OK, it’s been way too long, and the crazy list of excuses/reasons just hurts my head, but I’m back.

OH BOY! Is this one epic! For anyone and everyone out there that has ever enjoyed a Science Fiction movie, Avatar is for you. It’s comes with a steep price, in my opinion, but is worth it. By steep price I mean that it is shown in 3D, so you’ll have to pony up extra cash to see it, and when you do, it’s crazy long, but yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause, and he loved this film too.

I am not going to gush about how much I liked every single part of this film. I just want to point out a few examples of why I think this film excels.

a) It’s James Cameron’s person decade old pipe dream. One source told me Cameron has been mulling over this story and merely waiting for technology to allow him to envision the story the way he sees it in his head. Not sure if that’s true but I do know he created new technology just to make the film.

b)This film is visually as well as audibly stunning. My God!! The CGI is brilliant. From the numerous computer imagined Heads Up displays to the eye-popping flora and fauna found just outside the human’s base. Cameron uses both the visual medium and sound effects to flesh out this whole new universe. He doesn’t let up there either. For I found the music just as engaging as the expansive vistas Cameron delivers of this planet known as ‘Pandora’.

c)Despite the mind-numbingly large amount of CGI, the characters still manage to drive the story along. The actors had chosen, some who actually appear in the film and those who just lend their voices all work together to bring this film to life.

Ok, now I’ll tell you more about the actual film…..

Set in the far future, mega-corporations travel the universe looking for resources. One specific item, laughingly named ‘Unabtainium’ here is so sought after, and yet so rare this one company is willing to go to any lengths to retrieve it. (Fairly reminiscent of the Corporation in the Alien universe, also conveniently turned on its ear but James Cameron.) Here on the planet Pandora though, one thing stands in the way of the Corporation, the indigenous race of planet-dwellers. Enter the story’s hero, Jake Sully. A paralyzed marine chosen to embrace this indigenous race in a pretty fantastical way and try to peaceably negotiate the ‘unabtainium’ from the locals. Jake actually is able, with Sigourney Weaver’s help, to take on the form of a local and ‘remotely operate’ this Avatar (hence the title) to interact with this strange beings to learn their ways and get the upper hand to force them out. You see the ensuing conflict from both sides through his eyes, the eyes of his new friends, the eyes of the Head of Security for the human base, and in a smaller bit, the local representative of the Company who is tasked with retrieving this material no matter what the price. From here on out, the story becomes a little guy being picked on by a bigger guy, but who finds some way to fight back. One way the story stays engaging is that it turns out that the locals have their own religion that fuels what they do and how they interact with the forest around them. Just at the point where you might be overloaded by fighting and violence, the pace is broken up by scenes of absolute beauty and serenity where the locals interact with their chosen deity.

Honestly, there is so much going on, so many characters, so much eye candy that this film did not feel like it is 162 minutes long. IMDB lists this film as already being nominated for a couple Golden Globes, it’s easy to understand why. I have one single gripe with the film. In one single area it is too successful. The 3D imagery really is breath-taking when the film begins. Unfortunately for me, by the time the final conflict arose, I was so used to the 3D effect that I was no longer appreciating it. I understand this is how Cameron wanted the story to be told, but I am sure it would have been just as powerful a film without the 3D, which in the end, is still just a gimmick. Please do not take me wrong, if for no other example but seeing a three dimensional piloting display much like what is pictured in Tony Stark’s laboratory, it is phenomenal stuff. Really, it is. I am not sure how well the 3D will translate to home viewing, but for seeing it in the theatre, I have seen nothing like it. Was it really necessary though? I dunno. Makes me wonder if Cameron had been passionate about ‘Smell-o-vision’ would it have been ultimately successful? The world may never know.

Please though, go see James Cameron’s Avatar. Would I steer you wrong? On purpose?

Your humble, if not unreliable, servant Throm.

“Hail to the King, baby!”

P.S. My three Film points…….

1) Was it worth the money spent? Absolutely, positively, in every single way to I feel justified even paying the inflated ‘3D prices’.

2)Was it Kid Friendly? Yes, I can see no reason that the younger audience wouldn’t enjoy this; there is some occasional foul language, but nothing I wouldn’t guess they encounter on the playground during recess.

3)Did this film lower my IQ? Unequivocally, NO. The undertones in this story, about outer and inner differences, and acceptance are a good lesson for everyone to take to heart. (And yes I had to look up ‘unequivocally’ in the dictionary!)

So I finally heard back from the last of my staff and now have a fully compiled list. Now I want to remind everyone, that these are PERSONAL game of the year picks and none of us play the same genres. Matt is more of a casual gamer, which meant that he had fewer picks from his list, Rina plays MMOs nearly exclusively, Jeremy plays RPGs, and Sashimi plays JRPGs but those don’t count (just kidding) and I play FPSs. I will also announce the GOTY that I am awarding the KKOTD GOTY Award.

Matt aka Throm’s Pick

First, let’s start off with Matt aka Throm. Throm has played very few games according to his post but would have to pick X-Men Origins Wolverine as his favorite game this year. And I have to agree with his review. It was one of the bloodiest and most action packed games I had ever seen.

I also asked him what his movie of the year would be and he said UP. I have yet to see it but with its recent coming to DVD I may snag it soon.

Rina, Goddess of Shy aka Kate’s Pick

Yes the Mistress of Shyness muttered a few words to me for an answer which was that she thinks that Eve Dominion was her Game Of The Year. It changed up the entire sovereignty system which is how space is “owned” in Eve Online. Somehow this has allowed her to accumulate several trillion ISK though the details still have my heads going in circles, she is now officially richer than I EVER will be in that game.

Jeremy’s Pick, That Engineer is a Spy!

Jeremy our engineer said that his GOTY had to be Dragon Age Origins, due to it’s stunning style of gameplay, and deep story that will have even the most mundane of game players wanting to come back to see new cut-scenes and the possibility for a new ending.

From The Red Light District in Japan, Sashimi’s Pick

She’ll kick my face in this Summer for posting that, but her pick was Final Fantasy XIII. She has already had a chance to play most of the Japanese version (even though it’s 3 days from launch, sneaky woman) and she absolutely loves it!

The Legend, The Myth, The Dragon Rider, Theranos’ Pick

So in the heart of HAVING to pick an FPS I pick Modern Warfare 2. No matter what the haters say, it was an incredible game that mixed an epic single player and dished out a game changing mutliplayer experience. As many have said before, this is the “Halo replacement”, this is the game that will be played for years to come until something comes to beat it dead in its tracks (Medal of Honor).

KKOTD Firebloom Game of the Year Award

So, it has been one hell of a year, our nominations attempted to go back and include lost games such as Prototype and Crayon Physics, but ultimately it STILL ended up being a holiday season game that won this HANDS DOWN. That game ofcourse is Dragon Age Origins! The game gives a 40 hour, playthrough experience, is engaging enough to merit atleast a second playthrough and only costs $50. Sure there were problems with it, but the game was just that damn good! I highly suggest that you go down and buy this game NOW! Well done for all who were involved.

Party’s Over, PEACE!

And with that, ends another great year in gaming. Things look really bright for next year with several big titles making their move over to the PC and several great sequels planned. I can’t wait to see the new titles and franchises and as always, whenever a new game comes out, I will do my very best to track it down and review it. And ofcourse, you can find all of those reviews, RIGHT HERE, on Firebloom!

Thera aka Dave

Well, this originally was a post but since Wordpress is being idiotic about me putting it up, I made my own page for it. This page will probably be taken down in a few months but look at while it’s there!

VGA Game Trailers Page

Thera

Sorry, I’m a bit late but honestly, these awards mean about the same as a sack of potatoes. Mainly because I vote for them and then watch as they pick ever moronic, fanboyic and illiterate option they possibly could have. Some of them surprised me this year being with my picks (watches people start to call me moronic, fanboyic and illiterate), but most of them were still beyond idiotic. If I get some time this week, I might take them out and spew my hatred over why their picks were WRONG!

Source

Winners at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards:

Game of the Year: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Studio of the Year: Rocksteady Studios
Best Independent Game: Flower
Best Xbox 360 Game: Left 4 Dead 2
Best PS3 Game: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Best Wii Game: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Best PC Game: Dragon Age: Origins
Best Handheld Game: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Best Fighting Game: Street Fighter IV
Best Action Adventure Game: Assassin’s Creed II
Best RPG: Dragon Age: Origins
Best Multiplayer Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Best Individual Sports Game: UFC 2009 Undisputed
Best Team Sports Game: NHL 10
Best Driving Game: Forza Motorsport 3
Best Music Game: The Beatles: Rock Band
Best Soundtrack: DJ Hero
Best Original Score: Halo 3: ODST
Best Graphics: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Best Game Based On A Movie/TV Show: South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!
Best Performance By A Human Female: Megan Fox (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen)
Best Performance By A Human Male: Hugh Jackman (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
Best Cast: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Best Voice: Jack Black (Brütal Legend)
Best Downloadable Game: Shadow Complex
Best DLC: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Most Anticipated Game of 2010: God of War III

So yea, ya might have noticed that not much is going on, we have a few things over at Sacred, few things over at Dave’s Blog and twitter is being updated but nothing over here. Well, to be honest, it’s a dry time right now, I just finished up Majesty 2 and will be reviewing that, Throm aka Matt is down and out for right now so movie reviews are on hold and the rest of our staff is working on the company as a whole which I will be posting about shortly over at our portal.

Starting in Jan, we will get back to normal and things will be buzzing, but until then, just standby and wait for us to kick it back into gear.

For those interested in our other shows, feel free to visit KKOTD.com for more information on what we currently offer and what might peak your interest. If you are wanting to see what is going on REAL TIME, head on over to Our Twitter Feed and see exactly what is going on when it happens. All stories are posted there along with postings on what updates are happening on the site.

Now, I’m gonna fly on over to KKOTD.com and do a status update on what’s been going on.

Thera

Well, technically he’s having computer issues but we will go with vacation to make it sound better. He contacted me that he got a virus on his computer and that it will be down for around a month. He hopes to get back up and running and get back into both movie reviews and WoW.

I will update as information becomes available.

Thera

Thanks Thera,  I’ll go ahead and update this one. Yes, I am back. In a limited status. Mostly just because my ability to review movies people want to hear about is limited at this point in time. If I thought people are interested about my feelings on the original Star Wars films, or why Indiana Jones is the coolest film on earth, I’d definately post more often. But alas, I digress. My computer, is back online, and that will lead to more posts as is deemed possible. Thanks again for all the support and the permission to rant about one of my few passions here in public

Your humble, yet fairly errant, servant Throm

First off I hope all the Americans had a great Thanksgiving and that everyone else had a good week. An issue which started over at G4 and has snowballed across various blogs and finally into my Twitter box, is the issue with game reviews, scores that go with those reviews and how they relate or rather DON’T with good games.

Let me start off by posting the original video done by Adam Sessler and we will go from there:

So as he stated, reviews are done from different people, they get different scores for different reasons and typically if you just READ the review, you will probably agree, regardless of what score the game gets. This went on to Gamasutra where they stated how reviews were one of the least important things to people when they go to buy a game. Saying that “word of mouth” is how they go buy games.

Source

This was posted by Octale on Twitter and so I picked up on it saying that the survey was probably bogus and how it only showed how people that took it were stupid impulse buyers. I dropped the conversation but the argument has been going on since… People are apparently mad with anger when a review is done in a manner they see unfit.

So the next logical step is for me to enter into the blogging arena and state what you will get from this site when it comes to reviews and scores. I promise you that I, MYSELF, will never sell out to a game company just to write a good review. Yes, I do get review copies from time to time but just like Dream Killers, I was incredibly harsh on the game. I was actually contacted by the company with thanks for my critical response in the comments of that post. I will review the game based on how my experience actually was, not could have been, meaning I won’t take it into another perspective that if I was so and so, the game would be more fun and let that drive a higher score. I won’t complain about a game just to complain, I’m not the next Yahtzee nor will I ever try to become one. (Even though he does usually have a very good and strong argument for why he complains). I am my own person, I don’t try to mimic people, meaning that just because I see someone getting tons of viewers because of a certain way they review, I won’t turn around and mimic them to the tee.

Where scores are considered, the number is generally a status of exactly how good the game was to ME. I usually state whether the game was good for everyone, bad for just me or bad all around. Once again, I enjoyed Dream Killers and stated several times in the review, that the game was a niche and that it was fun for me but maybe not so much for others. I rated the game based on how much fun and how good the game was to me, not based on it being a niche.

Bottom line, scores are numbers, reviewers don’t review games just to slap a number on it and have the reader look at only that. If you are too lazy to read the review then you should have the disappointment of missing great games and buying crappy ones. If you want “buyer protection” (what a load of bollocks) then you need to do the work to earn it. Honestly, there is no perfect game out there, the same reason I will probably never have the opportunity to rate a game a score above a 96. It will ALWAYS have something that lets you down. Reviews are just there to tell you what might and might not let YOU down based on our expert experiences and opinions.

Now to close, I want to say that this goes for me (Theranos aka Dave) personally. Throm has his own way of reviewing and half the time he doesn’t even post a score and has plenty of people read it just the same. If he feels at some time like he needs to explain his reviewing process more in depth than he did in Movie Going 101 then he will do so at that time.

Thera

Yea, so if you look below at the Dragon Age Origins review you will now notice that there is an audio version. This is the early stages of starting to record all game reviews (here on out, I ain’t going back to the back catalog right now) in an audio format so that you have the option of reading or listening to us read it for you. It ain’t the best quality as I ain’t the best reader of all time but it’s better than nothing. And before you start calling me illiterate, it’s Dyslexia, not bloody illiteracy.

Anyways below is where you can listen to it, embedded from Archive.org

Thera

The audio version is now available.

So, here I am, FINALLY done with Dragon Age Origins, and now I need to write a review about this incredibly massive game. Honestly, I now see why every other reviewer out there just gave it a 5 out of 5 or 10 out of 10 or 95 out of 100, mainly because there was no way to finish this game and get a review bid out before the deadlines hit. Since I received the game last week, I have been playing it near non-stop. My total playtime was 49 hours, which means I literally played the same amount of time in one week that is considered a full time job. I don’t usually do that, but when you have 4 games piled up and a chance to make money at selling the review, hell yea I’m gonna play 40-60 hours.
Anyways, since this game is so MASSIVE and there are issues yet shouldn’t affect the game score, I am going to score this on Story, Gameplay and Technical, plus give an overall final impression score.

Story

The story flat out blew me away, if you thought Bioware had set the bar with Knights of the Old Republic then you need to play this game! They’ve not only beaten that previous mark but blew it completely out of the water. The story is started based on what race, gender and clan you pick. For instance, I picked to be a female Dalish elf. They start out in the woods, while the other elvish clans are all under human control and are more or less, servants. The game has something like seven different starting areas, and no, I didn’t get to see them all. The game then somehow introduces the Grey Warden, Duncan to your life and he takes you in as a Grey Warden initiate. There are these evil creatures called Darkspawn which are created through a plague, which is believed to be caused by all manner of evil things. More or less it is the same story from Final Fantasy X with Sin being a giant whale monster thing.

So you have these Darkspawn, and every so often an event happens, called The Blight. The Blight is basically like a giant convention for the Dark Spawn to come destroy the world in one giant angry mob. The Blight is also led by a giant Darkspawn general of sorts called the Archdemon, which in the game is played by a giant angry, scary looking dragon that breathes shadow breath. And if that wasn’t enough, the Archdemon can only be killed by a Grey Warden. Well, thank god you just became one right?

You quickly find out that becoming a Grey Warden isn’t all that it seems when your initiation is the drinking of Darkspawn blood. Usually this would kill anyone and possibly turn them into one, but if you survive, you become immune to the blood forever. You have two others who are in your initiation group, one drinks first and dies, one backs out and is run through by Duncan and then there is you. Thankfully Bioware didn’t take the RPG element to the extreme, forcing you to roll a dice to find out if you live or die and thusly allows the story to continue swiftly.

A series of events happen and the battle doesn’t go well, killing off several important characters you just met and leaving the kingdom in turmoil. This is where you come in; you must take what remains of the Grey Wardens, make a new army and fight The Blight before The Blight fights you.

I’m not gonna spoil anything past that because it is such a good story that you need to go play and see it for yourself. Needless to say, this is a game that is hard to play twice and get the same story, everything is based on how you react to certain situations and how your abilities to persuade, intimidate and negotiate work out.

Well, I can’t believe this actually happened, but it had to happen sooner or later, I give the story a score of one hundred out of one hundred for the triumphant main story, the ability for the story to adjust to YOUR actions and the ability to keep the player engaged at ALL times. Other than the loading screens, there is NEVER a dull moment.

Gameplay

Gameplay is kind of interesting; it works a lot like Star Wars: Knight of The Old Republic in that the character panes are totally a clone, you can pause and change your tactics and the camera is about the same. Spells are now done through hotkeys like any MMO out there now that uses 1-0. You also have the ability to set up tactics, though not responsive (I’ll get into that later) make for an interesting attempt at allowing the artificial intelligence make the micro-managing job easier on you.

You have a basic map that shows you the surrounding area in which you have discovered. Everything undiscovered is left in a parchment colored fog. When you travel from city to city, you typically use another map that shows every city you are able to travel to at that time. It also shows recent Darkspawn activity. When you travel on this map, there is a chance that you will, trigger a cutscene, get into a battle or find an objective to one of several quests. The latter is unfortunately annoying as hell as I had quests that I picked up about ten hours in and still had not gotten the random objective event by the end of the game.
Fighting is smooth and fairly straightforward, you start to either get in the habit of controlling everything in real time or pausing every 5 seconds to issue new orders and check on current status conditions. Spells will generally go into an invisible cue if one is currently casting, cooldowns are shows via the icon on your hotbar and items can be used either off the hotbar or out of the inventory directly.
All in all, the gameplay was pretty solid, needed some refining to allow for an even smoother experience but good none the less. I award this a game an eighty-four out of one hundred for gameplay.

Technical

And here comes the one giant flaw that is in this game for the PC version, the bugs, the issues, the just flat-out bad glitches. Good thing is that this game NEVER crashed on me, and that is huge to be able to say that their engine is fairly stable. One of the major flaws was the AI, the AI just acted dumb sometimes. Both enemies and allies would run out only to be slaughtered by the one smart AI at that moment in time. Pulling strategies that I used in WoW raid leading actually worked quite successful and though I love that way of fighting mobs, I don’t want to see it in a single player RPG.
Tactics just flat out didn’t work. End of story, I tried making my own tactics, I tried using presets and none worked correctly. For instance, I used the Healer tactic and my mage continually kept casting Rock Skin on herself until she ran out of mana. I turned that tactic off and she stopped doing, not only that but ANYTHING! I’m not the only one to complain about this either. Apparently it works fine on the consoles but for PC, the AI is just dumb.

Another thing that disturbed me was pathing. When you are playing a game like this that require movement during boss fights, much like what, once again, feels like a WoW raid, the last thing you want is to go in circles, not go through a door or not walk period. There were several times I would have to select the person (one to make sure they weren’t rooted) and then would issue the same order to no avail. Finally I would issues the character move backwards two steps and viola, my character can move again.
One last thing was the incredibly bad loading times. Now, it ain’t really the load times that is bad, it’s what’s causing it. I started noticing that as I played in longer strands of time, my loading times would progressively get worse and worse. I then got the bright idea to monitor my CPU temperature and usage while playing the game. The results were beyond belief, during a typical four to six hour play time, CPU usage would be at levels around eighty percent the ENTIRE time and the CPU temperature would raise a staggering twenty degrees Celsius, far above what any other game does. This was actually starting to cause the CPU to partially shutdown in order to maintain safe temperature levels. And it ain’t my fan or heatsink either.
Al l of this and more hindered my gameplay value and just made the game less enjoyable then it could have been. Sadly I have to slap this game with one bad score, and so I award this game a fifty-six out of one hundred for technical.

Conclusion

Over all, I really liked this game and I hope that Bioware continues to make games like this that push the mark. My final score is based on how much fun I got out of it and how much I enjoyed it. I award this game a final score of ninety-six. One of the highest scores I have ever given out, only tying with Half-Life 2.

Wow, two Star Wars reviews back to back, you’d think they made some new games or something. Anyways, this is a game that I have had on my list for a while and finally finished today. Beware, casual review ahead for a casual game… ^_^

Background

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes is a game that puts you in the shoes of Jedi generals, clone troop soldiers and various other roles such as one mission that has you performing maintenance on a space station that is under attack. It is based off of the ever popular Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Animated Series. It is a children’s game, so take that kind of attitude while I review it for you.

Setting

The game is based in three different story lines, all happening with main characters to the TV series and ends up with one story leading to the next. You have Anakin and Ahsoka on Ryloth, Kenobi on a space station that is under attack and two jedi masters on Behgor. The time period appears to be between the first season and the second though there has been no official word, or at least I haven’t seen any.

Gameplay

The gameplay is a lot like other Star Wars titles that have come out, you use your primary attack to wield your lightsaber around killing anything in your path and you use your force powers to push enemies or interact with switches.

They use the image of Yoda as the all knowing tutorial and he continues to teach and repeatedly tell you over and over again how to do certain maneuvers. This is good though with what I’m about to suggest. Each mission takes about ten minutes to complete max with the more complex ones taking fifteen at max. If you are playing as an adult it will probably take you about six minutes per mission as you will probably understand the mechanics they teach you faster.

Now, why is it good that each mission take less than ten minutes? Well, if you have a kid playing it and they are allowed, say, thirty minutes of gameplay, then they can get three missions in and learn a bit more of the story. Sure they will want to go on and keep seeing how it unfolds, but it will get them about the same experience as watching an episode of the TV series. Plus it would be a great incentive to making them learn to do chores, homework, the list goes on.

Kid Friendly

Kids are really digging the whole act like a Jedi thing right now; at least my cousin who is 10 is really enjoying the series and this game now that I have him playing it. The unfortunate problem is that it does deal with death / near death experiences, romance and lots and lots of violence. Parental guidance is advised, but honestly, I’d let my kids play it if I had any.

At best you will have about a month of play time to share with your kids if you do the three missions per day type schedule, at worse you will be told how scary the Storm Troopers are in their nightmares. You people know your kids better than I do, so if they are scared easily, don’t let them play.

Another thing that might make this a no-go for your kid is that some of the puzzles are poorly illustrated, meaning that you are supposed to figure out what the hell is going on and even for me, it got extremely frustrating at times, though I never went over a fifteen minute timer ever, even with the sitting in one spot trying to figure out what to do. Another thing is that some of the jumps are bogus, meaning that you can be going to make a jump and land ten yards away from the platform you needed to land on. Trial and Error works best but shouldn’t really be needed in a video game for kids.

Conclusion

All in all, I loved the game, just like I love the series. The story gets confusing, the tutorial is given for some weird ass keyboard layout and jumping can take ten, twenty or forty tries but it’s a clean, polished game that deserves a high score. I give it an eighty-two out of one hundred.

Thera