People often say that kids “don’t come with instructions”, and while I could argue that point (my first two are Navy brats and I was presented with a 800+ page manual when the first was born, and even my youngest came equipped with a stack of booklets), I’m willing to concede that becoming a parent is a lot like getting hired for a job for which we have little formal training. So what do you do? Well, most of us spend the first couple of years doing everything in our power just to keep them alive. Don’t believe me? You’ve probably never thought about it much, but think of all those vaccinations, the degree to which you’ve either baby-proofed your home or the numerous times that you’ve leapt across the family room to retrieve that older child’s too small toy from your toddler’s clutches, the “Don’t talk to strangers” talks, and the all-time favorite “Don’t do drugs”.

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Back in the day, then I was writing for another site, the kind people over at Atari UK sent me a copy of The Witcher. You may wonder why I got in touch with the UK division, and the answer is simple, the American version was mercilessly censored at the time. In any event, The Witcher is a wonderful game, and I was very happy with it. (That means you should buy it, by the way.)

Later, however, the patch came out, and then an extended edition, and another patch. These were not your regular patches; they actually added content and improved many things about the game. Or so I have heard, because I couldn’t install a single one of them.

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If you can’t make killing zombies fun, you can’t make anything fun.

Now, take that in context: I’m a 2nd year law student. I’m used to being surrounded by soulless, flesh-eating monsters. I also think there’s a little part of all of us that wants a release from the pressure of standing out in an overly populated world and just succeed merely by surviving. Or maybe we’re just a bunch of middle-class man-children who’ve always had too much to lose to do what we want, which is grab a shotgun and go to town on every slack-jawed, animated corpse who gets in our collective face.

Whatever the reason, there are precious few things my friends and I enjoy more than a good zombie blasting. Which is why I am appalled at the incredible let-down that has been Left 4 Dead. It wasn’t an awful game, it just wasn’t worth the money we paid for it. All we got was four characters with no distinct abilities or even personalities, 4 weapons, and no plot. Single-player mode was virtually unplayable. The only thing a change in difficulty did was make your teammates more useless.

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Hello, everyone! Congratulations to all of you, for today is the day of my glorious return. It’s been 1606453 hours since I departed, but now you can stop holding your breath. That’s right, I have come back and will write for Avault once again. Just as before, I will focus on reviewing PC games so that you know what’s good for you. Follow my recommendations and you will live a long, productive and healthy life, become successful in your business and studies, acquire fame and riches beyond your wildest dreams, get the girl, win the lottery, your children will be accepted into a good college, and your enemies will tremble! Go forth my minions and… Umm… Sorry… I’ve been seeing a specialist for my megalomania.

In any event, I’m glad to be back officially. You’ve probably seen some of my reviews over the past few months, but now that I have a blog of my own – I’m a real boy… man… man-child.

As to my latest gaming endeavors, some of you will be pleased to know that I am currently playing a new MMO, with intent to review. Also I am in a beta test of a multiplayer tactics game, which I may also write about. If that’s not enough, I am playing World in Conflict, which I will not review because it’s old, but I’d like to report that I am kicking some serious commie behind which (along with zombie, nazi and orc ones) is the best behind to kick.

Alaric out

Don’t get me wrong, I feel really cool whenever that little notification pops up in the corner of my screen to tell me I just smashed 5 whole sets of chattering teeth. I didn’t know why I did it, or even that I was doing it, but there I sit, like a puppy who just figured out that he’ll be praised whenever he swings his paw at the bald, flat-faced figure before him. I know everybody who’s ever played the game before has done it. Hell, I did it by accident. But it feels good. Just imagine how good it’ll feel when I unlock every last achievement, even the really tough ones that nobody gets. There have to be some that nobody’s done, right? I mean, nobody I know, anyway. Right?

Wrong. I feel empty. I feel like, in the time it took to knock that arrow down with my knife, I should have learned to play the piano, or speak French, or even play a video game I haven’t long since lost interest in.

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I remember the old days when every time you bought a video game at a certain store chain, they always offered to sell you a cleaning kit. Systems and games do not need cleaning kits these days, but what they do need is Borderlands from Gearbox Software. I have been anxiously waiting for this game to be released since I first heard about it. It’s like an RPG and FPS went on a blind date, liked each other, got married and had a child. Each of the four character classes is going to have its own skill tree, and you can play them the way you want to. The game’s story and everything that comes with it is going to be just purely amazing.

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How much are you willing to spend for a 3D version of Duck Hunt? Developer Bioware is hoping that your answer is 400 Microsoft points (that’s $5 in real American greenbacks) with the release of Pinnacle Station, the second DLC pack for their excellent (but 2-year-old) space opera Mass Effect. Eighteen months after the launch of the first expansion, Bring Down the Sky, which added a brief but interesting 90 minutes to the original game, Bioware has given us the equivalent of a trip to the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” holodeck to keep us busy until the early 2010 release of the full-blown sequel.

After Pinnacle is installed, you start up the main game, take the bridge of the Normandy and pilot the ship to Pinnacle Station, a training facility in which you and your squadmates attempt to take first place on the leaderboards of eight simulations, programmed by a smart-aleck alien to whom you must report to begin. You choose one of four combat modes (Time Trial, Capture, Survival or Hunt), then one of two venues. You also get to take two comrades with you into the simulator. No matter which mode you choose, the object is basically the same: kill as many enemies as possible before the simulation ends.

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This past summer has honestly been one I will never forget, but also one that I really do not want to remember. My father, Elmer Daniel Moody, passed away on June 1st. This past year he had been battling a rare cancer of the small intestines which spread to his liver, and while doctors had stated that we would not have to worry for a “little” while, his heart gave way. He died of a heart attack at 67.

Since his passing, much self reflection has led me to conclude that my father made the greatest impact on my life thus far. His honorable disposition in life is one I have seen in few. I know this may sound cliché, but I truly witnessed his full impact on others at the funeral. He affected so many lives. I was in awe. It wasn’t the fact he did great things, but his life was a testament that he did little things with a great amount of love and every action and word he spoke came from the heart.

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So, I guess I’m aiming at doing a “Remake It” once every two years or so, because from checking the date, 2007 was my last (or was that first?) entry.

2007?

Wow, that IS a long time. Sorry ‘bout that.

Well, the good news is that I’m finally back with Part 2, and although it may not be everyone’s cup of grog, I’d like to point out that it’s about time we get an upgrade to the Mutant League series. Remember? Gore, ghouls and field hazards aplenty, released upon us in the prime of 16-bit gaming?

What baffles me is why this Electronic Arts property isn’t already on the shelves! I never considered myself much of a football fan at all, but when I popped the cart into my Genesis, all things were suddenly understood. All of the hits I watched when my dad commandeered the TV for “Monday Night Football” made total sense to me in that what I was seeing and hearing after Hank Williams Jr. sang was essentially a watered down version of the sport, made suitable for television audiences.

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Readers who frequent the PC reviews here at Avault have probably noticed that I have started posting video commentary on YouTube along with my regular game reviews. I thought I would take a few minutes here and explain what my goals are with these video commentaries, where I see them going, and how they connect with our other work here.

My initial foray into video commentaries was sparked by some of my academic work. I purchased a copy of Fraps so I could screen capture games for use in presentations. After doing some initial work, I realized that there were some things I could highlight to our readers in a video that would take up too much space in a written review, such as describing the good and bad qualities of a title’s interface. I did some experiments, and found that iMovie makes adding commentary fairly easy, provided I keep the cats out of my hair (they like to mew at me while recording). It’s taken a bit of practice, but I really only need about an hour or two to record and edit a video commentary once I have the raw footage from the game.

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I would like to extend my arms with a great big gaming-and-introductory-blog-post hug. Not a creepy get-out-of-my-face hug, but rather a have-not-seen-you-in-forever, I-thought-you-were-dead hug to everyone. I am very excited to get the opportunity to have this blog and share it with you.

Having been mostly a PC gamer first and console gamer second, I recently broke into today’s “Next Gen” consoles when I bought an Xbox 360. It all started while visiting my brother in Japan. To make a long story short, I tore up my knee while skiing and required surgery. This finally gave me an excuse to get rid of my Wii and get myself an Xbox 360, because I was not going to be doing any break dancing for a while. After that I became a hybrid PC/console gamer who dabbles in portable systems from time to time.

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… and I must say that I was rather surprised. I mean, it’s not a normal malfunction that PC users confront in the course of their daily lives. It’s also the kind of thing that defies typical conversations. Imagine the following discussion while hanging around at ones workplace.

“Over the weekend my monitor caught fire.”

“Really? I guess it smelled bad.”

“Yeah. The flames didn’t shoot up very high. I was kind of disappointed.”

“Too bad. Becoming a towering inferno was the least it could do before dying on you.”

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So I just spent the weekend delving into the Xbox 360 1943 Pacific download. Laugh? My neighbours, concerned at the noises emanating from my house, nearly called emergency services twice. Somehow I don’t think Activision had the game down as a straight comedy. I must admit, it’s not a straight comedy—I found it veering from hilarity to extreme frustration in a matter of minutes.

Overall, the comedy seemed to eradicate the in-game frustrations, which was quite handy. I fired my Thompson SMG point blank into the back of an enemy soldier (who thought he was successfully hidden in a copse of trees)—I know, sneaky of me—but he turned around and offed me with a samurai sword, which was a tad annoying. Minutes later I was roaring with laughter as another enemy soldier tried to spike me with a bayonet, but I dodged sideways and watched as he continued forward over the cliff behind me, never to be seen again. Then there was the time another enemy and I ran into the same small shack at the same time to chuck grenades at one another. Somehow we both survived; the building didn’t. The funniest for me, though, was the enemy who obviously thought he was a reincarnated “Mad Max,” ripping through roads in his jeep, squashing all who dared stray into his path. He tried the same with me, but he failed to spot the destroyed bridge section in the road directly behind me. I can still hear his yell of victory turn into a wail of despair as he and his vehicle plunged into the surf below.

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In case you missed Part 1.

3. Tales of Monkey Island (Wii – Summer) The Secret of Monkey Island remake (Xbox 360 – July)

While these two titles are completely independent, they were announced within a day of each other and are both primed to hit this summer. My cousin Jason said it best. “We’ve had a decade plus of nothing Monkey Island and then suddenly Guybrush Threepwood is back with a vengeance“. Like him, I think my brain is going to explode.

The Monkey Island games hold a spot on that lofty perch that I reserve for my most beloved game play experiences. Mario, Zelda and Metroid sit up there too, but not many more. This is elite company for sure and it’s a testament to the talent employed by LucasArts in the early-to-mid 90s that these titles linger long in memory. I understand why the art form died, (once 3D gaming came along, there wasn’t much call for 2D point-and-click adventures) but it’s a shame that the caliber of storytelling and puzzle construction also seemed to go softly into the night.

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I just wanted to say ‘hello’ from the little island state called Britain. I have been invited to contribute to Avault and am excited at the prospect. I have been providing the odd news announcement over the pass few months. While I am typing this I have half an eye on 1943 which is downloading from Xbox Live – thought I might give it a go this afternoon. In fact for maximum effect I am going to combine four shots of expresso with my first few 1943 missions…apologies if I join one of your games – I’ll be the one running about like a headless chicken shooting at my own shadow…if I am on your team then I might prove a distraction to the enemy and if I am on the opposing team then I will provide an erratic target! Anyway, my aim on this site is to continue contributing to the news for Avault and also to involve you all in some interesting (hopefully) discussion and research…ok enough speak…off to the coffee altar…