Published by: Microsoft Game Studios
Developed by: Epic Games
Score: 70

Gears of War 2 has been the game 360 owners have been waiting for ever since Halo 3 mania wore off. The original Gears of War 1 built a reputation of being a gory 3rd person shooter with cover gameplay. Epic since then has been working on creating a successor that adds to what Gears of War 1 put out, but what should have been a manageable task given its predecessor has been somewhat of a mixed bag of success and failure.

On December 10th, at approximately 12:05 am, “Trina”, my Xbox 360 passed away after less than a year of life. It had as good a death as any Xbox could ask for, freezing right in the midst of a heated battle in Call of Duty 4 on the map Overgrown. It will be survived by myself, Iceman299 and the rest of the Headshot night crew, who will all no doubt find themselves struggling for 3 to 4 weeks before her sister “Megan Good” arrives.

Lets all take a moment of silence and reminisce on all the good times we’ve had together.

We need to talk. Are you sitting down? Okay, okay. I’m not sure I know how to say this, but…I think the video game community might have assholes in it. Yeah, I’m positive. Believe me, I wish I wasn’t.

So for those who weren’t aware, there’s a site called Metacritic. Basically metacritic is a sort of “stat keeper” for music, movies and videogame scores from various review sites. Now, for the most part that section of the site has been reliable coming from reputable sources. But then there is a dark side of the system. Gamefaqs, IGN and other large gaming sites should be painfully aware when you give a fanboy the ability to voice their opinion to be viewed by many, THE SHIT WILL HIT THE FANS. In this case, you have “M$” fanboys lowering the scores on Littlebigplanet, before it was released widely mind you. This resulted in the collective Sony irrational mob descending upon the Gears of War 2 user reviews and lowering the scores. So, yeah, this sort of shit isn’t anything new, but allow me to ask all these big sites something…why?

Maybe the better question is, why is it so easy? Major sites need to maintain some semblence of professionalism but when the doors are opened wide open to anyone with at least one finger and a keyboard you’ll get a clusterfuck of jackasses and (wait for it…) douches. Maybe reviews could be subjected to community based voting by members with prestige or GameFAQs’ karma system for some sort of integrity screening. Another idea I might suggest is a spelling and grammar system. If a review submission has X number of errors in it, into the recycling bin it should go. Trust me, no troll or fanboy has the time nor the intelligence to bother looking over what they’ve read (I swear to God if anyone e-mails me about grammatical errors in this post…). I guess what I’m saying is that there are good, reliable people out there who make legitimate points when critiquing a game but I can’t shake the feeling that they are vastly outnumbered by assholes who feel the unquenchable thirst to even that huge score we call the console rivalry . Of course this isn’t to say that all major sites are reliable because if it was, stereotypical gamer/dermatologist’s best friend/chocolate aficionado Jeff Gerstmann might still be under siege from Eidos, but still while being paid by Gamespot I might add. My message: follow your heart when reading reviews and learn to seperate the rational from the completely fucking insane…oh and read our stuff too.

So with Wii Music out and the reviews slowly dripping in, the obvious has come to pass. It sucks. God-awful? Not really, but certainly not one of Nintendo’s better showings for a console that desperately needs games. Reading some of the reviews the general consensus has been that the music is too erratic and the actual “gameplay” amount to moving the Wii remote around with the unspecified requirement of having a huge imagination…or an IQ below 30. The game stops being fun a few hours in as you realize that having a seizure could generate the same sort of response from the game as John Williams pretending he was in front of the Boston Pops.

Now I’m not saying this was a forgone conclusion *ahem*, but I think Nintendo needs to snap out this Wii simplified game trend that they seem to be leaning towards. If they want to keep making games using the Wii Fit that’s fine but don’t make them into gimmicky, demo-like shit that the current games for it seem to be going towards. Make some REAL games as well. This years Nintendo Fall Press conference provided some hope that the Wii will finally go back to the people who made it what they are with some new games that offered relevant features like decent relevant internet connectivity. Wii Music is the essence of the game that has aspirations to break the barrier to that coveted non-gamer crowd, however, the shunning of the already firmly entrenched gamer crowd seems to be a side-effect that Nintendo glossed over.

Of course there will be arguments that Wii Music was geared at the younger generation, however for a major game like this to be touted around press conferences aimed at children there’s clearly some reservation for that sort of theory. There had been first impressions everywhere that this would get mixed reviews everywhere simply due to the notion that waving around the remote would provide a deep game experience. In the age of Rock Band and Guitar Hero I understand the desire for a more simplistic approach, but there can’t be a complete disregard for the fundamentals of what makes a game rewaring for the player.

In what has seemed like forever, Wipeout is finally on a console.  Yes, the behemoth-like PS3 has gotten some Wipeout loving and I for one will be there, first in line, to err…download it. Sure there could more tracks, more modes, new tracks and music, BUT, it’s in HD. On top of that it only costs about $20, so I’m willing to forgive and forget in exchange for a game that will undoubteldy have me throwing my $60 controller on the floor for a hairpin turn fuck up. Not even the threat of shaking violently on the floor, biting my tongue and possibly bleeding to death can even stop me. I get the feeling that it’s going to be one of those games that is under the radar but I hope there are some people out there who’ll get it. Since it is a racing game odds are online won’t be so hot. Gamers (or rather me) usually hate playing while losing especailly if the leader is lapping you. Sam on the other hand will be playing Streets of Anger or whatever the fuck it’s called on Live Arcade