Best Week Ever: God of War II

Whenever I begin a new fascination, I tend to hyperbolize the greatness of the experience to an unrivaled level. For as long as I can remember, I have always declared my current obsession to be the very greatest of it's kind... ever, a notion I will swear by until the next of it's kind draws my interest. At one time, Spiderman 2 was the best movie ever made, Billy Joel was the greatest lyricist of the century, and Jane Addams was the most annoying figure in U.S. history. Actually, I still despise Jane Addams, but that's beside the point. The point is that these overly exaggerated statements create a sort of "boy who cried wolf" effect whenever I recommend things to my friends. If everything is argued as the best, it is difficult to show merit when the actual best emerges.

Previous "gun-jumperies" aside, God of War II is that actual best.

Don't get me wrong. It isn't the best game ever created, but it is clearly the best of it's genre, and I challenge anyone to find a more thrilling game of any kind. Plainly, if I had to review this game, I would give it a "God of War II" on a scale of 1 through God of War II. Besides the great gameplay mechanics and amazing presentation, this game is set apart by it's grandeur. This Penny-arcade comic describes it best, but it should be noted that the epic nature of the game does not end with the fall of the colossus. Level 2 has you slicing through the hands of hades as you climb your way out of hell itself. It is difficult to determine what constitutes a level thereafter, as a break in the action does not occur in the near future.

In short, buy two copies. Play the first, and keep the second under your pillow to intensify your dreams.

Oh, snap! Oh no they di'int!

I have always contended that owning a PSP serves little purpose other than...hmm... Well, that'll teach me to start sentences I can't finish. How embarrassing... Anyhow, it would appear that EB shares my sentiment, as a recent ad not only rhetorically rapes the PSP, but kills it for good measure. We can thank "Testicular Sound Express" and his post at the NeoGaf forums for this gem:

Please pay particular attention to the phrases, "Trade the past! Play the future!" and "Trade up..." For those keeping score at home, that's:
PSP- Past
DS- Future

For my mathematically inclined readers, that's:
PSP < DS

And just for the record, I am not a fanboy, far from it. I own a PSP myself, I just don't play it much. After all, I don't like to dwell in the past.

Kojima Has Lost It

A mere eight days after I saluted Kojima on his genius and integrity, I am back to report that he has come up with the worst idea for a video game I have ever heard. Apparently strapped for cash, Kojima has come up with a sort of monetary black hole that will perpetually suck more and more money out of players' bank accounts, while zombie action prevents them from noticing the events at play. It seems his idea involves a zombie MMORPG in which... well, maybe you should just hear it from him:

The zombie idea I have is a bit different...Imagine a large town where half the inhabitants are zombies. Users would subscribe, get inside the town and get bitten. At that stage they become undead and can't control their character - all they can do is modify the camera angles... They'd see their character attacking humans and have to pay just to watch! The only way they could end it is by opening another account, hunting themselves down and killing themselves. Of course, the problem is that your second character can get bitten as well.

Actually, on second thought, that idea might have some merit, but I have a few suggestions. How about, for every hour that infected players fail to hunt down their characters and kill them, their monthly subscription rate doubles! That would really make the game more fun. And how about this... there could be seven unstoppable zombies in the town, and if you get bit by one of them, you too become an unstoppable zombie, and you can never stop paying for the game. On top of that, if you have to open up three or more accounts, an intern from Kojima Productions can come to your house and give you AIDS!

Hell, if you love zombies and hate disposable income, this could be better than sex!

Source: Kojima's version of Zombie apocalypse (involves killing yourself)

Coralcola Presents... Team Kill: Vol. 1

Welcome to Team Kill, the periodic Coralcola series paying tribute to those gamers and game developers whose ignorant views and foolish actions give fuel to the Jack Thompsons of the world. These idiotic and reckless game enthusiasts, whether intentionally or unintentionally, reflect poorly on the gaming community at large. So watch out gamers. By the time you turn on the news, it may already be too late to dodge that errant grenade. You will have fallen victim... to a Team Kill.

Today on Team Kill, we give the one-finger salute to a couple negligent parents in Korea. As the story goes, the couple went to their local internet cafe to play some World of Warcraft, leaving their infant daughter alone at home. Five hours later, they returned to find the child lying face down, dead from suffocation.

The couple, now in custody and legally screwed, defended themselves, claiming that...

"We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day."

Well, dumb couple, I think there may be some flaws in your logic, as I find nothing "usual" about leaving your baby alone for an hour or two, especially on what can be implied is a regular basis. Allow me to explain.

Have you seen the price of day-care? This article says that,

"Depending on where you live and on the quality of the daycare, costs can range from $3,000 to $15,000 a year (or $250 to $1,250 monthly)."

Why, you might ask? You see, babies don't do really do anything for themselves. Sure, they cry, shit, and piss on their own, but certain functions need to be facilitated by adults. That's why people pay so much for day-care. If they can't be with their babies at times, they don't have a choice. Of course, letting their children die isn't a choice they consider. Maybe that's their problem.

Anyhow, good job dumb couple. I'm sure your infant would have died no matter what hobby you used to neglect it, but thanks for picking video games as your preferred weapon. As you rot in prison for the coming decades, I hope they don't even give you an N-Gage.

Oh, you'll get your booty...

If you're like me, the recent release of the World of Whorecraft videos excited you, not because you're a pervert, but because the very premise of these videos is hillarious, and you love laughter. Unfortunately, you don't love shelling out $7.99 for Blood Elf Mage porn, and are regrettably missing out on said laughter. Well good news, gents! The good people at epileptic gaming have edited a semi-work-safe version of one of the episodes. For the low price of nothing, the laughter can be yours.

• Epic is defined: The Epileptic Gaming World of Whorecraft Experience
  

Movies of the Patriots

A couple of hours ago, Gamespot reported that Metal Gear Solid producer Hideo Kojima has finally entered into a Hollywood contract for the film adaptation of the series. For fans like myself, it seems like this deal has been in the works forever, and I was starting to worry that it would never happen.

Those who know me or read Coralcola at it's previous address should be aware by now that I support film adaptations of video games a little less than I support neo-naziism, BET, and hippies. However, this particular instance represents a unique occurence, distinct from all previous game-to-crap film announcements. Barring any unfortunate catasrophes, I have reason to believe this movie might actually be good.

Why? Because I know Kojima. Sure, I don't know him in the since that he responds to my letters, answers my calls, or opens his window when I serenade him from his lawn. But I do know that he is an artist. There is a reason that this movie has taken so long to come to fruition. Without knowing any details about the deal he signed, I know that with the amount of artistic integrity and pride that he embodies in his works, Kojima will not allow Metal Gear to be poorly represented on the big screen.

In regard to the afformentioned unfortunate catastrophes, just pray they don't cast Tom Cruise. Actually, pray twice...

Go to Hellboy!

This week in gaming, I encountered five stories about the new Hellboy game for the Xbox-360, which, by my count, is roughly six more than I should have. For a moment, allow me to explore the many reasons why a buzz should not be emerging for a game whose existence itself defies all parameters of logic and decency.

For those who haven't seen the Hellboy movie, allow me to offer a quick summary: Hellboy chronicles the tale of a young agent named Meyers who is recruited into a federal organization that uses good monsters to fight bad monsters. Having never seen or heard of monsters before his first day on the job, Meyers grows accustomed to his new surroundings quicker than would be expected of most, overcoming his initial shock in all of 90 seconds. He then embarks on an emotional bullet train of overly rapid, underly meaningful character development, essentially becoming Hellboy's brother in about a day's time. Once the duo begins to fight evil, the audience begins to wonder how this federal organization ever functioned before the arrival of Meyers, as he is the only member of the entire unit who serves any purpose thereafter. The rest of the movie is a string of plot-holes, nonsensical scenes, and horrible one liners all leading up to the climax, during which generic antagonist #5 establishes an unbreakable mental grip on Hellboy, causing him to summon an unbeatable god monster. The story is resolved haphazardly and anticlimactically, as the unbreakable mental grip is broken by Meyers telling Hellboy to "remember who he is," and the unbeatable god monster is beaten by...wait for it... some grenades. If you haven't seen the movie, I do not apologize for the spoilers, as the only thing I have spoiled is your appetite for a film you should never taste anyway.

That being said, I can't help but be puzzled as to why Konami would publish, let alone publicize, a Hellboy game in 2007, three years after the movie was released and a year before the film's sequel. And you don't have to send a bunch of emails telling me that Hellboy has a rich history and that the character was portrayed in comic books over ten years before the movie was released... I know all of this. This doesn't change the fact that the movie was a piss-poor adaptation of a concept already reeking of mediocrity, and a game released three years after that very movie generated 80% of Hellboy's current notoriety is a crime against humanity. If you disagree, kill yourself.

EDIT: The TrueWiseman has pointed out that the unbeatable god monster was not beaten by grenades, but by dynamite. Well... that makes much more sense.