Brain Junkfood: X-Men: Destiny

As a comic book fan, it is very hard for me to say this: I have not read a good mainstream comic in years. Between Spider-Man making deals with the devil to Batman creating a personality for the "inevitable" day that he got dosed with weapons grade meth by his dead father, I have been pretty much jaded. That's not getting into Todd McFarlane's "Rip-Off-O-Rama" that is Spawn and Haunt, who are totally not the Darkness and Spider-Man at all.

Bizarrely, I have been liking the games made with these characters. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Shattered Dimensions were both a lot of fun, and Arkham Asylum is a classic. But, an X-Men game hasn't been made since the X-Men: Legends series. Here comes X-Men: Destiny to save the day. Did I say save? I meant ruin, much like a sudden arrival of Leroy Jenkins.

You play as one of three mutants who find out they have powers at a mutant/human peace rally/ love-in. Adrian is a human militant who finds out he has mutant powers. Grant in a football player who does the same. Aimi is a Japanese immigrant who, well... you get the idea. What's weird is that she knew that she was a mutant according to her back story, but she acts like she never knew until the game begins. You can choose your own powers, ranging from Density Control, Energy Projection, and Shadow Matter. In layman's terms, this means, "Turn into a rock, shoot balls of pain, and teleport and use imaginary weapons." The story plays out the same no matter which character you use, but with slightly different interactions.

For example, Grant hits on Emma Frost (who is an X-Man, for some reason) every five seconds, where Adrian back talks every mutant in a feeble attempt to seem tough. You do get to choose which side of the battle you want to be on, be it X-Men or Brotherhood of Mutants. You get to make this choice three times, as if the game thinks that the player is too stupid to remember which side they're playing. This is especially an insult to one's intelligence seeing as the game is four-hours long. If you can't remember a choice you made half an hour ago, this game will remind you that you're an idiot.

The plot isn't X-Men vs Brotherhood, though. Cyclops, taking over after Xavier's death by Bastion. He helps make peace with humans with the help of Luis Reyes, politician and leader of the MRD. "Magneto" attacks the rally, causing the two mutant factions to order you around, and point fingers at each other.

Yes, you, the mutant who just found out about your powers, is the go to guy for a possible outbreak of war. Instead of them fighting each other, they tell you what to do. Emma Frost guides you in the tutorial, with the last tip being how to smash through the floor. Her advice: "This should be an easy smash through for you!" They are a "Welcome to die!" short of a classic, here, but luckily, I haven't "fell to their trap."

As you meet up with mutants, you eventually find that the MRD is creating alliances with human militants and a group called the "U-Men" who can steal mutant powers and absorb them, and supplying them with Sentinel technology. This, of course, means that Reyes is the bad guy, but he's under the influence of Bastion. As far as bad guys go, Reyes is the dumbest. He makes robots, including a robot suit for himself, that Bastion can upload his personality into. He thinks, though, that he brainwashed Bastion so he can get human/mutant peace.

You read this right. He was working on creating peace, so he teams up with a killer robot to create said peace by starting a mutant war so he can have human/mutant peace, despite standing on the brink of having that peace. He ruins his own plan two create a war for peace. This isn't the only dumb thing he does, either. He makes a robot suit based on Bastion's design, and give Bastion a code to "spread his influence" all over the world. This means, Bastion designed a suit, with a download code to input it's "personality" into. Reyes gave Bastion exactly what he wanted, thinking that Bastion would help him out.

Oh, wait, there's more! Reyes knows that Bastion is evil, but thinks he brainwashed him. He thinks he brainwashed a machine. He didn't reprogram it, he brainwashed it. This is why he felt comfortable using a robot suit that Bastion designed. It doesn't explain the stupidity of his plan. Starting a war for peace that was just about to be achieved is about as dumb as writing a book about why you shouldn't read.

Reyes isn't the only one who does stupid things, either. Towards the end of the game, Magneto tells Cyclops that he will kill all of the X-Men. 20 minutes later, Magneto and Cyclops are working together on how to stop Bastion. Then again, writing an actual branching story line may have been too much work. All of the missions are the same, only changing the characters that help you in the mission. At one point, Juggernaut helps you out, and scolds you. When you tell him that you need to find the trail of a mutant before it gets cold, he starts talking about a rotting corpse, then says, "Bummer! Gotta go!" I almost miss, "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!"

I know this is a little new for a Brain Junkfood, but it couldn't wait. This is the most nonsense game I've played in a while. This is including a game that took away my arms (looking at you, Dead Island)! How do you screw up X-Men like this? How hard is it to write a villain with actual motives? I'll tell you what, next time, we'll talk about a game with a villain with a seemingly dumb motive, but a better overall plan than Reyes. Can't be too hard, right? I just got to put on my trench coat and cowboy hat, and see that things get a little Bloody.

Brain Junkfood: Kiss Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child

Well, well, well... what have we here? Another music based shooter game, eh? It can't be as insane as giving a rapper an arcade style third person shooter laced with psychic helicopters and evil evangelists. Hell, it can't be half as insane as freeing Aerosmith from a dictator who hates music, using a CD launcher. Nothing, I mean nothing, can be as insane as that.

How about Kiss fighting monsters caused by a nightmare circus from an other dimension guided by a gypsy fortune teller. Yeah... this... this... is... What the flying fuck? I mean, seriously, I wish I had dreamed this up, because this is too damn ridiculous to not make money. Too bad Todd McFarlane, the man with no original idea in his head (seriously named a mobster after a hockey player he didn't like, then denied it, as well as claiming to own a character after owning only the logos, among other bullshit he pulled), decided to use Kiss in a comic book (again), but this time, using a circus, after the album, Psycho Circus, was released. He then claimed he had the idea first. Will this guy never learn?

Anyway, Gathering of Developers, aka GOD Games, and Third Law made it into a game. Okay, sure, why not. It's not the most insane thing I've ever seen made into a game (and, yes, I will be doing this game as a future edition, it's too insane to pass up). And, figuring I found it for three bucks, why not see if it's as idiotically fun as I think it may be!

The intro is the first problem. Why does the gypsy sound like she's trying to pick you up? Did I dial 976-HOT-GYPS-YTALK by mistake? "I have cccccccallled mmmmmmmmany mmmmortals..." I guess that answers that question... ick. But, the true kick in the junk, as if you needed it not to work after the imagine of an old woman gypsy seducing you, is that you don't play as Kiss. You play as a Kiss tribute band, Wicked Jester. That's like getting an Elvis CD, only to find out that the songs are Justin Bieber covers. No one wants Bieber squeaking out "Hound Dog." No one.

No One!

Let's work around the fact that we won't see Gene Simmons fighting flying, bowling ball throwing clowns. Before you actually play the game, you have to choose which avatar will get all of his armor shards first. You're choices are the Starchild (Water), the Beast King (Earth), the Demon, (Fire), and the Celestial (Air)--

Hold the hell on. The Starchild and the Celestial. Celestial means of the sky, and stars are in the sky... they're the same damn thing! Starchild is water?! How? The only thing I can figure is "Fish Monger" didn't sound exactly intimidating. Anyway, the choice is pretty useless, because the game sets itself up in this order: Water, Earth, Air, Fire. If you go outside of that, chances are that you're not going to make it through the game in one piece. We'll get to that in a minute.

Every section of the game is pretty formula. Gypsy tells you a bit about the level, you kill everything, get armor shards to look like a Kiss member (but you still aren't one), then, once you have them all, kill the boss in the Circus. The first boss is a midget clown who throws exploding bowling pins. He has three stages, where he gets bigger and harder. A big, hard... clown. Yeah... The first stage isn't much, theme wise. For a "water" level, there's barely any water in them, and when there is, you're usually running from it.

The next area is earth. True to its element, there's a lot of earth in it, including caves and underground dwellings. It's also where we get our first real tough battle, seeing as "Chubby the Growing Clown" is really a push over. The strongman, however, has a habit of slamming his "two ton" fists on the ground, sending a shockwave towards you. Even he isn't as hard as the "Ballbuster." He has a cannon on his arm, and shoots a ball at you the knocks you off of platforms. Oh, and he's mostly bulletproof. Good thing he isn't claw proof!

I forgot to mention that each character has different melee and special weapons. Water has a sword, and a flying star that kills absolutely no one. Fire has an ax and a Dragon that hits nothing. Earth has claws... and a spear that only hurts people when it hits a wall. I might as well have a Francisca, and throw the fucking thing on the ground. Anyway, his boss is a minotaur that jumps around and charges at you. Once he's dead, we go to the air.

You start off running from everything because you have no armor. Yeah, in every section, you start with only 25 health until you get your gauntlets and first weapon. This is meaningless, seeing as you die in one hit anyway without your armor. Luckily, no one bothers attacking you, perfectly content to let you get your weapon and murder them. I was confused, but once I got my gauntlets, I knew why. Game... you sly trickster you.

You know the pattern of the special weapon being terrible and the melee being awesome? Air reverses that. His melee is a weak electrical current, and his special is a fucking blackhole generator. There's even a bug with the current, other than it doesn't kill anything. It sets your accuracy percentage to 0% every time you use it. Not only does it not kill anything, but it screws up your score (yes, you have a score). Luckily, you're blackhole kills everything you see.

The air levels follow their them, mainly taking you to the roofs of a city. Remember the Ballbusters? They're here, and they will knock you off of the roofs, killing you instantly. If you manage to get through, you'll go to the circus, and fight an organ grinder with a minigun. That's... that's just awesome. But the boss is a regenerating stiltman who heals by draining electricity by transformers. Uh... huh? How does that even attempt any semblance of sense. The clown, sure, a juggler. Minotaur, beast trainer. Electric stiltman... how does that figure? I guess it's because his head's in the clouds! You now, because he's the air element? Okay, not funny...

Finally, we get to fire. Fire is in a foundry and underground. Okay, core of the earth, makes sense... but why a subway station leading to the Frehley, Stanley, Criss, and Simmons? I get the joke, but not why it's a fire level, other than it being underground. Really loose connection to me. Anyway, you go to the circus and fight the ringleader. He has three stages, but is a push over. After he's dead, you choose who you want to play as to fight the Nightmare Child. I played as four people, then told to choose which one I want to finish the game with. Let's recap:

Starchild:
Water
Sword and A Star that does no damage

Beast King:
Earth
Claws and A Spear that hurts people when it hits nothing but a wall

Celestial:
Air
Useless electrical current and a blackhole gun

Demon:
Fire
An axe and dragon that shoots at an arc

I chose the Demon because of his badass ax. Then I ended up in a level made of flesh... and clown faces. I finally get to the last level only to find a wall of seeker shooting eyeballs. Twenty of then, no less. Once I blinded them, the Nightmare Child comes out, and it's comical. He looks like an alien baby with a mohawk, in medieval armor. My mind is officially blown. After his first stage, his head grows legs, and attacks you with fireballs. I fought a wall of eyes, an alien baby, and it's disembodied head, then get a sequence of the gypsy telling me to wake up because my dream is over. Yes, this was all a fucking dream. It gets better, because every monster in the game is watching you impersonate Kiss singing "God Gave Rock N Roll To You."

This game is weird, and a little buggy. Aside from the current weapon being utter shit, it does crash a few times, but that's it. It is a fun game, but strange as hell. I mean, who would have thought to have Kiss fighting demon clowns and floating brains that shoot heat rays at you? Are you telling me that I could have Rush in an FPS set in a bleak future, probably 2112, and have a hit? Wait... that would be awesome. Must write story for it...

Cinema Genesis: Captain America: Super Soldier

Brace yourselves, people, we're talking about movie games today! What I'm about to say, though, may shock and frighten some of you, but trust me, I understand. It could always be worse, especially when the worst game I've played isn't a movie game, but a sequ... reboot? At least, this year. I can't tell if what may be the worst game I played last year may make a come back. I do have one question about them both, though: What's with terrible games having trophy pictures that are flipping the player off? Anyway, today, we're talking about a super hero. Oh, God, no, not that one! An actual hero, and not one who sold his marriage to the devil, and met the President (not in that order?) No, we're talking about Captain America: Super Soldier.

For those of you who saw the movie, you know that there was a lot of things skimmed over, such as Cap and his team destroying several Hydra bases. The game takes place in one of these missions, playing as Captain America as he shuts down AA guns, and destroys the Hydra base. It is a shallow plot, but it doesn't need to be Oscar material. All you need is Cap and Red Skull fighting, right? Well, you won't get that.

That's the first issue with Captain America's game. It takes a lot from Arkham Asylum, including combat, and adding crippling moves. But, you never fight anyone really menacing. You fight a guy with a robot arm called "The Satan Claw," a walking tank, and a robot with a TV inside it's stomach. All of them go down after punching the crap out of them, and then finishing them off. But, there's one boss in this game that pisses me off like no other boss: Madame Hydra.

There's a reason her boss battle pisses me off, and it isn't because it's hard. It's actually quite easy on paper. Reflect her bullets at her until she dies. By the time you get to her, you've reflected a lot of bullets, so it should be easy as cake. You're more wrong than Lex Luthor would ever yell. The timing changes every time she fires a shot. It gets even better, too, because she has a habit of running around in a circle, never stopping. The game is allegedly eight hours long. An hour and a half of it was fighting Madame Hydra because she keeps running around like the flash on speed. When she does stop, she looks at you as if she's tired of being in the game, then starts running again. Maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky, she'll remember she has to kill you.

These types of boss battles are tedious, not fun. I want to fight the boss on my terms, not when ever her lungs feel like collapsing. It's even worse once she's halfway dead, because then, she runs into other rooms, and you have to hunt her down. Apparently, this game became a Bambi Hunt. When you finally catch her, you have to do it all over again, this time, with her on the ground while bad guys fight you. You'll be able to punch her, but that doesn't hurt her much. You can try to throw your shield, but she belly dances, dodges it, then gets to hit you for free. Call me crazy, but, isn't that just a bit ridiculous? The whole game, you use your shield to fight. This boss avoids it like the plague, and you get hit because you did what the game has told you to do the entire time. It's like if an FPS punished you for shooting a guy who has a knife.

The bosses and enemies are cheesy. I mean, Power Rangers cheesy. You fight cosplay rejects at best and people dressed as cardboard robots at worst. It took me a while for me to realize that the guy with the metal jackhammer arm is the same as the guy with the shield. He has the same moves, only one uses a shield to smash the ground. Even the kill move is the same, involving the guy grabbing your arm, requiring you to bash a button to escape. It's a pain to see the same thing over and over again, but it's funny to watch Cap's face of, "Really? Again? I'm just going to wrench it out of your grip and punch you!" I swear I let some guys win out of pity.

It's not a bad game, though, for a movie game. The first half of it will keep a player entertained, but after that, you've seen what the game has to offer. The highlights wear thin quickly, and the lows are numerous, like the collectibles. There is a metric shitload of collectibles in this game for some reason. I understand the Zemo Diaries, the film reels, and dossiers. Why am I looking for ceramic eggs? Is Cap bolstering his own collection?

As far as movie based games go, it's pretty good. If it were any other type of game, I'd be crying in my sleep. Luckily, I have another movie game to do that with...

Taliesin Novel Plot Lines 1-3

Taliesin Mysteries

1. The Angels in the Walls

Andrew Taliesin: An ex-FBI profiler taken off of his job after being shot in the leg and hip, crippling him for life. As sardonic as he is intelligent, his misanthropic demeanor hides a soft side that only few see.

Karl Rade: A tech analyst specializing in forensics and hacking. Though hired by Taliesin, it wasn't for his talent, but at his own father's request. As for why, he doesn't know.

Flora Wintergreen: Taliesin's sister and an empath who can see what happened in a room an hour before by its emotional transference. She knows how dark the world can be, but never understands why.

Chevy Blake: An above average intelligence forensics tech in the body of a woman with a dark past. Despite her looks, she may have been hired for a more noble purpose: getting a second chance at life.

Charmane Tong: An ex-Triad assassin known for playing all sides. Offered a job where her skills could be tested, but used for a cause greater than she realizes.

The first team for the Abominable Crimes Unit is set on a case that will define their lives when a woman is murdered and set up to look like an angel. Talisin's employers think it may be the work of a serial killer, but he suspects something different. He's proven right when he sees the first victim. As the victim's start to collect on the streets, and the scenes get worse, it doesn't take long for Taliesin to realize that time isn't just running out for the next victim, but also for something a lot larger, and more abstract. Pitted against an angered ex-cop, an extremely intelligent killer, and eventually his own team, can Taliesin stop a mad man from doing the unexpected, or will the angels be the harbinger of a nightmare on Earth?

2. The Willow's Well

Taliesin's Team of ACU agents return in a pulse-pounding case that defies logic. After three young girls go missing, Taliesin is called in to look into the town for a potential serial kidnapper. What they end up with is a town where everyone has a motive to kill, being money, power, or revenge. To make matters worse for the team, the victims start to show up in the town's landmarks. Is the town's terrifying history being re-enacted by a killer stuck in the past, or is the town itself striking against those who dishonor its history? If the latter is true, how long will it be before Taliesin and his team suffer its wrath?

3. Eyes of Blood

After waking up in a padded cell, Taliesin and his team find themselves in an unusual situation, an abandoned mental hospital, and in the fight of there lives. The deeper they delve into the asylum, the more gruesome murders they find have happened, both in the name of science and revenge. Without the aid of their higher ups or any computer system to access the exits, the team has to find a way out as well as a way to solve the killings that have occurred since the asylum closed down. To make matters worse for them, the more time that passes, the more they realize they aren't alone. What ever is following them isn't human, either. At least, not anymore.

Brain Junkfood: "Dick Marcinko: Rogue Warrior"

Now, most people will tell you that I'm not exactly a prude when it comes to language. I mean, I'll fully admit to saying some pretty mean things to people. And they deserved it... mostly....

Okay, look. We're not here to talk about my sins of chewing people out in creative ways, though that could prove entertaining. We're here to talk about a game that is absolutely terrible, but is like watching a car accident caused by a train crashing into a rock with a painted landscape. You don't want to look, but you have to, especially with Mickey Rourke slurring his speech more than Tourrette's Guy, and twice as insane. Yes, when your character sounds more insane than a guy who screams "BOB SAGET" when mowing the lawn, you know you're in for a ride. Apparently, the story of Dick Marcinko: Rogue Warrior is even crazier.

Bethesda originally had hired Zombie Studios to make the game, but it was so terrible that they dropped the product, and hired Rebellion Studios to remake the game from scratch. Look at this from my point of view: Bethesda hired the same studio who did the Saw games, were disappointed that a studio known for bad games made a bad game, then hired another studio known for doing subpar games. Here's the kicker: Rebellion, known for Aliens vs Predator, but also known for Shellshock 2: Blood Ties, aka, "The Vietnam War is Being Eaten By Zombies," made very few changes to the story, and kept the same gameplay that Bethesda fired Zombie for... and Bethesda released it. It's like they threw up their hands and said, "Fuck it, we can't make a good game based on this shit!"

I can completely understand, too. I mean, when was a good game ever made about a real life soldier fighting terrorists? I mean, name one. All right, bet you can't name a..no...ther... Okay, so Bethesda dropped the ball. But, seriously, there isn't much you could do with this game in the first place. Rogue Warrior has one plot: infiltrate Korea, find out where they're taking nukes, and destroy them. It takes place in the cold war, no less, so Russia is the other bad guy in the game. Feasibly, a good game could be made from this.

All of that goes out the window the minute Dick Marcinko opens his mouth. This is what comes out: "A spec warrior: One who gives a fuck. That's me. Whether I'm prowling or growling or going full fucking Faulkner with lots of sound and fury, you cannot miss. I get the job done, and today that means flying under the radar into North Korea. The brass running this op is a dip-dunk desk-jockey named Admiral Travis *mrmrmr*. He tells me the mission is beyond classified, so I'm running a skeleton crew. Minimum footprint, maximum impact. SOP for assholes like me. I trained these men in the SEAL program and they've saved my ugly ass more than once. They're dirtbags and hard motherfuckers. When I'm staring death in the face, it's them I want watching my six. A mole inside the North Korean regime has intel on a munitions factory producing a new breed of missiles. My orders are to make contact and recon the factory. The brass is calling it a simple op, a typical snoop n poop. One thing I learned is that there's a thin line between a simple op and a total goat fuck."

So, spec warriors are the only ones who "give a fuck." We're off to a running start here. Is he actually saying that he's good because he gives a fuck? Of course, it helps when your team of experts is flipping each other off and looking at porn. These guys are immature morons, and have apparently saved Dick's ass multiple times. I wouldn't trust them with my worst enemy, and not one of them is as charming as Jesse Ventura. Especially since a "dip-dunk desk-jockey" with a mumble for a name is leading them.

The team lands, kills a bunch of Koreans, only for his expert team to find a guy who is holding a grenade with no pin. They look at each other, possibly regretting the decision of not running the fuck away. These guys are experts... I keep telling myself this, and it just makes it all the more worse.

The Koreans aren't much better, though. I have spent the entire game using pretty much two tactics. The first is shoot them with my pistol, and nothing else. The second is run up to everyone and stab them in any body part Dick feels like penetrating. This may sound like a bad joke, but here's the thing: Dick does kill some people by stabbing them in the ass with his pig-sticker. By pig-sticker, I mean knife, not "Demo Dick." This isn't that type of game, though you'd expect it to be with what Dick spouts out.

See, Dick doesn't have the cleanest mouth in the Navy SEALS. In fact, Dick says things that would make George Carlin blush. Let's take a look at them. "Die Motherfucker, you motherfucking amateur!" Okay, not too bad, if not excessive and ridiculous. "It's so cold, it could freeze the balls off of a polar bear." Okay, not quite that bad, but makes you wonder why he's thinking about polar bear's balls. No, I think the one that snaps everyone's mind is this one: "Suck my balls, my fat, hairy fuckin' balls! Wrap 'em around your mouth!" There are so many things wrong with what he just said... First of all, the fact that he said "Suck my balls," completely unprompted. He walks into a room and says this. I promise that if you said this, people would look at you like you were a psychopath on fire.

Next, the description. Was it really, really necessary for him to talk about, in detail, his balls? He makes Batman's motives seem sane in comparison, and this is comparing him to a guy who dresses as a bat to fight criminals such as clowns and men dressed as penguins as if it was an everyday occurrence. Okay, it is in Gotham, but the rest of the world, they deal with bald business men who are more over the top than Steve Jobs' bank account. Finally, "Wrap 'em around your mouth." How in the hell does that even work? If you know anything about anatomy, you know that you can't wrap balls around anything without some intense surgery or stretching. That's just too painful to think about. Then again, this would be fun to prank an old woman with...

But, the trick here is that the sticking point of the game is the ridiculous things Dick says in the game. After his team is killed, he just simply says "Fuck no!" to the prospect of turning back. He kills massive amounts of "C*** breath Commie Motherfuckers" without blinking an eye. If you want a collection (and why would you, really?) they made a song from the sayings! That's right, if you weren't offended enough, they made a song that makes gangsta rap by tourrette's patients seem tame.

See, this is what happens when you get your star drunk to voice a character in a game that Bethesda had to have known was going to be bad. So, they redeem it by... making it vulgar (There's a terrible game idea!)? What's the logic in that? It's just not going to make the game any better... unless you have someone calling you "Mr. Cent."

Brain Junkfood: 50 Cent Blood on the Sand

Let's take a step back to reality land here for a second. I am the whitest guy you may ever get a chance to meet. If I even try to sound like a "thug" or a "gangsta," it sounds like I'm about to get capped in the ass. And the people at my local game store know this, too, so you can imagine the looks on their faces when I grabbed this game for this article. I had nicer looks getting Naughty Bear: Gold Edition. Yet, lo and behold, I played a game starring a rapper that seems to think the words "bitch" and "fuck" are like the words "the" and like." I seriously think that 50 Cent has become a walking, talking stereotype. Luckily, he didn't go alone in Blood on the Sand. He took G-Unit with him. Dear God, that's like Bevis and Butthead in a game and saying that it's good that they took Snarf, Scrappy Doo, and that annoying blue monkey from the Super Friends.

The premise is that after a concert, 50 Unit and G-Cent find out that the concert promoter in an unnamed Middle East country lost the payment, and gives them a diamond encrusted skull. Of course, the poor guy is robbed of the skull at gun point, as 50 Cent jams a shotgun in the guy's stomach. Our hero, ladies and gentleman... er... bitches and... G's! Hey, you know what, I think 50 Cent is a bad influence on children now. He just jacked the poor guy's swag, and look what a random twelve year old girl does upon seeing it! Though it could be worse. Imagine if she saw 50 torture the guy! Sends shivers just thinking of it...

On the way to the airport, 50-G gets ambushed, and the skull gets jacked. No, I'm not going to put "Ha ha ha ha jack my swag" for ten more minutes. I'm not that evil. Anyway, guess who suddenly has military training to go with his bulletproof vest? Yessiree, Bob! 50 Cent! I cannot describe how awkward it is too see a celebrity with a gun in a video game, namely one who shouldn't be allowed near one. We don't need a rapper with a gun, because, if music videos are to be believed-- Holy shit... he's holding his gun right! Well, that proves me wrong. Nevermind, then.

What 50 Cent shouldn't be allowed around, though, is bad guys. The enemies range from an Arabic Mobster, a female assassin, a white evangelist, and the guy who gave you the skull, who gave it to you just so he could get it back from the mobster who wants to kill you, who told him to give the skull to you so he could kill you. If that made sense to you, you deserve a gold medal. I also forgot the black army commander, the only person 50 cannot watch as he kills him. He's actually the best villain, because he acts intimidating. He doesn't spout off oneliners like the other villains do.

What he does is sets a standard for the bosses: they're all in helicopters. Not just any helicopter, either. They're psychic helicopters. If you so much as even think of aiming at them, they move out of the way, making them nigh impossible to hit. This is made worse by the enemies shouting things at you. They aren't exactly clever enemies, even if they were comic book villains. How can you not laugh your ass off when hearing a bad guy say this to you: "You won't leave here alive, Mr. Cent!" You cannot sound scary when calling someone "Mr. Cent." You just can't. Can you imagine saying, "I'm going rip your lungs out through your ass, Mr. Cent?" All credibility would be lost the moment before you say anything else. When the hero has to stop from shooting at you to laugh, you're not a villain, you're a class clown.

It gets worse: the last boss sounds like a televangelist from the south. When he shouts at you from his psychic chopper, he says the one thing Unit Cent could ever fear: "I'm gunna make you my bitch!" Granted, it sounded better than "You've got a purty mouth, Mr. Cent," it's no where near as clever as "You lose, 50!" Seriously, no one calls him by his real name, except for a strip club owner who gets yelled at because only those close to 50 Cent use his real name. I really think that the villains would be scarier if they used his name. "You lose, Mr. Jackson!" "You won't leave here alive, Mr. Jackson!"

Okay, maybe it's a little too close to another game, but at least we're pretty sure it's the same writer! The only thing missing was 50 turning into a giant robot fueled by children. Though, with 50 it'd be fueled by "bitches." Every other word from his mouth in his taunts is "bitch" or "motherfucka." It's funny when you realize this, because you instantly wonder if he's over compensating for something. He cusses so much that I was starting to wonder if he realized how... white he sounded. Seriously, I've never hear a black person curse this much, in school, or in my time in the Army. It's usually white people who say half of this shit, only as a stereotype, too.

So, yeah, Gorilla Cent tries to get the skull back, but gets sidetracked several times. I'd talk more about the story, but it gets to a point where you realize there is no story. In fact, it feels like an old Nintendo game in the fact that the story abandons the game. Oddly enough... that's part of what makes the game so bad and so damn fun. It's a "turn your brain off" game in a good way. Wait until I find one where the developers turned their brains off completely. I mean, they went to a bar with Mickey Rourke, and the end product was hilarious.

This Is Worst Than Will Smith In "Wild Wild West:" The "Call Of Juarez: The Cartel" Review

I have had very few questions about some of the games I've played as of late. Mostly, they range on the "What were they thinking?" to the "Is there going to be a sequel?" categories. Obviously, these can be positive and negative. Never in my gamer life did I ever think I'd have to ask this question. though: "Is this some kind of a sick joke?" Never have I played a game as dull, glitchy, and terribly done as Call of Juarez: The Cartel. Seriously, this game makes Saw II: Flesh and Blood look good. That's still the only game that got an "F." Could Call of Juarez: The Cartel be the second?First of all, I need to point out the User Interface. A black and white Killer7 style gun with a DOS font menu highlighted in bright yellow. I want to use the gun to whack the graphic designer in the face who thought this looked good. It doesn't look modern, it looks like a dying Gameboy screen shot in 3D. The rest of the game is just as bad, if not a hell of a lot worse.

You play as one of three characters: Ben McCall, relative of the McCall's in the first two games, now a cop who paraphrases Revelations by adding in random curse words; Kim Evans, an Yale educated FBI agent/ex-gangbanger; and Eddie Guerro, the drug dealing DEA agent who may or may not be a mole for the Cartel your going after. Of course, none of the characters are innocent, one kills an informant, and Ben is, I kid you not, both a cop, and a pimp. Through the course of the game, you'll have to frame other gangs for burning drug stashes, chase after a Vietnam vet/rapist/drug dealer and shoot lots of guns. If this were any other game, like Max Payne, competent writing may have be able to save the game. Unless it's by the same geniuses making Max Payne 3, but I digress. The point is that the story is uninteresting and cliche, so much so that the story gets sick of itself a few times over the course of the game. I went from chasing a drug cartel to a sex trafficking cartel to an illegal weapons cartel, all of them being the same damn gang. Its like the writers didn't know what one another was doing.

I rarely talk about graphics, but it needs a mention here. They're god awful. Pop-ins abound through out every level, including a level that has you driving through a forest as it magically disappears and reappears in front of you. In the same level, a rock was rendered with a side that was invisible, allowing the player to see through one end through to other like a two way mirror. In another level, it was raining, but instead of water hitting objects, there was a visible texture above the tallest object that you could see against the wall. My favorite would have to be the seam for the trailer that let me know that it was going to blow apart... way before it was. I'd say these are amateur mistakes, but that would be offensive to amateurs.

Gameplay could be the most competent aspect of the game, except the fact that the controls are too loose, and the game, being fast paced, seems to love to hinder your progress every chance it gets. Grenades knock you down, leaving you about 45 seconds of time to get back up, if you don't die first. Behind cover, it takes you a minute to regenerate. My personal favorite would have to be when the game glitched after I passed a checkpoint, told me that I need more players to progress, only for it to work when I had to go all the way back to the checkpoint, to the new checkpoint, and then physically grab the AI partner stuck in a fence. I still want to know what happened to the cover system from Bound in Blood. Frankly, I thought that game was boring storywise, but had a damn good cover mechanic. This one, enemies shoot through your cover as if you were behind butter. With as bad as the textures are, it wouldn't surprise me.

You also have driving segments. Here's a science project for you: attach a small fan to a cinder block. Then put an RC car engine on it, throw it, then try to steer it back to a precise point (like on top of the disc of this game). This is easier to control than the driving segments. If you actually did this (what the hell is wrong with you?), you may be saying its impossible. Exactly. The driving controls are intolerable. What's worse is that if you want a trophy, you have to not get hurt in the car... that is magnetically drawn to any object in a ten mile radius.

The theme for the game is even screwed over by itself. It's supposed to be a "modern wild west shoot out." It's another modern shooter, but with stereotypes of Mexicans, and bad guys that looks like an Italian Pimps. Seriously... what's with this game and pimps, were the writers bitch smacked a lot by them? Even better is the fact that no one in the game is likable, period. McCall is an abrasive, abusive ass, Kim is obnoxious, and Eddie is just a scuzball, constantly hitting on Kim. This leads to one funny part in a brothel, where Eddie gets them in by saying him and Kim are married and Ben is there sex therapist. Then it's ruined by the realization that Ben is wearing a bulletproof vest.

In speaking of writing, I have a theory on this. The game was written to be about cowboys, but changed in the middle of production to be about modern police agencies. That's the only excuse I can think of for such subtitle and voice over mismatches such as "It's dark as cow's guts" and "It's dark as fuck." This happens every five seconds. Seriously, I timed it. Towards the end of the game, it happens so often that I wondered if they even bothered rewriting the subtitles at all. Other than the subtitles, the only thing vaguely western is the soundtrack. That is, until the electric guitar steps in as if it was drunk and went to a country music concert and went with the flow anyway.

Everything about Call of Juarez: The Cartel screams of half-assed workmanship. The engine is unpolished to say the least, the sound and voices never sync up (even after the thousands of stutters the game has at points), and even the glitches try to run away from it occasionally. Even after Saw II, I have to say that this is the first game I felt that the developers sent the beta version as the final version. This leads me to wonder why the publisher even approved of the final product that was so blatantly unfinished. Save your money for something more worthwhile... like a root canal.

Overall: F

- Bad Gameplay
- Bad acting
- Half-assed script
- Half-assed subtitles
- Glitches upon glitches upon glitches
- Saw II is better