Here's a glimpse at what real life would look like if we were authored by a teenage fiction writer.
(Sitting in his oval office, Obama reads over his reports. His assistant watches over nervously)
Obama: Jenkins, get over here.
Jenkins: What is it, sir?
Obama: These debt numbers are atrocious. We will die if this continues.
Jenkins: All your best money counters have been working on this. There is nothing we can do.
Obama: Looks like we are doomed....unless.
Jenkins: Unless what?
Obama: We need kids! Kids can save us!
Jenkins: Kids, sir?
Obama: About five of them between the ages of 11 and 18. All of them must have secret math powers that they are just discovering.
Jenkins: What can kids do?
Obama: Make the group co-ed, Jenkins. I want at least one pair to fall in love. Make sure it's the outcast kid and the quirky girl.
Jenkins: (starts writing down notes)
Obama: I want a rich kid, a black kid and a kid that gets into fights. Also, lots of emotional girls that make horribly rash decisions.
Jenkins: Really?
Obama: Absolutely, this will be the only way that these kids can show the power of trust, unite and beat the dark country of china, which has a debt team owned by the evil Lord Snicklesnap.
Jenkins: That is a bit of a stretch...
Obama: Pay attention! Make sure all these kids either hate their parents, are orphans or have parents that never question their independence. These kids will be out late with absolutely no accountability.
Jenkins: Sir, will this be an educational book or a goth book?
Obama: Educational, of course! As these kids raise the debt ceiling, I want them to learn that warm fuzzy love and loyalty to friends beats out all other morals and priorities. Also, make sure the leader of the team is condescending and self debasing throughout the entire process of leadership. No confidence in himself is a must!
Jenkins: And you really believe that this will solve our debt problem?
Obama: It will take about three to four books to solve it, but we can expand the last book into three parts for the movie. That way we can make more money.
Jenkins: I already have Chris Hemmsworth and Kristen Stewart on the phone!
Obama: Excellent. I am also resigning, effective immediately. I will be replaced by the
loner kid that no one really believed in, but has great potential.
Jenkins: Aim higher, sir. The Republicans just got a sexy vampire that doesn't talk to anyone to run against you.
All these genres mentioned once had great fame in their time, but now that we are infatuated with military shooters, 2D brawlers, casual puzzles and RPG clones you don't see these games any more. I'm waiting for the day that these games rise from their ashes and dominate the systems again.
3D Fictional Fighters
Examples:Tekken, Virtua Fighter, DOA Description: Two combatants fight within a 3D realm, battling each other with tons of combos that are difficult to master. Afraid Because: The resurgence of Street Fighter has made a boom in the 2D button basher industry. Even Tekken has forsaken its 3D roots. Also fighting games are abandoning their realism with fighting styles and moves and replacing them with explosions and missiles. 3D fighters focus on high resolution battle arenas and complex fighting styles, which is harder to make than Anime based sprites with outlandish attacks. We are more likely to see a Blazblue than a Bloody Roar.
Skateboarding Games
Examples: Tony Hawk, EA Skate, Shaun White Skateboarding, Skateboarding Evolution Description: Pick or create a pro skateboarder and net together tricks in a skate park. Afraid Because: Before the Kinect changed all sports games, skateboard games were all about button bashing, high scores and balance. With the creation of Kinect and different peripherals, gamers wanted more realism and hands-on approaches to skateboarding. That plan failed miserably due to paper thin gameplay and high peripheral cost. No one dares go back to the Tony Hawk and Skate days.
High Quality Android Exclusive Games
Examples: Monster Shooter Description: High spec addicting games for the Android Afraid Because: Google's OS is not much competition for Apples iOS and one of the main reasons is because of bad third party support in games. The iPhone gets perfect compatibility with Modern Combat, Mortal Kombat, Battlefield 2, Super Street Fighter Volt, Soul Calibur, Simpsons Arcade and Star Wars Arcade. The Android only gets 10% of those games and not all phones and tablets can handle the high end specs. The Android is like the neighborhood OS and any piece of hardware can use it (imperfectly) thus making it almost impossible to make games exclusive to it. Now add to the fact that gamers are more likely to use the free ad-supported games and you have little reason for high end developers to put much focus on the Android.
A Quality Non-WWE Wrestling Game
Examples: WCW Vs. NWO Revenge, TNA Impact, Ultimate Muscle, AAA Heroes Del Ring Description:A high quality and addicting wrestling game that is actually competitive to WWE games Afraid Because: WWE owns the pro wrestling game genre and everyone else believes that fact. WCW rarely got a playable game and other tributes to pro wrestling were either Japanese or very unplayable. This is another example of a genre that needs to be beautiful, complex, easy to execute and have loads of detail in order to be successful. On the flipside, everyone is taking a stab at the MMA franchise, but little is given to pro wrestling. Any company worth its salt could easily dethrone WWE if they just put in a little time and effort.
Adventure/ Survival FPS
Example: Half-Life, Geist, and Call of Cthulu, Singularity Description:A first person perspective game that focuses on collecting items, solving puzzles and survival. Afraid Because: Due to today's audience, games are more like 90's action movies than slower paced and dramatic shooters. The Battlefield and Call of Duty band wagon has ensured that easy money comes from huge explosions, wacky plots and multiplayer. A game that makes players explore and survive is rare because of our need for instant gratification. .
Brevity is the soul of wit, but what would happen if we took Star Wars movie quotes and made them long winded and too personal.
"Luke, I am your male DNA donor who participated in producing you in the womb." Darth Vader
"May the global network of telekinetic powers and psychic manipulation support you figuratively." Obi Wan Kenobi
"I inquire as to why your height requirement is not the proper height for a Stormtrooper which averages between 5 feet 9 inches." Princess Leia
" Assist me Obi Wan Kenobi in recruiting the son of Darth Vader, training him up in the force, losing your life to a lightsaber duel, using your dead etheral spirit to command him and letting Yoda finish the training, you're my only hope." Princess Leia
"Perform the action or do not perform the action, there is no blind attempt with probability of failure." Yoda
"It's a well devised, pre-planned, contraption intended for capturing by use of illusion." Admiral Ackbar
With Battleship coming out, I have been pondering what other board games would make great movies. And since Clue was a smash success, I think my movies wouldn't do so bad either.
Monopoly: In 1920's New York City, a eccentric billionaire invites a group of millionaire business men to a dangerous game. The men must buy up as mush of New York City property as possible. The game gets out of hand when the millionaires take it too seriously and trick each other's families into staying at tourist trap hotels. Who will survive the vicious game of buying and selling? Starring Michael Douglas, Alec Baldwin, and Ryan Gosling as Thimble, Race Car and Yorkshire and Martin Sheen as Montgomery Moneybags.
Pass The Pigs: A community of farmers in Soviet Russia learn to coexist in economic hard times by renting out (or passing) livestock to each other. A warm heartfelt comedy about being a true neighbor and looking out for one another. Guest cameo from Martin Sheen as Wilbert the talking pig. Subtitles in English.
Apples to Apples: Hilary Swank plays an OCD English teacher that tells her students to be brutally honest when confronted with different nouns. Eventually all her students start yelling out "ugly," "creepy," and "Delicious" when confronted with family, girlfriends and Helen Keller. Things go topside when the protagonist played by Shia Lebouf reveals that he thinks his girlfriend is "smelly," "rich," "disgusting," "beautiful," and "dazzling."
Connect Four: Four government spies find out that one of them is a mole. Now they have to connect how their fellow spy is entangled in this dangerous game of betrayal and sabotage. How do they connect? Will they connect before the whole government topples from its grid?
Don't Wake Daddy: A psycho drama about an alcoholic father who is in charge of an estranged daughter. Though he is very abusive to her, she dreams of a perfect life with him. In a heart wrenching ending, the father gets into a coma and has the same dream as his daughter. Billy Bob Thorton steals the show as Gordy, the retired Nascar driver, and Dakota Fanning is the daughter pining for a better life.
Sorry: Two Alaskan fishers get stuck on an iceberg. Tensions flare as global warming melts the ice berg and they soon learn that they cannot coexist on the same space. Who will survive and who will be sorry? Harrison Ford and Topher Grace star as the Alaskan farmers. Natalie Portman plays the mysterious voice from Aurora.
Parcheesi: A gold hearted musical about, Teddy, an old man who finds that his house is blocked off by a wall. The only way he can get home is by going around the world and getting home from the other side. Along the way he meets Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and Jackie Chan. A feel good movie about coming of age.
Operation: Ryan Reynolds wakes up on an operating bed in Afghanistan to find that he has 8 bombs sewn into his torso. It's a race against time as Kirsten Dunst, a retired doctor, must remove all bombs without moving them drastically. Johnny Depp plays the sadistic terrorist doctor, Doctor Rednose. From the director of Phone Booth comes this horrifying nightmare.
Jenga: Michael Bay's finest science fiction piece to date. Two demolition experts, Andy Sanberg and Jonah Hill, accidentally blow up a building created by an ancient race of aliens. Now the aliens exact revenge by destroying popular buildings around the world. Featuring unused CGI from Transformers.
The number 3 is magical this season. We have Resistance, Gears of War, Battlefield, Uncharted and Modern Warfare 3 just waiting to blow away our minds. Resistance 3 was the first to come out and its definitely the under dog in the list. It's a PS3 original with not a huge following behind it compared to the other big guns. With that said, Resistance puts a very solid effort together.
Resistance tells the story of an alien virus that infects the Earth and creates an army of Chimera beings. Like most alien games, the intrusive invaders are feral, mindless beasts hellbent on destruction and yet they are smart enough to build weapons, space crafts and huge towers. In the third Resistance, you play Joseph Capelli, a former soldier who decides to ignore the whole alien invasion thing and start a family. Unfortunately, opportunity knocks, and Joseph must journey with a doctor into alien occupied New York to stop a worm hole.
Anyone who has just gotten comfortable with Resistance 2 will notice some differences. This comes with pros and cons. The major change is that you no longer have recovering health (unless you unlock the cheat). If you are low on health you need to scour the area for a health kit. This gets annoying because you have to leave the heat of battle to look for a health kit. Sometimes you are pinned down by fire and you have one bar of health left and there's absolutely no hope for you of getting out. The upside is that its harder to kill you than in the second one.
Resistance also removed the two guns at a time rule in favor of the Doom style buffet of weapons. This was a smart idea because you never really got much exposure to guns in R2. Now you can pull out an ice gun, electricity gun, machine gun, tag gun, shotgun, missile launcher and mutator at any second. The reason behind having millions of guns at your disposal is the ability to upgrade them as you use them. Your shotgun gets flame rounds, the electricity gun develops an arc caster that shocks multiple enemies and the carbine gets a bayonet. This makes every gun useful in its own way and necessary for different sections. The only drawback is that there are no hotkeys to get a certain gun. You have to stop the action and pick out a gun in order to use it.
The campaign mode is pretty straight forward. You don't have one epic journey as much as you have a lot of levels with mini games inside of them. In one level you are defending a bar from enemies coming out of a drop ship. In another level you are running through the sewers trying to fend off the egg hatchlings. Some levels start off slow, while others propel you straight into the action. One of the new concepts that Resistance 2 didn't have is the open ended battlegrounds where you can strategize how you get into the battle. Overall, the levels are all fast paced and gripping in their own way. You can also get into the action with a friend over co-op. You either have a human friend or an online friend, but the game has no matchmaking service to help you find an online friend. That means you'll actually have to meet someone face to face and talk to them (shudder).
Resistance has always had a confusing story and I am convinced that the writers are as confused as we are. It almost seems like they were trying to fuse Half-Life, Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 2 and Halo into one epic bundle. The result is a muddy universe that no one can get sucked into. I groan at games where you have to go to Wikipedia in order to understand their story. I'm not majoring in Resistance Studies so why do I have homework? Resistance 3 has some of the best cut scenes and touching moments, which is not the biggest feat considering that the other 2 games had as much drama as bread mold. After six hours the campaign ends and the final cutscene drops the curtain on the franchise. No epic ending, no twisted plot turns and absolutely no super boss-it just ends. Resistance seems to live off its crazy gameplay and innovative weapons more than its story.
Multiplayer is changed from the previous two games. You no longer get XP just by shooting people; now you have to kill your opponent to level up. This means that I didn't get points for some matches because I couldn't get a single kill. Resistance's multiplayer plays a lot like Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. You select your class, perks and you get more stuff as you level up. The gameplay loves throwing perks, berserks and tons of little upgrades at you so that you feel like you are doing stuff. Some of the perks include having a mirage of yourself to distract enemies and the ability to track footsteps. But even with all those little add-ons it's hard to get into the action if you are not an intense multiplayer addict. The second Resistance gave you much more incentive to stick it out because of partial XP rewards and the fact that your perks would build up over time instead of waiting for you to get 3 kills in a row. It's not a trashy multiplayer by any means, it's just not as easy to get into.
The graphics are a mixed bag. The game is excellent at portraying a war torn post apocalyptic America. Each level is beautiful in its own way. but the textures on some of the aliens are a little weak. I've always had a problem with the fact that the Chimera race has no distinct art concept. It's almost as if the artists copy pasted their textures onto Left 4 Dead and Halo enemies.
Resistance 3 is all about Joseph Capelli leaving his comfortable life with his wife and child to end a war. He had a choice to make and he chose the greater good. Sounds very similar to Jesus in the choices he had to make. Jesus could have chosen to stay in Heaven, but he opted to do ministry on Earth. Jesus could have chosen to live the rest of his years on Earth, but he choose to get arrested and crucified for our benefit. Reminds me of the Bible verse from Phil 2:5-6
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had
equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to
cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When
the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the
status of a slave, became human!
Resistance 3 was supposed to be a counter for Xbox fans getting Gears of War 3. While Gears of War got higher praises because of story, I don't think Resistance is out of the running. The gameplay is tight and intense, the weapons are insanely fun and ultimately you are going to have a good romping time. But if you already own the other two Resistance games than you should think long and hard before you shell 60 bucks to get this one.
Score out of 7
Graphics and Sound 5: Gorgeous vistas and environments, but not so pretty monsters.
Gameplay 6: Fast and intense campaign modes with exciting weapons. You'll be done with the campaign mode in 6 hours. Finding health kits and changing weapons takes you out of the action.
Multiplayer 5: Multiplayer is kind of slow for newcomers. It competes fairly well with the top shooters of today, but it still lacks some polish.
Content 3: It wears its M rating like a badge. Lots of blood, gibbing and swearing. Jesus' is mentioned more in this game than in some books of the Bible. The mutator gun is not for the squeamish.
Final 5: A very solid effort from Insomniac Games. They still prove that they have a handle on the FPS market. I'm relieved that I don't have to go solely to Halo to get my sci-fi shooter fix. But I wish some of the elements that made Resistance 2 so great were in here.
