The Death of Pain

Pain is one of my favorite games on the PS3. I've talked about it before, and it's always the fallback whenever I play on the PlayStation. No matter what game I'm playing I will always end up playing Pain at some point in the session. It's also a very good game to get your frustrations out on a bad day, after all, it's throwing stuff and destroying stuff - a fun, no pay later, tantrum of sorts.

For the longest time I never used the play online option. Not to sound sad or pitiful, but I really didn't know anyone else who had a PS3, and those that did, were (ahem) adults and didn't use it all that much, so the play online option wasn't much good for me. When the PS4 was announced, my buddy Ken (who visits infrequently and when he does, we have a blast playing Pain) smartly decided to buy a PS3, as he correctly assumed the price would drop with a new updated system on the market.

So we made long distance play-dates to hurl stuff at each other, only to find, much to our dismay that Sony has discontinued the play online option from Pain. Yeah, our favorite game, and we can't even play it together over long distance. What's the use of having high tech if the powers that be won't let us use it? I mean, come on, this isn't a big government secret, it's a ragdoll physics videogame where you get to fling cats, mimes, and other losers against walls at high speeds. Cut us a break, Sony.

You can't even buy characters any more. If you didn't get certain characters before they shut the door, you will never get them. I'm just happy I got Flavor Flav and The Hoff when I could, however, I wish I could have known before it was too late to get Andy Dick. I guess it's Sony that's the real Andy Dick in this one. I want to play Pain online again…

I Love This

Denny's Remixes Atari

Those of you who read my French Fry Diary blog already know about this, but it's still cool. Denny's has joined with Atari to update some of their retro videogames to match their menu.

They've turned Asteroids into Hashteroids, Centipede into Centipup, and Breakout into Take-Out. This "Greatest Hits Remixed" campaign includes apps on both the iPhone and the iPad as well. The games are just as fun as the originals, just with new fun graphics. Check them out.

And you can read my original blog post at FFD here, and the original announcement here.

The Fight Club

Now don't get me wrong, even though one of my favorite games right now is Injustice: Gods Among Us, and I have put hundreds of dollars (in quarters) into both Street Fighter II and Killer Instinct back in their respective days, and maybe a little bit of Yie Ar Kung Fu, but I am in no way good at, or could even be considered a fight game guy. If anything, I like the visuals, and am more of a button masher.

That said, we're going to talk about those last two games today. About twenty-five years ago, I made the mistake of joining a bowling league. I was lousy at it, and surrounded by people I did not like, and did not like me. One of the few joys of that time was the Street Fighter II machine in the bowling alley's small and hardly adequate arcade. I was late to the fight videogame, and to be honest, it had been a few years (probably since the demise of the Galaxy in Cherry Hill) since I played any videogame. This was a harsh re-introduction.

In this phase of my life, I really kinda dug playing Vega with his pseudo-Wolverine claws and his Spanish matador moves. After some weeks of practice both before and after bowling, I got pretty good. However, by that time, fight games had moved on while I hadn't noticed. My contemporaries were all Mortal Kombat players. This game opened my eyes with its more graphic special effects and just plain graphic-ness. This wasn't for me.

I was enticed back in a bit later by a game very similar to MK, but just enough of a scifi, almost comic book edge that I dug it… Killer Instinct. This fight game had a plot involving an evil corporation (aren't they all?) running a tournament that included aliens, experimental creatures, metahumans, monsters, and great stuff like that. I didn't have a favorite in this one; I liked playing them all. Hey, anyone know if they have Killer Instinct for PS3?

From there, I kinda drifted away from videogames, or at least fight games until I discovered Injustice: Gods Among Us. And that's a whole 'nother story. But there's my fight history.

The Art of Other Springfields

I have talked about The Simpsons Tapped Out numerous times, probably because it's a game I can actually excel at and because I still like it after playing for an extended amount of time. Of course it might have a bit of crack in it like Candy Crush, so who knows?

Anyway, there are folks who do get bored with the constant building and collecting aspect of the game, and need to change things up to keep their attention, defeat boredom, or just for kicks. These folks are making art. Yep, they're making art with the various building blocks in the game, using optical illusions to make them three-dimensional, and other such tricks.

Here are a few examples…