hope to god I don’t bleed to death. Put “Get back up and try
to punch the guy still holding the knife” at the top of the
list of things I would not do. Amazingly enough the enemies in X2
are gluttons for punishment. Something deep in my heart tells me
that it shouldn’t take six slashes to kill each and every bad guy.
It’s not that they realize pose much of a threat, it’s just obnoxious.

The only thing that poses less of a threat than the enemy henchmen
are the actual bosses themselves. Even Sabretooth is cake to defeat.
I would spend more time worrying about falling off a cliff than
the ten enemies with guns who are standing there. This is yet another
part of the formula that is used when creating these super hero
games. “Make the game as easy as possible because all anyone
wants to do is see the story and super villains later in game. You’ll
find yourself with the controls mastered in five minutes or less
and you won’t have to do any thinking at any point in the rest of
the game. The only thing that could possibly inhibit you from beating
this game is the cocoon of boredom that you’ll quickly find yourself
in.

Leave It On The Shelf

Don’t bother with this game. I’ll go ahead and tell you the two
best parts of this game. Patrick Stewart actually does the voice
of Professor X and you can unlock different costumes for Wolverine.
Of course you’ll soon realize that if you’re a fan of Wolverine
that you’ve seen all these costumes before and nothing new is really
going on.

It’s not that this is a bad game, but I promise that you’ve played
it before only it was called something else. Your time and money
will be much better spent watching the movie than playing the game.
Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Enter The Matrix
doesn’t suffer the same end as many of its movie turned game predecessors.

Baseball Mogul 2004

May 11, 2003

PC / Reviews / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

Hello, my name is Soda and I am a Baseball Mogulaholic. I’d like
to share my story with you. I have been a baseball fanatic all my
life. I would say that I have invested more time playing baseball
games than any other type of video game. Before Baseball Mogul came
into my life, I’d say that I was pretty strong. I could play a game
for a few weeks and than be able to put it down. I wouldn’t say
that I ever really struggled with “addiction” to video
game baseball. Than came Baseball Mogul. I thought I would be able
to handle myself. “I’m not addicted, I can quit anytime I want.”

Boy was I wrong. Admitting you have a problem is the first step
to getting help.

When I first started playing I didn’t see how I could get addicted.
It’s just a sim; there is no actual game to play. Originally my
addiction began with Baseball Mogul 2002. My addiction carried over
it 2003 as well. One feature I always looked forward to with each
new addition was the new player pictures and action photos. I bought
Baseball Mogul 2004 over the web for download and I was disappointed
that it didn’t come with any player photos at all. Other than that
it was the same old Baseball Mogul screens that I have become so
accustomed to looking at. The best new feature graphically is the
ability to resize that game window. Sometimes that comes in handy.

Baseball Mogul is all about control. Being a GM of a professional
baseball franchise is my dream job, and Baseball Mogul puts you
right in that seat. You control every aspect of how your franchise
is run from how much money you have in your farm system budget to
how much you charge for hot dogs at the ball park. Trying to find
the balance of building a winning team while staying within your
budget and keeping all the fans happy is one heck of a job. At first
I would play as the GM of my favorite team, the New York Mets, but
because of their fan loyalty and high income and exposure they were
too easy to win with. You want a challenge? Try playing as the GM
of Montreal. I spent 25 years building that club into a respectable
franchise, and the only thing I could do to make them any better
was move them to Washington DC where I could make more money. Like
I said before, you have complete control. If you’re a franchise
sports junky, than this is your game.

The main challenge of Baseball Mogul is just keeping track of everything
that’s going on. You have to r
em
ember who you have in the minors
and who gets paid what and when their contract ends and if you can
afford to keep them. The best thing that they did with Baseball
Mogul 2004 is instead of player contracts and budget being based
on a “point” system, they are now in actual dollar figures.
It makes it a lot easier to put things in perspective. It takes
a lot of time and creativity to build a franchise that is successful
year after year. Another part of the challenge is keeping your cool.
One season I got swept in the series and got really pissed off.
I went out in the off-season and signed everyone who was anyone.
The results turned out to be a disaster. Plugging that many new
players into a core that I already had built turned into more losses
than wins, I didn’t make the playoffs, and because of the huge contracts
of every player on my roster I ended up going into debt. Once you’re
in debt you can’t negotiate with any of your players who’s contract
term ends, and I ended up losing five of my best players.

Baseball Mogul is the most fun and addicting baseball franchise
game I have ever played. Everyone who considers himself a fan of
baseball must play this game at some point in time. There are very
few games that I can imagine that you could invest any near as much
time in as you will to Baseball Mogul. If I were to rate games on
a scale Baseball Mogul would get a 10 out of 10 on replay ability.
Yes, it is that good.

The best part, its only 20 bucks. Do yourself a favor, go out and
get this game or download it online at www.sportsmogul.com. It might
take awhile to get the swing of things, but we’ll be seeing you
in our Mogulaholic’s support group in no time.

-Soda Out

Dynasty Warriors 4

April 11, 2003

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/dw4/cover.jpg[/floatleft]If I had to describe Dynasty Warriors 4 in one word, it would definatly be “fun.” There’s something to be a said about a good hack A

Def Jam Vendetta

April 7, 2003

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Shane Quast 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/defjam/cover.jpg[/floatleft]Long have I awaited the return of the AKI wrestling engine. Ever since THQ ran off with the WWE license every wrestling game that they tried to put out has sucked. I figured that since WWE wasn’t dishing out any new licenses, and the thought of THQ and AKI joining up to do another game seemed pretty far fetched that video game wrestling’s glory days had come and gone. License? We don’t need no stinkin’ license. AKI’s engine is just to damn good to let die, and thank god that EA had the sense to realize this. EA Sports Big, which is known for it’s over-the-top presentation style, and AKI teamed up for the development on Def Jam Vendetta. Fans of the NWO vs. WCW series have been anxiously awaiting the release of Def Jam Vendetta, but with that comes some pretty high expectations. Will the engine port well to next-gen consoles? Will the substitution of rappers for wrestlers be a success? Why on earth didn’t they make this for the Xbox? Hopefully I’ll be able to get to all this questions and more in this review.

First of all I would like to discuss the graphics. Here is where the difficulty lies in reviewing this game. Do I base my opinion of the graphics on what they are like compared to the N64 games with this engine, or do I judge it compared to other PS2 games? Something that always bothered me was the polygonal appearance and the EXTREME amount of clipping that took place on the character models in the N64 games. Def Jam Vendetta actually did a pretty nice job on the character models. The characters look pretty smooth without looking strange like the models in THQ’s Smackdown do. Of course, EA Sports Big did make the characters look gigantic and flashy, which they are known to do. For some reason though they made all the character’s hands enormous; if you pay attention to the hands for a few minutes while playing you’ll start to notice how funny they look. The movements of the characters are very natural and smooth looking. Overall clipping of the fighters wasn’t a problem, but there was a couple of times when I caught someone’s foot going through someone else; it hardly enough to be noticeable though. The worst part of the character models is that the lip-sync is terrible. None of the character’s lip movements ever look like they are saying what they are supposed to be saying, it’s pretty bad. Another part of the N64 games that was just god-awful was the crowds and backgrounds. Def Jam Vendetta’s developers did a really great job on the backgrounds in the game. One level in particular that I remember well had a couple of girls dancing in the background and every time they caught your eye’s attention their movements were really fluid and created a cool environment for battle’s to be raged in. All in all I feel good about the graphics in Def Jam Vendetta. I think the developers did a good job, there are some areas that I would like to see improved, but hey, this is the PS2 I’m talking about.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/defjam/ss02_thumb.jpg[/floatright]Since this game bore the name of a Rap label, I figured beforehand that sound would be its strong point. Instead it turned out to be the most irritating, skull cracking part of Def Jam Vendetta. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because I don’t like Rap music or the tracks they selected for the soundtrack. Imagine with me if you will a 15 second loop of “DMX – X Gonna Gonna Give It to Ya” over and over and over and over. It’s not even a good loop either; you can hear where they looped it. That’s basically what you have to deal with every single time you fight a match. After a few hours you want to beat your head up against the screen or mute the game. The sound effects aren’t bad; they are almost exactly the same as the N64 games. This game is better played on mute than anything else.

The controls in Def Jam Vendetta are exactly what you will remember from the N64 series. Anyone who spent a significant amount of time playing any of those games will have the controls mastered seconds after picking up Def Jam Vendetta. Surprisingly enough the PS2 control actually is pretty easy to use. I was a little bit leery about how the shift from the N64 controller to the PS2 controller would be, but all the buttons are where you would expect them to be. What I never realized is how hard the controls would be to master for someone who had never played any of the N64 games. I had a friend over for a few hours and it was really difficult to explain to him the strike, grapple, and move progression. For him it turned into a button mashing fest, so much so that his thumb got so sore he had to quit playing. It was frustrating for me to watch because I’ve played this type of game for so long that I know exactly what to do and when and he had no clue. After awhile he was able to master some aspects of the controls, but there is so much you can do with every single move and reversals that it would take a long time for him to totally get the hang of it. For you AKI engine veterans you’ll find the controls very responsive and you feel like you’re in complete control of you character.

It’s tough to decide how to rate how challenging this game is. Def Jam Vendetta is designed to be a one-player game and the game’s main feature is the story mode. I played through most of it in one night, and it does a pretty decent job of progressive difficulty, as you get further into the story. Having played past AKI games as much as I have makes this game extremely easy to me. I played it with the difficulty set at medium and I was tearing through the matches like butter. My friend who had never played before could barely beat anyone. I would say that the most challenging part for any newcomer would just be mastering the controls. Once you have that down you can pretty much sail through this game. Def Jam Vendetta also has a “Survival” game mode, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The only problem is that I think I’m too good at this game and it just gets boring. I beat about 6 guys in 15 minutes and got bored and turned it off. I’m defiantly going to have to jack the difficulty up a bit. Personally my favorite part of the games using this series was the multiplayer, so I can’t get myself too worked up about the difficulty of this game.

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/defjam/ss05_thumb.jpg[/floatleft]When thinking about the fun factor and replay ability of Def Jam Vendetta it’s impossible to separate my feelings for the N64 games. There are so many things that I wish they would have included that were some of my favorite parts of the old games. My favorite feature was always the Royal Rumble. We used to have 10-15 people crammed in Pickle’s tiny room all fighting over who gets to be the next character that runs in. The multiplayer was so much fun, I don’t understand why they would stray from that and make it primarily a single player game. There are some multiplayer aspects in the game, but that is pretty difficult to deal with. The camera angle is a little bit low and when you get involved in a tag-team match or any type of match with four people you spend a lot of time complaining about not being able to see anything that’s going on. The other thing that’s frustrating is that the story is very linear. In No Mercy the story would branch out a lot and you’d have people running smack and run-ins. It was great. But no matter what character you play with in Vendetta you always progress from match a to b to c, with the same cinematics every time. Speaking of character selection, this games big draw is that you can be these cool ass rappers. Strangely enough you can’t use any of them in the story mode though. Most of the guys you would want to play as don’t even start as being unlocked. All I wanted was to be Redman; I spent 3 hours trying to unlock him only to find out that I couldn’t use him in story mode. And why no create-a-fighter?

The previous paragraph is mainly for people who have played AKI wrestling games before. For those of you who never have, the AKI wrestling engine is like Mecca. All other wrestling games are nothing compared to the greatness that this engine is. If you are just getting started playing you are soon going to find yourself spending hours trying to memorize and master ever single move with every single wrestler, and than you’re going to want to get yourself a tag-team partner and master all the tag-teams moves. Pickle and I are a dominant tag-team; we used to do some of the coolest things in Revenge. If you are a fan of wrestling or fighting games at all you need to check this game out.

Although I have some complaints, it is so good to see the AKI engine back in action. Maybe I’ll have to wait for Ultimate Muscle: Legends Vs. New Generation to get some of the features back that I used to enjoy so much, but Def Jam Vendetta is defiantly something that can hold me over for now. If you have played the N64 games before than I would probably recommend renting this game prior to buying. It’s defiantly worth playing, but odds are you are going to be too good at it if you are a veteran to get the replay ability out of it you are looking for. I actually purchased Def Jam Vendetta instead of renting because I want to support AKI and I hope their engine never goes away.

-Soda Out

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