MECHABLOGZILLA

I originally created Mechablogzilla as a sister site to Blogzilla 1985 because I wanted a site to focus primarily on games. I have a lot of friends who skip the BZ85 posts that don't deal with the gaming industry, and this site was primarily for them. I had so many different writers posting so many different things on the main site that lots of posts got lost in the shuffle. Of course, those writers are all gone now, so....

With BZ85 as popular as it has ever been, I felt it was time to formally shut down Mechablogzilla. I just don't have time to keep both updated, and BZ85 is the primary site with access to all of the stories anyway.

So, it was a short ride, but I'd say it was still enjoyable. I tried some new design styles with the site, and while not all of them worked, it was a learning experience.

I remind you all that you can still read the latest and greatest ramblings of a mad duo on our Blogzilla 1985 site. I will leave Mechablogzilla up for another week, and then the site will go offline completely. Thank you all for reading, and I hope to keep seeing you guys at BZ85!

Farewell, Mechablogzilla!

It's not even a challenge. Finally, Cena is a cartoon character in personality only!

Let that eye candy rot your mental tooth for a second and we'll move on.

Since websites are so 2000's and Facebook is a fad that will die soon, the good people at BZ85 decided to extend our reach to Tumblr in a desperate attempt to fend off intellectual property death for another week or two.

So why not check us out on Tumblr? It's fast, responsive, and easier to connect with our fans. All three of them! Follow us today, because if it's not sexy we don't eat.

Follow BZ85 on Tumblr!

Disclaimer - Any promise of a 5 Star award to any game reviewed during the 5 Star Reviews in 5 Paragraphs segment is a mistake on the readers part. At no point in the conception for the segment titled 5 Star Reviews in 5 Paragraphs did anyone ever promise a 5 star review for any game. The review is 5 stars because it's so good, but the game might not be. Makes sense!

I like Diablo III. I beat it multiple times and loved every play through. My demon hunter was so BA that I had new crossbows made for him out of solid gold, which made them unusable. I traded those crossbows in at Bowstop and got 6 bucks each for them, and I used that 12 bucks in the real money auction house. I slapped Diablo's ass down so many times he put a restraining order against me. I kindly explained that with the proper disguises and alibi, restraining orders are practically useless. Ask any of my ex-girlfriends.

If they were still alive HEH HEH HEH HEH.


Still, Diablo III had its problems. The game felt short and kind of incomplete. The auction house basically destroyed the most important aspect that the previous two games were built upon, which is finding mad loot and making yourself cooler than the other side of the pillow. If you wanted better gear you didn't have to take your lazy ass out into the Underworld to find it, you could just buy it from some random dick with even less of a life than you! And great news, you could even use REAL money to buy gear now! HELLO, FUTURE OF GAMING!

Still, problems aside, it was a great trip. Loved the characters, loved the art style, loved the story. I assumed my need to play Diablo was over though, as my multiple journeys through the exact same story had taken a toll on my weary soul. Then, like the grim reaper himself, the expansion set for Diablo III came to take that very soul. Addiction, thy name is Reaper of Souls.

So what's new? The Crusader class is so good it'll make you wanna slap your mama. Why even play as any other class when you can play as a tough as shit plate armored knight of God ass slamming demons back to Hell with a tower shield in one hand a two handed weapon in the other? The auction house is as dead as my hope for Ghostbusters 3, and the new adventure mode lets you take on bounties and open rifts in a separate journey from the story line, allowing for an almost MMO style experience in the Diablo world.

Are there problems? Of course there are. The story for the expansion doesn't take long to complete, and most of the new additions probably could have been patched in for free. But also, shut the fuck up! Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls is a damn fine expansion, and it has completely rekindled my love for the flagship series from Blizzard. If you have Diablo III, you owe it to that part of your sexuality that you can't satisfy to buy this game and show Malthael the power of friendship!

It doesn't quite get five stars, but it gets a solid four out of five for being exceptionally fun, addicting, and for having 100% less auction house.

I won't waste your time today with a lot of clever remarks or personal stories about Ultima Online. I'll save that for future stories when I need to fill space.

No, right now we're here to talk about Elder Scrolls Online. They just finished up with another beta, and while I only dipped my toes in this one, I did play the last one quite a bit. I don't know if the NDA is still in effect or not, but who cares! MechaBZ is small enough to skirt by the law anyway. That's how we get away with obvious copyright infringement and our award winning whiskey distillery!

Before we get started, who wants some hooch?

So I started playing the last beta thanks to Chris from our LoL Zone affiliate. He scored invites when even I could not. I guess the developers are unaware of my reputation, because as you all know I'm kind of a big deal.

The first thing I noticed upon logging in was the way the races were all tied into three different factions. That's fine by me, as the three way PVP is one of the biggest draws of the game for me. I've always loved open world PVP, from the intense life and death battles in UO to the grand battles in Warhammer Online. A three way dance sounded right up my alley, as I hadn't experienced an epic three way since the No Mercy ladder match between myself, Chaps, and Justin.

Hope you weren't expecting something more scandalous. I'm really quite boring. But that match was an hour and half long and we all became best friends after that. Show me a tryst that can create the kind of bond that steel on skeleton can make!

From what I've read, the whole faction thing can be avoided through either preorder or by buying the collectors edition, I forget which. It seems to be a hot button topic for a lot of gamers, but the ability to play any race in any faction makes sense to me. I hate when games like WoW force you to be a certain race on a certain side with no way to cross factions. Yet, at the same time, members of the enemy races are constantly seen in your towns and as allies. Gah!

Character customization is pretty good. You have your basics here - sliders, a handful of hair styles, and even voice options. I've never been a big fan of my online characters having voices. It was cool in The Old Republic, because even though you didn't have a choice in the way you sounded, the well written script made everything your character had to say seem interesting ad pivotal. Here it's mostly grunts and yells. Not very exciting. Plus, you only get a sample of what the character sounds like, and it's not always indicative of how it'll be when you're actually in game. When I played Aion I thought I picked a great voice for my female archer, but once I started playing I quickly discovered she had the most obnoxious voice I had ever heard and I honestly did not play her because of how annoying she came across as.

The meat and potatoes of an Elder Scrolls game is the story. That's a no brainer, right? After all, this is a series built on some classic single player RPG traditions. A lot of people wondered how they would handle the kind of personal narrative of an Elder Scrolls game in a massive multiplayer setting. Well, in my opinion at least, it works about as well as you could imagine.

The introduction quest has you escaping a sort of prison and rescuing an important individual. While I originally thought this to be instanced, I soon found myself surrounded by other adventurers all on the same quest to rescue him. Succeeding did not recognize it as a group effort though. Much like your other theme park style MMO's, you're the hero of the story, even if there another hundred right behind you with the same heroic aspirations.

You wind up in a desert town, look around, fight some pirates, meet new people, etc etc. If it doesn't sound like it's terribly thrilling, it's because it isn't. It really is your standard MMO fare just wrapped in a more attractive package. Yes, ESO is a beautiful game and seems to run well on most systems. Thanks to all the money I sunk into my PC and not into paying my bills, I was able to run the game on max settings and I was very impressed by the visuals. Some of the animations still need work, and the scenery is a bit generic fantasy, but otherwise it's a fine specimen.

The class system is surprisingly robust. I picked a mage but was able to use a two handed sword proficiently. I'm sure there will be limitations and reasons to pick one weapon or another later on, but at least in the beginning I felt like I had some control over what kind of character I wanted to build. The same goes for the abilities, which at first felt foreign to me. An Elder Scrolls game with slotted hotbar abilities? It doesn't seem right, but you quickly adapt. It works very well, and I never felt like I had a screen full of abilities and little room to actually see the game, like when I play World of Warcraft.

The combat system plays almost identically to the single player games, except with the added hotbar. For some people this will be awesome, and that's including myself. I love the twitch style MMO's like this and Tera, as it makes you feel like personal skill can triumph over higher levels and better equipment. For someone like my girlfriend though, this would be a deal breaker. She much prefers the tab targeting and auto attacks of your basic MMO.

Really, the only problem with the game is how by the book it is. I can't keep doing the same thing in these games. Fetch quests, kill X amount of X, talk to this person and return, blah blah blah. It's not an inferior game, it just doesn't bring anything new to the genre.

And for an Elder Scrolls game, it feels surprisingly apathetic from a player perspective. I'm used to being immersed in a world that I've helped mold, but it's hard to do that in an MMO. One of the early quests has you either giving a pirate a potion to save her life or letting her die a horrible death on the floor of her ship. In any single player ES game I would feel like her life is in my hands, but when there are 20 other people standing around me making the same decision, I could really care less what happens to her. I feel no connection with the world, and that's the worst possible thing that could happen to an Elder Scrolls game.

It actually made me realize something kind of depressing about the series as a whole. I don't really give a damn about the world of any Elder Scrolls game. The only reason I enjoy them as much as I do is because I'm a PC (master race) gamer and I take much joy in modding them. My Fallout 3 game had so many mods in it you wouldn't even realize it was a Fallout game anymore. I had terminators, Highlander swords, anime companions, Warhammer 40k skins for the different factions, floating fortresses, and so much unnecessary nudity that you would think it was sponsored by Larry Flynt.

Part of the fun of a Bethesda RPG is to dismantle it any way possible and rebuild it as something completely different. Despite being a solid and beautiful MMORPG, can Elder Scrolls Online keep my interest without the ability to alter it any way I see fit?

I reserve complete judgment on this game until it is released. For the most part I've chosen to ignore the beta, as too many times in the past I've poured days into a beta only to repeat the same steps once the game is released and lose interest. I've yet to experience the PVP, and perhaps over time I'll warm to my character and the world will open up for me. There have been plenty of other MMO's that I was on the fence on and ended up enjoying immensely - Aion, Tera, Defiance to just name a few. And, to be fair, there have been some games I was absolutely hyped about that ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm looking at you, Guild Wars 2.

For now I'm putting Elder Scrolls Online on my list of games to pick up, but I have serious reservations about it's long term appeal. So many MMO's now crash and burn within the first few months, and despite having unlimited potential I'm worried this one will follow the same path.

We'll all find out in June, when Elder Scrolls Online launches. Until then, I'm crossing my fingers for the ability to become a vampire or a werewolf. Or a vampire werewolf. A werepyre!

Wait, didn't Underworld try that once? How did that turn out?



*shudder*

With the recent release of Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns, the relaunch of FFXIV, and the excitement for the upcoming FFXV, I decided to honor my once favorite series with a list of my favorite moments from the series.

I've been told that lists on a blog site are both creative and fresh.

Final Fantasy has a wealth of great moments. The storytelling in the game has always been phenomenal, even though the series has been lacking ever since the original Playstation era. The SNES to PSX transition was smooth as butter, leaving behind the solid but lackluster Nintendo entries and not yet corrupted by the anime infused PS2 era and beyond.

It is entirely my own personal opinion, but comparing a game like VI to XIII is like comparing apples to Spam. Both will feed you, but while one makes you healthier and keeps the dentist away, the other festers in your bowels until you're doing a mad dash for the bathroom. XIII-2 is what is left over after the trip.

Still, even the newer games have their moments. Unfortunately, they're probably not moments you'll see on this list because it's my list, and I'm the kind of guy that hugs a cartridge and puts a CD up for adoption.

On the black market.

And then I use that money to buy Little Caesers. That's the cheapest of all pizzas.

I've lost my love for the series over the years. Eastern RPG's as a whole have gone downhill it seems, with most of them now appealing to the most hardcore fans of anime and Japanese culture. Western RPG's have become much more enjoyable to me, as I feel they are close to how Final Fantasy used to be, with mature writing and interesting protagonists. Still, there will always be a spot in my heart for that series that revolves around giant horse birds and stylish moogles.

Also, the very style of Final Fantasy makes this list harder than it may seem. All in all, FFIX is my absolute favorite game in the lot, and I could very easily make this entire list about that game. But, for the sake of showing off my knowledge of the series and giving you guys more than just Garnet to look at, I'm going to limit myself to two moments from any particular game.

Except for one certain game. And yes, I'm actually adding this in post publishing because I forgot I broke my own rules. I could have made it just one moment from any game, but I decided not to let you push me around. I do what I want.

Keep in mind that this isn't a list of the BEST moments in the Final Fantasy series, just my own personal favorite ones. If you don't see your favorite moment on this list it's because we have different opinions.

And your opinion sucks.

You also won't find many spin offs on this list, like the Game Boy games or Mystic Quest. It's not that they're bad, just less memorable. And once we start diving into games that are sort of like Final Fantasy but not quite, we'd have to look at games like Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. I could make a top twenty list on either of those games alone.

Of course, SPOILERS abound, so if you've not played these games and intend to do so, avert your eyes.

So, without further stalling to extend the length of this article, let's get to the action.



We start off our list with the kidnapping scene from Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions on PSP. In this scene, our heroes Ramza and Agrias defend Princess Ovelia only to have her kidnapped by Delita, an old friend of the main character.

Final Fantasy Tactics was an amazing game that broke a lot of the rules for the FF series. It was a tactics game that used a grid style battle system in place of the traditional left vs. right turn based one that the series was built on. There was also an in depth job system and an interesting graphic style, but what stood out most to me were the characters and plot.

This was a well written game that had such mature writing, as a kid I often felt lost because I truly didn't understand the world of grown ups. There was much betrayal, sorrow, triumph, and a sense of being forgotten that the game really assaulted you with at every turn. You didn't know it at the time, but after this cut scene you were in for a world of heartbreak.

The visuals alone in this video are amazing, and the PSP port did a fantastic job of creating a unique art style for a very unique game.



I'm not a fan of sequels to Final Fantasy games. The title itself should give some kind of indication on what to expect, which is a single story played from beginning to end. Each new game is its own chapter that really doesn't need to be extended.

But, I guess when they ushered in the PS2 era someone in charge discovered they could make more money by rehashing the same beloved worlds and characters instead of creating new ones. I don't know who thought X would be a good one to start with, but someone gave it the okay and in turn we got X-2.

It wasn't nearly as bad as other people made it out to be, and to be honest I enjoyed it more than X. It was goofier for sure, but I thought the characters were well written and it had a playful tone that you could tell hid a layer of sadness. And if there is one thing Square did right in the world of gaming, it is creating sadness.

In one of the best rendered scenes in any game, Yuna performs the song "1000 Words" at a concert meant to create peace or promote her new album, I'm not sure. Her change from a summoner to a songstress is one of the weirder aspects of the game. Earlier in the game it is established that when using a dress sphere the memories of the person who had it before can kind of take over. In this video the spirit of Lenne comes out and sings with Yuna, while everyone experiences the tragedy surrounding her death. It was a very serious and poignant moment in an otherwise lighthearted game.

This one still brings a tear or two.



Speaking of tear jerkers, we have a more subtle heartfelt moment in my favorite of the series, Final Fantasy IX. Our heroes, having already defeated the soulless Black Waltz 1 and 2's, come face to face with number 3, who heartlessly destroys the other black mages while Vivi watches helplessly.

The Vivi character, though faceless, carries more emotion in the way he walks and fixes his hat than any RPG character could today with an hour of voiced dialogue. His quest of self discovery is a tragic one, and that he must watch his brothers die so carelessly is one of the saddest in the entire series.

On the other hand, Black Waltz no. 3 is such a great villain without even trying. His design is amazing without being ridiculous, and the way he destroys his own people without remorse makes him a truly frightening monster.




It doesn't take CG video to make a great moment.

Final Fantasy VI, or FFIII in the states, is arguably the best in the entire series. The characters were multidimensional, the graphics were astonishing, the music was epic, and the story lines were meaningful and memorable. You can pick apart any section of FFVI and it stands the test of time and remains high above the trash they call an RPG these days.

This is not my favorite moment of FFVI, as I've saved that video for last. However, this is probably the saddest moment in the entire game. Yes, that's including the END OF THE WORLD, which also happens,

Loyal and brave knight Cyan lost his wife and child earlier in the game, when main villain Kefka poisoned them along with the entire town of Doma. It's not unusual to see death in an RPG, but to see it on such a massive scale by a complete sociopath like Kefka is really unsettling. The joy he takes in death makes him a legendary bad guy.

But there is no joy in the Phantom Train scene. After making it to the end of this spooky locomotive, Cyan can do nothing but watch as his beloved wife and son are taken to the afterlife. His wife thanks him for his love, and his son vows to keep practicing with his sword to protect his mother as the train carries them off into nothingness.

All the while you sit there, controller in hand, mouth wide open, and tears running down both cheeks.




Final Fantasy VIII was the first FF I ever fell in love with. I had played 6 on SNES when I was younger, but I didn't truly appreciate the art of storytelling until I was a teenager and started writing my own tales. It influenced a lot of my writing early on, and I still love it to this day. It got a lot of flack for focusing so much on love, but I understand and appreciate it even more now as an adult.

The ending FMV to VIII was just about perfect in every way. It tied together all the loose ends and really gave you a sense of closure. It is a little odd to have a FF antagonist, in this case Seifer, actually have a happy ending. His scene with Raijin and Fuujin is fitting, and I'm sure my friend Michelle will get a kick out of this one.

The best part ties into the song that plays, which is the lovely "Eyes on Me" by Faye Wong. Everyone assumed the game was based on the love between Squall and Rinoa, but it was really designed for Laguna and Raine. Laguna is my favorite character in the entire Final Fantasy catalog, being a handsome journalist just like myself. When it sinks in that his wife is dead, I feel a little stab in my own heart.

But it's not completely sad, as it has a hopeful and sweet twist at the very end. I really was under the assumption that Squall had died, and I remember watching the credits and being furious that he was gone. When they show him through the camcorder at the party I knew then what it meant to really care about a character.

An honorable mention goes to the FFVIII opening, as it's just as cool, if not cooler. I didn't want to put both of them on the list, and I feel the ending carries more emotion, but go out of your way to see the intro. It's worth it.




Speaking of Final Fantasy VIII, imagine the shock and awe you experienced the first time you saw this. Odin was one of the best summons in the game, but what happens when you put him against Seifer?

He dies.

In fact, he gets cut in half completely, and so does his horse.

I remember yelling at the TV about how unfair that was. You can't kill a summon! Literally, you could NOT kill a summon! But Seifer does it one hit? Also, I use the term "hit" loosely. Seifer never even moves his damn hand. He just points his sword forward, and suddenly Odin wonders if he left his door unlocked and forgets to not run directly into Seifer's gunblade.

The only saving grace for that stupidity is that you got an even greater summon in the form of Gilgamesh, who promptly whoops Seifer with the RAGE OF A THOUSAND SUMMONS.

Even so, Tonberry King > Gilgamesh.



And sure enough, there was Aeris getting impaled by Masamune. I was in shock. Aeris was one of the purest characters in video game history. She was sweet, loyal, strong, and fully dressed. She was not the typical JRPG heroine, but she was still a heroine! She was a main character! Never before had I ever seen a main character get killed, especially so early in the game! It was the game equivalent to when Janet Leigh was stabbed to death in the shower in Psycho. I imagine somewhere in Japan, the creators of the game were laughing maniacally as they swam in their bin of money and fanboy tears.
The battle music is haunting, and it's a subtle change from the pulse pounding theme that usually accompanies a fight. It's fitting, too, because she whoops you, plain and simple. It doesn't matter what level you are. It doesn't matter how hard you train or what items you equip. Beatrix is here to pummel you into the dirt no matter what you do.

And she looks gorgeous doing so!

This is it. This is the moment we've been building up to. You're probably asking yourself why I have so many entries on this list for FFVI, and rather than rage kick you into a Marlboro, I'm going to tell you.

A lot of the moments on this list are great, but at the time it was easy for a CG cut scene to be awesome. When you spend most of the game looking at blocky sprites, it's hard not to gasp at beautifully rendered scenes of sorrow and glory. It's even more amazing to invoke the same kind of response using nothing but SNES synth sounds and 16 bit graphics. A lot of FFVI did just that. It took the technology of the generation and made it so phenomenal that it could stand the test of time.

And my favorite moment of any Final Fantasy game I've ever played doesn't have flashy action or destruction. It takes place in an opera house, where the heroes are trying to lure out the enigmatic Setzer by placing Ceres in the role of Maria, an actress who he is in love with. What follows is one of the most legendary moments in gaming history, and in essence it's just a simple stage play set in a game about the end of the world.

And I love it.

It would be a lie if I said the actual SNES sounds were easy on the ears. It doesn't sound bad, but you really appreciate the scene more when you listen to a full operatic version of the music on display here.

And here it is! Enjoy, and I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane as well. Agree or disagree with my choices? Let me know.

For now, let's strike up the band...

What better way to christen the new MECHABLOGZILLA ship than with an article about the MMO that is most near and dear to me very own heart? No, I'm not talking about Ultima Online.

But I will be in a few paragraphs.

The official World of Warcraft site released pictures of the new female Orc models that will be implemented some time around the new "Warlords of Draenor" expansion. Like the previous releases, this one is both familiar enough to the characters you've grown attached to over the past ten years, while being clearly superior to the point that you don't want to play as your avatar until they upgrade her.

Assuming anyone even plays as a female Orc. Seriously, do they? Male Orcs are impressive for their huge muscles and fearsome look that gives credence to the notion that they are war mongering beast men.

But female Orcs? Gussy that lass up all you want Blizzard, no one is buying it as beautiful or intimidating. To be fair, I feel the same way about female Worgen. Male Worgens are jacked and look like fearsome werewolves, while the female variety kind of look like something your douchebag high school girlfriend would carry in her purse. Seeing these races brings to mind a quote by our president Barrack Obama. Something about lipstick on a pig, which I think was referencing the election but might have just been about Rosie O'Donnell.

Actually, she kind of looks like an 80's punk rocker, but she certainly is not Linnea Quigley in Return of the Living Dead. My advice is to NOT Google that unless you're ready for a lot of nudity and awesomeness from one of the greatest zombie movies ever made.

However, this is all just based on my own prejudice against Horde races. I'm an Alliance player, not because I like losing or having RP sex in Goldshire, but because I'd rather play an honorable underdog knight than a power hungry monster who enrolled in a free course at the Kratos School of Character Development.

RAWR RAWR VIOLENCE ANGER BLOOD BLOOD!

So my own personal racism aside, it looks really good. It retains the overall look, but you can really see the improvements they're making to the aging client. The changes are great so far, and when you combine this with the new expansion dropping later this year and the increase in subscriptions, it looks like it will be a very big year for WoW.

And that brings us to the new elephant in the room.

I saw this leaked on WoWInsider.com first, but I'm pretty sure it's making the rounds on most of the major sites. When the servers went up recently someone noticed and snagged a picture of what appears to be a new service option that lets you instantly upgrade a character to level ninety for a staggering price tag of sixty dollars.

And soon, the darkness.

Players were livid. It didn't matter that this was an apparent accident that wasn't supposed to go live yet. When "Warlords of Draenor" releases, players will be able to upgrade one character to level ninety for free and it seems like this service goes hand in hand with that. I've gone incognegro in some of the forums and listened to an overwhelmingly negative response to the service. To be honest, I kind of jumped on the fury bandwagon at first but soon found myself conflicted and hungry.

On one hand, how dare Blizzard offer up a paid service that basically renders a players time and progress pointless when they can just click click click and become an insta-hero? It's bad enough that Blizzard offers microtransactions on top of being a strictly pay to play service, and as far as my memory goes I believe they're the one of the few companies with the hearthstones to do so. You can play for fifteen dollars a month, and for just ten to twenty five more you can purchase some great pets or uber mounts. It really gives off the impression of "why work yourself to death when you just swipe a card and receive instant gratification?"

That dog won't hunt, monsignor.

The very essence of an MMORPG is the time and love you put into your character. It may be an online game, and the player base of an online game may have devolved into an arena zergfest filled with entitled assholes with inferiority complexes, but it's still an RPG. The reason to play an RPG is to build your character, go on adventures, and create a memory of living as another person in another world far from the sad existence you call your life.

It's an escape, but now we're looking for shortcuts to help escape the escape. Do players really want to just upgrade instead of experience? What about when that player upgrades to level ninety on a class he's inexperienced with, and you're running a raid with him and he doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

Blizzard is running the risk of destroying all the positive attention they've been getting this year.

Once I started to think about it though, and ate some pizza, I reconsidered my stance. Yeah it does belittle the entire point of playing an online role playing game, but it won't change my life at all. In fact, if anything, it would greatly improve my lifespan as a player.

I'll tell you why. I'm going to let you in on a secret. I've been playing WoW since launch, and I don't even have one character at level cap. I did once, before Cataclysm came out, but once they raised it again and I had to drag my feet underwater for what felt like fucking forever I gave up and stopped playing. My warrior, who I've been going to war against the Horde with for years, sits at an embarrassing level 84 while day in and day out I hear the simplest idiots in gaming brag about how many level nineties they have. Rednecks, grandmas, meth addicts, douchebag college kids, you name the stereotype and I can tell you how often they dangle their superiority in WoW in front of my very unimpressed face.

The free level nineties I get from the new expansion will allow me to play the new content without devoting all of my busy time to leveling my proud warrior. Managing two game stores, a dying father, a fiancee, a violent cat, and the other trials and tribulations that always seem to pop up in my life leaves little time for hardcore gaming.

And there are WAY more people out there with rougher lives than me. Do you think parents, college students, religious snake handlers, and other like minded individuals have the time to devote to virtual characters when real life is so demanding? They shouldn't be punished for not having the same time to put into a game they love that your asshole friends who mooch off of their parents money and contribute nothing of their own to society do.

It isn't the first game to offer this kind of service, either. Even my beloved Ultima Online, now a hollow shell of its former self, offers the ability to buy an advanced character instead of, you know, earning one.

I'm going to try to reserve judgment on this service until I see how it plays out. I feel like it won't reflect me at all, and people are just looking for a reason to bitch because that's what gamers are conditioned to do now. It's really a reflection on the industry, where DLC and paid services are all the rage now. It's a sign of the times, and as long as the money is there so too will there be a market for it. I hate it, I always have, but I let go of that lie about one person making a difference a long time ago.

If you disagree with WoW's direction, you could always try FFXIV. It's a nice throwback to an old style with just enough new car smell to feel different. You could bore yourself to tears with Guild Wars 2, or try one of the upcoming titles - ESO, EQNext, Wildstar, and a plethora of Asian F2P titles that seem to come out despite the fact that no one cares.

Kind of like Michelle Rodriguez.

Keep your goddamn hands off of my sweet Cara.

I had this great opening paragraph about how my childhood was probably better than your childhood when it came to cartoons and video games.

Seriously, I had the spread. I was name dropping Darkwing Duck and Super Dave and the NES and all kinds of crazy shit that turned me into the well adjusted handsome young gentleman you don't see before you. I was going to get weird with it and actually cite how and why your childhood sucked and how the late 80's and early 90's were the greatest era of all time. Then I was going to call you a bitch and steal your lunch money.

But I scrapped all of that. I took everything I wrote and, much like God wiped out the Earth with a little bit of rain, I deleted it with extreme prejudice. You know why? Because I like some of the new stuff out. Not all of it, or even a good amount of it, but some of it. I definitely like the new Ninja Turtles show on Nick. This mentioning of turtles will come full circle a paragraphs from now.

Plus, going back and watching some of the old stuff I used to think was so awesome is just plain depressing. I used to love the Mario cartoon and it's a goddamn embarrassment, except for how wicked cool Lou Albano and Danny Wells are. In fact, most of the cartoons that I say are light years ahead of the Sponge Bob crap that our kids get force fed now are just plain terrible and painful to watch. I have all these DVD box sets of classic cartoons which I can't even make myself watch because they're so corny and obnoxious.

Except for Jaleel White in the Sonic cartoon. That brother was way past cool.

It's all nostalgia. As long as you remember something in a good light you're fine. Hold on to your lies for as long as you can. Just don't go back and try to relive those glory days because you'll end up a broken, broken man.

It's not just cartoons either. Before, during, and after my glory days at GameStop I would preach about how awesome the NES was and how Nintendo had the greatest consoles of all time. I stand by that statement. Long before online connectivity, DLC, and your fancy schmancy third dimension graphics were commonplace, I was a wizard on the Nintendo Entertainment System. They even made a movie about me going to a huge tournament, where I used my Power Glove to play Mario Brothers 3.

I think that happened, anyway.

Looking back after decades of changes in the industry has definitely shattered the rose colored glasses. I still love the system I grew up on, but  I can openly admit not everything holds up well. I'm not talking graphics or sound or design, most Nintendo games were pretty solid in those respects. But ask anyone that grew up with the NES what they remember most about the system and they'll probably give you the same answer I will - the difficulty. Before From Software made you cry with its Souls series of games, the NES was bitch slapping children's self worth like no other ever could.

And that brings me to the game I want to talk about today - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's another circle completed.

If you've ever played a Ninja Turtles game you already know what to expect. Before the 2000's cartoon churned out awful turtle game after awful turtle game, the shell backs were known for catchy music, beat em up action, and multiplayer goodness.

Well, except for the very first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES. Holy shit was that game the dark horse of the Ninja stable. Whoah, nice wordplay! *High five*

I won't bore you with the details that every other reviewer has gone over a thousand times in length. Let me just shorten it by saying the game was ungodly hard. There you go, that's the secret of the TMNT game. I just saved you hours of watching squeaky voiced gaming nerd videos to find out why the game is so infamous.

Yeah, the game was a bitch to play. I'm surprised I got as far as I did as a kid, which honestly wasn't very. You can breeze through the first act pretty quickly, especially if you save Donatello for the final boss. You'll quickly discover that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might have been one of the first games that used a tier list, as Donatello is the Cadillac of ninjas. Leonardo is some kind of hybrid that means well but isn't quite as cool. Raphael and Michelangelo might as well have been renamed Red Fodder and Orange Fodder because their short range weapons are almost completely useless. Raph didn't have any of the attitude he was well known for in the series, here he was just the guy you sent in to save the good turtles for the boss.

And, by the way, God forbid you do lose health and try to play through with that turtle. That noise the game makes when you're low on health may be the single most annoying sound that has ever been created, and I'm including Rosie Perez's voice and the alarm clock that goes every morning reminding me that real life is ready to fuck me in the ass again.

Kotaku is right on the money here.

But unless you suck completely at every aspect of life, or you were lucky like me, you won't hear the wails of a thousand dead angels until the second level. If you've ever researched this game at all you already know about the underwater level. It is probably one of the hardest things you will ever do in a video game, and let no one discourage you and say the difficulty was overrated. No, this level is damn near impossible. Forget Blight Town and Ninja Gaiden, this is what you want someone to play if you're trying to ween them off of gaming for good.

I can't remember how long it took me to beat this level, but it single handedly destroyed all desire to finish this game. When I did beat it there was no sense of accomplishment or the feeling that I had defeated my greatest rival. I was broken and depressed by the end of it and I just wanted my adventures with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to end. I made a level or two past this point, but the damage was so bad to my psyche that I gave up not long after and moved on to the admittedly superior Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.

I always regretted never finishing the Turtles game for the NES. It was a black eye on a pretty good gaming career. So I recently went back and, with all of the experience I've accrued since then, decided to face my demons one more time. This time...I would be ready.

And I still can't beat this fucking game. Fuck this game! Goddamn fucking Turtles!!! I'm selling all of my gaming gear to GameStop and I'm going to buy a Little Caesers pizza with the 7 bucks they give me for it.

THERE IS NO MEANING TO LIFE ANYMORE.

But let's end this on a positive note. For all the trouble this game has given me I still love it. I love the box art used a style similar to the original comics and even has the turtles all wearing red. I like the music, the graphics were solid, and there's just something about my very first Ninja Turtle game that will always hold a special place in my heart.

Also, here's a picture of porn star April O'Neil cosplaying as...April O'Neil. How clever!

If you know me, congratulations!

No, seriously, if you know me, I'm not doing my job very well.

Alright, for real this time!

If you know me, you know that out of all the great games I've played in my many years as a gaming enthusiast, none have changed my life as much as Ultima Online. We had J.P. Harrod on the site a couple of months ago talking about his time with Electronic Arts and the role he played on the Ultima Online dev team, and I found him to be both humble and amazing at the same time. To work on such a legendary game that shaped an entire genre must have been a daunting task, but J.P. is a Cadillac of a man.

You should all know by now that I spent almost all of my time from age 16 to 20 braving the wilds of Sosaria in a never ending quest for adventure and coin. I had a damn good time with it, too, as a lifetime of red eyes and all night Orc-a-thons will attest to.

It's not that I love Ultima Online because it is the single greatest game of all time. I mean, it is, but I suppose the argument could also be made that it was my first MMO and I see it through the rose colored glasses. I can definitely admit that the game has lost its luster over fifteen years later. I blame that more on EA's inability to keep alive what made UO so great in the first place, along with the inevitable passing of the player base that made the world feel alive. Gamers today aren't the same class of gamers that we had in "my day," and I might get in trouble for saying that but it's my column so go play Halo and don't fornicate yourself on your way out.

You know why I loved Ultima so much? Because it was a sandbox game, and until recently it felt like that term was a four letter word.

It's obviously seven!

In its original form, Ultima Online had no quests. It had no levels. It relied upon the player to make items to sell, create adventures for themselves, and it didn't hold your hand through any of it. You made your character, picked some skills, and it dropped you right in the middle of a city and said "fuck you, make your own destiny!"

And we did. Sandbox games are designed as entirely open experiences where you can do whatever you want. Imagine Skyrim, with its skill based system and freedom to go wherever you want, but as an MMO with less story and more social interactions.

It's not that games haven't attempted to recreate the sandbox feel that Ultima had. Mortal Online, Darkfall, and even something as different as Eve Online have all labeled themselves, or been labeled by others, to be the "next UO." They may be decent games in their own right, but all of them failed miserably as the next Ultima. They were more akin to massive online arenas where players could grief each other, or in Eve Online's case, it missed the Ultima mark but still grew into a classic title on its own.

But those were your choices for sandbox games. Sure, you could go back to UO, but why bother? It wasn't the same beast anymore. Returning players will find items with stats, gear grinding, and a very lonely world that barely resembles the sacred lands of our youth.

So we hung our heads and forced ourselves into the world of the theme park MMORPG, where games like World of Warcraft satisfied the craving while leaving us hungry for something more. Apparently, back when UO and Everquest were the big two, all of the game developers decided to clone EQ and leave UO to die a lonely death as the greatest that should have been. Guided adventures became the norm in both Eastern and Western MMO's, and the success of the juggernaut that is WoW cemented the theme parks domination in this industry we all love.

Companies attempted to copy the success of WoW year after year, but always failed to live up to the gargantuan numbers that Blizzard's beast brought to the table. Still, there was success to be had, so the MMO Machine churned out clone after clone that over saturated the market and would probably kill off the entire genre eventually. Warcraft's numbers have fallen hard over the past year, and recently they admitted to losing over 600,000 subscribers in a matter of months.

Just when it looked like the industry had reached its low point in terms of both creativity and popularity, a small beacon of hope appeared somewhere in the distance. Like a heroic knight rising up to destroy the darkness that has claimed these lands, he stands on the edge of the horizon waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Kingdom of MMORPG's, meet your unlikely savior - The Sandbox!

Everything that is old is new again. While the clones fight for scraps among themselves, the sandbox MMO is ready to make its presence felt once more in a slew of new games coming soon. Richard Garriott and his UO team has reunited to bring us quite possibly a very revolutionary title called Shroud of the Avatar, while team Everquest will finally show off EQ Next this friday.

That's right, the two games that started it all are coming back to reclaim their industry, and I couldn't be more excited. I've never been a huge EQ fan, but the hype behind Next is so incredible that even I feel like an anxious kid at Christmas waiting to see what's in the damn box.

As for Lord British and his Shroud of the Avatar, well... I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I would follow that man into hell and back.

And it's not just those two vying for your attention. Eve Online is still alive and kicking very well, while upstart titles like Revival, Archeage, and Salem are going to offer a wide range of sandboxy goodness for the MMO player who is sick and tired of this theme park nonsense!

I started Blogzilla 1985 years ago as an outlet for me to bitch about MMORPG's. Back then it was called "Blogs THEY Don't Want You to Know About," and I spent most of my time waxing poetic about Warcraft, Champions Online, and Aion, just to name a few. BZ85 evolved from that simple idea, but I've never lost my love or interest for the genre that has most impacted my life as a gamer.

I'm damn proud to say that we are going to bear witness the revival of the sandbox MMO, and I'd like to take some credit for that.

Somehow.

My next mission? Get AKI involved with WWE games again.


This might take a while.

I just hope you were as confused by that headline as I was by the decision to dress Metal Gear characters the way that he does.

I'm not a prude by any means, to be honest you'd be lucky to catch me wearing pants most of the time. Court orders be damned! Still, even I'm kind of looking at the designs for the new Metal Gear V game and wondering where the line between a touch of sexy and blatant sexualization will be drawn.

I understand the concept of sexing up your characters to sell it to the horny gamers, and I'm usually not too
offended by it. I play Dead or Alive and appreciate the skin on display, but it's being displayed in a fighting game based around sexy ninjas and is generally not seen as a "serious" title. In fact, you could argue that most of the "sexy" characters are generally female fighters, although the femi-nazi agenda would lead you to believe that men aren't treated like the same pieces of meat. While it's true that men aren't subjected to the same "dog panting" that someone like Kasumi or Helena would, it's hard to ignore the fact there are plenty of shirtless guys on parade for the female fan. Hell, have you played these wrasslin' games? I dare you to find a guy wearing a shirt!

What troubles me is the overt sexuality of these designs are spilling over into all genres of gaming. Sure, you've got the booth babes at the conventions, you've got the increasingly stripper-like appearance of Cortana in the Halo series, and the less said about the outfit possibilities for the Saints Row women the better.

It's actually kind of an odd and disturbing fact that someone like Lara Croft, the original video game sex object, actually covered up and became more of a real women in the most recent Tomb Raider game. While Lara is trying to class up her image, it sometimes feels like the rest of the industry is trying their best to cater to that stereotypical video game virgin who tries to angle the camera in just the right way to look up a characters skirt.

And so we come back to Metal Gear, which I have always thought of as a semi-serious series that has a pretty big following and reputation as an action packed thrill ride with an intriguing storyline. Imagine my surprise when I saw the design for this new character Quiet; a sniper with a past. Because all snipers have pasts, but none of them are as cool as Ed Harris in "Enemy at the Gates."

Quiet is a pretty lass, but her outfit leaves little to the imagination. I understand it's a video game, and with the territory comes the need to cater to a certain sad demographic, but this one has me shaking my head. I mean, I don't see the tactical advantage that wearing a skimpy bikini and a thong will offer the new age sniper. Unless she's taking cover in a flesh colored jungle I don't see how all of that skin is going to keep her alive.

Maybe I just don't understand because I'm not in the military. Maybe that's how they're going to wear it in Syria, considering that's where we're heading next.

It's not that the women of Metal Gear haven't always been a little sexy, they just weren't so blatant before. The female character from the PSP Metal Gear games was a highly attractive lady in an extremely tight outfit, but at least it covered most of her. Kojima has said that with his new game he wants more "erotic" designs for his characters.

Meep.

It's not just Metal Gear, either. Look at the progression of Lightning in the FFXIII series. If you can get past the initial anger over the fact that a Final Fantasy game has had two direct sequels, you'll notice how Lightning's outfit has gotten significantly smaller as time has gone on.

Is it the way of the future, or are we catering to a stereotype that needs to die a horrible death? IGN has a good report on Kojima coming under fire for his comments on the need for etoricism in his games, but I'm sure the negative press will dissipate once gamers get their hands on what will probably be a pretty good damn game.

Once they get their hands off themselves, I mean.

Cause they're virgins.

If the Wii U is a joke, I don't see the punchline.

I've been a long time defender of the Nintendo Wii U, and the Nintendo brand as a whole, and I stick to my guns that they're the most innovative and enjoyable systems on the market. From the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Wii U I've enjoyed my time with that beloved plumber and his hardware more than any other machine or mascot.

That's right, read it again.

But even I, the most humblest of internet personalities, have to concede that the Wii U has not lit the world on fire like I had hoped. Numbers don't lie, and the XBox One and PS4 have outsold the Wii U to the extent that a lot of people are worried that the latest Nintendo offering is already on life support.

VGChartz lists the Wii U selling a reasonable 220,732 systems globally the week of Dec. 28th, while the PS4 and Xbone sold 465,686 and 290,762 respectively the same week. If my memory is correct, and God knows it usually isn't, the Xbone and PS4 have already outsold the Wii U, at least in North America, in a few weeks compared to the entire Wii U's life span.

That's just not good news, folks. Unlike the general public, I hold out hope tha
t Nintendo can turn it around though, much like they did with the 3DS and Sony did with the PS3. Both systems got off to a very rough start and both systems, the 3DS especially, has enjoyed great success in the years since their release.

The biggest hurdle Nintendo is facing is the lack of a general direction or personality for their hardware. The big N has always been an innovator, and during the golden era of gaming you knew that the NES and SuperNES was head and shoulders above anything the competition was trying to sell you. Nintendo dominated the charts throughout the eighties and early nineties, but really started to lose its steam when the n64 went toe to toe with the Sony Playstation. That would be the last great battle they would know, as the Gamecube was greatly overshadowed by the PS2 and original XBox. Once the Wii came out Nintendo was already in an uphill battle to stay relevant outside of its handheld division, and though the Wii was a knockout in terms of sales, it greatly hurt their reputation with the so called "real gamers." Though designating someone as a "real gamer" or "casual gamer" is an ignorant argument, it can't be denied that gamers believed the hype and a lot of them turned on the one time titan of gaming.

The Wii U aimed to cater at that hardcore demographic by upping the graphics and third party support while keeping the innovation, but perhaps it was too little too late. It is a cool machine and one that I play quite often, but you can't say that it outsells or gets more attention than Sony and Microsoft's new gear.

And that's where Nintendo screwed up. The Wii U came out a console generation too late. It is superior to the Xbox 360 and PS3 in almost every conceivable way, but it came out in the final years of those systems life spans and just a year before the One and 4 took the game world by storm.

In my opinion, the innovation and sheer enjoyment of the Wii U's library outshines the upgraded ports and lackluster titles the Microsoft and Sony consoles have offered us so far. And that's without even diving into the Wii U's backlog of virtual console titles. It combines nostalgia, innovation, and power in a way that no other system does.

But no one cares, because the XBox One and PS4 are newer, shinier, and strikes a better cord with those so called "real gamers." You know, the ones who call you a faggot online and refer to you as some kind of nigger no matter what color you are.

But imagine if the Wii U had come out at the same time, or perhaps a bit before or after, the Xbox 360 and PS3. In fact, what if we rewrote history a little bit. Let's put the Nintendo family in this order - NES, SNES, n64, Wii, and Wii U.

"But Shannon! The Gamecube was awesome, why take it away? It had Melee!"

Settle down, Porkchop.

The Gamecube was a good system, but aside from a handful of games I really enjoyed I can barely remember its library. Meanwhile the Wii was filled with so much shovelware that it became a permanent black eye on Nintendo despite its success, and compared to the PS3 and 360 the system was woefully under powered and outclassed. Those Gamecube games I did enjoy would have felt right at home on the Wii as the two systems felt so graphically similar, and with the added first rate games from the GC maybe the Wii would have developed a much better reputation. Imagine how embraced and beloved the Wii would have been, back when its innovation wouldn't have been so hampered by its subpar graphics.

The original Wii's graphics would have held its own against the PS2 and Xbox, and it would set the Wii U up as a contender against the next generation systems and their fancy HD graphics and online capabilities.

I also would have changed the name of the Wii U to, I don't know, ANYTHING THE FUCK ELSE. Never have I seen more confusion over a new systems purpose, and that's counting the sudden influx of people referring to the original Xbox as the Xbox One. Nintendo should have just stuck with the horrible "Project Cafe" name. It may sound ridiculous, but at least people would know it was something new and not just an add on or companion piece.

And maybe, just maybe, if the Wii had directly competed with the PS2 and Xbox, and the Wii against the PS4 and 360, that lacking third party support would have resulted in a more even playing field between the three companies.

The Wii was like a beautiful assassin. She blinded Nintendo with her assets while getting a blade behind their back to stab them. For all of its profit it may have sent its parent company into a slow death that is being held off more or less by the success of the 3DS.

But, if it had just come out one generation earlier, I might have been able to boast about my blatant Nintendo bias without the little bastards at my store laughing to my face.

Fucking Nintendo.........I love you.

*hugs Mario doll tightly*

And, as a side note, the sites not dead yet, bitches.

In a few weeks, definitely.