I spent the majority of yesterday thinking about the shiny new copy of L.A. Noire that was stowed away in my backpack.  I had picked up my pre-ordered copy during my lunch break, held it in my hands, and felt the weight of the three disc game as it slid from my grasp and into my bag.  The final six hours of my shift crept by at a torturous pace and I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Needless to say, I was freakin’ excited to play the game that had been on my radar for nearly a year.  As the game loaded on my Xbox 360 I found myself saying a little prayer to the gaming gods that this highly anticipated game would not disappoint me like other games have recently (*cough*Brink*cough*), and let me tell you, it hasn’t.

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My fellow podcast hosts have already spoken their piece about Valve’s newest title on Level 75, but they had to abide by courtesy not to spoil the game for you. I, on the other hand, am able to put this courtesy entirely out of my mind, because I can tell you that if you have not finished Portal 2, you should not read this.

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Anyone who says video games don’t cause violence has obviously not played Mortal Kombat. As a kid, I remember attempting to uppercut my best friend David after throwing a cup of ice at him. He countered with a clumsy leg sweeping move, which only succeeded in him scuffing my Keds. This was a common scene when you lived two blocks from Keystone Pizza, the only arcade in town, and they had just installed a brand spankin’ new Mortal Kombat Arcade game. We made a small fortune scrounging for quarters under couch cushions, in our dad’s pockets and mom’s purses, under car seats, and in junk drawers, spending every last one each Saturday afternoon playing match after match. When we were broke, we sat and spectated our friends’ matches until our mothers drug us home for dinner. Mortal Kombat had burrowed its way into our hearts and brains, starting a love affair that had been long forgotten, until I picked up the latest Mortal Kombat for my PS3.

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Picture it:
You wake up.
You’re nameless.
You’re lost.
You’re constantly being taunted and mocked.
You’re 2-dimensional.
The issues are black and white and you’re wandering in a literal and figurative maze of despair and regret.

There’s only 2 possibilities of whats going on. Either A.) You’re married, or B.) Your playing Shift Extended.

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The Ryu Ga Gotoku series, known in the Western world as Yakuza, has become one of Sega’s longrunners. With 4 main games and 3 spin-offs, it’s a commercial juggernaut in Japan and a sleeper hit in the west. A spiritual successor to Shenmue, with immense refinements on the basic formula of that series, it follows the adventures of former Yakuza soldier Kazuma Kiryu, as he attempts to make his way in the world, even as his criminal life continues to haunt him.

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Sometimes you just gotta slow down.

Video games don’t always have to be fast paced. You don’t always have to have bullets constantly flying or several hundred explosions going off in the space of about ten seconds, and even multiplayer shooters featuring squads of soldiers armed to the teeth with enough ordinance to erase a medium sized country from the face of modern civilisation don’t always need to be twitch-controlled fragfests. And though I do love sprinting across the Fields of Battle or being Called to Duty with groups of my friends online, I am here today to tell you about a game that takes the exact opposite approach to player-versus-player modern combat.

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In the future, professional sports will no longer be comprised of a team of athletes chasing a sphere or ovoid around a grass field, but rather take the form of teams of cloned combatants killing each other in colourful metal deathmatch arenas for our entertainment.

As some of you may know, though many of you will not, Monday Night Combat has seen something of a re-launch this week as it makes it’s debut on Steam. This time however, I am already seeing a much brighter future for the game than it ever had on Xbox Live Arcade.

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So in an attempt to make a less-than-triumphant return to getting my opinion back out to the masses with burning vigor, I have decided to pursue a more clichéd approach to my articles. Namely, my thoughts of games from days of yore.

To kick off this series of reflections on the titles that helped to make this fine industry what it is today, how about I start off with the best classic game you have almost certainly never played? (That is, if you are a reader from the United States or Canada!)

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A quick google search of the term ‘video game depression’ or ‘recent video game research’ will show a startling difference in results between the years of 2008 and 2010. During the earlier time frame, it seemed the general consensus was that video games were nothing but harmful, addicting, and damaging to all of those who played them. Several studies were released in those years that claimed absolute truth in how even a couple hours a week could cause teenagers to be less social, less intelligent, and more depressed.

These views slowly started shifting into the cusp of 2010, though few still linger. With the peak of motion gaming, and developers creating games that involve the entire family, the dark world of gaming was given a second look.

Most of the opinions were formed by people that had not played games, but rather just watched behavior from an outsiders point of view of a specific group of teens and adults. Video games were harmful because that is what they observed without having been part of the activities. One could say that football is harmful, having never played it before and only seeing the physical injuries that the players take on a constant basis. Why would anyone enjoy a sport so violent and aggressive? Why would anyone want to play a video game that seems pointless or one that is filled with violence?

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Sometimes it feels like modern games coddle players.  There was a time when beating a game meant sitting down and battling through it in one sitting.  If you were lucky the developer employed a password system that would bring you back to the start of whatever level you were on.  Now we have checkpoints after every minor battle and constant autosave systems. We have unlimited lives and omnipresent hint systems.  Gamers today often find their only challenge in competitive multiplayer; someone on the other end creates a challenge where the developers couldn’t.

I mention this because Super Meat Boy is hard as hell.   I had every intention to finish the game before reviewing it, but I couldn’t.  This isn’t to say I can’t beat this game or that I won’t; god help me I will finish this game.  However my conquest has eluded me due to a perfect storm of tortuously difficult levels and sheer content overload.

Super Meat Boy is, on the surface, a simple platformer where you lead a skinless flesh bag through a carnival of dangers with the elemental power of wall jumping.  Dig deeper and you will begin to notice how tight the controls are.  With practice you’ll find yourself recreating the exact same jump time and time again.  You’ll start to feel how button press duration affects your trajectory and how a running start affects your momentum.

And then you will die, a lot, and eventually you’ll grow to accept that too.

Read the full review!