Death Binges - How GTA 3 Actually Stole our Hearts

DISCLAIMER: I shouldn't need to say this, but certain individuals need it spelled out for them. This article obviously does not condone the real life act of shooting firearms in public places. All acts of violence expressed within in a positive light are fictional, digital and thus not real. As much as people like to pretend that video games cause real life violence, the truth is that mental illness and real life violence cause real life violence. There are millions upon billions of people in the world who do not commit these acts of violence and yet they have played and enjoyed games such as these as well as video games that are far worse. If you have any concerns of moral ambiguity on games rated M for Mature or video game codes of ethics, you are free to close this window or move on to the next article. Thank you for your time. 

Everyone has their own flavor of sandbox games to choose from now. If you wanted to have powers and be able to kill random people with lasers and fire from your hands, there is Saints Row 4 and Infamous. If you like westerns, there're Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. If you just want a blank slate world with different continents and islands built in, there's Minecraft, Ark, Garry's Mod, the list goes on. Now days, you can do whatever you want in these worlds, and it all began on the streets of Liberty City. 

Grand Theft Auto 3 and its direct successors brought about immersion on another level. While you weren't able to go into every building, you could drive on every street, steal whatever cars you want, so long as there are no cops and/or it's not locked, and you can drive over people by the dozens, so long as you're ready to start racing the fuzz. While there was a main line mission to get to, there were also people who still draw breath. 

A lot of people like to just put in the cheat gunsgunsgunsgunsgunsguns and that will be enough to get you an arsenal with which to destroy entire crowds of bystanders. Now, this may sound easy, but once the police begin to barge in with their cars and their guns, it's suddenly a shootout and you need to be in cover. The AI of old was not great, and if you have the high ground with a railing (much like the one beside the hospital) you will have the advantage. The police can still shoot you, but it's much more difficult for them now, as the idea to go up the ramp doesn't occur to them very often. 

Depending on your choice of weapons, this can be pretty devastating. Employing the molotov cocktails and burning groups of people can hold some benefits. The problem is that if you release them too lightly, the fire will catch onto you. Now, this is also true for grenades, and those have a higher chance of killing you. The flamethrower for targets nearer to you is a way to go. It cooks and it's nice and clean so long as the people don't approach you while they are on fire. You need to keep at least some small distance but they will die very quickly. 

If you were wanting to go a more subtle route, there is the sniper rifle. This will literally take an NPC's head off. It may even kill two or three if you line them up correctly. Another horrifically awesome way to distance kill is with the AR-15. It shreds in this game! The AK-47 gets the job done but the AR-15 will even take down a helicopter after about a full clip. Usually, helicopters are best with the rocket launcher. 

Oh yes, dear reader, there is a rocket launcher and it is to be used with caution, as all rocket laucnhers are. This one is a bit more devastating than usual, though, and there are times when helicopters come in a little too close for comfort. One rocket will make people fall to pieces in large groups, though, and its power is not to be overlooked. You may also need it if you ever get tanks or other armored SWAT vehicles. It gets rather nasty.

Speaking of tanks, there is another cheat called giveusatank and you get one on the road immediately, destroying any vehicle beneath it. That's what this does. It takes the action movie cliche of cars exploding on impact to a new level. Every single car you hit, boom! You can drive down the street and fire off the cannon, sure, but you really only need to drive. Cop cars will run directly into you and explode immediately. This doesn't last forever, though, and once your tank lights on fire, you'd better exit, or you will find yourself faced against the word, WASTED! 

This is basically GTA 3's bread and butter and it has been for a good number of years. Other video games have broadened this idea and even improved on it. Saints Row 2 even put minigames where it keeps score on your progress of knocking civilians. There's no shame in enjoying this, sometimes it's just nice to take some anger out on some digital nonplayer characters. Just keep it in the digital world and drink real water.

Top 160+ Favorite Games of all time! (Pt 5)

We're going deep into territories of my absolute favorite titles, and this bunch is a great example of how many great games there are to choose from. There's all kinds of genres, but one look at the list shows off my deep love for the roleplaying games. Strangely enough, Final Fantasy VII is the oldest game on this segment of the list. I promise you, that will change as we move up toward the #1 position. There are still good games being made, but the mid to late 90's were a special time where games started to create franchise starters.  

79 Saints Row IV

Yes, this game is not the greatest in the series and yes, there were a lot of changes that weren't great, but this title has a lot of greatness to it still. Saints Row fell off the deep end, but it still did a very memorable send off. Hacking into the system and giving yourself super powers may not make a lot of sense, but it is a lot of fun to play out in a free roaming sandbox game. Taking out entire patrols with one explosion of your powers is just so satisfying. This game is the last great Saints Row game, and it's probably going to hold that title for a very, very long time.

78 Left 4 Dead 2

This is one of those sequels that let's you have your cake and eat it too. Not only does it introduce new zombies, new main characters, new weapons and new maps, but it also gave you everything from the first game updated with the new mechanics and old characters. This game is fun whether you're playing with other players or just playing with bots. Either way, you're working your way through zombie hordes and throwing molotovs at boss zombies to see how long it takes to kill them. If you wanted to play either game, just get the sequel. You'll get the full experience through all of it. 

77 Cyber Trooper Virtual-On Marz

While it is not quite as good as its predecessor, the sequel to Virtual On brings all of what you love about the first game and makes it ten times harder. Getting through some of these hordes of mech suits is just ridiculous at times. It's also ridiculously fun! Destroying mechs and dueling Cyber Troopers is still an amazing time. This game can be especially unforgiving but the controls and the combat are just an all around good time. Not to mention, the graphics upgrade is just flat out beautiful.

76 Final Fantasy VII

Cloud has become one of the icons of gaming, and here's where it all started. This is a long, very complicated game when it comes to its story, but the combat is simple enough for everyone to play and enjoy it. The fast paced roleplaying element is one of the most enjoyable aspects of it, as well as it's beautiful 1997 graphics. This is one of those games that revolutionized graphics and brought games to a new era of 3D polygons. If you've got a long span of time to spend playing a legendary roleplaying game, give this one a try.

75 Skies of Arcadia

A high flying, swashbuckling adventure on the sky in our big huge air ship! The combat is mixed with both sky pirates and explosions! You must make your way across the sky and take on big surprises along the way. Discover new lands as you spend hours making your way through this gigantic world and storyline. This game allows you to fight with both your crew and your ship. With magic and swords at your grasp, you need to be strategic and take down unique enemies that present challenges of their own. Do not miss out on playing this game, as it is a Dreamcast classic. 

74 Dragon Quest IX

Create your own character for a beautiful experience in the Dragon Quest universe. Fight through goblins and gain up a new party for adventures across the land. You must discover the origin of these horrible monsters that destroy the land and you must fight powerful foes and gain experience in order to face the more powerful demons that face off with you. This game can get a bit grindy but who doesn't see that coming in a Dragon Quest game? The graphics are beautiful and the 3D environment still gives you that sense of fantasy as it always has throughout this franchise of games.

73 Mortal Kombat Deception

When you must travel across the land in order to find more and more power and learn all of the fighting styles, you've got to wonder why all of the games didn't do this. Deception is not a perfect Mortal Kombat game, but the adventure mode is just priceless. The story is a bit convoluted and takes kind of a stupid turn near the middle, but the journey to get all of the orbs for what turned out to be Onaga had to be some of the best game mechanics while being a bit crude in that PS2 kind of way. The combat is still there, as it is a fighting game, and it just beats Deadly Alliance out in everything, including character roster. This is where the 3D MK Era really peaked.

72 Red Dead Redemption 2

One problem with this game is that there it can feel like there is entirely too much to do. That is not a bad problem to have. It's so easy to get immersed into this world of cowboys and shootouts. If you're a fan of the old western culture and like to see a game that takes on authenticity with some actual thought, then you could look for worse ways to spend 20 hours. It's just an all around fun sandbox experience that you can just play on and off without losing too many detail. If you forget, just do another mission and you'll come across the story again. Now git! 

71 The House of the Dead

Sleep on the Sega Saturn version all you want, but I count it along with the arcade version as a worthy port. It's one of the first 3D shooter games where the graphics are good enough to make the gore very chunky without being too overly gross or off-putting. The bosses are fun to fight and find their weak spots. 

70 Elderscrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is a game that I will return to time and time again, because sometimes I just want to start a quest to go somewhere, somehow. It doesn't matter where you go on the map, there is a dungeon, or a castle, or a tower, or a dragon flying around nearby. Everywhere you go, there are vampires and bandits coming to kill you. You can customize your character by how you act. Every single skill that you constantly use, it keeps leveling up and that levels up your character as a whole. Whether you want to go melee or magic or both, this game will let you become that warrior and you can join whatever side you want. Skyrim is the peak of Elderscrolls and coming off of Murrowind and Oblivian, that is saying a lot.

69 Guardian Heroes

If you want a good, challenging and different roleplaying experience, Guardian Heroes has you covered. With a very entertaining storyline, some awesome combat mechanics and fast paced roleplaying action throughout, it's just fun to play. The graphics, especially for the time, were phenomenal and have aged like a fine cask of wine that you can crack open anytime you want the full Saturn experience. That's right, this is a gem on the Saturn that is honestly not talked about a tremendous amount. If you ever have a chance to play this without paying the scalping price, do give it a go.

68 The Lengend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

That's right, the legendary N64 classic is at a fairly moderate place and not in the top 50. Well, there's a lot of great games in the netherverse and not all of them can be in the best of orders. This game is still awesome and a whole lot of fun to play. Half the time, I hardly remember what to do whenever I play this game. This game's master version on the Gamecube is also a good hike on the graphics without making it lose its identity. Hell, you can face and kill Ganondorf on the 3DS now. Ocarina of Time is now on handheld. That just proves how much people love this game. 

67 Dragon Ball FighterZ

A fighting game that is downright addictive. Playing through the various modes, story modes, power leveling modes and even the ingame online interface, this is just a fun time for anyone who was a fan of the franchise. You can customize your icon to virtually any character in the series. The fighting mechainics allow you to perform the greatest versions of the Final Flash and the most bombastic Kamehameha and explore the fighting mechanics of characters through a team fighting system! While the story is nothing close to the original series, it is nice to see them coming out with new androids rather than just constantly bringing back Cell and Freeza as some sort of threat. This game is just hours upon hours of defeat and victory!

66 Shining the Holy Ark

This game is better than the sum of its parts. The story is rather cut and paste, but the point is that it is a pinnacle of 32-bit grime. This was a pure Saturn game, one that looked like the period it came from and just gave us dungeon crawling that allowed you to live in that 32-bit world and fight some of the most charming monsters since Dragon Quest... okay maybe not that memorable or awesome but this game has an ageless charm that struck me from my original Saturn collection.

65 Power Stone

Dreamcast's most awesome fighting game, bar none! That's a very competitive arena as well, because that include Capcom vs SNK, Street Fighter III, and Marvel vs Capcom 2. Power Stone has this amazing pure arcade graphic feel that is on a much different fighting arena. The maps are so much more 3 Dimensional than your normal fare, and Power Stone pulled it off in style. Fighting to get all of the stones during the fight is just so satisfying when you unleash that power and get a full bunch of attacks into your opponent. These stones can mean victory and defeat and blasting them into a crater is a rare pleasure of gaming.

64 Sonic Gems Collection

So, yes, you could say that I am lumping all of these games together, or you can realize that half of these games would never see the light of day without this collection. How many people do you know played on the Sega GameGear, let alone having Tails 2 for the stupid thing? This also has Sonic CD, Sonic R, and a plethora of other very obscure titles for Sonic and the experience of playing these games one after another is just so wonderful when it seems like you have an endless list of games to play. Sonic has some duds and some of them are in this collection, but those are just extra trimmings to an already solid bunch of titles.

63 Dragon Ball: Xenoverse

If you want the experience of fighting different villains all throughout Dragon Ball Z and GT, and whatever else they put into the DLC, then this is your game. It is a lot of fun to create your own character, make them whatever race you want (everyone loves to reach the different levels of super saiyan) and team up with the Z Warriors to fight the evil that comes to take on Earth. You're a Time Patroller, and you're sent on missions to take down someone who is trying to destroy the timeline as we know it and make a corruption take over the dimension itself. The combat is a lot of fun and the story is very simple. Xenoverse is just a good time for Dragon Ball fans.

62 Super Smash Bros.

Yes, the first Smash Brothers is on this list because it was the first. We seriously sat on my friend's bed until my legs were numb while we smashed each other's faces in as Pikachu, Captain Falcon and Star Fox. We did all types of games, from extra items, to just rockets, to no HP items to EXTRA HP items. It was just a lot of fun to unlock characters, hold mini-competitions and just have a good time with character we love. It left a legacy that continues today.

61 Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Arguably the objectively best Wolfenstein game ever made. The graphics are perfect for its time, the bad and the good about it. While not every level is the greatest, mostly the stealth missions, there are so many great traits to love. The callbacks to Wolfenstein 3D, the sniper rifle, the powerful new weaponry all around is great as you take down the third reich! Well, now it's in true 3D for the first time and it is probably the greatest leap in quality the series would ever see again. This and the 2009 game have nothing to do with each other, but they were good separate games for their time before the big New Order reboot. This game earns its place, though.

60 Grand Theft Auto III

Where it all began for many. The sandbox genre had one place to start and this was it! While the first two were good games in their own right, this is the milestone in gaming history many of us remember as the first. Before Saints Row or Infamous brought about the running, GTA3 was already running along with them. It was that great of a leap! Being able to kill random citizens and have actual concequences where the police will aim to kill or arrest you if you get out of line and it goes up from there the more you misbehave. And misbehave many did! Killing people in a rampage is this game as a child's park vs a theme park! It's fun to play by the rules, but to just fly off the wall and be able to survive for as long as you can, there is just so much fun to be had, and even after you lose, you can gather up your stuff and just carry on as if nothing happened. You'll have less money and all your weapons will be gone, but those are easily brought back. This game is long, some of the missions suck, but overall, this game is a legend and spawned an entire genre that would bring about even better, more high quality games. It put Rockstar on the map and there is a very good reason why. Kill well, just don't question why paramedics can bring a headless guy back to life. They just can!!!

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - Choke the Wookiee

Star Wars seems like a distant memory at this point. With the new media of the franchise crashing and dying upon arrival, Darth KK chipping all goodness in the universe away from everything we hold dear and Disney showing no signs of stopping, we need to hold onto everything we love about this series. KOTOR is one of those things. This is one of those games that really put Bioware on the map... you know... before they destroyed the map with Anthem. But we're here to shower a great game of old with praise... and a tiny bit of criticism, so let's get to that. 

Knights of the Old Republic is one of those games that does what it set out to do and it did so with such amazing style, that the franchise has been trying to replicate it ever since. It is not especially graphics savvy, it can chug like a wheezing geezer and there are glitches in just about every other level. How does it make up for this? With style, petite! KOTOR understood the assignment from page one and brought us into a story that we can literally shape for ourselves. 

You can become basically anything in this game, even when you are being pushed to be a jedi, you can just stick to the guns and the swords. You start off as a normal soldier, which is a little strange in retrospect, but whatever. You're a normal Republic soldier who gets under attacked within your vessel with all of your Republic buddies but you're one the few survivors. You're sent on a mission to recover Bastilla, teaming up with some random dude who can shoot a blaster. 

Doing any very important main quests takes a very long time. You are playing this game for around four to five hours, trying to find where Bastilla is, if you don't know what you're doing. Throughout the entire playthrough, the deeds your character does holds real weight. If you go to the dark side and decide you want to be a villain throughout the whole game, you really feel bad because of the things you need to do. Playing in the dark side mode is, by far, the most entertaining and also the most gutting experience this game has to offer. 

Darth Malak is one of the better villains you face in the Star Wars universe. He is just evil and he wants to win and rule the Sith. He can't do that because your character exists. The lengths he goes to in order to kill you and Bastilla is really heart-wrenching, as it kills pretty much everyone you meet in the first chapter of the entire game, aside from your companions. He's threatening, powerful and he is quite the intimidating figure. 

Your companions are also a huge factor in this game. Bastilla turns out to be the most important one, because of her battle meditations, but the rest of them really add a great spice to the game. Carth is the guy who helped you through the tutorial level and is your companion through Taris. The corrupted Jedi, Juhani the cat girl, had the most interesting backstory and also one of the more sympathetic. Mission and Zaalbar also bring about a good bit of light humor to the mix. All in all, even the droid brings about some character to the story. 

Once you get your own lightsaber, the game becomes your oyster. You can either keep the single bladed lightsaber, take Bastilla's double blade, or fight with two lightsabers once you get another one. There are a TON of lightsabers in this game and there's an entire cave full of crystals with which to upgrade them and change the blade's color. Red, green, purple, yellow, they're all up for grabs and you're welcome to customize it to your liking. Becoming a jedi is one of the most enjoyable experiences. Even using the powers is a ton of fun, as they are very intuitive to use and there are a lot of useful abilities.  

The worlds you visit are also a brilliant highlight for this game. For many Star Wars fans, it was the first time we have ever seen Kashyyk, the home of the Wookiees. After a big forested planet, you can make your way over to the sea planet where you need to meet and talk to/kill a giant primordial shark. Then, of all planets, you go to Tatooine! You go to all of these different planets in order to find Star Maps. These Star Maps lead you to a machine that can harness the power of the sun to create star fleets. 

From befriending a Mandalorian, to solving a random murder mystery, you basically do a whole spectrum of different tasks and missions throughout your adventure. Sometimes, the daunting tasks can get a little monotonous. Sometimes, on repeated playthroughs, you can start remembering parts and missions that you didn't care for a great deal the first time. The Krate Dragon mission in the middle of the Tatooine desert, on top of the Tuskan Raiders you need to either kill or negotiate with, the schedule in this game is pretty full. 

It's not perfect, obviously, and sometimes the soundbytes for the alien languages replay over and over again. That gets kind of annoying. Then there's the fact that when you try to do the speeder races on Tatooine, you pretty much cannot beat the final race. You either need to get that race absolutely perfect or you lose and need to constantly retry. Either way, it's just not worth it and you're better off moving on. 

The greatest thing about this game is the fact that you can either help the good bandits on a planet, or help their enemies in killing them in order to get what you want. No matter how you go about accomplishing your mission, it's just a ton of fun to see how many ways you can do it and still come out on top. This guys for many facets of the game, including the final boss fight when you need to figure out how to depower him and take away his life support. There's a good way and a very bad way. 

KOTOR came when games didn't really have that many great science fiction roleplaying games of great story and depth. There were some, sure, but Knights introduced a deeper story system, deeper characters and a very dynamic moral system that is fun to play around with. It's really just a shame that KOTOR II couldn't turn out this great. It was a good game in its own right, but it also had much larger, more glaring problems. So, until then, Nerph-herders!!!!

Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. - World Face Smash!

 Well, look at that! This isn't the reinvention of a Sega Saturn game exactly, but it's definitely along the same lines! This is a revival of a franchise that we all can get behind and bash someone's teeth out! All of your favorite characters are back, with some others... but the favorites are still here! Jeffry and Pai-chan are still here, and that's all I need to make mince meat out of everyone! 

This game, being more online savvy, is mostly for the internet fighting bunch, and that's fine and dandy. The great news is, you don't need to be online and you don't need to fight other people if you don't want to. It will make you feel like you're fighting other people, but what they're actually doing is just using other people's character design with the different cosmetics on them and making their A.I. fight you like they normally would. Some of these cosmetics are pretty cool, actually, but some of them also don't make sense. Aoi wasn't in the first Virtua Fighter but she still has a retro character skin in the same vain! Weird...

The game modes and game mechanics are all still here. The prim and proper game controls are back in all of their fighting majesty. You still have the ranking matches, where you fight versus the computer en masse, one after the other. The ranking matches and viewing all of the beautiful backgrounds is awesome by itself, but then there's the matches where you need to fight in cages and can't ring out, or fight against wooden rails where you need to really work to smash them out of the ring! 

They kept it simple, as Virtua Fighter does, and kept the game modes from becoming too broad or overwhelming in their scope. They're simple and concise: random matches, ranked matches, online matches, tournament, practice matches. You can create online rooms so you can fight opponents in multiple matches or you can just hop from online match to online match. 

Now, be careful while doing this, because there are plenty of people out there who are just wanting to have wins on their ranking sheet. So, some of them will try to avoid the L by exiting the match in the middle of it. This happened to me. I still haven't even checked to see if I was labeled to win that match or not, but I won 2 matches out of 5 and they bailed before I could win the third. It's a common occurrence but we're just here to play the game. 

Virtua Fighter keeps its reputation as being one of the tightest fighting games on the market. Ever since it debuted the very first 3D fighting game through the first title, the game only improved over and over again as AM2 locked down the most awesome face smasher they could make. Virtua Fighter 2 still remains the king as far as Planet Virtua goes, but any one of them can be considered the best of the lot. They're just that awesome! So, check out the new VF5 and let's hope the success it pulls in will bring us a Virtua Fighter 6! 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (PS2) - Umbridge the Game

 Dolores Umbridge is a perfect representation for this game. On the surface, this game almost looks cute. It looks good in the graphics, for the most part and it has the feel of Harry Potter. The visage does not last long, though. All of it begins to come crashing down as you begin to play it. The more you play, the worse it gets. The combat, the level navigation and the movements in general, all of it was absolutely abysmal. The real problem is that this PS2 game is made in the style of the Wii game! This is a game that was meant to have a nunchuck and a Wiimote in order to play for the immersion of casting the spells with your wand. Does it translate to PS2? NO! No it does not!

The worst part about it is that it tries to stick to the story, but the dialogue, the action and everything it possesses is just executed horribly. Performing the "wand movements" with the PS2 controller only works whenever it feels like it. Sometimes, it glitches out and does not work at all. You literally need to restart the game in order to get it working again. Everything involving this style of control becomes monotonous and you feel like throwing the controller into Umbridge's face rather than continuing this mockery of gameplay. 

Running through the castle, following the Marauder's Map takes up 75% of the game! You thought Hogwarts Legacy had a terribly laid out Hogwarts? Well, I didn't, but apparently people complained about HL in its architecture for the school and I need to point to Order of the Phoenix for a stark difference. It takes FOREVER to get from point A to point B and this is obviously on purpose to extend the game's runtime. Those cruel bastards! This game is already terrible enough, you don't need to torture us with such foul tactics! 

Voice work in this title was absolutely horrific, and while the graphics were alright overall, the uncanny valley for every character is very noticeable. That may be a little harsh on the graphics animators, but they were also the ones who put the WB and the EA Games logo in every single time you LOAD a game! Those things should be in before the title, not the literal Loading of the game! This has it in both! It's understandable to do this sort of thing when people select New Game, but what the hell!? 

Doing the spells is hard enough, but then there is also the fact that they constantly dip down as you fire them. The range is atrocious on all of them and it looks like a sad little drip from your wand. You want it to look like the movies, yes? Well, they apparently didn't seem to think it was that important so now your wand is impotent! Thanks, EA, that was really nice of you! I can see why your company has been voted the worst! Constantly! 

Harry Potter games are already bad enough, but this one was a special kind of terrible. I've already covered the first game in another review for the Gameboy Advanced version and that one was the worst of the bunch for that review as well! Everything there is present here, only in sharper focus, just in case you missed all of the SUCK the first time! Avoid this title like the Death Curse and make sure to take it easy on the pumpkin juice! Don't use love potions this Valentine season and good luck with the redcaps! Virtua Kedavra! 

Watchmen: The End is Nigh - Endless Human Bean Juice

When it comes to the Watchmen, polarizing doesn't even begin to describe what people think of it. Some believe that it revolutionized the superhero genre while others believe it ruined the superhero genre. What it did, essentially, was both. On one hand, it brought about deeper, more meaningful storylines that reach into a more gray area morality of its characters. Introducing that darker side brought more versatile and interesting plot elements and deeper conversations. On the other hand, some took that as a free pass to make their characters complete assholes but have just enough of a friendly side to make people think they're good. They took it to mean that they could introduce horrible sexual or horrific violent acts into their comics and call it dark romantic art when it is obviously just fulfilling a more private kink that belongs in a more niche portion of the internet. 

All of that depth of story and character along with the quality of filmmaking in the movie are not present in this game here. The controversy and the stuff you like about Watchmen are lost in this baffling example of a 3D beat'em up. There are cool elements present here, but that's all just surface level and only work if you really like these two characters. Obviously, if they were going to go with characters from the franchise, they at least picked one of the favorites. Rorchach. 

It would have been nice to use Dr. Manhattan, but if they can't get the formula for a Superman game down, I sincerely doubt they're going to get another god-like superhero in this instance. Nite Owl II was the natural choice, being they were partners in crime fighting for a while. Still, 9 times out of 10, people wanted to play as Rorschach, and 2 Player was stuck with Mr. Owl. 

It doesn't matter in the slightest in terms of gameplay. Where these two are known for their different fighting styles, only the bare bones of this is present. Nite Owl II uses his fighting skills along with an array of gadgets and technological weapons to enhance his fighting abilities. Rorschach used improvised weapons and different things to gain an advantage in a fight. In this game, you can pick up a weapon and use it for a bit. Beyond that, you fight and kick the crap out of everyone. 

The special moves are just not enough to keep this game afloat. They're cool to look at and they bring about a good flow all the way up until they are just tired. Once you gain up all of your powerup meter, you enter into a speed-up ability for Rorschach and the only gadget that Nite Owl uses to fight, his electricity. Oh, you don't remember Nite Owl's electric attack from the movie and comic? Well, it doesn't matter, he has one here.

Yes, the graphics look pretty good and it's cool to play as Rorschach, but beyond that, you hit buttons. Once you've figured out the controls, and that you can roll away, you've won the game. All it does is just use gangsters and thugs with more thugs and more gangsters as you go along. Does it need more difficulty in that part of the game? Pile on more thugs and make it nearly impossible without running and fighting each of them one at a time as much as you can. That's the game right there. The best beat'em ups bring in cool technology, powers, powerups, bosses and settings. This one has cool settings... the rest of it is just button mash until thugs down, then repeat. 

It's hard to recall anything about this game. The only reason I remembered it in the first place was that it went on sale with BOTH episodes on Steam. That's right, this game has two episodes so that it can squeeze just a little more money out of your pockets. Is it worth such a cheap price tag? Well, yes, honestly, it's still fun enough to keep you playing for a little while, at least until you get sick of seeing yet another mob of thugs and gangsters coming out of yet another door.

It's fun in a rough and tumble sort of way, but it also is mostly for small doses. Sitting through this entire game in one sitting is a big ask, especially if you're talking about both installments. They're not even that long. It's not even that big of a game, but it's still hard to keep going after you've already beaten down half of Manhattan. The game is generous enough to give you a Lost button that will point you in the proper direction, but even then, that just shows you how samey and copy/paste each level is. It's worth a playthrough if you get the game for around 2 Spacebucks. I'll let you choose but you need to choose right now. GO! DO IT!!! Virtua Combustion!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - Foot Ninja on Minimum Wage

 The turtles need no introduction, but here we go anyway! TMNT is among one of the best and greatest franchises to come out of the 80's. It sold billions upon billions of dollars in toys and spawned everything from TV shows to breakfast cereals and fruit pies. The video games came in droves and this is one that is a love letter to the beat'em ups of old. While TMNT for the arcade (or TMNT 2 for the NES) and TMNT 4: Turtles in Time are seen as the greatest in the genre, this is one that was released in 2022 and cultivated through DLC ever since. 

You'll see, from the very start, that this is one of those beat'em ups that are just intuitive and brings about nostalgia just from the art style the game presents. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, and just brings about ancient ninja turtle enemies and allies unapologetically. Foot ninjas come in all colors with all kinds of weapons and it's just a lot of fun to see what they're doing before you come onto the screen. Sometimes, they just come in and attack you. Sometimes, the foot ninja are doing something else. Some of them are eating, some of them are shopping, some of them are working as desk clerks and fast food cooks. 

There are enemies from all over the TMNT franchise. From Leatherhead to Metalhead, from Bebop and Rocksteady to Tokka and Rahzar, this game has them all! Does it bring about a great, detailed story for this to come in? No! It's a cartoon and it owns up to that through silly game and comic book logic, like Krang's robot body being collected little by little while the turtles over celebrate and fail to notice the obvious badguys. 

It's a beat'em up, so there's a level of monotony, but that's to be expected. It's still well paced and there's a lot of great call-backs to the comics, TV shows and fan service of all kinds popping up through secrets, collectibles and achivements that give those nostalgia bones a pop. You can even play as so many different characters, not only the turtles but also Miyamoto Usagi and Casey Jones! Once you beat the entire game, you start unlocking all kinds of new content. 

Beating the game is actually a ton of fun, especially when you get closer and closer to the end game from the original version. Fighting against Shredder and Krang comes to a new head as you fight the Super Shredder! This fight is so satisfying, especially if you're able to pull it all off, not dying with all of the power ups and health drops. Fans of Turtle Power are sure to love this, especially if you're a huge fan of the arcade classics. 

The DLC's are few and cheap. Just because they are paid DLC doesn't take away from the fact that they elongate this game in the best ways and give you more options of play. This game brings in elements we loved from the games we played back when the NES was popular and arcades ran these games like rivers of gold. It really feels like these types of games being produced so well is becoming more and more rare as time goes on. We should have more games like this. Let's keep fighting Shredder and Krang and keep consuming pepperoni, mushrooms and cheese! Virtua Ninja Pizza Run!!!!

Stadia - How Consoles can Eat Themselves

When the console wars reach new generations, sometimes we start seeing some very strange runners in the race. Every so often, they can be mega billion dollar juggernauts that smash our faces with awesomeness, like Nintendo's initially questionable Switch console. However, sometimes, there comes a console that has everyone scratching their heads, wondering where people came up with these... things. Sometimes the consoles just... aren't there. They were so proud of the fact that you do not have the console in your home and you could play your... thing on any screen in your house. It could be any screen far away, in a hotel. Tablets, smart TV's, phones, anything with access to the internet and some sort of controller feature could be used to play the games you... well... that's another problem. 

Problems, that is a big word you can use when you talk about Google's new project, Stadia. Once the platform launched November 2019, all you needed to do was pay one monthly fee. Well, there was also a $129 bill on top of that, which had people a little confused. You see, this whole "no hardware" deal they had with the console was all based around freedom to play it anywhere, no matter what, so long as it met the specs. Now they're telling customers that there is hardware you need to buy, the controller for the console was still required to be Stadia hardware. This seemed foolish because people already had universally praised Xbox controllers that they hook up to pretty much anything and play. There were a number of ways Google could allow people to use their own controllers, but they still needed that, on top of a connection link that you needed to input. 

The whole idea was that you could play this anytime anywhere and use games from a distant server that held all of your games, now that idea was obscured. This did not look good on them, especially when the console launched and there were... other problems. Users were starting to see this distant server gaming idea as more of an issue than a feature, as connectivity to the controller was very lax. People's input when they pressed the button did not match what was on the screen and there was a half second, sometimes even two or three second delay, depending on connectivity. 

On top of this, the lagging issues with servers and the capability of hardware was starting to show its cracks in their sales pitch. People were seeing strong issues with not simply turning off the Stadia, turning around and switching on literally any other console or PC and playing that way. In a world where you can play classic, beloved titles from your phone, Google was trying to shove their ways into people's hardware with not only terrible connectivity issues, but also a very limited library. 

This Planet Virtua has talked about the issues with people being patient with consoles and building their libraries. Playstation 4 had issues getting games out quickly and that hindered some in their sales, not that it mattered in the end. Stadia, however, was coming out with a brand new "console" with only a handful of current titles, fifty or so older titles, and one single exclusive...  This is not even stating that they had twenty or so games when it actually launched. They needed to play catchup and it felt like they never got any steam going when it came to what people wanted: The GAMES! It was 2019 going into 2020 at a time when people were having to stay in doors and they couldn't pick up the pace to try and strike while the iron is hot. They were still "releasing" games from 2016! 

Gylt, Stadia's one real exclusive game, was a middling game with passable reviews, and that is the one single title that they are trying to sell us on? So, your server "power" doesn't really mean much if the hardware isn't up to specific requirements, that limits the consoles considerably. Then, your library is floundering from the start and never breaks a hundred until WAY into its lifespan and are played far better on other consoles. 

That was what kneecapped this system from the very start. It brought no innovation to the table, it was selling you back your old games, (which cost money, strangely enough) that people already owned and the experience playing on it was so wonky. One moment you're cruising no problems, then your game starts lagging and the controls go to crap. Stadia never truly fixed the control problems throughout its four year lifespan. The very idea that this bundle of horrible mishaps went on for four years is an abysmal notion. That's like dying from several bullet wounds but still trying to win the 5K run as you fade, this was not healthy for Google. Nor was it good for their cleaning bill.

They proved to be a terrible company, once again, upon Stadia's ending days. Google was going to pull the plug and they made the announcement public. Then game devs and people who worked at Google, on Stadia, found out about it along with the consumers, in September 2022. These people were going to be out of a job and they were given no prior notice to find another job. The console never reached any good heights, it never sold well, and even people who were dedicated to its success admitted that it never reached any real peaks. It was pretty much all valleys. 

They tried to tell us that this was just like Steam, that this was the platform you needed to get because it could be played anywhere on any screen, which made it better. This was going against a company and a platform that was tried and true from the get-go and started modestly, eventually turning into a gaming titan with its own issues. Stadia started out with issues and tried to show us gameplay that still needed processing and work. The technology sounded great on paper, but the execution was absolutely dreadful and unfinished. It just wasn't there. It officially became not there in January 2023. It's still not there. It's just not.

Blood - Drained the Supply

When listing the original first person shooters, a lot of people will give them reverence as i they are legends. In many ways, they are. Obviously, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D will be the first ones to come up, but then there will always be that wonderful one syllable title that comes up with such a mundane name: Blood. This will come with a bit of a polarizing reaction. Now, it's not quite as polarizing as Hexen, but it's also not quite as universally loved or even known as Duke Nukem. Blood came out in 1997, a year after Quake and it kind of got lost among the other titles of the time. 

Blood is extremely difficult for a number of reasons. The level design is very macabre, but also very imaginative, as there is an entire level where you derail an entire train and end up at an evil carnival. One very shining reason that this game is hard are the cultists. These hooded cultists come in the very first level and they carry machine guns and TNT. Put them on top of zombies with axes that may or may not die the first time you take them out, and you've got a sandwich that is very delicious but also quite hard to take a bite. 

This is nothing to mention the two crawling creatures, both rats and hands. The hands, by the way, are very possibly one-hit kills as they clamp onto you and strangle you. We haven't even gotten into the bullet sponge enemies! One guy with a white undershirt just spits green goo at you and then two types of gargoyles. Giant spiders, hellhounds, you get the picture, this game is a bit of a daunting task with the enemies alone. 

Then there are puzzles and secrets in the levels that cause a few complications, obviously. The great thing is that the secrets come in the form of spooky mansions, graveyards and crypts. Horror elements in this game have made it iconic among some of the more gothic fans of the FPS genre. You need to make sure you click on every gravestone and tomb you come across, as some of them slide in and give you ammo and health powerups. 

The weapons are quite unique among the original first person shooters as well. There is a machine gun, of course, but your melee weapon is a pitchfork. The mechanics also favor explosives, as they come in the form of TNT, remote mines, and even a can of hairspray that you can also use with a lighter for a flamethrower. The shotgun, however, is one of the better weapons in the game, especially when you get the guns akimbo powerup to have two shotguns. It has a good aim and damage distribution, being able to kill many of the smaller enemies with just one shot. 

One element where this game shines is the story and the boss battles. Now, does it make sense that the main badguy tried to kill you and failed only to make you more powerful to absorb you later? Not really. With so many henchmen and followers, he probably should have estimated that Caleb would grow more powerful than him. The Cerberus dog enemy, the boss gargoyle and the giant spider queen are all just flat out awesome to play and struggle against. It's a fairly safe bet that they can be defeated with the lightning gun, but these are where you expect them to soak up bullets like Officer Murphy. 

The graphics, for the time, were amazing. Early computers couldn't quite play it very well, but that was overcome rather well, as Quake was far more taxing to systems. Blood was still loved enough to invoke the remaster gods... twice. Yes, that's right, it came out again, twice. In fact, one of them came out just a few weeks before this article was written! Blood: Fresh Supply only came out in 2019, just six years later and boom! Blood: Refreshed Supply is released November 2025. 

Now, this is not a complaint, as it is clear that they did this in order to take all of the work they did from Fresh Supply. This allowed them to bring about versions of the game that includes all of the downloadable content and even some of the game mods they decided to make official. Marrow and Deathwish by themselves are well worth getting the new iteration of the game. This newest version is also quite a bit more stable than Fresh Supply, so this is a must have for all of you old school shooters. 

Blood is considered among the best in the genre. Among the original Doom Clones, it has a very steady fanbase. Well, now you can play it online again, and even get to know some of the new features. Blood is an acquired taste for some, but if you really want to get a taste of the original first person shooters, this is required playing. Just be sure not to turn the difficulty all the way up right away, not unless you want to be punished for something very bad. In that case, crank the Blood up to eleven! Virtua Blam!