Game review: Fight Night Round 4

Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a HUGE fan of Fight Night Round 3 from EA Chicago. I have never had any interest in boxing but I love Fight Night because it's the best fighter I've ever played that I felt competent at. It's a game that's easy to play but hard to master. Mashing buttons will get you through a couple of fights and maybe even a handful of online fights. To really be competitive you really need to strategize and pick your punches. Fight Night Round 4 has all of this but upgrades almost everything to give us a incredible product.

The biggest change gameplay wise comes from the new physics based fighting system. Fight Night Round 3 was mainly played with awkward animations. In Fight Night 4 because it's all physics based there is no longer any collision detection problems. There also is more diversity in how hard you get hit. When you used to throw a punch it was either a hit or a miss with no calculation of glancing blows. In this new title every little touch of on an opponent will register and with be calculated depending on how hard the punch hit and the angle the opponent is at when hit. The game is also a lot faster paced. The best part of the the last game was playing featherweight matches because they were very fast while the heavy weight fights were slow as hell and not responsive enough. Here the fights are fast and have you make a lot more decisions in a much shorter amount of time. The fights also seems to go the distance more which is nice. It used to be that I either lost the match or won by KO in the first 5 rounds. Now I've had a pretty good balance of knockouts and the occasional match going 12 rounds. It makes for a much better boxing simulator which is how I always played the games but until now they didn't quite function right.

The corner game has been completely revamped and is not longer an awkward game of rubbing my boxer's face. It is now done with a points system where you alicate points to either health, stamina, or damage. This works a lot better and with the option to skip this part, it keeps the game from getting to slowed down after the bell. The standing up game is the one thing that I preferred in the previous game. While the new system makes more sense for what it would be like to get up by balancing and then standing up. I feel like it doesn't function as well as I would like, this might change though with getting more used to this feature.

Last but not least the online fighting modes are fantastic and work better then they ever have before. The fights I had the most fun playing though were against people that played like me "a boxing simulator", when people just mashed buttons to win it wasn't nearly as fun. I play almost as if it's a role playing game and enjoy fighting people that play like that. This is just a personal preference of mine so this would depend on how you want to play the game. The online here is where the game is really going to have it's legs and it doesn't disappoint. Fight Night Round 4 vastly improves on all the issues of the previous title giving us a fantastic sequel in a genre filled with a lot of crap, I'm looking at you facebreaker.

5 out of 5

Geeksquisite #39 Movie Edition: Big Fail or Biggest Fail

Episode 39 Movie Edition

TJ, Ed, and Sylong talk about Public Enemies, Ice Age 3, Bruno, and a few more. Some news about Ryan Renyolds as Green Lantern and the new District 9 trailer as well.

Podcast available via Itunes

Geeksquisite Question of the Day #2: 7/11/09

This question came to me when thinking about what I love and hate about standing in lines. I hate standing in lines for shit I don't care about but love nothing more then being in line for a midnight premiere of a movie or a video game that I can't wait to play.


Question #2:

What was your best experience waiting in line for something that you wanted?



If you'd like to submit a question just send an e-mail to geeksquisite@gmail.com with the subject line Question of the Day.

Feel free to leave your answers in the comment section, thank you.

Left 4 Dead 2 Goes Public

For anyone who doesn't know we here at Geeksquisite are HUGE fans of the valve zombie apocalypse simulator Left 4 Dead. After e3 2009 a month ago we learned that they would be coming out with Left 4 Dead 2 on November 17th 2009. The game hasn't been played by the public yet but we now know who those lucky people will be. While not taking place at the San Diego Comic-Con it will be taking place at a nearby Hilton Hotel during the convention.

Other then that news we learned something even more exciting that the game will be showing for the first time the second of the five new campaigns "Swamp Fever" which is reportedly the only night time map available in the game, although this isn't confirmed to my knowledge. They will also be showing more of the new weapons and items that will be included in the game.

story courtesy of Kotaku

Warlords on Atari 2600 Review

Since no one else has touched on the greatest classic gaming franchaise that is Atari, i'd finally taken my time to review one of my 50+ games for my Atari 2600.

Warlords is copyrighted for 1981, and uses the paddle controllers that oddly come as two tied together into one hub like this



Warlords is one of those games that could use as many as four paddle controllers to play the game, it is essentially an enhanced version of breakout. Yes you bounce a ball at other blocks, but your also trying to hit the "fortresses" of the other players whether they'd be A.I. or your friends behind the blocks, you also have your own fortress to defend as well. And by holding in the button of the paddle controller you can hold on to the ball instead of bouncing it and aim it somewhere else as necessary. The winner is the last one with a fortress and declares a winner after a set number of wins for one player.

Here is some gameplay for readers who are curious and want a second opinion ;)



Warlords appeals to me greatly, it is currently my undisputed favorite Atari game. It isn't easy to appreciate these games with an Xbox 360, a Genesis, and a NES in the same room. But games like warlords puts you back into that era, it's a great game to begin with and drive you to play more games like it does for me.

If I had to complain about anything, its that sometimes you hurry and turn your paddle controller too much to reach another side. Why is that a problem? well if you go off a certain amount with the paddle controller, you can have a dead area where turning does nothing at all. This isn't a good thing since the movement is extremely sensitive, but in my experience with the game just fidget the knob impulsively to keep control and check to make sure it'll move.

A great game for any Atari collection.

Dante's Inferno: Lust Developer Diary

Extremely Graphic Content not suitable for children

This video has been out for a day or two but I just checked it out and I think you should to. The trailer shows a lot of gameplay along with a lot of the atmosphere and style they are going for. I personally haven't been all that interested in playing this game but this video is definitely getting me a little excited. EA is really going all out here which I didn't expect and it looks like it might pay off. Yes it looks like a darker God of War but it's been a long time since a good God of War clone so this one might just tide me over until GOW III.

PS3 copies of Blazblue selling fast

Blazblue, a game made for the PS3 and Xbox 360 is having more success on the PS3. Even going as far in this article by selling out on Amazon and demanding 20 bucks over sticker for a new or used one not directly from Amazon.

That's alot of excitement over one version of the game, and you have to wonder why. Well apparently people who have this game for PS3 can Remote Play. Remote Play for Blazblue allows PS3 users to play your PS3 on your PSP while mobile.

There apparently hasn't been a game that utilized that since Lair, good stuff.

Today is Nikola Tesla's Birthday!

So, for anybody who doesn't know, today is Nikola Tesla's birthday! Some of you may be asking, who the hell is Nikola Tesla? Well, he was an inventor, alive in the late 1800's and early 1900's. He was also an engineer of both mechanical and electrical machines, and invented many astonishing things for the time.

Among these were the Directed-energy weapon, an early method of wireless transmission that would later be adapted for use with the Radio, and the Tesla Coil. He also had many theorized inventions such as his Dynamic theory of gravity, or Tesla's Flying Machine, which was supposed to not use any airplane engines, but instead run on and generate electricity into a motor.

In my opinion, his most significant invention was the Tesla Coil, which would greatly increase the amount of electricity, and paved the way for more powerful electric inventions such as much of the medical equipment used today, or the computer you're reading this on right now!

So, happy birthday, Nikola Tesla... and thank you for pushing us into the 20th century, and beyond.

Geeksquisite Question of the Day #1: 7/10/09

I think the title explains it all but quickly let me expand on it further. The question of the day will be posted 7 days a week 365 days a year or at least we will do our best too. I'll usually post them but in the event I can't I'll just have a fellow author post it.

If you'd like to submit a question just send an e-mail to geeksquisite@gmail.com with the subject line Question of the Day.

Question #1:

What is your best Geeky memory?


Feel free to leave your answers in the comment section, thank you.

So, there's a new Mechwarrior game coming out.

That's right! Our good ol' friend Jordan Weisman decided that he'd take out the ol' Mechwarrior franchise for another spin with a new game. The teaser trailer was just released and can be seen here. It's important to note that the trailer is pre-rendered, and Weisman has stated that it's just supposed to be indicative of what the game "should be".

I thought the trailer looked pretty awesome. Sure, it's pre-rendered, but it's really just exciting that they're making a new Mechwarrior game. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mechwarrior franchise, the whole thing takes place in the BattleTech universe. The last game to be released was in 2002, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, however the series has been around since the SNES days. Weisman has stated that this is to be a re-boot of the franchise, and not a direct sequel.

Another interesting part is that the game is not only coming out for PC (like the last few installments have), but also for the Xbox 360. I think the game will definitely appeal to the Xbox market, especially if it has online play. This could be the next definitive Xbox LIVE mech-battle game that we've been missing out on, since they never came out with a Mechassault 3. Honestly, I'd prefer Mechwarrior over Mechassault any day. I'm pretty excited that the original guys are going to be working on it, so hopefully it will remain a proper Mechwarrior game. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Movie Review: Public Enemies

Public Enemies was a highly anticipated movie for me and it mostly met my expectations. The film tries to blend the best of modern and old school filmmaking to create something new. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it doesn't but it's always interesting. This isn't your typical summer film, there aren't major explosions every two minutes and the dialogue doesn't suck.

It's been a very long time since we've gotten a worthy 20s-30's crime film. So I did enjoy the film but it also didn't give me the throwback feeling I would have liked. The film is shot using a Digital Camera mostly handheld which is very obvious from the opening moments of the film. For some films this works but I don't think this is how a film like this should be shot. The clothing was wonderful and definitely invoked a filling of being in the 30's this only made me more disappointed that the film wasn't shot properly. Even some of the performances by Billy Crudup and Johnny Depp felt like they could have been filmed 50 years ago.

Johnny Depp was just great here really keeping the film entertaining even when the pacing was off. He did a good job of portraying the values that John Dillinger stood for and how he would steal from the bank but not from the customers. They have this already there in the script but Depp just adds that extra bit that makes you believe him. Most of the acting is pretty good, the only part that was a bit weak was Christian Bale but I still think he did an alright job just nothing memorable. One of the main problems I had was with the love story and how it was handled. I never got the feeling that he would go back in order to be with Billie. The characters say it enough but I don't feel like I saw it. The relationship starts so suddenly and has very little on screen development before the end of the film.

The opening act of this movie was probably my favorite part of the film. There is very little dialogue and we get to see how Dillinger and his friends functioned and how they did what they did and see why they are the best at it. The action scenes are all really nicely executed especially a shootout that takes place at night later into the film that is really suspenseful, part of which is that you really care about Dillinger. The film could have been better but it was still quite enjoyable and the first good 30's crime movie in a long time.

4 out of 5

Went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...

...no this is not a review, Tom already did one.

But I got so annoyed, because there were parents bringing kids to this movie. Seven to Ten year old kids! I mean its PG-13, and it has a really good amount of sexual humor. Even as blatant as a girl riding sam, even though there wasn't any riding.

How idiotic do the parents have to be, to take their adolescent children to see this movie with the rating specifically showing it has sexual content and anyone under 13 shouldn't see it. Yeah I can understand if a kid gets to do it in his own home even though he isn't supposed to, but the parents taking them to the theatre knowing kids shouldn't see this movie in theatres?!

I'm not alone on this issue, there has been stories of children being dragged into R rated movies, even babies, and having them cry and annoy the others to the point of having a shooting occur by a frustrated movie goer.

I don't approve of such a thing, but in the theatre I was in, some dumb kid was telling his parents play by play what was going to happen on screen. He must've read the wikipedia version of the plot before seeing the movie or some other site, because he basically predicted the whole movie. I had the urge to tell him to shut up, but I didn't because I was locked onto watching the transformers. He only did it a few times anyway, but this is the point i'm trying to make.

For the mature audiences, we shouldn't have to deal with KIDS being brought into movies they shouldn't even be printed a ticket for, and cringe when something inappropriate has to be seen.

It's about as bad as watching a sex scene in a movie with your parents, it's kind of uncomfortable.

Oh and btw the movie was good, the negativity over the twins is overhyped, the movie only suffers from jumping all over the place plot wise, but its not as good as the first.

But dang that kid was annoying.

First Look at Cobra Commander

Here we have our first look at Joseph Gordan-Levitt as Cobra Commando in this summers upcoming film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. This movie will most likely suck as the film recorded some of the worst focus group scores in the history of the studio. I have to say though that Cobra is looking pretty creepy. Joseph Gordan-Levitt is one of the best actors of this generation so I am interested to see if he can bring anything to this sure to be crappily written character from the iconic cartoon.

Cobra Commander appears about 7 seconds into the japanese trailer.

Movie Review: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Co-Review)

Ed's Review:

I absolutely hated the second movie, it was poorly written and dragged out, and had the amount of humor I could put in a movie script. Which is a bad thing haha, but Ice Age 3 didn’t look any better. So is it as bad as the second movie? Actually no.

I ended up enjoying this one more than the second one, which is good to say the least. But since Ice Age 2 was really bad this is not very much improvement. Once again Crash and Eddie were last minute ideas I wasn’t into, and in this movie they are just as boooring. I was hoping they’d go off with Buck at the end of the movie, nope no dice. Although this movie does a poor job making you believe Diego will leave, he was wasted in the second movie and in this one is good for a few laughs. But nothing more, he really lacks a purpose other than comedy relief. So I really don’t understand why Crash and Eddie ever made it into Ice Age 2.

There is more jokes and visual gags in this movie, only like 1 moment I can recall laughing at but not dragged out like Ice Age 2. It was creative to a degree in visual gags and also had some mature humor to try and appeal to everyone. I liked the character Buck that I mentioned before, he had the best lines out of all of them, one of his lines is truly the only time I laughed. The Scrat/Scratte relationship had good ideas and execution, but was completely a waste when it ended for nothing.

Manny and Ellie having a baby, yeah that seemed sweet and at the beginning I thought the movie would have heart and charm like the first one. Nope, it just ends up being fat jokes. When the baby mammoth Peaches…..WTF they named the baby Peaches. I’M NOT KIDDING, wow that was so damn lame of a tie in to an earlier attempt at humor for Manny earlier in the film.
At first they were going to call her Ellie like her mom, okay whatever, but peaches?! LAME! LAME! LAME!

Okay, to set the record straight, this isn’t a BAD movie. It just doesn’t try to do anything beyond jokes and gags, why is it called dawn of the dinosaurs when the dinosaurs concern the *cough* “plot” of the movie for like 15 minutes of the movie? Lame, but this movie wasn’t bad. It’s just forgettable, and with that I’ll give it a 3/5 for trying and being better than the previous movie, which is good because most movie trilogies get less good by the end. 3/5 is a good score, but I don’t recommend this movie if you have more than one movie you want to see. See the other one first and maybe if you still need to go see another movie, with money sitting in your pocket, then go to a cheap theatre and don’t bother with 3D.

3 out of 5

Tj's Review

I can't comment much on what I think about the second film because I have forgotten most of it. I loved the first one when it came out and still can find some enjoyment in the characters but after seeing the latest installment it's hard to understand why these characters are likable. The film tries to give all of the characters some semblance of development but they almost all fail. Manny voiced by Ray Romano just comes across as annoying and as if he hasn't learned anything from the first film.

Ed is right about the visual gags, this film revels in them. This is the biggest part of what makes this film so forgettable. It is full of moments that are there just to make the quick buck and 10 year olds in the theater on opening weekend. There is no depth or strength to what is going on. A movie like UP is built to last and for years to come will be while Ice Age 3 will be a bargain bin DVD.

There is some enjoyment to come in the second half of the film but it isn't nearly enough to make the film anything more than forgettable. I have to hope that they decide it's not in their best interest to make a fourth film. If you have a kid and need to shut them up for 90 minutes and you've seen Up already then maybe you could check this out, otherwise skip it. Oh, and yes Peaches is a pretty stupid name.

2 out of 5

Geeksquisite Episode 38 Game Edition: Giants and Mosquitos

Episode 38 Game Edition

TJ, Rob, Ed, Aaron, and Tom of Geeksquisite have a great discussion about Shadow of the Colossus. A bit of Mr. Mosquito talk as well. News about Left 4 Dead 2, Starcraft 2, and more.

Podcast available via Itunes

Fight Night Round 4 getting new control patch

Kotaku recently released this article stating that EA is going to be patching in a new control method for Fight Night Round 4. You'll now be able to use the buttons to punch, instead of the usual right analog stick. They also announced some DLC that will add in some new gameplay sliders for Counter Punch Window, Boxer Stamina, and Punch Accuracy.

I kind of feel that since this is all stuff that the gamers were asking for directly, the patch and DLC will go over well, but I kinda wish they would have stuck to their guns and not patched any of it in. This all seems like possible game-breaking stuff in the sense that the game won't be quite as balanced. Fight Night is a sports game, yes, but it's also a fighting game, and having balance in your fighting game is what makes it so great. If Fight Night Round 4 loses it's balance, then what will happen to the online community? or the Versus mode in general? It simply won't be as compelling, because it might not be as challenging.

I don't want to be completely negative here, I mean, choice is usually good... But, in this case, it seems like we might all be in for a letdown. Of course, nobody knows for sure, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Mega Man...for Atari?

Why didn't this happen..or did it?

When I saw this megaman for Atari demo I was thinking it was a home brew creation, a very good homebrew creation, but then I realized it would've been a lawsuit waiting to happen.

After much searching I found here that this is indeed a homebrew creation. Or at least I think so, but it's cool nonetheless.

So after a while I found this:



If this homebrew copy is made and sold, it's an automatic buy for me. But damn the website isn't up yet after I clicked all the links and found this link:

http://www.iam8bit.com

and got nothing..yet.

This is a cruel game the websites are playing with us, but man I hope this game gets made.

Xbox 360 Laptop

That is pretty cool

Game Review: Shadow of the Colossus

This is yet another case of later is better then never. In 2005 "Team Ico" came out with their second game Shadow of the Colossus. The game was heavily praised at the time and continues to be talked about as one of the best games of all-time. I sadly never got into the Playstation 2 and never got the chance to experience this game. This all changed when I bought a used copy at my local Play N' Trade.

The first thing I noticed in the game was how beautiful and yet pixilated the game was. The art design and it's ambition is clearly on display but it also seems to be a victim of an aging platform. While the pixelation bothered me at first after I ran into a Colossus I completely forgot about it and just focused on the artwork. The colossai are just stunning to look at and animate with some real weight to them. You play a character with no name that has become popularly referred to as "The Wanderer" and because He and his horse Aggro are the only characters in the majority of the game the animation work on them is unparalleled on the Playstation 2.

The whole premise of Shadow of the Colossus starts when "The Wanderer" approaches this temple carrying his dead girlfriend to an alter. After which an ominous voice lets us know that we need to kill 16 Colossai in order to bring her back. For the majority of the game this is all I ever knew story wise. The games story is one of it's weak points and is never really engaging. The story has one or two interesting hooks but from a 10 hour game that feels like it should be story driven the 20 minutes of story we do get feel a bit lackluster.

So far nothing I've said has given the vibe that the game is a classic and that's because I haven't mentioned the gameplay yet. At first the controls were a bit to loose and unconventional for me but after the first boss they became very intuitive with only a few minor flaws. The hardest part was getting used to controlling the horse and the camera at the same time using different analog sticks. The camera appeared to be really poor until I figured out how to use it, what I found is that the camera gives you some incredibly cinematic angles that you don't see in other games. The confusion comes from understanding the difference from angles in typical third-person games and film. Once I understood that the camera worked really well and almost always gave me the optimal view to be awestruck by the giant Colossai.

Defeating a Colossus isn't very hard the difficult part is learning how to make the Colossus vulnerable to your attack. Each boss fight plays like a moving breathing puzzle that you have to solve. Once the puzzle is solved executing it becomes fairly easily at least until some of the final bosses. I have mentioned many times before how much I dislike puzzles in action games but here it is never an issue. The reason being that they blend the two into one mechanic, it isn't a puzzle section and then a fighting section. They meld the two in such away the fighting and problem solving are done at the same time, seamless. The bosses might at first feel too repetitive but I feel that the diversity in how the different Colossai function was more then diverse enough to keep the game enjoyable throughout my playthrough. Only twice did I ever get stuck on a boss, but my determination to defeat it was enough to get me to finish the fight and feel accomplished when I did.

Shadow of the Colossus is certainly flawed but undoubtedly fun. It was a wonderful experience that I'm only sad I never played before. From the sprawling landscape to the Colossal Colossai this game really is the classic people say it is. I can only wait with baited breath to see if The Last Guardian lives up to Shadow of the Colossus.

5 out of 5

Coming Soon: Geek Foods

Geeksquisite would like to introduce Geek Foods, which will be available to stream this season. Geek Foods would like to provide our Geeksquisite viewers with an easy "how to" approach to geeky cuisine. Geek Foods will encompass unique cooking from different cultures with geeky flair. Chow!