Just Cause 2

Creativity is one of the greatest tools a game developer can employ. The more things a gamer can creatively do of their own volition and the more open ended the gameplay mechanics are, the more potential a game has to be great (within a large percentage of games, not all of course).

Just Cause 2 takes everything fun about GTA, crams some action movies into the formula and sets off into it's own adrenaline and carnage filled ride. Makes you wonder why Jason Statham isn't the star of this movie, ala Crank.

what we've got below is about a ten minute video with one of the developers walking us through essential gameplay, and it's very exciting let me tell you.

This is one of the more promising games of 2010, but if you've been paying attention you'll already know that 2010 is shaping to be quite a year in gaming.

Final Fantasy XIV Trailer/ XIII English

Yup, thats right. Somehow, some way we've got another Final Fantasy already on it's way. It appears to be yet another online venture, this time on PS3 and PC.

Hopefully this means will get some really immersive character creation, seeing as how most of the characters in the trailer are pretty generic. Looks rightly amazing though, very impressive.



And for those who missed it amidst the flood that was E3 (it's very understandable if you missed it), we have an english voice cast trailer for Final Fantasy XIII enjoy!

E3 Review: Nintendo Flopped Big Time

After watching most of E3 (couldn't watch all of Microsoft's save for the first fifteen minutes), I have come to one conclusion that I think all of us have.

Sony > Microsoft > Nintendo

I started out as a Sony gamer with my Playstation 1 and Playstation 2, the latter of which still works perfectly. I moved onto Nintendo for their new technology, the Wii, and for my favorite Zelda games. I also am the owner of a Wii Balance Board, which I thought was very interesting technology despite my qualms with some of the stuff in Wii-Fit.

However, just like last year's E3, Nintendo failed to impress me. Here is the list of stuff they announced:

1. FOUR Mario games (4-D multi-player, RPG, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, and Super Mario Galaxy 2)
2. Motion Plus stuff (including Wii Sports Resort with it)
3. New enhancements for Wii Fit-- Wii Fit Plus
4. Red Steel 2 (which involves the Motion Plus with sword fighting, which looks interesting)
5. Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers
6. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (official release date is September 29th, 2009)
7. New Golden Sun
8. New Zelda game for the DSi
9. The President of Nintendo speaks about the future of gaming
10. New Sega game exclusively for the Wii called The Conduit
11. New Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (this looked good) (exclusively for the Wii)
12. DeadSpace Extraction (exclusively for the Wii)
13. Metriod: Other M (due out in 2010)

The first one is a big turn-off to me when it comes to Nintendo-- their president even said they're focusing on revitalizing the old franchises. Mario's had enough-- end it and come up with a new idea. They're focusing too much on things like their Mario and Zelda franchises, even though I do admit that I love the Zelda games. One of the things I liked about what Sony did was that they introduced new franchises juxtaposed to their old ones. 

The second one falls short of what Sony and Microsoft presented in that category. Sony's motion sensored control, while still in development, blew the Wii right out of the water. Their technology was not only more accurate but more diverse. You could do more with it than you could with the new enhancement to the Wii-mote. I have no idea what Microsoft's is, but I heard it was pretty good too.

#'s 5, 6, 7 and 13 are the ones that actually somewhat interest me. Of course, this comes from me being a Square-Enix fan, though I'm not expecting much success from this Final Fantasy game (especially when you hear Final Fantasy VII in Sony's conference). As a Kingdom Hearts fan, I'll be buying the new game for the DS when it comes out in September-- again, Square-Enix. The graphics are spectacular for this platform and Famitsu already gave it a 36 out of 40 (9/10 in all four categories-- not bad). Golden Sun is a game a lot of us remember and will be looking forward to-- classic RPG right there. 

The Metroid game was probably the best thing that Nintendo did as far as the press conferenece went. It looks really good and hopefully will succeed. The rest of the conference fell short-- the presenters presentation itself was poorly done compared to Sony's and Microsoft's, who both talked directly to their consumers while Nintendo talked to the businessmen. 

All in all, I hate saying this as a Nintendo fan, but they're going to lose out because of what Microsoft and Sony have in store.

YOU WIN: Fable II

I recently had a go with Fable II. And by a go I mean I got addicted to the game, and did as much as I could while I had it in my possession.

Fable II takes place a decent amount of time after the events of the first Fable. In the age of Fable II the time of heroes has ended. "Heroes" are practically extinct. You (either male or female) and your older sister are homeless on the streets of Albion, trying to get by. You come across a magical item that allows you one wish, which you are convinced to purchase by Teresa, a mysterious blind woman who says that magic still exists. Your sister wishes the two of you could live in a magnificent castle, like the one Lord Lucien lives in on the other side of Albion. Upon making the wish, the music box explodes, ending your hopes and dreams; until some guards come and tell you Lord Lucien would like a word.

At the castle, Lord Lucien reveals that you and your sister are Heroes, similar to those in history. He also reveals one of you will be Luciens undoing in the future, although he is not sure which. To avoid this, he shoots your sister and shoots you out of a window, where Teresa finds you battered, but alive.

It's here that your adventure in Fable begins.

Fable is reminiscent of old fairy tales, and at first glance this can appear slightly childish and off putting in terms of what the hardcore gamer may be looking for. But as you progress in the game you see that these fairy tales are much more similar to the Grimm tales; darker. One of the first caves you enter has dealing with a man who has been taken by Hobbes, fat impish creatures of a sort of goblin design. The tales say that children taken by the Hobbes will turn into one...which is what happened to the mans son. This reflects the darker nature that the game may take, and the moral choices that you will face and affect your character.

The combat system isn't deep, it's slightly hack and slash but a bit more balanced. The best thing about it is that it doesn't grow old. You don't level your character in this game, rather you level your combat and Will (magic) skills using Orbs you collect from your fallen enemies, each color orb corresponding to a certain combat skill (Will, Melee and Ranged). Attacks are executed with ease, the controls mapped exceptionally well, and as you level your Melee and Ranged attacks the more things you can do with your weapons, for instance once leveled you can use a zoom feature with ranged weapons and eventually free-aim. Getting head-shots wipes your enemies out much faster than aiming at the body.

There are many weapons available to buy, and you can "augment" them as well granting them special abilities, usually at a price depending on the augment. Some of the cooler, more interesting weapons come from the Knothole Island DLC. I spent half the game using an electric guitar like an Axe, which is pretty metal and extremely enjoyable to swing at enemies. I did however want more of the unique weapons, as well as the desire to craft my own weapons

You do have a quest log, and many quests will remain in your quest log as there are usually many different parts to the quest. Unfortunately, the number of quests seems low which may or may not impact your feeling toward the game. I myself was hoping for a bit more.

There is also an economy system in place. Do good things for Albion, like taking jobs and killing off bandits will help the economy flourish. Doing evil things usually sends it spiraling a little bit. You are able to purchase pretty much every building and place of business. One of the achievements includes purchasing a castle, which is about a million gold. I'd urge you to take some jobs and buy up as many buisnesses as you can.

The soundtrack in this game is one of the best things about it. It feels very melancholy at times, and it works well with the style and lore of the game. The title/menu screen music is both alluring and lulling. It truly is a beautiful piece of music, as you may find yourself soothed, even relaxed. If you're like me your mind will tumble through it's own universes as it plays, but that's just kind of mindset I seek in my daily life, so thats perfectly fine for me.

There are a few things about this game that needed improvement. I haven't played an evil character yet, but it felt like your character couldn't really "change" much, which is sort of what this game advertises. I wanted this system where, If i did a very specific thing, then a very specific consequence would happen to my body. Like say specifically, you sacrifice enough people at the dark temple, you grow horns. Lure people out of town and kill them in a remote area and your eyes start glowing red. I wanted more "morph" mechanics.

I also found that the wardrobe and hairstyles were lacking. I pretty much wore two outfits the entire game which I found to be kind of lame because I wasn't attached to any of the outfits in the first place. There just simply weren't enough of them.

As I stated before, I wish that there were more quests. But you can only level your skills to a certain point, so the game is kind of justified in not having more quests than it does, and any quests you really need you can just get from the DLC, which is enjoyable.

The story isn't exactly what you'd call original, but it's ok. Most of the time you won't really even care that much about the story, as it takes a back seat to the gameplay which is where the cake is at.

Fable still has a lot of things to work on, but the things it needs to improve aren't horrible. While playing you feel that the game is very wide and broad. The series really has the potential to be something truly great as the technology, ideas and concepts continue evolve. Peter Molyneux seems very faithful to his creation, and I believe he will work to the best of his abilities to make Fable III something truly remarkable.

Fable II shot for incredible; it didn't quite make it that far, but it did make it to excellent. Which is why Fable II wins.

YES Pokemon!

Couple days ago I posted an article about where the Pokemon franchise could go. Apparently they have at least pondered the idea of taking the core games a step further in the action mechanics

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl game director Junichi Masuda is very keen on trying out new elements. "This is just an idea but...as you know, Pokémon is a role-playing game," Masuda tells game magazine Game Informer. "But, personally, I really like the action type of games, so we just talk about that sometimes. We probably want to add some kind action element to the game."

I will welcome any creative changes to the series, especially if theres going to be more action involved.

Excerpt pulled from Kotaku.com
http://kotaku.com/5263872/pokemon-might-get-more-action

Wiidongle!

Apparently, this device has been created before, this is the Ultimate must have for the retro Nintendo gamer. This thing plugs into the Wii, re-utilizing all the old controllers you have laying around.

You know what that means right? Now you don't need those stupid looking Wii Classic Controllers, AND you can use the exact same control scheme you used for Ocarina of Time, Starfox, hell even Super Mario!

According to Kotaku.com, this baby will arrive sometime July for around 20 bucks. If you've got these classic controllers laying around collecting dust and you have some games on the Virtual Console, this thing is a must have.

End Day

boy, another day another.....oh look cheez-its.

Just finished watching the pilot episode of a new show called Glee. The show really isn't anything special, it could be but I doubt it will be. However, a red-headed teacher whose name is apparently Jayma Mays is....holy god, shes unbelievably cute. If you're a red head fan and you like the cuter girls, then get your ass over to fancast.com and watch the pilot. Shes in the first five minutes of the episode too if you don't feel like watching the whole thing.

Now, Metalheads:

I've found "The Sword" to be fairly addicting, though they've left me with too little material; they are still pretty newe. If you like sabbath and zeppelin, you'll dig it.

Darksiders trailer; E3 is coming

E3 is just around the corner ladies and gents. A plethora of gaming news will be flooding through very soon. I'll be pulling some things that look fantastic over the next few days.

That said, I have here a trailer for a game called Darksiders. The trailer will explain everything, but all I have to say about it is BADASS. I just hope that it lives up to the hype. What do you guys think?

RETRY: Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart!!! This game was the bomb diggity on the 64; in fact I have it both in cartridge form and on the Wii hard drive. Simplistic, yet strangely addicting. But It was one of the first games out for the 64, which was an amazing time during gaming history!! I wish I honestly could relive those days.

But I can't, here we are in the late double 0's and we've moved on. Unfortunately not onto better things.

Mario Kart Wii is yet another attempt to cash in on a system empowered only because it's now the prefered choice among families. Lets face, you home types are complete suckers. If I had to bet, you've probably already bought this game and already agree with what i'm going to say about it.

Oh no Mario Kart, I won't be gentle.

Lets start with the good. Now Nintendo did try to make this a good game; they definitely put some work into this. It's extremely refreshing to have the multiple control styles at your disposal. I prefer using the gamecube controller because it allows me to exert better control over the things I'm trying to do. Using the Wiimote, or in combination with the Wheel tends to make things difficult. Very often you'll find yourself slamming into a wall, or being unable to cut a turn in time. It can otherwise be described as a frantic control scheme. Although interesting, it can make the game frustrating.

I never played Double Dash on the gamecube, so I'm unaware how much updating was done compared to the 64 version. A refreshing aspect of the Wii edition has lots to unlock, from new cups to characters and cars, even motorcyles each with their own stats. So it's nice to see Nintendo has tried to improve upon the formula. The tracks look great, racing through Delfino island made me want to play Super Mario Sunshine again.

Now for the bad. This game suffers from what myself and friends refer to as Wii Syndrome, or simply, sometimes we say the game has been "Wiied". What this means is that in the novelty of the Wii, the game trades in any credibility for some "retard-strong fun". That means that anyone can win, regardless of any kind of strategy. If you're at dead last 30 seconds before the race is over, theres still ways to jump all the way to first and win the race. It's really frustrating when you've worked so hard to maintain first the entire race and that little fucker Baby Mario steals your thunder at the last second, potentially causing you to fall somewhere below 6th place.

This problem is caused the games weapons. Weapons were balanced in previous editions, but theres a decent number of weapons that will fuck you over in one way or another now, inevitably causing you to fall behind. And with 12 people racing, the power weapons are not only received often but launched quickly and in succession. You can turn down the frequency of the items, but it doesn't really do much to solve the problem.

Bullet Bill is one of many fuckhead weapons
used to obliterate the competition

The weapons system itself is the entire cause of this game's shittiness. Any two year old can whoop your ass with the right item (I'm looking at you SSBB). This game has been Wiied, and any fun that can be had from this game can and will be sapped from you in an instant.

Its really sad because thats the only thing really bad about this game. It's just SO bad that it ruins the entire experience. Balance out the weapons, and you have a great, multiplayer game on your hands.

The only fun you can get out of this is if you have three other people in the room playing with you so that you can all share your anger and frustrations. Hopefully you'll throw your Wiimote in a direction other than your TV.

Try it again Nintendo; do it right nex t time

Chain of Memories-- A Pointless Buy, or Worthwhile Game?

Out of all of the Kingdom Hearts games in the series, Kingdom Hearts; Chain of Memories was the best one out of the series for me. The characters had very nice development through it, the villains were new and not your everyday bad guy, and the plots were rather decent. However, I have to ask myself at the end of Sora's story if it was really worth it, and some of you will know why. 

Chain of Memories picks up right from where Kingdom Hearts I left off-- Sora is traveling with Donald and Goofy and stumble upon a castle called Castle Oblivion. Inside this castle, Sora meets with members of Organization XIII, and becomes Marluxia's pawn to help take over the Organization, with the help of Larxene. Organization XIII is a group of Nobodies-- beings without hearts. Marluxia uses Naminé, a fellow Nobody but not part of the Organization, to manipulate Sora's memories so he can be easily controlled. However, this plan does not work in the end because of betrayals inside of the Organization, namely by a member named Axel, and Sora ends up defeating Marluxia at the end of it all. 

This doesn't sound too bad now does it? It gets even better when you consider that Sora's character gradually changed as his memories were warped and the Organization is a new kind of villian. Sora develops quite nicely, going from naive in the beginning to less naive and determined. Yet guess what? It's all dropped! Sora ends up having his memories of Castle Oblivion erased, losing all of this character development and not gaining much after-- his character develops minimally in Kingdom Hearts II, becoming more of an emo in my general opinion. 

Now this raises the question I was pointing at earlier-- if Sora forgets everything that happens in Chain of Memories, what's the point? Well, I have a few reasons why this game is still worth the buy and definitely should be played. 

The first reason is the strategy of it-- the use of the cards. Not everyone liked this in the Kingdom Hearts games, since this game, unlike the other two, didn't allow you to button-mash as much. Instead, you had to put together a certain deck that you could beat your opponents with, unless you fight in Riku's story where you are given your deck, and your strategy changes almost all the time. I found this to add another really cool aspect to the game as well as make it more challenging. 

Another reason is for continuity's sake-- you get to know about the characters that were put as "eliminated" in Kingdom Hearts II and figure out why. It also shows Naminé's abilities being used, which helps you understand the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II as well. Another thing is that it hints at Roxas when Sora is in Twilight Town-- in short, Chain of Memories helps you understand Kingdom Hearts II better.

What I found to be the coolest part is that you get to play as Riku, who goes through his own story and gets a decent amount of character development. Unlike Sora, his stays with him and you see many hints of it in Kingdom Hearts II. He fights much differently than Sora-- faster and stronger-- and the decks they give you challenge you. You also encounter two Nobodies that weren't in Sora's story, Lexaeus and Zexion. The reason I find those two characters important is because they counter Marluxia's plot with the Riku Replica, which you don't necessarily understand completely if you play only Sora's story. Basically, you get a different perspective of what's going on and if you get the PS2 version of the game, you get to fight Zexion, who was not featured as a fight in the original GBA version. 

The last reason sort of goes with continuity, but it also helps you understand the character of Axel more. In Sora's story of Chain of Memories, Axel acts as a double-agent to expose Marluxia's plot. He gets rid of Vexen to show his loyalty, and when Vexen was about to tell Sora about Roxas, which they didn't want him to know yet. He double-crosses Marluxia and ends up helping Sora get rid of him, "getting rid of the traitor in the Organization".

However, his treacherous side is shown when he kills off Zexion, the ending quote when Zexion dying along the lines of "You know too much" (Re:CoM). Zexion was the last remaining member of the castle who knew of everything in the castle, and could possibly get Axel in trouble with the Superior for killing another member. Axel then proceeds to betray the Organization in Kingdom Hearts II. For those of us who played Chain of Memories, his behavior was already shown and we weren't too surprised by it. For those who didn't, it kind of made them raise an eyebrow.

All right, to wrap up this dissertation with the answer to the question "Should I buy Chain of Memories even though Sora forgets everything?", here's my answer. If you're a plot junky like me and want a clearer understanding of Kingdom Hearts II, and you like a bit of a challenge that the game-play brings, it's definitely worth your time. I recommend it for the decent plot, game-play, and characters, all of which I saw less of in Kingdom Hearts II. It's your call ladies and gentlemen.

DRAW: No More Heroes

Let me set a record straight here. I was a very early supporter of the Wii. From the start, I had a feeling that it would become incredibly succesful, or at least a level far greater than the Gamecube could ever hope to achieve. All of this of course would be dependent on the game publishers. Aside from the Nintendo branded games, most Wii games can be considered, crap.

That said, having previously owned a Wii, one of the greatest games on that console is No More Heroes. Developed by Grasshopper Studios and director Suda 51, otherwise known as Goichi Suda, No More Heroes throws you head on into the role of Travis Touchdown, an arrogant Otaku who finds himself out of money. To solve that, he takes on an assasination gig. He buys a lightsaber-esque weapon online and goes for the kill, decapitating his target known only as Helter Skelter. Blood pours in Tarantino fasion from Skelters neck in a wonderfully pleasant cel-shaded style.

And thats just the opening cinematic.


Meet Travis, he's your average beam katana wielding, Otaku assasin.

No More Heroes shot for simplicity, comboed with easy to learn Wii controls this game became an unlikely winner amongst the garbage that gets put out daily on the Wii. If you've ever played Killer7, then you can expect the weirdness to arise, but not nearly on the same level as Killer7. Theres a decent amount of comedy, I could easily see this as being some sort of late night anime on adult swim.

Using your lightsaber is one of the most awesome feelings on the Wii. You press a button to swing, and when an enemy's health bar is almost depleted, or at the end of a combo attack, an arrow appears on screen. Swing the remote in the direction of the arrow and you'll do an execution style attack, sending blood and humoursly enough gold coins everywhere.

The meat of this game however lies in it's boss fights. These fights can be tough depending on which boss and what difficulty you play on. Ultimately you'll use similar strategies on them all, but they're really fun regardless of that.

You can easily complete the game within 10-14 hours, but you love every second of it and vague story surrouding the Assasins and the level of entertainment from the boss fights keeps you engaged and wanting more.

This is honestly one of the best games you can pick up on the Wii, and on the cheap by now. No More Heroes however did fall into some pitfalls, and the ones it fell into arent exactly forgiveable.

When you're not doing one of the 11 assasination missions, you'll be stuck in a "sandbox" world where the game attempts to recreate some of the fun that GTA brought to the table. You can't run over people, you can't be chased by cops and the things you can do in the sandbox are few and far between. You'll do odd jobs in between your killing sprees to earn money to enter the next mission. But it grows tedious and boring very quickly.

Secondly, the map is horrible. The developers went with a kind of 8-bit background tone because Travis loves the old school video games, so they decided style the map like that. God dammit i'm not kidding here, that map is almost utterly useless. If you can understand what everything is, not get lost, and see the little orange dots scattered around then your brain should be removed, studied, then put into a medical journal. This map is so bad it's completely inexcuseable. But you get by, because the sandbox isn't very big anyways.

If you can find this game on the cheap then I highly recommend it, it'll be worth the low price. Hell I paid the full 50 for it when it came out and i'm satisfied with that purchase (unlike that Dirge of Cerberus purchase....F@#*)

So, we're giving No More Heroes a Draw. We'll have another go at it when the sequel gets out.

Late Night

Damn near two in the morning...without a job, I tend not to sleep much. Except for during the day.

But regardless, theres one thing on my mind right now. When it was still being called the "Revolution", Nintendo showcased a multitude of Wii console colors. Let me tell you, that black one sexy as hell. I'm the kind of guy where If i can customize something to my preferred look or style, I'll do it.

so where the hell are my sexy Wii colors?

Lack of 'Tallica in Guitar Hero: Metallica

I'll come clean; I'm a metal head. More to the point, I love Metallica. Saw them in January and thought it was awesome, love the music they've created over the years. I'm a decent Guitar Hero player as well, I'm not fantastic but I enjoy it enough to play hard and expert modes. So obviously, I got really excited at the prospect of a Metallica GH game!

GH: Metallica contains 49 songs, of which 21 are songs from other bands such as The Misfits, Machine Head, The Sword, Bob Dylan; bands that have either influenced the band members or have been influenced by Metallica themselves. The remaining 28 songs are from the band themselves, described as their favorites.

Metallica has eleven studio albums. 28 songs? Thats it? You've gotta be kidding me. And no DLC either? You mean i'm not gonna get to jam on Devils Dance and other songs that are most notably missing from the setlist? Yeah, I'll pass then.

Not to say that the game isn't good or anything; it's actually received a lot of great praise as a really excellent GH installment (i'm assuming it's much more entertaining that GH: Aerosmith...i mean Aerosmith? Really?) . For a game with the Metallica logo on it, it needs a bit more than that. I could understand if they wanted to do the rest completely as DLC, I'd be totally ok with that. But Activision has no plans to offer any kind of DLC for it, which means I'm not exactly getting the full Metallica experience.

I'm guessing that one side of the argument is that the band had a tough time doing the motion capture. But that can't seriously be all of it. I would be incredibly surprised if Activision gave more a damn about the background presentation than the actual set list, but what do I know right? I'm just an angry person who happens to expect a bit more from my games.

Is Activision unaware of Frets on Fire? Hook a USB guitar up to that thing and you're good to go, I could get every song I ever wanted on that thing for not even a dime. And what about the custom discs that you can still very freely create for use on Guitar Hero 2? I don't have to spend 50 bucks on a game that half-assed it when I can get the same thing elsewhere that not only has everything I'll ever need from the Guitar peripheral experience, but it's also FREE.

Way to screw it over Activision; you cock whore little bitches.

Come on Square-Enix

Remember FFVII fans when all we had was the trailer for Advent Children with One Winged Angel playing? That was the shit right? And then we got the english version of the movie and uh...well I really don't need to say anything. If you bought that movie you bought it solely for the action and the fact that you're a giddy fanboy/girl deep down inside.

Well if you haven't heard yet, Square-Enix is releasing Advent Children: Complete on Bluray very soon. FFVIIACC is essentially the extended version of Advent Children with a bunch of new extra features. Basically it's another way to pull some money from you. The movie amounts to something like 40 bucks. Now normally this is where I call bullshit, because theres no way that most fans of the series would be 40 bucks for a mediocre movie. No, theres something a bit more to this that I find completely stupid. The Japanese audience knows what I'm talking about, but that's ok with them because they already got what they wanted from it.

Advent Children: Complete in Japan comes packaged with a very desired FFXIII Demo. A demo that not surprisingly does not come packacged with the movie over here in the United States.

I'm not exactly sure why theres no love for USA from Square-Enix. Game sales are generally pretty close together when comparing global sales figures, Kingdom Hearts II is actually almost double in lifetime sales in the US compared to Japan. So what gives? They totally gimped us out of KH: Final Mix and KH: Final Mix+.

If it's about no english voices....really, I could care less. All the fans really want is a taste. I'd honestly rather watch Advent Children in japanese anyway, I could deal with that.

Theres absolutely NO reason for the favoritism. None that I can see. Someone tell me if I'm missing a key piece to this puzzle because I'd really like to know.

Where did all my cheat codes go?

Everyone's noticed by now that cheat codes have been pretty much wiped from the gaming genome. I haven't heard of a title with in-game cheat codes for this console generation (i'm sure there are a few I just don't know what they are). The only devices that remain are just "saves" which do occasionally provide cheats, but they don't give you full control over your cheating abilities as the old devices did.

Prime example; Resident Evil 4 on the Wii. I have issues with ammo...i don't like being extremely limited on it like the way it is in RE4. Attempting to change that, I tried to find a hacking device. At the time, EB Games listed an Action Replay awaiting release in a few months. I checked back a couple months later and the listing was completely gone, and one hasn't been released yet. Instead I bought the Action Replay Max Saves or some bullshit, which lets people upload save files to the codejunkies website and download them to a disc to put onto the SD drive it gives you. Instead of getting infinite ammo like I should have gotten, I got 999 rounds in my pistol that would eventually run out, and for whatever reason I couldn't enter the cheat twice.

Pardon me, but that's a load of F*@!

I'm aware that one side of the argument is that some people don't like cheating. Ok, thats fair. Another side is it prevents cheating in multiplayer games. Ok, I can see that too; but there are still ways around that. Why the hell is it that cheats were completely abandoned with this console generation? For lots of people cheats are FUN! Don't believe me? Two words for you.

San Andreas

And not even just San Andreas, but other GTA entries as well. GTA is one of the best screw-around IP's on the market, San Andreas was the most fun for me. Some of the most fun things about that game though are brought about by cheats!!! Who hasn't jumped out of a Jet over a city and tried to open their parachute before splatting onto the pavement. From Samurai swords to car mods, the hacks left the game open for a bit more, giving it a lot of replay value.

And honestly, I haven't met one person who beat the last mission of that game without cheats.

So really, I fail to understand why cheat codes have been kicked to the curb. If it's still about that online bullshit, then heres an idea.

Lets use an Action Replay and a 360 for this. Obviously the cheats could unintentionally give an unfair advantage in online play. What if the Action Replay created it's own Xbox profile when it first boots the disc. This profile would automatically be cutoff from using XboxLive; that takes care of the multiplayer problem. If you wanted to use AR for one of your games, you would have to use the AR Profile. So if you wanted the gamerpoints or whatever, you'd have to beat it legit still. I think that'd be a pretty fair trade to have cheat codes again, I really do.

There is a always another way around, you just have to look for it.