Week in Review - 12/16/02

     Welcome everyone to the first edition of "The Week In Review." I've been trying to find a creative way to tell everyone about the crazy stuff that happens to me during the week as well as get you guys caught up on all the juicy gaming tidbits I hear. Snackbar-games.com is supposed to be a news and reviews site with a comical flare, and up until now we hadn't really been covering as much news as we should be. I also need a place to briefly rant about some of the things that drive me up the wall throughout my average week. So without further adieu, here's the week of December 16, 2002 in retrospective.

     Based on sheer volume of things to do this week ranks pretty high up there. Between finals, Xmas shopping, reading endless amounts of press releases, The Two Towers opening and trying to fix my parents AOL broadband I've barely had a moment's peace. Finally it seems as though things have calmed for a minute. Many of you have noticed that Snowcone has most of the backend of the site up and running. Send him an email and give him mad props, he's really been doing a great job with that. Our official launch date isn't scheduled until January 1, 2003 and we are right on target. Before I get started with my endless bitching I want to give a shout out to our awesome staff and all the guest writers who have made such valuable contributions in helping us get off the ground.

     So The Sims Online shipped this week. The Snackbar crew is well known as avid Sims haters, so this news irks me really bad. Those of you who follow our news posts and forums have probably heard everything that I possibly have to say about how much I hate the Sims. I would really like to have faith that the human race will eventually realize that EA is completely ripping us off by selling digital versions of normal everyday life, but I know that the online version will soon soar to the top-selling slot. For some reason chicks love this game. I guess that goes to show that I really have no clue about women whatsoever.

     Gamespy.com released their "Game of the Year" results. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 won for PS2. It seems like the Tony Hawk series wins all types of awards every year. Most of you are thinking that I am about to go off on some rant about how much I hate this series. But you're wrong. I've played one of these Tony Hawk games for maybe a grand total of five minutes. I really didn't have an opinion; it really wasn't my type of game. Here's my beef with the series though. I have a five year old little brother and the other day he was playing Tony Hawk on PSone. I'm not really sure if it was 1, 2, 3 or 4 because I can't tell the difference. He was really into it, but I was really sad for him. I'm almost 23 now and Pickle and I sometimes sit around and reminisce the glory days of our video game youths. We talk about classic NES titles like Metriod, Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch Out and Pro Wrestling. Every one of those games was revolutionary in it's own right. It's a giant event when a new addition is made to the Metriod or Zelda series. Pretty much every time I play a next-gen game these days you will hear me at least once say "They sure don't make 'em like they used to." Hell, who of you out there can't recite the code to Contra in your sleep? So here's my little brother playing this Tony Hawk game. It amazes me that we're up to 4 versions already in what, four years? I'm sure Tony Hawk is a fun game and that people love it, but when my little brother is 23 do you think he's going to be sitting around saying "Man, they sure don't make 'em like they used to. What ever happened to classics like Tony Hawk?" At current rate they will be up to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 22 by then. Since I was eight we've had four, going on five, Zelda games. Is Tony Hawk really the best game we have to offer my little brother? Couldn't there possibly be someone out there who is trying new things and breaking new ground in the video game industry? Is there any hope, or is the whole industry going to the toilet?

     I fear for Pickle's health. I spent close to four hours at his place last night and didn't see him move from in front of his computer the whole time. "Pic, you wanna go to the store?"
     "No"
     "Pic, you wanna go get a beer?"
     "Can't gotta save this chick?"
     "Pickle, the house is on fire."
     "Hold up, I gotta meet my party at the cemetery."

     Even though he has always had a strange obsession with RPG games I've never seen him completely enthralled in a game like this. The game of course is Neverwinter Nights. I'll admit that when we first got it I spent a few days without sleep trying to get my Half-elf Ranger to a level 12 druid, but I don't really think that the new arrows that Pickle purchased at the hut on such-and-such a server is really an appropriate dinner conversation. This video pretty much sums up the whole thing, I laughed my ass off at this by the way. So with the thought that Pickle's life revolves around online role-playing as is, imagine this with me. LucasArts announced that Star Wars Galaxies will be shipped April 15, 2003. Pickle and I once spent close to 15 hours in line for tickets to a Star Wars flick. The combination of RPG Pickle and MMORPG Star Wars could destroy him.

     In order to keep myself entertained while over at Pic's I finally got a chance to check out some games on the Cube. Mario Sunshine was pretty cool, Pickle and Snowcone swear up and down that it's the same game as Mario 64 with a water pack added. I didn't play Mario 64 very much so I don't remember. Metriod Prime was also another game that I've desperately wanted to play. I know that Pickle gave it a pretty good review, but to be totally honest I was highly unimpressed. The controls were just too unnatural to me and strafing should never be a highly complex task in any FPS. Don't even get me started on jumping from platform to platform; let's just say that Pickle is now minus one controller for his Cube. Before all the email starts pouring in about me being a Nintendo hater let me explain. Honestly I root for Nintendo to succeed, they were a big part of my growing up and they do a really good job of trying new things out in games. When 8-bit graphics went passé I went the Genesis direction instead of the SNES, and then I went PS instead of N64. Thus far I have been highly unimpressed with the Cube as well. Wrestlemania X8 gets my vote for "over-hype of the year." Metriod was unplayable in my opinion and Sunshine wasn't anything special. In case you can't tell I'm not exactly holding my breath for Zelda either. Honestly though, I would like to see Zelda be as good as the hype has been. Nintendo really needs a great game like that to compete with the PS2 and Xbox next year.

     If you just woke up from a coma and haven't heard y et Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers came out this week. The crew was there on opening night as usual. You can read my review of the whole experience. Personally I loved the movie, one of the best films ever made in my opinion. Over the course of the week I've been reading contrasting opinions from people on forums and review sites, etc. A lot of people seem to be pissed off that the movie wasn't as good as the book. Personally never having read the book I only have one thing to say to these people. "Shut the hell up!" When's the last time you went and saw a movie based on a book you've read and said "Gee that movie kicked the book square in the balls?" Let me give you a bit of advice that will help all of you through life. The book is always better than the movie, learn to cope! The Two Towers was a great movie, a thousand times better than the crap Hollywood usually tries to shove in our face.

     A quick couple of things I need to throw in that aren't worthy of their own paragraph. SimCity 4 has been completed and will be shipping soon. Does anyone care? So help me God if you people buy this game and cause a SimCity 5 to be put in production. TNN has also announced that they will be hosting some sort of video game awards show. This sounds so boring that even the press release was too dull to finish. I was unaware that TNN ever showed anything other than WWE and Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns. Every time I flip by the channel that seems to be what's on. Hopefully this award show will just go away without me having to see a commercial for it every thirty seconds, and then actually having to watch it and cover it for you readers. All Snackbarians are banned from using AOL Broadband until; a. they make their product acceptable or b. a substantial donation is made to the "Buy Soda an Xbox Fund." Christmas break started on Monday and I'm crashing out at my parent's house for a month until school starts again. Of course I couldn't live without broadband for a month so I brought my computer home with me, my parents use AOL. AOL Broadband is damn near impossible to share between two computers simultaneously. Six hours and two trips to Best Buy later I finally got the damn thing working. Sort of.

     It's been a productive week. I'm ready for some new games to come out though. It seems like every game I am excited about doesn't come out until spring. Speaking of which, IGN has a new trailer of Def Jam Vendetta. You'll rue the day you crossed me IGN! That pretty much covers everything from this week. I hope everyone enjoyed this feature and I look forward to writing it in the future. Hit me with some feedback if you get a chance. Soda out.

Dec 21, 2002 - 12:00 am | 2 comments
Shane Quast