Aaron and Tyler have each crafted ingenius methods to deal with PSN being down, while Doug has continued to play old games because that’s what you do with limited resources. Of course, this being life, not everything has gone perfectly well, but to say any more would spoil the fun!

And with that, to the Backlog!

Aaron

Aaron honest-to-god accidentally bought this game in his sleep. Seriously. Doesn't make Section 8 any better, though.

What a week. I had a schedule shift at work, which meant that I had three days off, worked two days and then had another three days to relax. I love it when computer-based schedules cause strange occurrences like that.

I’ve been in a holding pattern with Portal 2, mostly due to the ongoing PSN debacle. Eventually I will finish the singleplayer game I began on my console, and even though nothing involving the mega-hack is preventing me from doing that I just don’t feel like turning on my PS3 right now.  When I look at that console, I feel very let down.

Yet I haven’t stopped playing those silly ol’ vidyagames. On Tuesday I picked up DJ Hero 2 at Toys ‘R’ Us for $19.99. What a beautiful deal — it even came with the turntable!

So far I’m very impressed at how the second DJ Hero is presented, which is as an accessible and polished rhythm game not caught up in the overburdened feature set common to the contemporary Rock Band and Guitar Hero titles. I’m not an expert on a lot of electro/trance/techno-pop, but the soundtrack is diverse while being recognizable. It’s also an easy-to-learn-yet-nigh-impossible-to-master experience for the halfhearted fake music game enthusiast like myself.

And in an astonishing newsflash filed under “Aaron is fucking stupid,” I fell asleep this past Monday evening all delicately (and dare I say sexily) sprawled on my bed, unaware of the mischief that would soon ensue. At some point during my slumber I managed to roll onto my Xbox 360 controller, turn on the console and, using some unknown appendages, purchase Section 8: Prejudice from one of the dashboard’s promotional windows.

I woke up an hour later and heard the console purring away — the hard drive processing all its new, bullshit data. When I saw my 1600 points had dwindled to 400…I flipped. Then I tried playing the game, and flew into a deeper rage. Apparently no one told all of the bromigo fans of Halo and Call of Duty that they shouldn’t waste their years studying programming and game development to make a horrible, bastard clone of said franchises.

Section 8: Prejudice is so, so bad.

Like…really bad.

Doug

Previously, this was about as far as Doug got playing through Link to the Past. Clearly, this needs to be rectified.

Some weeks you don’t do much gaming at all. Other times, you play the hell out of just one game. This week, though, I’ve been all over the proverbial board, playing a wide range of games.

Most of this week’s contributions can be found here, in the LIGHTNING ROUND *thunder clap sounds* Retrospective Overdrive article. I plan to do this at least once more, FYI, so please send any suggestions you may have in to the proper authorities. I don’t want to be too redundant but man, the early Sonic the Hedgehog games are still damn fun to play. I may love Sonic 2 over the others thanks to nostalgia, but they’re just flat-out great games. Hard to complain there.

I’m also making good on the promise to finally legitimately dig into Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Now if I can only survive making a run through the East Palace I’ll be farther into that game than I’ve ever been. It’s a fantastic playing game so far, I can’t imagine how fun it will be once more abilities open up.

However, this week has also been a bit frustrating. In doing research for that article, I surfed my way down a k-hole and wound up trying to set up MAME on my computer. Or, rather, to get MAME to behave on my computer. I’m hardly inexperienced running emulators, but this felt like trying to work on an Italian car or something else that blends frustration with confusion. To finalize the comparison, I think my computer even had an electrical fire.

Okay, so maybe that’s a lie. But still, once I figured out what the stupid thing wanted me to try and do things got a bit better, but then the emulator wouldn’t read some of my games? Oi. I’ve since thrown all those files in the bin but I’d like to start fresh again eventually.

Lastly, in further news regarding frustrations, I tried to get a copy of the Utopia boot disc for Dreamcast working. All I succeeded in doing was turning three perfectly good CD-Rs into coasters. I know there are some tricks to doing this via OS-X, but dang, I just want that to work. If anyone can lend some expertise, I promise this is for a good (and legal!) cause. If you know your Sasquatch history, you might be able to figure out why I’d be looking to get this working…any help will be repaid with effusive praise for your efforts on our site.

Tyler

Pictured above is Tyler's Destroyer, Charles, and his faithful canine companion, Barkley. That's not turrible!

There was a good five years of my life I might have classified myself as a ‘PC Gamer’. I built my own machine, went to LAN parties (remember those?) and preached the superiority of mouse and keyboard controls over joypads. During that same period, however, in my vocabulary RPG still referred to Final Fantasy and while I experimented (like we all do at that age) with Forgotten Realms games such as Icewind Dale, none of them really stuck with me. My friends and I mostly rotated between Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament and the occasional game of Starcraft. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at real-time strategy games in general so my first exposure to Blizzard’s triage of PC franchises left a sour taste in my mouth so I stayed with shooters.

The last time I lived in Japan was the end of my PC gaming days. I couldn’t afford to keep my machine up to date with the latest parts and games, and I needed a laptop for a summer study abroad program I was enrolled in at Nihon University in Tokyo. A friend was nice enough to loan me his Powerbook G4. For those unfamiliar with Apple’s history, this was before they switched to Intel processors, so Boot Camp and Windows were not an option. My only gaming outlets for that summer were my Gameboy Advance SP and the Blizzard games my friend had previously installed on his computer. This is where my love for Diablo II began.

In retrospect, I think it might be the same factor that hooks me in achievements or trophies badges that appeals to me about the Diablo style of games. It is of course naturally dependent on how you play and on what difficulty level, but these games are never about story or strategy. Watching someone else play, it appears terribly tedious. It just looks like you’re clicking the mouse…a lot. No, these games are all about one word: loot. Most of it’s imitators adapted the Diablo-esque color-coded system of item classification: common drops are white, enhanced are green, rare are purple and uniques are orange. Similar to Sony’s tiered trophies and Microsoft’s point-value achievements, it’s easy to deduce value. It becomes even more rewarding when you can see the equipment on your miniature avatar slicing or spell-casting their way through the hordes. These are constant reminders of your progression. Once hooked, a player can spend literally hundreds of hours playing through these games and never feel the tedium because of that constant sense of achievement and the thought that you’re always just five minutes away from finishing a quest, leveling up, or getting enough gold for that next weapon.

With the PlayStation Network down, rather than rage against Sony, hackers and the world *cough* Aaron, I took the opportunity to jump into some old Steam-Play games I have on my MacBook. Runic Games’ Torchlight is the latest Diablo-style RPG to sink it’s teeth into me. Though to call it Diablo-like is being modest, Torchlight is essentially bargain-brand Diablo. Granted, it at least has authenticity as original Blizzard team members started Runic, but the title’s imitation could not be more blatant. With no release date currently given for Diablo III, however, I don’t mind the plagiarism; in fact I welcome it. Torchlight scratches the itch for a loot-focused RPG cilck-a-thon in all the right places. The only ways it is lacking should be fulfilled in the sequel, which is set for release this summer: these shortcomings include co-op play, new classes and some more variety in towns and characters. I still hope the troubles facing PSN will be adequately resolved soon but in the meantime I just need one more level before I can equip these boots.

It scares some of us.

Nick and Doug settle for the gaming equivalent of security blankets this week instead of embracing the unknown.

I’m not judging them, at least not intentionally. But maybe I am now that I think about it.

Our story so far: two editors walk down well-tread paths carved out of boredom while I charge blindly into trying two indie games on a whim and a 2010 retail release I had completely forgotten about until this past Tuesday.

Nick:

Nick says: Considering that Diablo 2 was my favorite game when I was 14 years old, I have a long history of characters with crude, juvenile names. My current character is named Assbutt. I'm nearly 25 years old. You're welcome.

World of Warcraft is the great divider among gamers. Either you play it or you don’t, and when you’re playing it that’s generally the only game you have time to play.

As an editor of an award-winning¹, world-famous² website about games, I can’t reasonably justify diving back into the murky depths of Azeroth post-Cataclysm. I’ve watched a fair bit of video on the new regions and races, though, and it looks like a smarter, faster WoW. That’s good news, but it also means it’s a game I should probably steer clear of for the time being.

But when life closes one time-consuming, soul-sucking door, it opens another one called Diablo 2.

If you know me you know that as far as I’m concerned Diablo 2 is the real goddamn deal. More than 10 years after it was released and came to encompass my high school gaming experience, it’s still unsurpassed in its genre. Newcomers like Torchlight have come very, very close, but when Diablo 2 is still so playable and so much fun after a decade of new games, there’s something legendary about that.

James (of StarCraft 2 review fame) and I have been playing some serious Diablo 2 over the last couple days, and the game is every bit as fun as I remembered. The expertly-paced combat, the varied dungeons and the addictive loot-hunting gameplay all resonate down to my core desires as a gamer. And with the latest patch adding modern features like being able to reallocate your skills and points as you level up, it’s more playable than ever.

The only downside to all this is that Diablo 3 is all but certain to disappoint. How could it not? Between the near-perfect design of its predecessor and a decade of my own potent feelings of nostalgia, it’s facing an uphill battle. I hope that, as was the case with StarCraft 2, all those years of development and refinement result in a similar leap forward for the series.

1. Well, in our hearts…
2. Okay, that’s just a flat-out lie

Doug:

Doug says: The ol' girl's still looking pretty good. Oh, and Forza 3 stands the test of time, too.

Right now I’m still sitting between what I want to play and what I feel like I need to play. I’m still playing through a couple different games ahead of our Game of the Year discussions, but I’m only really drawn into one of them. I actually put another one into my Xbox 360 a couple nights ago, booted the game up, and then stared at the title screen for a minute or two…only to pop the disc out and put Mass Effect 2 back in.

Yep — I’ve gotten the bug for ME2 back, and earlier this week I blitzed through the Lair of the Shadow Broker content pack. Without giving anything away, I thought it was maybe too combat-heavy but provided a fascinating twist into the storyline. Highly recommended for anybody who’s played the game, but that’s a fact we’ve known since Nick’s review.

Another game I’ve been putting time back into recently is Forza Motorsport 3. It’s over a year old, but it’s still a very good-looking game and plays very, very well. After spending all the time with F1 2010, my racing senses have been set to “super-alert”; the street cars in Forza obviously react and drive a bit slower, which takes some adjusting. I really want to sit down and give Gran Turismo 5 a shot now that I’ve been playing Forza 3 again some more, because it’ll be a clearer comparison in my mind. There’s also another DLC pack coming out for Forza 3 next week, and it features some cars I like in real life — and then also the DeLorean, as made famous in Back to the Future.

Lastly, I’ve been playing more NBA 2K11…and it’s still amazing. It also helps that I created an awesome Trail Blazers squad with a fantasy draft — Kevin Durant and Tony Parker to run things on offense and Kevin Love to pick up all the rebounds? Yes, please. The closest nerd analogue I can think of is playing a game where you start off by rolling characters, and getting a really good starting roll. I’m looking forward to trying to get through a season with the lineup I’ve drafted.

Aaron:

I say: In spite of a horrendous advertising campaign and lukewarm reviews, Blur is the most splitscreen fun I've had all fucking year.

It would be great if someone would tell me I was wrong about something way ahead of time. Blur came out in May, and I blacklisted this racer as a cheap knock-off of the Mario Kart formula. It’s not. It’s much, much better as far as this generation of Mario Kart is concerned.

I’m absolutely serious, people! Mario Kart for Wii was god-awful. I couldn’t even stomach the hackneyed motion controls during multiplayer, let alone an entire singleplayer racing campaign.  And that’s coming from a diehard fan of every other Mario Kart game in the series — even Double Dash.

My opportunity to play Blur came this past week, and over the last few days I’ve spent several hours with the game’s singleplayer campaign and multiplayer splitscreen modes. The learning curve is steep, and the tutorial videos are tedious and do a bad job of explaining the concepts. But once I had a few races under my belt I was ready to unleash the fury of my RS Camaro. Time and time again the NPC drivers would fall prey to my land mine traps, EMP fields and tiny purple energy missiles of doom. Blur is a gorgeously rendered neon-soaked alternate universe where a race is won by crossing the checkered line first and pummeling cars into oblivion. This is the most addictive racing game I’ve ever played (yeah, ever), and I’m saddened that Bizarre Creations might be closing its doors in part because Blur, the better-than-Mario-Kart-Wii racer, flopped at retail.

Aside from blowing up a hundred Ford Focuses this week, I randomly bought two Xbox Live Indie Games. My purchases of Breath of Death VII and Epic Dungeon have been very sound investments. Breath of Death is a parody of everyone’s favorite JRPGs as well as a compendium of so many references to nerd culture that I can rarely keep up with the script. Epic Dungeon is a rapid Diablo-like hack ‘n slash. It’s simplistic in an admirable way, and the incessant dungeon crawling is more immediately rewarding than, say, Torchlight.

Both indie titles are a buck each, and I would recommend them to anyone with the Microsoft Points to spare.

The editorial staff at Silicon Sasquatch is dedicated to bringing you news, reviews, opinion and analysis with journalistic professionalism and engaging prose. We’re just a few poor guys with BAs in magazine journalism, but we do what we can.

However, we would never describe a gaming blog as pure journalism. Most of the content we’ve posted to this date could better be described as criticism: In-depth, analytical opinions on games and news in the videogame world, but opinions nonetheless. Journalism implies digging into each story, double- and triple-checking facts, getting in touch with contacts and divining the important news values behind every published story.

We aspire to go beyond the status quo as established by the snark-over-substance mainstays of the major gaming blogs. They serve an audience and function as a business, and that’s good, but we’d rather leverage the harsh reality of this blog probably never being profitable in order to give you an honest and well-thought-out story with every post. We don’t have a publisher or advertising clients to please, so we might as well be on the level with you.

Over the last week we’ve been posting weekly updates to major (and minor) news stories, along with brief analysis. Today marks the start of another weekly feature, The Backlog. Essentially, it gives the editorial staff a chance to reflect on the games they’ve been playing and give some impressions and reflections on those experiences. Again, it’s not journalistic, but we hope it’s helpful to our readers; at the very least, we hope it makes for an interesting read and a starting point for good discussion.

In the coming weeks, you’ll begin to see some meatier features where we dig a little deeper and produce some original research and content. We’re all intimately familiar with the vice-grip of the journalism bug, and we’re not ready to abandon the profession we studied for years. Just bear in mind that such features take time, energy, clout and resources — things we’re all in short supply of. In the meantime, we want to extend our sincere thanks for your continued reading and hope you’ll stick with us in the coming weeks.

Now, click the link and read all about the games we’ve been slogging away at!

Aaron:

This weekend I’ll be graced with a new DSi as a birthday present to replace my stolen DS Lite and to fulfill my childhood dreams of a blueish/turquoise handheld.

I won’t be gaming at all until I return from the annual excursion, but over the past week it’s been a steady diet of Mass Effect, Call of Duty: World at War, Resident Evil 5 and Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 1.

Mass Effect continues to be one of the best gaming investments I’ve ever made, and though my current playtime motives are dubious (read: achievement-related) I’m still having so much fun and would note it still holds up well after a couple of years.

WaW is frustrating, annoying and…addictive. I honestly don’t know why I put myself through it, just like in CoD4, but the multiplayer advancement makes me come back for more. Of course, it wouldn’t be worth it without four friends to play with. And Nazi Zombies is pretty entertaining, though give me L4D or give me undeath.

RE5 has maintained its enjoyment levels of “over 11.” That’s on a 10-point scale by the way. Co-op has really been refined to perfection with this game and I hope future co-op experiences are even half as polished. Though I will admit the intrigue is kinda lost when you finally buy infinite ammo for the time-honored and series mainstay: the ginormous magnum.

PAA: EP1 is probably one of the best Live Arcade titles I’ve purchased, and I feel guilty for holding out until it was 50% off. So much humor, so much fun.

Nick:

This week has been especially busy for me. On top of working full-time, I’ve been writing the weekly updates for the Sasquatch, which isn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. However, I’ve still found the time to play a little Team Fortress 2 and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, as well as my old mainstay, Rock Band 2.

There’s not much I can really say about Team Fortress 2, other than it’s shocking how fresh the game feels a year and a half after its release. The continuous flow of new content packs and the intricate level of strategy that emerges in each class is staggering. If you’re on Steam, look me up!

I love Grand Theft Auto, but I’m not sure how I feel about Chinatown Wars. While a technological marvel and an impressively immersive game on the DS, it straddles an awkward line between the rich narrative experience of GTA IV and the reckless, devil-may-care fun of earlier games in the series (and more recently exemplified by the awesome Saints Row series.) I’m struggling to stay engaged with the story and the gameplay, but both seem a little short-changed and loosely connected. I’ll have a full review next week.

FACT: Rock Band 2 is the best game ever. It’s my desert island game. It’s the greatest damn thing short of playing in a real band. While I shudder to think how much of my money has been siphoned away by Harmonix’s impeccable, far-reaching music tastes, I find myself booting up the 360 and plowing through a few songs every day. If there’s any triple-A game that deserves even more credit than it already has, it’s this one. Some of the latest and greatest songs I’ve been enjoying are “New Slang” by The Shins and the hilariously terrible but shred-tastic “Warriors of Time” by Black Tide.

Doug:

I’ve been slogging away at a bunch of games this week, mostly stuff for review and consideration for the Sasquatch, but with a smattering of stuff for my own personal entertainment as well.

Retro Game Challenge was, of course, for review – and I’m glad to have spent all the time with my DS Lite and that game. I will eventually let at least Nick borrow the game to give it a shot in his own free time, too, but I’m definitely hanging onto the game long-term – because the games it has within are great time killers, Star Prince and Rally King especially.

No week would be complete without me playing a bit of NCAA Football 09 on my 360. I’ve been heavily involved with the game since it’s release last July – specifically, I threw myself into some organized online dynasties. I’ve been playing, recruiting, and talking smack with other members of a forum for…ages, now, it seems, but things are slowing down a bit. I’m only in two dynasties – a Pac-10 conference one with Oregon, and a Big 12 one with Colorado – and only played a bit for both.

The other sports game I’ve been playing is FIFA 09, specifically its “Be A Pro” mode. For a sports game and soccer game junkie like me, this is the ultimate – create a player, take them through the lower levels, build them up from a scrub to a superstar, and then start to dominate. It’s far too much fun. I haven’t even played a game with a full team in ages.

I’ve been putting little bits of time into a couple other games – Fallout 3 (which I’m finally playing), Rock Band 2 (specifically Rock Band Tuesday) – but, with no game to plug through and review this week, I hope I can spend some time with other things…like Diablo II.