Gaming on a Budget: Mad World & Bayonetta

I mentioned last week that I'll be putting Amazon links in my posts and starting a monday feature with those. Well, this is it! It's called 'Gaming on a Budget,' where I show you games that you can buy new from Amazon that have gone done in price significantly. This week, I'll be presenting two games from an awesome developer that has risen in the past couple of years: Platinum Games.

MadWorld

Price New: $7.29

The first of these games is MadWorld, a Wii exclusive that features fantastic Sin City styled visuals, fun beat-em-up gameplay, and top-notch lowbrow humor. You play as Jack, a contestant in a violent game show called DeathWatch, and your job is to take out enemies and bosses as well as completing certain tasks in order to complete the stage. Nearly every action you do is commented on by the two announcers of the show, voiced by John DiMaggio and Greg Proops. This is especially apparent in the Bloodbath Challenge minigames, such as Man Darts (using a baseball bat to smash people into a giant target. It's more awesome than it sounds.). It's a little repetitive and very much on the short side, but well worth the price.

Description by: ~Ink
(Thanks!)

Bayonetta (360)

Price New: $15.49

Bayonetta (PS3)

Price New: $23.48

Bayonetta was on my list of my personal top 10 games of 2010, and for good reason. It's jam-packed with constant action and a sexy main character. Bayonetta has been the topic of many debates about how women are represented in gaming, but the fact still remains: she kicks ass. The game has an excellent pace and it's a fun ride all the way through, and at the price it is now, there's no excuse not to own it. Unless of course... Bayonetta isn't your thing, I'm just saying... it's really good.

HYPE: Pokemon Black & White

OH MAN, OH MAN, OH MAN!!! I am HYPED for Pokemon Black & White. Just a little over a week left until it releases here in the U.S.

I've been watching the new anime, and I have to say, the way Oshawott is portrayed is making me have second thoughts about choosing Snivy as my starter...

He's just so awesome and cute, isn't he?! I'm still gonna choose Snivy though, because I just love him.

I have a new poll up that will be going on for the next couple of weeks, asking what starter you readers are going to choose in Pokemon Black & White. Will it be Oshawott, Snivy, or Tepig? Let us know!

Oh and I found this flipnote video staring the 3 starters from Black & White singing Banana Phone, enjoy!

Flash Friday: The Majesty of Colors

This week's game is pretty strange, you take control of a giant tentacle creature under the ocean.

Like with Covetous and One Chance, there are multiple endings to this, it's up to your own curiosity to find all the endings.

The Majesty of Colors

Thursday Trailer: Jurassic Park

That's right! More dinosaurs this week! What are the chances? This is a trailer for TellTale's take on the Jurassic Park franchise. I'm very impressed with the way the dinosaurs look, because they look like JP dinosaurs. The people don't look that great, but they're okay. The game will be releasing in episodes just like their Back to the Future game. It's said that this game will be playing sort of like Heavy Rain, with action sequences and whatnot. The first episode will be releasing in April on PC and Mac, console versions aren't decided yet, but it's likely. And just to clarify it says the game is $29.99 when you pre-order and $34.99 regularly, that's for all the episodes, not just one, so you only have to pay once to get the episodes as they come out.

And is it just me, or does that woman character in the trailer look like Jade from Beyond Good and Evil?

Wallpaper Wednesday: Have a Brawl

Welcome to Wallpaper Wednesday! The place where I showcase various gaming wallpapers.

Here's an excellent wallpaper regarding all of your favorite Super Smash Bros. Brawl characters. It's a bit anime-like and Ganondorf doesn't look very menacing, but still pretty sweet regardless.

Have a Brawl

Have a Brawl Download

New Pokemon Black and White DSi Bundles

Special Edition Pokémon White Nintendo DSi Bundle (Nintendo DSi)

Special Edition Pokémon Black Nintendo DSi Bundle (Nintendo DSi)

Nintendo is celebrating the release of Pokemon Black and White by releasing these new limited edition DSi bundles. They'll be coming out on March 6th when the game releases. To be honest, if I had the money to get one of these bundles, I'd jump on it, since I don't foresee myself getting a 3DS any time in the near future, and I haven't yet experienced the features of the DSi. Anyway, if you're interested in pre-ordering one of these bundles, you can do so by clicking the Amazon links* I've provided on this post... or if Amazon isn't your thing, check out the other providers of pre-orders in this link.

*I'll be putting a few more Amazon links in my posts now because of being part of the Amazon associates program. I've been a part of it since November, but haven't utilized it on the site yet. I won't use them in literally everything, but only in certain cases. For example, if a bundle like this is announced, I'll make a post about it, and I was thinking of making a weekly post on Mondays starting next week about a game I find on Amazon that has gone down in price. Anyway, I hope that these Amazon links won't be too intrusive on the regular posts. They shouldn't be... I mean- okay, I'm rambling now, you can stop reading the footnote.

Songs that should be on Rock Band - Heart*

*On August 2nd, 2011, Harmonix released "Barracuda" by Heart on the rock band music store!

Since there's a Pat Benatar track pack available this week, I thought I'd mention the lack of Heart in Rock Band. It's surprising that they're not in the game yet, considering that 'Crazy on You' was in Guitar Hero II, and Barracuda was in Guitar Hero III... though... both of those were covers. It could be that Heart doesn't want their master recordings in the game series, but who knows, maybe they'll turn around like some bands did when they found out the game teaches people how to play now. What songs from Heart would you like to see in Rock Band? Personally, I'd like the entire Dreamboat Annie album.

Flash Friday: Meat Boy

I'm starting to run out of flash games to post... well, the ones that I can remember playing anyway, and that means I'll have to go hunting for more to post in future flash fridays!

Anyway, today's game is Meat Boy, the prototype flash game to Super Meat Boy. I'm not sure how it compares to the indie game hit, but it is definitely a challenging platformer.

Meat Boy

Tip: If all else fails, you can always rage quit

(That's what I did...)

Thursday Trailer: Bulletstorm

Today's trailer is Duty Calls... which is a parody of Call of Duty from People Can Fly, the developers behind Bulletstorm, an extremely over-the-top FPS, and it's coming out next week. There's a short, very awesome preview of Bulletstorm at the end of this video. This trailer is very hilarious to me because it makes fun of how linear and boring a lot of shooters are these days. Bulletstorm comes out Feb. 22nd, 2011... that's next Tuesday!

The Great Gatsby for the Nintendo Entertainment System

Your parents help you hook it up!

Seriously though, my friend passed this along to me and it's surprisingly fun! I think it has something to do with the music.

The Great Gatsby (for the NES)

The game so far follows a loosely based plot around the story of The Great Gatsby... of course as if The Great Gatsby contained pissed off butlers walking around near falling chandeleirs. Still, give this new oldie a try. You might leave cultured.

Collect money and martinis and traverse your way through the world of The Great Gatsby.

Wallpaper Wednesday: !

Welcome to Wallpaper Wednesday! The place where I showcase various gaming wallpapers.

I spotted this neat one earlier today. Great use of a character and textures. Enjoy!

!

! Download

Songs that should be on Rock Band - One Headlight

I told you I'd choose something other than classic rock this week! "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers was a hit in the late 90's. I chose this song because it has some organ in it as well as a recognizable hook. There are a lot of songs that I remember from the 90's due to hooks like that and this song is the first in a line of many that I'd enjoy seeing in Rock Band.

Gaming Reference: NOVA scienceNOW

This is a peculiar place to see video games represented. Besides perhaps a psychological study, there isn't much scientifically that has been done on video games. It's always about the violence... blah blah blah. So I was surprised as I was watching the latest episode of PBS' NOVA scienceNOW program with the great Neil deGrasse Tyson. In the first segment he was testing a dog who knew the names of 1,000 of its toys by name. They were showing the pile of toys that the canine had, and I noticed a particularly familiar head peeking out... can you find it?

Did you find it?

...

He's missing a plunger.

...

and he's hiding his bad hair day.

...

Yeah, Mario! It's a Mario Plushie being used in a scientific way, as a dog's toy. Also, I highly recommend this program. It's always interesting, gaming reference or not.

Flash Friday: Covetous

You really... don't want to play this.

Or maybe you do just out of sheer curiosity. It's not scary or anything... it's just... very morbid, for a game that's done in an 8-bit style. I'm afraid I can't give away many details because I don't really want to spoil the game since it's so short, I will tell you this though, there are two endings.

Covetous

Tell me how you feel after playing it.

Thursday Trailer: Primal Carnage

Guess what! I thought of another feature!

Every Thursday, I'm going to be posting a trailer for a game, new or old. I just thought it would be something interesting to see and may make people aware of some games they might not have known existed! Like this one that I keep telling people about: Primal Carnage! This is a new gameplay trailer for it that I came across last week:

This game was also mentioned months ago in my 'Dinosaurs!' article. Hopefully, we'll get to see more of this game very soon! I'm loving how it's turning out so far. If you're not sure what the game is about from the video, here's a short explanation: there is a team of humans, and a team of dinosaurs, you try to kill one another, that's it really. Well, there are more game types that are mentioned on the official website, and some of them sound really fun.

Wallpaper Wednesday: A Familiar Beach

Welcome to Wallpaper Wednesday! The place where I showcase various gaming wallpapers.

Real quick, I thought I'd post this wallpaper reminiscent of our blog's namesake.

Beach

Beach Download

Songs that should be on Rock Band - Supertramp

Next week, I promise I'll feature something that's not classic rock, it's just that my tastes are pretty old-fashioned. Though, the most recent music I like is from the 90's, so there will be little modern music or music from the 00's. I'll probably try alternating between my classic tastes and more modern tastes with future articles. Anyway, with that said, I'm going to feature an entire artist this week instead of one song, and that artist is Supertramp.

As I mentioned in my Rock Band 3 review, the lack of Supertramp was one of my 'what I didn't like' points. Supertramp is one of my favorite bands, and I've been very confused as to why they haven't been represented in Rock Band yet, especially because of the addition of keyboards, since the band is known for great keyboard melodies. Though... what songs should they use? Well... there are three albums I have in mind for them to eventually put up on the marketplace. The first being Breakfast in America, since that has the majority of hits from the band that are instantly recognizable (at least, they should be). The Logical Song in the video above is a small example of just what kind of music this album has, other notable examples are Goodbye Stranger, Take the Long Way Home, and the title track, Breakfast in America.

The other two albums, Crime of the Century, and Even in the Quietest Moments don't have quite as many hits, but they are still great albums in their own right. I'll leave you with my favorite song from the Crime of the Century album: School, and let you decide if Supertramp should be on Rock Band.

Note: Does anyone know a better way to show/link songs other than youtube? As you may have noticed, some of the youtube videos are strange... I would use Grooveshark, but unfortunately, that tends to only work for U.S. and Canada, and I wouldn't want to alienate our international readers. So if there is a solution to this, please let me know! Otherwise, I'll keep using youtube vids.

Flash Friday: Realm of the Mad God

Oh man, do I have an exciting game for you guys this Friday. Have you ever wanted to play an MMO, but just don't have the time or the patience for one? Well, this game is for you! It takes the basic goals of an MMO: defeating enemies, looting, going through dungeons, and defeating large powerful enemies... and puts it all into one very fast and streamlined game. And best of all about this game, that it's an actual MMO! So you can invite your friends to join you for short bursts of playtime. The only downside is that once you die, your character is dead. But don't worry, it's not very hard to level up another character, since the game levels you up so quickly. Your character is also automatically saved if you exit out of the game without dying.

Realm of the Mad God

Wallpaper Wednesday: Super Mario WORLD

Welcome to Wallpaper Wednesday! The place where I showcase various gaming wallpapers.

I stumbled across this one which is a unique mish-mash of Super Mario World sprites creating one giant scene. Can you spot the Blarggs? What about the Charging Chucks? How many Yoshi Coins are there? What character in there doesn't actually belong!? Maybe that all is really irrelevant, so just enjoy the wallpaper itself.

Super Mario WORLD

Super Mario WORLD Download

Poll: Hall of Fame: Super Metroid inductee

Greetings, readers! If... there are any present...

As you might have noticed, there is a poll at the top of the page right now, and we would like to know have your input. This will be a regular feature each month with our Hall of Fame inductees and we will start accepting 'reader's choices' for inductees once we get some of our own favorites out of the way. There will be more information about that on the next podcast, and later this week, I should have an article up about the requirements for inductees.

So... go up there and vote if you haven't already!

Songs that should be on Rock Band - Come Sail Away

Again, like I said in my last post, this song should have been a no-brainer for the Rock Band 3 setlist. Styx has been in Rock Band before. During the Styx/REO Speedwagon tour, they released 3 re-recorded songs by the current band members on the Rock Band music store. I have also seen Styx on tour before with those band members, though not during that tour, it was during the Boston/Styx tour. I wouldn't complain if they were to re-record "Come Sail Away" because they performed it excellently when I saw them.