Star Wars: The Old Republic is a rad game. You all know how much I was looking forward to it because of the fifty other articles I’ve written about it. It absolutely delivers in every way and is even better than I’d hoped. I’m not going to bore you with more talk about the game today, though. No, I’ve been taking screenshots since I started playing on December 13th (Early Access what whaaat) and I wanted to share them with you. My character is a Mirialan Jedi Knight named Zetharis.

There won’t be any plot spoilers or anything for the Jedi Knight class story, but there will be location spoilers (spoiler alert: You go to Tatooine like in every other Star Wars game!). These are all shrunk down, so click to see them full size. Enjoy!

The Jedi Temple on Tython, where the two Jedi classes start. It’s a super dramatic approach on your way there, and of course the music crescendos appropriately.

Tython is gorgeous. So’s the whole game, really.

Jedi “armor.” Just me, being awesome.

I forget the name of this animal but I thought he was pretty rad.

I just took this shot to commemorate my first group with other players. On each planet there are “heroic” quests that require you to team up with others to beat them. Luckily, my server (Darth Bandon) has a good community on the Republic side and it’s easy to find people to group with.

Finally graduated from the dumb training blade and got my lightsaber. The reason it’s gold with a black core is because if you pre-ordered the game you got a special color crystal for your lightsaber or blaster.

I chose the Jedi Sentinel advanced class, so I get TWO lightsabers. Two is more than one, which by definition makes me a better Jedi than everyone else.

I’m ready for my close up, Mr. Lucas.

The Galactic Senate building on Coruscant, where all the movers and shakers of Galactic politics move and shake.

I made a quick stop at the Republic Fleet and had to inquire who their decorator was, because it looked like they had a lot of wisdom. And courage. And power.

Starting to look more like a Jedi.

(There’s actually a huge outcry in the community against armor for Jedi Knights… there are very few options for us without hoods. There are types of armor without inherent stats that you can modify how you like, however. I went this route, ditching the hooded robe after I quickly became tired of not seeing my character’s hair.)

2 Fast 2 Furious: Coruscant.

The ruins of the Jedi Temple, which was destroyed by the Sith Empire during the Sacking of Coruscant. A moment of silence, please.

Yeah, that’s my ship. It can barrel roll.

Taris sure looks different from the last time I saw it in Knights of the Old Republic. Of course, that took place 300 years prior to this game BEFORE the Sith destroyed it, but whatevs.

I guess Master Kiwiiks never taught Kira to turn her lightsaber OFF before putting it back on her belt.

The traffic on Nar Shaddaa is MURDER at this time of day.

Cheese it, the cops!

It looks like Vegas, but in space.

Wookiee: “C’mon man, my girlfriend’s in there!” Bouncer: “Hey, a LOT of people’s girlfriends are in there.”

It’s not a Star Wars game without Tatooine!

Sure looks like Tatooine.

Yep, definitely Tatooine.

Family Guy fans will know why I love this guy’s guild name so much.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

I make the Jedi Order look GOOD.

There’s this weird graphical glitch that’s happening to pretty much everyone regardless of what video card they have. I just wanted to document it.

This one requires a little backstory. Hidden throughout the game are datacrons, which bestow a permanent stat boost on your character. Usually they’re tucked away somewhere, but on Tatooine there’s one (which of course is the one relevant to my character’s stats) which requires you to climb on top of a Jawa sandcrawler and ride a balloon for thirty minutes to a different, inaccessible sandcrawler. This guy and I waited about fifteen minutes for the balloon to even make it to us in the first place.

Someone else joined us, who also apparently missed his lightsaber safety class.

On the balloon! Nothing to do now but wait.

Binary sunset.

Then something weird happened: after being on the balloon for twenty minutes (we could see the other sandcrawler!) the balloon just DISAPPEARED and we were teleported to the ground with low health. We didn’t fall, there was no animation, it was just… gone. We were understandably pissed. Even the most disciplined Jedi Knight would have said a bad word.

So I tried again and had a nice conversation with this nice Sith Inquisitor who was also waiting. That’s the nice thing about being on a PVE server; I’m sure on PVP servers this is a popular gank spot for griefers.

HEROISM.

Pleasedon’tglitch pleasedon’tglitch pleasedon’tglitch pleasedon’tglitch

Made it! The odds of successfully acquiring this datacron are approximately 3,720 to one.

Some pervert on the Republic Fleet dressed his Kira up in the dancer’s outfit. I don’t know whether I should shake  my head or high five him.

Alderaan is GORGEOUS, and is my new favorite area in any MMO ever. Sorry, Ranfaure from Final Fantasy XI. You’ve been usurped.

I found out you can take screenshots during cutscenes as well, so here’s me all awesome and detailed.

And this is my companion Kira Carsen. We made out on my ship. (Sshh don’t tell the Jedi Council)

“Darth Vader is Luke’s father? OMG!”

It’s a nerf. I herded it. I’m a nerf herder, albeit not scruffy-looking. Stuck up and half-witted, quite possibly.

This picture would have been awesome if it weren’t for the damn mission text popping up.

Oof. Breathtaking. It’s a damn shame it gets blown up in 3000 years.

I’m riding a flying winged dolphin thing! STAR WARS.

Trying to decide what my next heroic move is.

DAMN MISSION TEXT. Kira looks good though.

So yeah! That’s it so far. How many of those Star Wars references did you get? There were a lot.

This will be a recurring feature considering how much I LOVE THIS GAME, so I hoped you liked the first installment. If not, too bad, there’s more coming!

There’s been three big games released recently, and I’m a lazy good-for-nothing so I haven’t written about them yet. Let me rectify that, as a Christmas gift to you, my handful of loyal readers.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has been hyped forever, and it’s really good. Christina and I are still only on the fourth dungeon, because we’re playing it together so when we sit down to play it has to be a good time for both of us and we’ve been busy (plus when it’s not my turn I have a bad habit of falling asleep).

The Wii Motion Plus makes the combat definitely more deliberate than past Zeldas, but it CAN be frustrating, especially with basic enemies who block certain directions and seem to be able to react better than you. Also, Skulltulas? Forget about it. The thrusting motion is very hit or miss so you’ll run into a lot of problems.

Still, the game is an absolute blast and the story is fantastic. This game proves the Zelda series doesn’t need voice acting to be engaging because the characters are charismatic and bursting with personality. This game’s version of Zelda is already my favorite.

It’s about as good looking as a Wii game can be, and as much as I hate being a “graphics whore” I can’t help but feel like the game is held back by not being HD. The art design is phenomenal, it’s a shame the resolution doesn’t do it justice.

So yeah, we’re playing it really slowly. That’s okay, though, because it’s still really fun.

Super Mario 3D Land is the first killer app for the 3DS and follows the tradition of Nintendo launching hardware with a new feature that everyone stumbles over until they come in and show how to use it right. The 3D effects are great, especially when looking overhead as Mario makes a long fall through the sky.

The game really combines the best parts of the 2D and 3D Mario games and is some of the finest platforming the gaming world has seen in years. While the early levels will fool you with their light difficulty, as you advance you’ll quickly start cursing in anger as you die over and over and over and OVER. The biggest offenders are the levels with “Nega-Mario” chasing you. Ugh.

The game would have been perfect if not for some of the crushingly difficult levels towards the end, because so many levels pretty much require you to have the Tanooki powerup. Regardless, it’s the best game on the 3DS by far.

Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s finally here! I’m absolutely loving it. It’s everything I wanted it to be and more. I’m playing a Jedi Knight, Sentinel advanced class and I can’t stop playing. While I’ve been excited about the idea of BioWare’s storytelling combined with a massively multiplayer game, part of me still wasn’t sure if that was as “chocolate and peanut butter” as I’d hoped. But man, it’s SO GOOD. The story is great; right from the word go you feel like a hero and will be attached to your character moreso than in any other MMO. You really start to think about who they are and what they’re like, and when you are able to add the “choice” element into situations where what you do affects other people, it’s an incredibly dynamic new way to approach online RPGs.

I’m level 27 right now and my Jedi Knight has already been through a lot. He’s incredibly devoted to the Light Side of the Force and will never refuse help to anyone who needs it, but he DOES have a weakness for the ladies that would probably get him in trouble with the Jedi Council if they knew (I made the choice to NOT tell them about hooking up with the Twi’lek Matriarch on Tython).

I play on the Darth Bandon server, so if you want to play sometime look up Zetharis!

So that’s my quick rundown for what’s been going on the past month; Christina and I will be breaking down our top 10 games of 2011 in a podcast early next month. LOOK FORWARD TO IT.

I haven’t written much lately. Looking at this front page, I’ve hardly written anything of substance in the past month! Sorry about that. That’s just like me, saying I’m not going to stop writing and then doing exactly that. In my defense Christina and I have been very busy, she’s been sick and those Blogimations that no one watches are a LOT of work.

Rather than spend another day doing nothing and complaining that I don’t know what to write about, here’s a few quick thoughts on what I’ve been up to.

- I’ve been playing the 3DS a lot lately! I got back into Ocarina of Time 3D. I still insist it’s not a good portable game, but man is it pretty. I also picked up Pokémon Rumble Blast and it’s a really good time. It’s really simple and easy to play and it’s something that I enjoy playing for a little while as I’m winding down and getting ready for bed. If you played the WiiWare original and liked it, you’ll like this.

- Thanks for forumite Hexen, we’ve discovered VGCollect.com. It’s a video game database that allows you to keep track of your collection, and if you own something that’s not listed, you can add it to the database yourself! We have a pretty long list of stuff to add and we’re not even close to done, but you can check out our list so far here.

- Ben Paddon (who is the genius behind GameJournos, formerly GJAIF, don’t ask what it stood for) has started a web show called PortsCenter, where he takes a look at games that have been ported to a multitude of systems, how they’re different and which version is the best. The first episode focused on Doom, with the episode going into detail about why the PlayStation version is the best. It was a great episode and I found the original long-box PlayStation version of Doom in near-mint condition at my local comic shop about a week later. I picked it up and it really is the best version!

Check out the episode on their Kickstarter page, and be sure to toss them a couple bucks so we can see more in the future.

- During a trip to our local anime shop I discovered Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line of statuettes, where they take icons of American comics and pop fiction and render them in a beautiful anime art style. I bought Jean Grey, and with X-23, Liara T’Soni and Jaina Solo on the horizon they’ll be getting lots of my money. I’ll be reviewing the Jean Grey statuette for Christina’s site Otakuholic pretty soon, so stay tuned for that.

- I’ve talked about the Daizenshuu EX podcast a few times before, and I finally got to cross something off my nerd bucket list because I was a guest on episode 277 to talk about the latest Dragon Ball video game, Ultimate Tenkaichi. Give it a listen, it was a really good discussion! Spoiler, I’m the only one that liked it.

- I think I’m a REAL games reviewer now, because I’ve been getting games in the mail from PR companies! It’s kind of funny that the first game I ever received from a PR company is Grease Dance for Xbox 360, but hey, it actually wasn’t a bad game! I’m such a nerd, though; I saved the packing slip and hung it on my fridge FOR NOSTALGIA.

Not every game I’ve been sent is fun, though.

Also, if you never checked out my first review for KINECTaku for Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, you may do so now.

- This past weekend I was in the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta test. Legally, according to the fine print in the non-disclosure agreement all I can say is 1) there was a beta test and 2) I took part in that beta test. So guys, there was a beta test and I took part in that beta test.

On a completely unrelated note, HOLY SHIT.

- Finally, we got Super Mario 3D Land yesterday. I don’t want to say much because I’m taking it slow (the game is short, so I’m limiting myself to only one World a day) and I want to give it its own post in the future, but it’s an absolute blast and that THIS is the game that will make you a believer in 3D games.

That’s all I’ve got! Regular updates to resume soon. I PROMISE.

I’m writing about Star Wars: The Old Republic again. Considering that literally about 85% of my day is spent thinking about it, you’d better get used to me talking about it!

Anyway, what I’m writing about today is the decision I’ve made regarding what class and faction I’ll be playing. I had originally planned on playing on the Republic side as a Jedi Consular, because hey, it’s Star Wars, who DOESN’T want to be a heroic Jedi character? I had been talking to my friend Matt, trying to coordinate things since we planned on playing together, and he had mentioned that some of his coworkers would be playing as well. He later informed me that they’d be playing Imperial characters.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m terrible at playing the bad guy in video games. In games with moral choices (you know, the games that BioWare are FAMOUS for) I can never bring myself to do the wrong thing. I didn’t want to play on the Imperial side, but I also didn’t want Matt to have to choose between playing with me and playing with his other friends.

Which got me thinking about something I had read in several developer interviews: a character’s faction and morality are separate. You can play as a “good” Imperial, someone who believes in the Empire but tries to make it a better place for its citizens. Likewise, you can play a “bad” Jedi, someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to further the cause of the Republic, including murdering people.

So I started thinking that playing a “light side” Sith character could be VERY interesting from a role-playing perspective. As I’ve mentioned before, when I’m playing a character that is uniquely mine, I’m constantly thinking about who that character is, what their motivations are and why they do what they do, even when the game itself has no room for it. Well, in TOR, your character is DEFINED by these things. I’ve read several first-hand accounts from people in the beta that there’s been times where they’ve had to take off their headphones, stand up from the computer and really THINK about a choice they have to make.

Even Penny Arcade’s Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, notorious for not caring about characterization and often skipping story scenes in games, had this to say (quoted from his post on penny-arcade.com on June 22):

“I’ve had to make hard choices with my Bounty Hunter that have made me honestly think about who he is and what he’s like. At first I intended to play him as a real asshole but some of the moral quagmires these quests put you in just aren’t that black and white. Do I do what gets me the most credits? Do I stay loyal to the person who gave me the job even it means hurting Innocent people? As a result of all this I have a character that is a hard ass bounty hunter who has a soft spot for people in trouble and children. The only thing I could tell you about my WOW character Dudefella is that he was a mage and a hell of a good dancer.”

That sounds SO appealing to me. So I’m going to play a Sith Warrior for several reasons. The first being that the Imperial analogue to the Jedi Consular, the Sith Inquisitor, is going to be BY FAR the most played class in the game due to it being based on Darth Maul, what with the double-bladed lightsaber and the Force lightning and what have you. The second is I still want to play a character with a lightsaber (and since I’ll be playing the Marauder advanced class, I’ll have TWO!), and the third is one of the Sith Warrior’s companion characters, Vette, is a blue female Twi’lek who is voiced by Catherine Taber, one of my favorite voice actresses (you probably know her as Penelo from Final Fantasy XII or Mission Vao from the original Knights of the Old Republic who, coincidentally, was ALSO a blue female Twi’lek). Christina takes some offense to that last one, because she knows of my pre-existing fondness for blue female Twi’leks.

As a kid, Jedi to me were the coolest thing ever. Luke dueling Darth Vader was awesome. Then the prequels came out and it was Jedi overload. I thought they were cool at the time, but as I’ve gotten older… man, the Jedi were jerks. There’s nothing wrong with being peaceful, mind you, but they thought they were infallible. They believed that they had the answers to everything, and looking through Star Wars chronology, before Luke Skywalker brought the Order back every single time the Jedi had a problem it was something they could have avoided by not being so up their own butts about how awesome they were.

That doesn’t mean I’m in the “DARK SIDE WOOOOOOOOOO” camp. In fact, during one of my meditations (read: time at work when I’m thinking of dorky things to keep myself entertained) I’ve come to the idea that there really is no Dark Side or Light Side; there’s only the Force and how you choose to use it.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of playing a character who murders for fun. I’m not going to play my Sith Warrior that way. He’ll kill people, sure; violence is so often the answer in Star Wars. If someone has wronged him and they’re weak, defeated, and no longer a threat, making them live with that humiliation is probably better than killing them. Besides, then they owe you one.

He’ll be a Sith because he’ll use the Force to serve himself and his needs. What will make him unique is that he’ll also be using it to serve those close to him, sometimes even ahead of his own needs. At this point in time, Sith are encouraged to try to fight those stronger than them to take their place; my character will prefer to let them all kill each other and then take what’s left.

Anyway, I’ve started the guild website as well. I’ve called it “Speaks Bocce” because I didn’t want some super dark sounding name (all the 14 year olds who are playing have that covered) and I thought a sillier name on an Imperial guild would be funny, especially if it was from a Star Wars quote. If you plan on playing, feel free to join!

Over a thousand words about The Old Republic and why I’m playing the character I chose. Par for the course here at PK Bloggin’!.

Well, I finally got bit by the Minecraft bug. My gaming schedule cleared out a bit (Torchlight got too hard and I stopped having fun and Bleach is more of a “once in a while” game) so it was time to get into it. Thanks to my awesome friend Matt who gifted me a copy I’m part of the global sensation!

Up until now Minecraft didn’t really register much on my radar. I didn’t have anything against it, really; I loved the visual style and seeing what people were building in it was always fun. I’m just not a very creative person (you should see the eyesores I made in Spore) so I felt that it wouldn’t be worth the price of admission for me. It wasn’t until Matt described it as a survival game that I really started thinking about it, and once he gifted me my copy it was all over.

There is only Minecraft.

Christina and I both started it (briefly) on Thursday night and we are both hopelessly addicted. She was up until 3am playing Saturday night, which might not sound all that impressive but when you consider that we’re in our mid/late twenties and are up at 6am on weekdays for work and rarely see MIDNIGHT much less 3am it gives it a little more context. This morning I had an extra forty minutes between when I dropped Christina off at work and when I needed to be in and you bet your square ass I grabbed my pickaxe and dug into the earth.

The first time I played was actually pretty crazy, because no one told me “E” opened your inventory so I just used full wood blocks to build a makeshift shelter in the side of a nearby mountain. When morning came I punched out one of my blocks and, whoop, there was a Creeper! He blew up, taking half my health and a huge chunk of my shelter with it. I made a couple of new worlds until I found a starting area I liked and now I’m having a blast.

Click on any of the pictures for a larger version! These are all from today.

The one on the top of the article is my house. I had to add the “lip” to the roof because I was unaware that spiders could climb fences. Apparently so can spider JOCKEYS because I turned away from my crafting table to find one right next to me.

I found a Dungeon today while mining that contained a zombie Monster Spawner and, unfortunately, no treasure chest. That’s my luck. I took all the moss stone, though.

Digging further I found my first lava cavern! That was fun. Luckily I had a buttload of cobblestone to make a bridge, because there were tons of goodies in there.

There’s gold in them thar hills!

This chicken REALLY wanted in my house.

I put up this sign but I don’t think it’s really going to work.

I really want to hear about your adventures in Minecraft (and I’m sure you have stories since I’m the last person on Earth to start playing this game) so pop into the Minecraft thread on the forums and share your tales and screenshots!

Last night I was at GameStop buying a copy of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift for PlayStation 3 to play with the super rad WhiteDragonNall when I noticed something strange. This was a pretty large GameStop with high ceilings, so the had shelves above the game racks for bulkier items, like DJ Hero controllers, Dance Dance Revolution bundles and what have you. I noticed they had three copies of the Final Fantasy XIV Collector’s Edition for $25, so after coming home and discussing it with my wife like a rational adult (and fighting to quell the impatient fanboy within me) I went back and bought it today.

You see, even though I’ve heard mostly bad things about Final Fantasy XIV, what disappointed me the most about it was that it was going to be a blemish on my record. I own every numbered Final Fantasy game, some several times. I couldn’t justify a purchase of XIV because it was supposed to be really bad and my computer scored terribly on the benchmark (the lowest acceptable score was 1500… I got 710).

Seeing the Collector’s Edition for so cheap, though, I had to do it. As much of a gamer as I am, I’m just as much a game collector. I wrote an article before the game came out about how I thought it was a bummer that people who bought the CE got to play early and it sucks for people who weren’t able to get one before they sold out. I guess that wasn’t an issue.

Anyway, from what I managed to play before my computer begged me to stop, the game certainly LOOKS nice, and what else would you expect from Square Enix? The character models and environments were fantastic and the music was great. Of course, since it’s Square Enix, I played for about 45 minutes and about 30 of them were cinematics. If I had been able to run it better I probably would have enjoyed it.

Registration was a pain in the ass, though. Even outside of video games Square Enix makes their menus completely impossible to navigate.

Of course, now I know I need a video card upgrade before the MMO I REALLY want to play comes out. Speaking of which, to continue my trend of MMO Collector’s Editions (since I have the CE of Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and now Final Fantasy XIV) I preordered this bad boy (click to embiggen):

Which reminds me: those of you waiting for The Old Republic, go preorder it now, because a preorder gets you early access based on when you register your preorder on the official website.

I guess this article really has no purpose but to tell you what I did today.

This post is about Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Despite my best efforts, I’m stoked for Old Republic. I deliberately didn’t pay much attention to it until this point, but the trailer shown at E3 (which I guess is the opening movie) blew me away. From there I read into what the game actually entailed, and I’m sold.

My original intent was to just ignore the game and let it go by. There were a lot of reasons for this, and at the forefront was my experience with Star Wars Galaxies.

My friend Matt and I were ALL ABOARD the Hype Train™ for Galaxies. We followed that game for YEARS, excited beyond belief the entire time. We ate up every tidbit of info that leaked out, we read the official forums daily… we were those guys. When the day finally came, we were pants-ruiningly amped. I even bought the $80 Collector’s Edition, which is still one of my favorite pieces of my gaming collection:

The thing was, my computer wasn’t really good enough to play Galaxies and I had never played an MMO before so I wasn’t really good at it. I had a lot of fun just exploring, though. The setting of the game (during the height of the Galactic Civil War) was great, and I had fun running into the odd familiar character here and there (I had pictures of my character with both C-3PO and Wedge Antilles).

By the time I had a computer that could run Galaxies well, they had rolled out their NEW GAME EXPERIENCE, which meant completely wiping out what the game was and pissing off their fanbase by turning the game into something completely different. Before, you felt like a small fish in a big pond: you were just a regular somebody in the galaxy. Now, within the first five minutes of creating your character, you’re on the Millenium Falcon running from Darth Vader, and Han Solo gives you a “best friends forever” charm bracelet and invites you to his birthday party. They completely destroyed what the game was. Not that what was there originally was GREAT, but it was better than what they turned it into.

When they announced Old Republic, I was excited because, hey, BioWare making another Star Wars MMO! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was the reason I bought an original Xbox, and to this day remains one of my favorite games. I knew it’d be awesome.

Then I saw the playable races and started to lose hope. Only two playable races from Galaxies were returning, Human and Twi’lek. No Rodians, no Mon Cal, NO WOOKIEES. (I know their inclusion wouldn’t really make sense from a canonical perspective now, but I didn’t at the time. Ssssh.)

So I ignored it for a really long time until I saw the most recent trailer and now I’m interested. I think I’m going to roll a Miraluka because I think they’re pretty cool (they’re a race identical to humans but without eyes… they wear cool wrappings over their eyes and see using the Force. Jarec from Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight has been retconned as a Miraluka) and I think I’m going to play a Jedi Consular, because their playstyle seems to be a heal/support class, and they get double-bladed lightsabers.

A few of my friends who I played Galaxies with are getting excited too, including Matt, so I’m really excited for the chance to get the band back together, so to speak.

Now, as I slowly start to sink back into the Dagobah swamp that is hype for a Star Wars MMO, I wonder how I ever thought I’d get away with not playing it in the first place.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a PK Bloggin’! style review of a game (that is to say, a review that isn’t really a review) but I wanted to talk about Alice: Madness Returns because I’ve been spending a lot of time with it and it’s a lot of fun.

Alice: Madness Returns (for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC… we got the PS3 version to try to flesh out our library a bit) is a sequel to American McGee’s Alice for the PC, which was released in 2000. For those of you who don’t know, American McGee is a guy who’s made a name for himself by taking classic stories and making them dark and gruesome. No joke, I once saw an “American McGee’s OZ” figure at an f.y.e. store that was two fat little munchkins who had Dorothy tied up, blindfolded and gagged.

Luckily, Alice: Madness Returns isn’t tasteless like the OZ figures. I never played the original (although it’s bundled as a free download with new copies of Madness Returns for consoles), but the story is able to stand on its own, and a quick reading of the original game’s Wikipedia entry is more than enough of a briefing to get you ready to jump into the sequel.

Without going into the story TOO much, the titular Alice has spent time in a mental asylum after going insane when her house burned down and her family died. As she retreats back into Wonderland (which exists in her twisted psyche) she discovers it is a much more dark and violent place than she left it.

The story isn’t why you’ll be playing though. Sure, it’s fun seeing the classic Alice in Wonderland characters as dark, grungy versions of themselves, but you’ll be paying the price of admission to explore the hauntingly beautiful world and experience some damn fine platforming and Zelda style combat.

The game is a lot of fun to sit back and just play. The crux of the gameplay is a 3D platformer where you’ll be guiding Alice through the different levels (which, by the way, are LOOOOONG… thankfully frequent checkpoints are implemented) in a similar manner to, say, the Sly Cooper games. You’ll have long stretches of traversing flat areas trying to find secret areas (Alice is able to shrink at will, which will reveal hidden paths) and then come into platforming sections where one wrong step will send you falling to your death.

Thankfully, there’s no penalty for deaths by falling; you just restart at the beginning of your jumping path. Dying from enemies, however, sends you back to the last checkpoint… with exactly as much health as you had when you crossed it. Be warned, this CAN and WILL lead to a few frustrating situations.

The combat is similar to the 3D Zelda games. You’ll lock onto enemies and be able to focus on them while dodging attacks. Alice has a handy dodge move that teleports her a few feet away in any direction, and the game slows down when an enemy is about to attack to give you  a chance to get away.

The best part of combat in Madness Returns is Alice’s arsenal: throughout her journey she’ll equip herself with her trademark Vorpal Blade for fast, lethal strikes; the Pepper Grinder, which functions like a gatling gun; the Hobby Horse, which is a slow, powerful melee weapon for breaking through enemy defenses, and the Teapot Cannon, which fires tea grenades that cause splash damage. Each weapon is mapped to a different button as well, so you can switch between weapons on the fly depending on what the battle calls for. For example, the Samurai Wasps in the third level use their katanas to defend themselves, so you’ll need to open a combo with the Hobby Horse and then follow up with the Vorpal Blade once they’re defenseless.

Combat gets extremely tough, though: unlike Zelda, when you’re surrounded by multiple enemies they don’t wait patiently for their turn and attack you one by one. They’ll surround you and attack you all at once from all angles. You’ll need to be able to quickly analyze which enemies are the biggest threats and take them out first while trying to keep yourself from being flanked.

The visual presentation is incredible. I’m only on the third chapter out of six (like I said, the levels are LOOOONG… I think I’ve put in at LEAST six or seven hours if not more) but I’ve already seen several unique levels: there’s standard 1860s London; bright, colorful Wonderland; the steampunk-inspired domain of the Mad Hatter; the hellish factories of the March Hare and Dormouse; the underwater homes of the Mock Turtle, Carpenter and Walrus, and I’m currently working my way through an Asian-inspired mountain in search of the Caterpillar, which is occupied by origami ants. The graphics are amazing, and you’ll often just stop and move the camera around to admire your surroundings.

Another cool touch is that Alice’s dress changes depending on what level she’s in. In Hatter’s Domain, she has a steampunk dress with lots of belts and straps. Underwater, her dress glows like those weird underwater fish (and she doesn’t wear shoes!). In the Mysterious East she gains a dress inspired by kimonos. It seems like a silly thing, but it really adds a lot to the distinct feel of each world.

Also, I gotta say: Alice is hot in this game.

Madness Returns has been getting some really middle-of-the-road reviews (the PC, PS3 and 360 versions of the game are currently sitting at 75, 71 and 69 on Metacritic, not that I put ANY stock in that crap) which I don’t really understand. Alice: Madness Returns isn’t a perfect game by any means: combat can get too tough, I’ve run into a few small bugs (nothing gamebreaking… sometimes it’s possible to get stuck on the floor until you jump away) but it’s a lot of fun. I don’t think that every game needs to be innovative to be good; it’s okay for a game to just be FUN.

I don’t think everyone would pick it up at $60 and feel like they got their money’s worth (luckily, Christina and I both do) but the game quickly dropped to around $40 most places, and anyone looking for a fun action/platformer with a great presentation would find that well worth the price.

So Square-Enix announced a North American release date for their upcoming MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.

Actually, they announced TWO North American release dates.

That’s right, the game will launch on September 30, unless you buy the Collector’s Edition of the game, in which case you get to start playing September 22 and laugh at all the peasants with their noses pressed against the window, wishing with all their tiny little hearts to be inside.

Honestly, I don’t really know how I feel about this. I want to give Final Fantasy XIV a try, but the benchmark killed my laptop (well, it didn’t KILL it, per se… but I think it was the software equivalent of a swirlie and a wedgie) and I don’t have a PlayStation 3. It doesn’t affect me at all, but man… Squeenix, that’s cold.

It’s like, this isn’t going to make ANYONE happy except the small amount of people who are going to be able to preorder the Collector’s Edition. I’ve worked at GameStop, I know that there are strict caps on the amounts of preorders allowed on Collector’s Editions. So what happens to the fans who have been waiting for this game for years, and all of a sudden are told “Hey, too bad, you should have ponied up the extra 25 smackers.”

In their defense, there are a lot of cool things in the Collector’s Edition, like a behind the scenes DVD, an in-game Onion Helm (which the Final Fantasy fan in me is yearning for desperately without even having seen it), a security token and a cover by Yoshitaka Amano.

But still, I know how MMOs work. Imagine stepping into this gorgeous world on launch day and immediately being surrounded by people who are 15-20 levels higher than you. It’s going to tarnish the experience, for sure, and for a company that has built itself by selling experiences you’d think they’d be a little more compassionate.

Smart business sense though. You won’t find any of these Collector’s Editions sitting on shelves months later like you do with all other games though.

When Star Wars Galaxies launched a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I bought the Collector’s Edition. I spent $80 on the game in a badass giant leathery box with an art book, pewter figurine, a pin, some in-game clothing and a spiral-bound instruction manual with gold signatures of the design team and George Lucas on the back. I didn’t get to play the game any earlier than anyone else did, though (if anything, I played AFTER most people, since a) the registration servers were borked most of the day and b) it launched on my then-girlfriend’s birthday who refused to understand that I had been waiting for that game for about three years).

Like I said, it doesn’t really affect me and from a business standpoint I can see why they’re doing it. It’s going to generate a lot of interest and they’ll make a ton of money off of these Collector’s Editions. Still, though… sucks for everyone else.

I’m going to tell you a little story about a game that’s just magical.

Chex Quest is a total conversion of Ultimate Doom created by Digital Café that was packed into boxes of Chex cereal in 1996. It’s a first-person shooter based on a breakfast cereal. There’s no joke there, it’s real. I’ve played it.

I remember having a pretty good time with it when I got in in 1996, and really I just made my mom buy the cereal because it had a video game in it. I mean, Doom was fun, so this had to be fun too, even without the hell demons and chainsaws.

You play as the Chex Warrior (who is apparently named Fred Chexter), who is sent to the planet Bazoik in order to fight against a race of aliens called the Flemoids. You’re armed with your trusty Zorcher, which you use to teleport the Flemoids away. That is gameplay fortified with eight essential vitamins and minerals right there.

There was a sequel (appropriately titled Chex Quest 2) released as a download in 1997, and Chex Quest 3 was created as a thank you to fans and released in 2008.

A thank you to fans? What? Really?

Oh yes. I’ve talked about cult classic games before, but Chex Quest is a cult classic in the sense that I think the fans are an actual cult. Apparently there’s quite a large group of fans who still find the game crunchy after 14 years of sitting in milk. I had completely forgotten about the game myself until recently, and I was surprised to not only find information about it, but a thriving community backing it up. Well, “thriving” may be overstating it a bit, but I think in this case any more than three or four fans is considered thriving.

There’s an entire Chex Quest Wiki. There’s a fan forum. There’s fan made levels, custom enemies, and even a fan-made Chex Quest 4. It’s mind boggling when you think about it. A non-violent conversion of a first-person shooter made to promote a corn (or rice or wheat depending on your preference) breakfast cereal has enough of a fan following to survive for FOURTEEN YEARS. It’s got two official sequels, fan mods, and its own WIKI.

I’ve been told that I have a unique passion for video games, but I think these guys have me beat.