Blur Review

Blur is a racing game that features stylish racing in realistic locations and 50 real-world cars fighting it out using power-ups and speed boosts. It also features realistic car damage modeling, and is frequently described as a combination of Mario Kart  and an arcade racer. Unlike many of the games that currently feature power-ups, Blur relies strongly on it's realistic physics model.

The game moves away from the clinical and precise nature of sim-like racers that force the player to work within strict time limits and perform inch-perfect turns. It moves towards a more arcade experience that will reward experimentation. Progress through the game is influenced by 'Fan Points', awarded after each race for good racing and use of powerups. You can also get mid-race challenges from your fans to complete for bonus fans.  There are also car specific challenges that can be completed to attain upgrades for that car.  The idea is that the more skilled you are, the more fans you attain and the more money they donate to you, allowing you can upgrade your car further and move onto other circuits.

Blur is designed to tie closely with the game's website, and integrates with popular social networking sites Facebook, and Twitter to allow you to post race results as soon as they are completed.  The website also has a stats page integrated within the site to allow players to link their accounts. A leaderboards are available for the website as well.  It's menu and hub system is a fictional social networking site, where players and NPC drivers communicate with each other to organize the street races and progress the story.

A review of a little ol' game called Bastion

So there's this little ol' game floating around under the name of Bastion, a highly underrated indie game that has stolen my heart. At first I didn't want anything to do with this game until I managed to get my hands on it and let me tell you... THIS. THIS IS THE BEST GAME. EVER MADE.

Bastion is an action role-playing game with a level structure. The player, "the Kid", moves through floating, fantasy-themed environments that form paths as the player approaches the edge. Levels consist of a single plane, and are viewed isometrically. They are filled with enemies of various types, which attempt to harm the Kid. The Kid carries two weapons, which may be selected from the choices available to the player at specific locations called arsenals. The Kid also has the ability to perform a special attack. Weapons and special attacks must be acquired before they can be used. There are a limited number of special attacks that the player can perform at any time, represented by "black tonics" that can be found in the levels or dropped from enemies. The Kid's health is represented by a health bar, which can be replenished with "health tonics". Like black tonics, the Kid can only carry a certain number of health potions at a time, and can replenish them by finding more in the levels.

The game takes place in the aftermath of the Calamity, a catastrophic event that suddenly fractured the city of Caelondia as well as the surrounding areas of the game's world into many floating pieces, disrupting its ecology and turning most of its people into fragile statues. Players take control of the Kid, a silent protagonist who awakens on one of the few remaining pieces of the old world and sets off for the titular Bastion, where everyone was supposed to go in troubled times. The only survivor he meets there is an elderly man named Rucks, the game's narrator, who instructs him to collect the Cores that once powered Caelondia. A device in the Bastion can use the power of the crystalline Cores to create landmasses and structures, as well as enable the Kid to travel farther afield via "skyways" that propel him through the air.

This game's story line is near borderline PERFECT and the narration will be engraved into your head for the rest of your days.

SMNC Character Bio - Assault

Whether he's taking a riveted audience on an emotional storytelling journey in front of a roaring fire at a Paparazzi-filled ski chalet in Courchevel, France, or he's taking the ingredients of a familiar dish and cooking them separately in unfamiliar ways to create a meal that is both similar but utterly unique for his supermodel girlfriend, the Assault is usually the one at the center of activity, driving the action.

As the unofficial leader of the pack he is most comfortable driving the attack while dazzling the crowd with his acrobatic plays and daring-do. He is by far Super MNC's most celebrated athlete; though the Assault takes his success in stride. Neither overly arrogant nor falsely humble, he enjoys the fruits of success with vigor, having earned every one.

Pro Career

• Enters the current season as the all-time Super MNC kill leader with 3,287 (2,078 unassisted).
• Has missed a game due to being knighted by a monarch of a world superpower only three times.
• Has been the leading vote getter in each of his past fourteen seasons when elected to the Monday Night Combat All-Star game in Honolulu, Japan.

Notable DNA:

David Beckham, George Plimpton, famed hurricane forecaster William Gray, Bill Cosby, Julia Child

Personal

• Established "Brief Relief", a non-profit that auctions off lady's undergarments sent to the Assault in the mail for charity.
• During the off-season he is the co-host of "Assault on the Ordinary" a game show in which he travels the globe to visit the playgrounds of the rich and famous while contestants try to guess how much he is (or isn't) enjoying himself.
• Hosts an annual Holiday Giving Parade in which disadvantaged families from colder climates are flown to his ranch in Bermuda, given a winter coat, and flown back home.

Likes:

Victory parades, literary journals, making fine cuisine accessible

Dislikes:

Losing, men who cry like babies

SMNC Character Bio - Megabeth

Maruta Corp. Saitama Megabeth, or "Megabeth" for short, is the greatest combatant in the history of Indo-China's "Kawgashi Fumijiru Meriodashu" (loosely translated to mean "Most Pleasing and Melodious Crushing of Windpipes Like Reeds Underfoot in a Soft, Snowy Riverbank Federation") and the lead singer of the Maeter Motor Tokyo-based grind-core band, Hacksaw Circumcision.

With the rediscovery of flight by hot air balloon, it once again became cost-effective for Indo-China's gladiators to tour the states for Monday Night Combat to host matches in the Orient. Though the team from Saitama was outplayed in almost every match when Monday Night Combat came to visit, Megabeth became an international sensation overnight after scoring kills against the Sniper, Assault, Assassin, Gunslinger, and The Veteran in the same match, without being killed once. Shortly after, she became the first Indo-Chinese clone to sign on with Monday Night Combat where she became an instant star thanks to her intensity, fearlessness and rumored make out sessions with Combat Girl.

Pro Career

• Led the Hyogo Prefecture to the Sparrow Cup twice while in the Amateur Most Pleasing and Melodious Crushing of Windpipes Like Reeds Underfoot in a Soft, Snowy Riverbank Federation.
• Is a three-time inter-league MVP (Happened in a single season thanks to a computer error)
• Holds the current Indo-China record for having the closest actual win rate to their potential win rate as predicted by the Pythagorean winning percentage.

Notable DNA:

Grindcore pioneers Yoshimi P-We and Yasuko Onuki, Team Japan Roller Derby Captain Kaori Ike, Sun Tzu

Personal

• Lead singer of the feminist tribal-acid-grindcore band, Hacksaw Circumcision.
• Had her tear ducts surgically altered so she could cry blood read tears as a tribute to er former lover, Weeping Dahlias lead singer Broken Oath, who self-immolated in protest of the banality of life (note: life still banal as of this writing).
• Manufactures her own line of roller skates under her "Wheels of Death" brand of combat accessories.

Likes:

Manhwa webtunes, the impalement arts, My Little Pony

Dislikes:

Social/ political injustice, conformity, sausage fingers

SMNC Character Bio - Sniper

All who take the field of Monday Night Combat fear the Sniper. Even other Snipers fear them. Some even fear themselves.

Snipers in Super MNC have been designed to be the world's foremost long distance killing machines, taking their DNA from some of the greatest snipers in video game history.

The Sniper is by far the most enthusiastic combatant on the team. He stays up late at night drawing plays. He watches hour after hour of video, practices relentlessly and does nothing that might jeopardize his performance on game day. During game time he often acts like the coach or quarterback, calling out plays that only he's familiar with (his teammates ignore the playbooks he gives them) and getting extremely frustrated with the rest of his squad.

His genetic make up combined with his solitary profession and intense focus have left little room for people skills. While he means well, the Sniper is brusque and short-tempered, especially when he feels teammates aren't listening to him during combat.

The Sniper loves Super MNC and everything about it. He is a huge stickler for the rules and sees the world as being very black and white.

Pro Career

• Holds the record for the longest acceptance speech for an MVP recipient for both the regular season and playoffs
• Was the only player in Super MNC history to receive 0 fan votes for an all-star game.
• Earned Super MNC offensive player of the month in April, XXXX for scoring ten consecutive critical hits without missing a target.

Notable DNA

Hardcore gamer champions from MLG, WCG and WSVG

Personal

• Was a co-founder of "Monday Night Chicken" a wildly unpopular chain of fried chicken franchises that closed their doors just three days after opening
• Has a database of over 6000 different Super MNC tactical plays that no one besides himself has ever bothered to look at.
• Owns his own regulation-size combat dome in which he lives in the off-season in order to cut down travel time between workouts

Likes:

Playing Super MNC, practicing for Super MNC, talking about Super MNC, drawing up plays for Super MNC

Dislikes:
Just about everything else

SMNC Character Bio - Karl

Karl was one of twelve special reconnaissance cyborgs built by the governing over class in order to infiltrate Outlander society. Its directive was to transmit valuable information back to its creators as to the Outlander's survival tactics, whereabouts and leadership structure, as well as photos of Outlander women skinny-dipping.

To escape detection by his hosts, Karl was given the ability to collapse itself into human skeletal-like form and was given a bio medically engineered epidermis, synthetic blood and a room-filling orange afro.

Unfortunately, while Karl's physical characteristics raised little suspicion, it's AI-driven personality was another story. As a creation of the isolated upper classes of Monday Night Combat's autocratic society, these reconnaissance cyborgs did a terrible job of "fitting in" with the outlaw culture of those living in the "Gravelands", the untamed spaces between sanctioned cities and towns.

Of the twelve cyborgs released into the wild, all but one was immediately discovered thanks to their penchant for yacht races, noon cocktails, clumsy attempts at asserting their humanity and their over-compensating hatred for other robots.

After decades of being given false information by his Outlander companions meant to confuse and obstruct, along with almost no topless photos of Outlander women under the age of seventy, Karl was sent back to his creators where he was sold at a military tent sale, where he fell into the hands of Monday Night Combat officials.

Following Karl wherever he goes is his "handler" XC-22-7 whose job it is to keep Karl on task and to ensure it doesn't succumb to the fate spies often come to: switching allegiances after falling for the charms of the enemy.

Pro Career

• Despite several public denials to the validity of the distinction, is the first known cyborg combatant in Monday Night Combat history
• Currently third on the all-time bots kill list behind Ezra "Circuit Breaker" Snyder and "'Bot Hatin'" Brian McPheeters.
• Often points to his recent "Most Improved Combatant" award as evidence of humanity, as 97.4% of social learning theorists agree that cyborgs perform their duties at a constant rate of perfection rather than with degrees of learned competence versus physical ability.

Notable DNA

N/A

Personal

• "Emotional outbursts" in the locker room just a little too perfect
• Divorced from former model Jazelle Pivovarova, who cited "fraud" and "irreconcilable anatomical differences" as reasons for the split
• Played himself in the Meet the Meatsacks episode "Mail Order Mercenary", in which Waldo, during a fit of rage over having his chocolate milk taken away during lunch period, writes an ultimately successful letter to the sports hero begging him to kill Principal McSneakers.

Likes:

Being human, engaging in a wide range of activities typical to humans, having a broad emotional range

Dislikes:

Robots, cyborgs, waiters that disappear before they bring you your check

SMNC Character Bio - Captain Spark

According to his official biography, Captain Spark was raised from the age of six inside the pressurized oxygen bubble of an undersea volcano by hyper-intelligent electric mer-eels, after his parents, both scientists, crashed into the floor of the ocean while exploring in their submersible.

Captain Spark was taught to channel the body's natural electric flow and to become a skilled martial artist by Eel-Kazara-Hazee, Praetor and liaison between the eel folk and Sinister 9, the freewill computer brain that ran all of modern civilization for the "gas breathers" on Earth's surface. When Sinister 9 used robotic sharks to invade the eel people's homelands during the sacred funeral games of King-Eel-Abi-Arrot, Captain Spark's mentor was killed and Captain Spark was bequeathed the diplomat's battle armor and weapons so he could avenge his adopted home.

On the surface world, Captain Spark forged a secret identity with which to keep himself hidden, that of Formula One test driver Shock Johnson, who must constantly hold his own driving skills in check lest he promoted to competitive driver where he would undoubtedly come under scrutiny by Sinister 9 and it's robot alien police force. He is also forced to "ride the brakes" on his relationship with Zena Foster, a Minoan snake goddess and lingerie model, in order to focus on his sworn mission.

Shock Johnson by day, Captain Spark by night, our hero harnesses the power of electricity to fight the totalitarian rule imposed by the forces of automation and imparts critical safety know-how regarding downed power lines to elementary school-aged children the world over.

Pro Career

• Holds the record for the longest consecutive streak of not having to take a bathroom break during a game
• Won a gold medal with Team IndoChina at the 3043 Battlelympics
• Oldest player to win the Super MNC freestyle Bullseye kill competition at the All-Star game (57 years, 123 days)

Notable DNA

Doctors Carol and Laszlo Murray, several knife fish from class "Electrophorus".

Personal

• Can "talk" to things like electrical transformers, car batteries and small electrical appliances
• Away from the field of combat: is constantly escaping from supposedly inescapable situations or defeating seemingly invincible villains by opening an "ion channel"
• Is quite possibly just the imagination of Karl Lutz, retired autoworker from Pritchford, Alabama who was reportedly placed on psychiatric leave after showing up dressed as his "alter-ego", Captain Spark, in order to fight crime at the auto plant where he worked for twenty-seven years

Likes:

Under-sea domes, man's free will, insulated footwear

Dislikes:

Humankind's reliance on artificial intelligence, unagi, hot air balloon festivals

SMNC Character Bios - Cheston

A descendant of the renowned Kampanga gorilla acting troop, Sir Cheston rose to become one of the leading gorilla actors of the modern age, leaving his mark on stage, television and film in a career that lasted five decades.

Sir Cheston began acting as an infant, when he appeared alongside his father in The Wandering Heir of Mumsbury at the Olympic Theater in London. As a juvenile blackback Cheston became interested in dance and was for a time a member of the Royal Danish Ballet before returning to the theater in order to play Hamlet, which he did over 1000 times across eight productions. While Sir Cheston won international acclaim and broke box office records with his Shakespearean roles he had other successes in the theater as well. His youthful, emotionally expressive portrayal of Treplev in the Seagull and his later work in The Cherry Orchard successfully established Anton Chekhov's viability on the gorilla-speaking stage.

With the collapse of Europe however, Sir Cheston was forced to pursue his craft in North America. He earned an Academy Award for best Gorilla in a Leading Role for the film adaption of Garfield, The Musical and is perhaps best known to mass audiences for his side-splitting role as the flatulent gorilla gangster Bananas Monihan in The Mob Goes Bananas (a role he reprised in three subsequent sequels).

Later, as a silver-back, Sir Cheston crowded his mantle further with an Emmy for his turn as Ardmore, the sardonic butler on "Meet the Meatsacks", a role first intended to be only a guest appearance but which was written into the series for the first five of it's impressive thirty-two season run (and counting).

Sir Cheston died of depression at his country estate at Smithylle Place, near Trentendon, Kent, England, at the age of fifty-five, after which he was promptly stuffed and sold at auction.

Today, Sir Cheston Wyndham Kampanga lives on, not only in the hearts and minds of billions, but in the annals of Super Monday Night Combat, where his DNA has been used to create a perfect clone of the actor exactly as he was in his most popular role ever.

Pro Career

• Only the second primate to join the leagues of SMNC after former Secretary of State and lifelong orangutan Captain Jinks
• Has used his star power effectively, killing over 600 clones after they became entranced with a monolouge from The Duchess of Malfi.
• Has sung the recently renamed Star-Spangled Sprintz Sports Gum Banner before a game over 100 times

Notable DNA

Sir Cheston Wyndham Kampanga, Lionel Barrymore, Jambo the gorilla

Personal

• His corpse received almost $150,000 worth of restorative taxidermy so he could be knighted posthumously
• Only Super Monday Night Combatant to win an Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role by a Gorilla in a Light Opera or Pantomime.
• Once destroyed the radio studio of the "Bongo and the Gooch Mayhem in the A.M. Radio Show" in a wild onset gorilla rage, after the shock jocks repeatedly insisted he perform Ardmore the Butler's catchphrase from Meet the Meatsacks, "Great Godfrey!"

Likes:

Spotlights, Jacobean theater, rave reviews, lilac water humidifiers

Dislikes:

The theater, television and film-going publics, tepid reviews, gorilla jokes.