Try counting how many times you encounter THIS memorable line!

Deadly Premonition is like any other cult item, it requires an acquired taste for one to enjoy exactly what it brings to the table. As long as your taste buds align, this game really knocks it out of the park. The first notable difference between this and any other current gen game are the graphics, they are DATED. Yet it’s in these dated visuals where the charm of the entire experience is held and it is in huge part due to the heavy influence of the 90′s hit drama Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks has been the mothering recipe for other cult instant hits such as Alan Wake and my personal favorite Silent Hill. A truly flawless influence of the genre, Deadly Premonition was destined for success from the start soley through it’s main protagonist Special Agent Francis York Morgan. From beginning to end his strange and rather unique persona will have your brow raised from start well into the finishing chapters. Not to mention you get your own personal role in the world as the player and get to hold conversations during gameplay with Mr. Morgan over numerous topics including the movie Jaws!

Always take your coffee with "FK" in it!

If you haven’t already given this gem a try then I suggest you find a copy asap. For those who have, well lets cross our fingers and hope that the next chapter for Special Agent Francis York Morgan comes sooner than later. I will surely keep you posted when details arrive, Zach!

Coming fresh out of Pax and rolling into the Fall and Winter months of big triple A titles, it’s nice to see Rock of Ages show up for review. Rock of Ages showcases a distinct paper cutout style for it’s opening and is loaded with distinct visual flair throughout.

Rock of Ages is a complex platformer/action/tower-defense game that blends elements of strategy, rolling, jumping, and racing! Two castles stand opposed, bridged by an uneven, narrow pathway. One is yours, and you’re quite fond of it. Get through their defenses and you’re one step closer to crushing their tower. The game combines tower defense strategy with a rolling ball mechanic similar to games such as Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball. The aim of the game is to use a large stone boulder to attack the enemy’s castle at the bottom of the hill, whilst using various defensive structures to defend your own. Players can use a variety of obstacles to defend the path leading up to the castle, such as buildings, dynamite, windmills and..elephants. Players can also plant money farms in order to raise the funds needed to use certain objects. The player can only add obstacles on green colored landscapes, which turn unusable when obstacles or money farms are planted on top of them. When ready to attack, the player can take control of a boulder and roll it down the hill, avoiding obstacles in order to attack the enemy castle’s gate. If the player has enough points, he can equip the boulder with power-ups, such as armor spikes or magma, which enhance the boulder’s defensive or offensive capabilities, though they will lose this power up if the boulder falls off the edge. Once the boulder hits the gate, or their boulder breaks after taking too much damage, there is a small recharge period before another boulder can be launched. The player wins if he can break through the castle gates and place his boulder in the center of the castle.

Rock of Ages features a story mode, which is loosely based on the myth of Sisyphus. Between sections of the story mode are these usually humorous cut-scenes that can be skipped if desired. The game features various stages and boss levels, and several multiplayer modes. “War” features two players attempting to break each other’s castle gates, whilst “Skee Boulder” requires players to race down a lane hitting targets before landing in skeeballl-style board while attempting to land their boulder in the target with the largest score multiplier. Rock of Ages features a chronology which spans across five time periods: Ancient Greek, Medieval, Renaissance, Rococo and Goya. Each time period features a unique art style during gameplay. The game takes place across five periods with twenty three levels in total and four boss fights.

Rock of Ages costs 800ms points and is available now.

Summary:
The games soundtrack stands out nicely offering a very decent selection. Visually, the game won’t blow anyone’s standards out of the water. The look though unique, is decidedly dated. If you are the type of gamer who enjoys planning out their mayhem but not a ton of micromanagement I suggest giving Rock of Ages a look.

Graphics – 6.5 Gameplay – 7.6
Sound – 7.8 Replay Value – 7.0

Overall – 7.0

At Pax I ran into Adam Sessler and asked him what was his pick of the show was. He said there’s a small booth over by Capcom showing off a game called Warp. So I decided to see what Sessler actually likes and let’s say I was not disappointed.

Warp puts you in control of an alien with the ability to warp through objects within a reasonable distance. You use this ability to solve puzzles and travel distances (if you’re lazy). You can also use this ability to attack enemies by warping inside them and making them explode. You can also use this to go inside barrels to make make them explode as well knocking out enemies. I thought this game was going to be another standard cartoonish puzzle game until I made my first guard explode all over the walls. And it’s not a cheap explosion it’s a Cloverfield/Aliens Chestburster-esque explosion too.

You see not only is Warp a puzzle game it’s also a stealth action game similar to the original Metal Gear. The controls are simple there’s a crouch button to help you sneak, a button for your warp abilities and you wiggle the left stick to make stuff pop. The game play is simple enough for you to pick up in a few minutes and before you know it you’re already thinking of multiple ways to get through certain parts of the game. I did my play through without trying to kill everyone (you know to mix it up) but I did my fair share of murder. The alien has some skills that were not available in the demo so I look forward to what the other skills may be. From what I’ve played the controls are responsive and it’s easy to execute moves.

The graphics on this game are pretty solid. The alien lights up when he is at full power and functions like a hud, you can track your life and power status just by looking at him. The doctors and soldiers look generic but they’re supposed to since they are not the main character and you’re spending most of your time killing them. The camera angles are top down and you can move the camera out a bit to see what’s coming down a hallway or just to see what is next which is crucial in stealth games.

One of the main issues with the stealth genre is the enemy AI. I can imagine it’s hard to program a computer to respond like a human (it’s why the box worked so well in Metal Gear). This game keeps the AI. simple, if there is something rattling within the guards or scientists field of vision they will either investigate or call for help depending. Sometimes scientists lock things down and call for back up. While this wasn’t in the demo I am sure that it adds to the game’s tension.

This is off topic but related,a thing that smaller companies don’t do well is create merchandise for the game that is good and doesn’t suck. Usually at shows you get a bunch of t-shirts that don’t fit or some stuff that you are really not going to use ever. I was in for a treat when the people at the booth gave me a limited edition figurine of their main character. It’s much better than a t-shirt since you usually end up with a million of those at the show’s end.Now the only major issue is finding a place to put this bad boy in my collection back in NYC. The real question is to box or unbox that is the question.

Who knows this maybe the second puzzle game I sit down through.

Fun Fact: Depending on the species, a shark may shed 10,000 to 50,000 teeth in its lifetime. Sharks may have up to 3,000 teeth at one time.

Fun Fact: Humans get 32 permanent teeth including wisdom teeth. 16 on the top and 16 on the bottom. Children have 20 deciduous teeth in total and start getting their first permanent teeth around 6 years old.

HCB+K

My take? That’s some bullshit. Hey everyone, I know I have been quiet as of late, but one part of it was moving to the new location (St Marks and 2nd ave, 8 Bit and Up), one part getting the new stuff ready to come at cha(podcasts yes!), one part letting the new blood get some shine and seeing how they run, and the last part which is not fun — I started to have my wisdom teeth taken out. Let me tell you, I can take pain, I’ve played on a fractured ankle, had a deep gushing gash over my eye, nearly bit my tongue off and a bunch of other random things but nothing shuts me down like tooth pain. What went wrong? I’ll tell you, it took about 5 to 6 Novocaine shots to numb me for 30 minutes. Which was just enough time for them to get my jaw cut open and my feeling to start returning just in time for the extraction itself. I did my best to block out most of the pain, but when my tooth broke in my mouth I think I was at my breaking point. I closed my eyes and tried to make believe like the Muppet Babies but I opened them at the wrong time to see a giant blob of flesh and bone come out my mouth, sorta like Cane watching the alien pop out of him. The best part was, during this entire procedure they kept choking me out.

Anyway, now that I’m stitched up the healing process can begin. I haven’t left my house in about 3 days, and I haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t soft and mushy since Thursday, so my days have been spent gaming and watching the latest episode of WCG (Lemon’s on the show!). I am not going to review these games and give them a score because they have already been reviewed all over the net but I’ll give you my opinion (like you had a choice of what you’re going to get anyway ;p) on them.

So the games I’ve sat down with are Castlevania:Harmony of Despair and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. We’ll start with the Castlevania first, which I started playing on before that icky dental work.

Here’s the game in a nutshell: Take all the more recent 2-D Castlevanias that you’ve played; Aria of Sorrow, Symphony of the Night, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia, and strip them down to their most basic functions. Then take the main characters from those games, put them together, and have them tear through a few levels picking up weapons while leveling up their skills.

Honestly this game feels like Castlevania : Legends of the Hidden Temple. It’s one part mad dash to the target/boss/Shrine of the Silver Monkey with a limited amount of allowed deaths, and the other part grinding for items with stupid drop rates. I have terrible luck with things like that so you can tell I am overjoyed with the prospect of farming levels just to get scrolls to raise my skills with “AL-U-CARD” (English voice acting). The game is fun when everyone is the same level starting off, but once you get stronger what once took you 10-20 minutes can be completed in 5. I don’t regret getting this game because it does give me something to play with my friends, but if you don’t have a crew of people that you would normally run with you may want to steer clear of this one.

Next up some love Lara. I have always loved the Tomb Raider series as an idea, but not so much the execution at times. I’m a huge mythology buff and it’s so interesting for me to hear different legends then go read about them. Yes I’m a nerd, and no, I don’t live in a basement, thank you. I got to play this a bit at E3 thanks to the lovely people at the booth and I did make a post gushing about it. Now that it is out, I sat down and got a chance to play the full game start to finish. That whole process took about a day, but since I can’t really do too much right now it was fine.

This Lara adventure plays similar to the Marvel Ultimate Alliance/X-men games met with some Smash TV. And quite frankly this works well. It’s a refreshing pace change from the source material. The multiplayer isn’t out now, but comes out next month, which is more than I can say for Scott Pilgrim (ooooh snap!). The single player is fun though, I’ve spent most of my inside time trying to get all the weapons (golden shotgun and hand cannons are godlike).

Bioware Licensed Mass Effect 2 action figures were unveiled not too long ago at Comicon. When I read an article describing these “highly detailed and fully articulated action figures” I became aroused; physically and mentally.  I looked my dog in the eyes, and told her that if she loved me, she would buy them. Always wanting to know she’s getting the most bang for her buck, she insisted I look through the  gallery to make sure they are of the quality we’ve come to expect of everything Bioware.

I began with Mordin and Thane; their figurines are pretty impressive. I just knew that I needed the whole set after seeing them, but the dog insisted I keep looking.  I was freaking ecstatic when I read that Garrus, my favorite character, was finally getting some promotional lovin’… But then… I actually saw his plastic counterpart; it’s fucking horrific. I… I can’t…. There isn’t…. Why…? Just… witness this… sin against god for yourself.

Artist's interpretation, or abortion? You decide.

The proportions are wrong, his armor is wrong and apparently the creator never actually saw Garrus’ face . What the hell? I guess I can give whomever molded these things a break, because Turian physiology is pretty goofy. I told myself that at least Shephard and Tali are hard to fuck up. You would agree, no? If you do, you are WRONG. How god damn hard can it be to mold a generic human male, and a (basically) human chick with a mask? Pretty regoddamndiculously hard I guess.

NO MOAR FAPPAN!

The only bits that are correct are the gender, and that there’s a mask. It’s so off base that I WTF’d my pants when I saw it. If I remember correctly, some weirdos out there are in love with Tali, and want to make crazy sexy alien babies with her. Because she’s female, and has some “sexy” curves. Sorry guys, Tali’s apparently pregnant with Saren’s babies, and her pink maternity clothes  just don’t accentuate “dem” hips. Also her mask is now pink. Makes sense that she would accessorize, I guess.

Now, explain to me how the toy makers created decent replicas of Thane and Mordin, two incredibly weird and detailed characters, but couldn’t make a convincing Commander Shephard. I’m still boggled by this. As far as I know, his face wasn’t based on Chris Brown. Maybe I’m wrong.  Here’s a picture of Chris Brown in N7 Armor for you to look at in all it’s visual glory.

What does Shephard do when the dish washer stops working? HE HITS HER.

See what I did there? I made a Chris Brown joke. Get it?

After seeing these travesties, and ranting about them on Facebook, someone mentioned how terribly inaccurate the Bioware Licensed Dragon Age swag was. I decided to skip on over to Bioware’s Dragon Age: Origins store. Indeed, the tip was correct. The posters sold on Bioware’s official website bare the (supposed) likenesses of Morrigan, Sten and Leliana.  None of these posters’ representations look anything like their video game counterparts. Curiosity spurred me on to the official Mass Effect 2 store.

Guess what I found there, I dare ya! More posters featuring terribly inaccurate representations of their most popular characters . Do you see a recurring theme here? Bioware is draping the words Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect over month old, crusty piles of dog shit, and selling them, tons of them; for outrageous prices too. How could selling quality shit possibly affect them adversely???

It's a meeeee, acceptably shitty unlicensed Mario plushie!

I’ve seen some lame merch before, but for the most part, it isn’t licensed or endorsed by the actual IT holder. I don’t understand how people expect to sell this shit, but it’s at least acceptable when made by a fanboy’s. What Bioware’s doing is insulting us, the people keeping them in business and keeping them from starving to death. Also driving Lambos and living in mansions.

Oh yeah, if the word on the street is correct, Bioware’s decided to make Dragon Age 2 Mass Effect: Medieval Times. Cool.

There you have it. Bioware hates you. They hate me too. In fact, they hate everybody. Cool.

I realize that two (or more) completely different divisions handle game creation and merch/sales, but I still think this is pretty shady. Quality control is a big part of any business. Their games are (in my opinion) awesome, and I hope they don’t end up going down the same road.

What’re your thoughts?

I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING SPECIAL BIOWARE. YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME!

Jason V.

phire

Chocolate Lemon

Since I’m soo awesome. I’ll answer questions you may have about E3 while I’m there Via tweets and Facebook. Honestly, I don’t know what to expect from the West Coast.  My only experience with Cali come from rap videos from the 90′s .

But for E3, oh man I am pretty excited. There’s going to be live music, Methodman and Redman are preforming. They aren’t Megaman villains but they might as well be. There’s going to be some Lucha Libre going down. I want to interfere in the match and cost someone the belt and then oil up.

Gamewise I’m excited for Rockband 3.  The team and I will be getting a hands on-session, with that expect lots of video. Fist of the Northstar will be there. I don’t know how Cali will handle all that manliness. Sega is going to be on hand with a few goodies such as Phantasy Star Portable 2 and a new Sonic game. Capcom is up to its usual hi-jinks if there’s some MVC3 you’ll know. The list is extensive of all the stuff that’s going to be there.We’ll do our best to cover all the booths for you guys. I mean with booth babes I don’t know how much is going to get done but we’ll try to git’er done.

But with that said.
I am proud to say check in with Chocolate Lemon for its E3 coverage. Let’s rock!

What this will be is a beach day/ live action game/hang out deal.

What you will need to bring : your usual beach load out, snacks,towels,coolers whatever you need to get through a beach day, there will be some boardwalkin’. A couple of us will head down to coney island and dominate the amusement center so you might want bring some sort of camera to capture the epic.

Also you might want to bring a water gun or some sort of water weapon,for the game that will develop later on.

What kind of game? we’ll you’ll have to show up and find out.

You guys should become fans of us on facebook “chocolate lemon” look it up try it you just might like it.

Meet up at Brighton beach obviously

Start Time:
Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 1:00pm
End Time:
Monday, August 10, 2009 at 12:00am
Location:
Manhattan/Brighton Beach.
Street:
Brighton beach av/Oriental blvd.
City/Town:
Brooklyn, NY

You can find the details about it here or here.

I need to find something to keep me occupied while Lemon trains in Japan for EVO 2k9.

maps..

So far they have the map up. I think I’ll head over to the area too take a look at it. You know learn the respawn times and spawn points.

For those sticklers here’s the rule:

Rules of Capture the Flag
Teams are divided in half at the meeting point. Each team will receive their captain’s phone number and exchange numbers with teammates. Rules will be explained and the game will begin.

Planning time: There will be a 10-minute planning time when the game begins, during which each team will hide their flag. After 10 minutes, players may advance to enemy territory.

Hiding flags: Flags must be placed on the very corner of two streets with at least three points of approach. This means no dead ends or edges of the map. There may be no obstructions near the flag, such as street furniture or garbage.

Defending flags: Only five people may defend a flag at any time, and must stay at least 45 meters (150 feet) away at all times. This “bubble” will be marked in chalk.

No “corking” streets: Teams using human walls near their flags will be penalized by having their flag bubble widened.

Getting tagged: If you are on enemy territory and you are tagged, you must return to your side of the border before you can advance again. The border street is neutral, but the sidewalk on either side is not. One-hand tag only, no holding, grabbing or touching in any other way: please respect your fellow players’ physical boundaries.

Modes of transport: Players may capture the flag using any form of transportation except for private, motorized vehicles. Please light up bicycles with a headlight and tail light for traffic safety.

Capturing the flag: A flag is considered captured once it enters your territory and a referee is notified. Once the ref is notified, calls will be made to inform all players of the score and the flag will be returned immediately. The game will not pause when a flag is captured.

Jaywalking: Jaywalking is dangerous and illegal. Players have, in the past, gotten tickets for jaywalking by the police. Please do not run across major streets.

Cheating: There will be volunteer referees making sure the rules are followed; however, this is a free game! Please keep it fun and fair.

MMMM omishori yaro oka?

How’d I do? Well i shattered my own sword, if it was going for hits I probably would have gone deep(that’s what she said) into the tourney but the whole goal was to break another sword. If you play defensives and turtle you could win easy. All in all it was extremely fun especially the huge melee at the end.Not to brag but I really cleaned that mess up.I went dual swords and was tearing shit up. We did about 3 to 4 melees and then we called it a day. Some interesting armor was present.

Anyway I know you’re dying to see the vids so here they are. There are tons to upload but i’m lazy. If the demand is high then I’ll up the rest

And the top video is something I shittly threw together before the Street Wars Wrap party.
Edge of soul.

There’s tons of up on the net and I’m sure I’ll bump into some