Typing Is Not So Fun as Click-Shooting

Sega's release of The Typing of the Dead: Overkill for Steam on Tuesday was an evil and delicious surprise. I can still remember the fun of typing words to destroy zombies with The Typing of the Dead on the Dreamcast and this latest release is based on the grindhouse-infused The House of the Dead: Overkill entry for the series. As if seeing another Typing game for this series was not exciting enough, the game actually comes with the original shooting game of Overkill: Director's Cut! Of course, there is no light gun peripheral support here so I have been playing the typing portion of the game because I am not sure if playing the shooting game would be fun with the mouse. Oh how wrong I was. I finally tried playing the shooting mode last night and it was extremely fun. The mouse control was smooth and so accurate that it made me wish that all those light gun games on my consoles have mouse support. That Steam Controller will not be able accomplish this same result, yes I still think that thing is such an irresponsible, nonsensical, and desperate design. I suppose it's a question of authenticity - holding a gun-like device and pointing it at the screen versus accuracy - and after playing the game with the mouse, I would definitely prefer accuracy! I sure hope that Sega's bold release of The Typing of the Dead: Overkill will bring all those plethora of console light gun games to Steam. Namco Bandai, come make more money by releasing your Time Crisis games on Steam.

Overkill is easier with the mouse but only because the mouse is a lot faster and more accurate!

Mario Envy Can Lead to Good Things

If you have seen the gameplay videos for Sonic: Lost World by Sonic Team prior to today's exclusive Wii U release, you should be able to see that the game blatantly copies from the genius world design found in Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy series. It's not surprising however. Sega has made a pact with Nintendo to provide them with exclusive Sonic titles so you know that they could just get away with such obvious plagiarism. The good thing here however, things seem to work really well for our blue hedgehog when you place him on top of floating chunks of lands and spherical stages. I have only played the game for about an hour and a half and Lost World is shaping up to be a pretty good experience. So perhaps we can consider the borrowed elements - even the world map - to be an homage instead of something more sinister and deadly? One thing for sure, the villains in this game, known as the "Deadly Six" so far have provided the best boss encounters since Sonic & Knuckles on the Genesis. Sure, we don't get Dr. Eggman's contraptions but these bosses have that simple and easy yet brilliant and fascinating feel to them. I am definitely excited to keep playing this game and that is something that doesn't happen too often with modern Sonic games.

It's a me... Sonic?!

Games Played 10/21/2013 - 10/27/2013

- 10/21/2013 -

League of Legends - PC

- 10/22/2013 -

Lost Odyssey - X-Box 360

- 10/23/2013 -

Animal Crossing: new Leaf - 3DS

Gone Home - PC

League of Legends - PC

Lost Odyssey - X-Box 360

- 10/24/2013 -

Gone Home - PC

League of Legends - PC

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst - PC

- 10/25/2013 -

League of Legends - PC

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst - PC

- 10/26/2013 -

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F - PlayStation 3

League of Legends - PC

- 10/27/2013 -

Drakensang: The River of Time - PC

Hearthstone: Heroes of  Warcraft Beta - PC

League of Legends - PC

Pokémon Y - 3DS

Saints Row: The Third - PC

Screenshot of the Week:

Comic relief characters... They are never necessary. Ever.

Lost Odyssey (X-Box 360)

A League of Legends Vacation

I have been playing too much League of Legends by Riot Games on the Personal Computer. That is a fact. If you check the monthly gaming analysis, you will see it securing the most played game spot with a violent consistency. As you can see from the screenshot below, ever since I started to use Origin to track my LoL gameplay hour from around March of this year - and I believe there is a period of time when I actually removed it from Origin because of technical issues - I have clocked in around 841 hours playing this game.

That's a lot.

Now this is not a bad thing. I think it's great that I have found a game that is so addictive and manages never to get boring. It does become a problem for the other games in my library though. So I have decided to take some time away from LoL, just for a little bit. I am going to not play it for a week or two and focus my attention on other games. Don't worry LoL, I will be back soon enough!

Naruto Shippuden: Is It a Full Burst on PC?

I was surprised to find out yesterday that Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst by CyberConnect2 got an early release on Steam. With me being alone in the house at the moment - the spouse has been out of the country since last weekend - I can easily cherish and appreciate little things like this. I was so tempted to get the original, non "Full Burst" release for the PlayStation 3 but I am so glad that Namco Bandai made that early revelation that the enhanced version of the game would also find its way to the Personal Computer. Many doubt it, but I have a feeling that we will see a lot more NB games showing up on Steam pretty soon, yes, and that may include the Tales series. With Enslaved: Odyssey to the West getting the Premium Edition release on Steam out of the blue yesterday, there will be more surprises ahead for PC gamers. There is a lot of money to be made here and NB is realizing that fact it seems.

I absolutely love the game's main menu, it's vibrant and stylish.

But let's get back to Full Burst. Purists may be disappointed to find out that the game is limited to 30 frames per second but everything runs very smoothly. The lack of detailed graphics options is also a bit suspect but the game does allow me to play at native 1920 x 1080 and at least there is a supersampling option that should be enabled if you don't want the game to look extra jaggy. I did find some odd slowdowns while running around the town map in the game's Ultimate Adventure mode but thankfully, the action sequences are immune to these and that is a great thing since Full Burst is mainly a fighting game. Full Burst still hasn't lost that wow factor when it comes to its stunning presentation - it looks like an anime. The animation is smooth as butter and it is always fascinating to see all the strange characters with their crazy fighting styles. Let me be clear: I actually don't follow the Naruto anime/manga series but I have always enjoyed the multiple fighting games released for the brand since the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 era, so it has always been about the fun gameplay and slick visuals instead of the storyline for me when I approach these games.

I didn't expect to see bikinis in this game...

I tried to find online matches yesterday and today but I couldn't find one. It's either people are just playing locally or they are still working on unlocking characters from the adventure mode. You can still fight the computer locally if you just want to have some quick action. Full Burst may not have taken full advantage of the PC hardware though it is clearly the best version of the game but it's still a significant release for the PC platform. You don't get to see games like this being released on Steam or the PC generally and it certainly deserves some attention and notice. Not all games will be a technical benchmark of what can be accomplished on the PC, this being especially true for multi-platform games, and we as PC gamers need to be able see the bigger picture when a game like Full Burst shows up on our radar. Surely a lot of people want to see JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle getting a Steam release? I certainly do.

FIRST IMPRESSION: 4 out of 5