Carnivores Dinosaur Hunter HD for PlayStation 3! It's been done!

After eons upon eons, against all odds, a courageous and ambitious game development group finally brought us what is sure to be one of the greatest Hunting games ever to be released on a home console platform! After so many of the "good ol' " hunting game series had withered and gone to die, Carnivores is living strong! I'm absolutely thrilled, but frankly shocked, that someone actually realized that this was a good idea, and that there is actually a fairly significant audience awaiting this type of release. Assuming it's not plagued with what is essentially "required" dlc, that is, assuming they don't force you to pay with actual money for each individual in-game entity (ex: weapons, maps, targets, etc), this could be one of the greatest things ever to happen to not only the series, but to the entire genre of survival hunting.

Seriously, when was the last time we received a hunting game on a home console system that managed, even in any minuscule way, to surpass a rank of mediocrity at best? The Carnivores 2 port, entitled "Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter" just as all the other ports, to the PlayStation 3 came no where near to establishing the quality of game play and smoothness of control that were offered to a reasonable extent in most of the other ports. Certainly the touch screen controls didn't live up to the quality of the original PC game's mouse and keyboard system, but the use of touch screen was far more efficiently applied to the game's FPS style than the horrifically designed PlayStation 3 version. I'm more than willing to bet that someone in possession of any common sense at all made the observation that it was not so convenient or intelligent to stray drastically from the control style that every other game of the sort abides by to a reasonable degree. Seriously, what genius thought it would be innovative and clever to assign  basic first-person camera movement to anything other than the directional pad or directional buttons!? X and TRIANGLE!? REALLY!? REALLLY!? 

But like I established above, this announcement, or perhaps more simply the pure conception of this product involved far too much logic to associate this game with stupidity of such a magnitude as was exposed to the other port. If you haven't heard of the "Carnivores" series before: one, you probably don't follow this blog because I know for a fact we've discussed it on multiple occasions, and the port of the second entry was actually one of the candidates for Gamed2Death's Game of the Year 2012; two, if you are new to the series but want to investigate, when you come across "Carnivores: Cityscape", either let it be the first in the series that you play, or the last, because it's just that different; three, if you are a skeptic about the quality of the hunting genre, or if you're just a pillock who wants nothing to do with it, I strongly recommend the former group to investigate (the latter group shouldn't even be here). Actually, generally speaking I don't have anything against those who don't like hunting games or games pertaining to hunting, but the Carnivores series was so significantly innovative in its genre that it essentially established the undefeated standard for dangerous animals in a hunting game. Sorry Cabela's, but being tackled off of a cliff by a mountain lion only to land fifteen feet from an aggravated black bear will never summon from me the same adrenaline as being charged by a freaking spinosaurus, all the while its screeching and I'm running in panicked , tactless circles. 

That online, less fiction-oriented hunting game which I believe is titled simply "The Hunter", simply does not hold a candle to the potential of this game for three basic reasons: first and least important (concerning the hunting genre, not the underlying concept of the Carnivores series), this game has dinosaurs, so already there is a pretty significant boost; second, Carnivores HD is a console game that possess the overwhelmingly exciting potential to be more awesome than any PC game released in the last seven years; finally, the dlc bs which I alluded to conceptually was something actually instigated by the developers of "The Hunter", so this game is pretty much limited to an audience that both enjoys hunting games and is willing to pay a hefty subscription fee (that can't be a broad population).      

If they some how include multiplayer in this package, which I admittedly jumped to praising before actually doing any research beyond watching the teaser trailer,  this game wins. I'm not even going to dictate or justify what that may be referring to. It just wins hands down. Everyone else can just get up and leave the room, because Carnivores Dinosaur Hunter HD (the name is a bit uncreative, but if that's the only thing that wasn't applified in this edition, I'll get over it immediately) has won not only the "hunting game of the past half-decade" crown, but it has embedded itself in history as one of the few games due for release this year (I don't actually know that, I'm just praying) that we will actually regard as worthy of being named a candidate for Gamed2Death: Best Game of the Year 2013. I'm seriously so thrilled and excited about this announcement that I'm not sure if any of the ideas I was trying to communicate were transcribed from my thoughts into something that was even mildly articulable. Just in case, I'll summarize concisely so that the reader has no chance of misinterpreting my message: buy this game when it comes out; play and enjoy this game for a substantial amount of time; recognize that Activision pretty much sucks.

Just think about what this is. A hunting game that actually looks halfway decent in that specific category. How long has it been? HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN!? DANGIT SUNSTORM!!!! STOP MAKING CUPCAKE SIMULATORS AND MAKE DEER HUNTER 6!!!!

(frozen expression of ecstasy)

10 Game Series that Went Down Hill

This list has been drafted to celebrate the release of Resident Evil 6. Before starting to read this list, let me confirm your presumptions; yes many of Capcom's games will be featured on this list. Because some of the items are on this list for apparent reasons, I'll try to keep the descriptions fairly short. Enjoy! (Note: I will be blaming the downfall of many of these once at least half-way decent game series on the mysteriously popular and very over-hyped games in the generic-shooter genre that currently seems to be one of the most popular (Yes, that does mean Call of Duty and Battlefield, thank you for asking). )

1. Resident Evil- While Resident Evil 4 was a revolutionary change for some RE fans, others didn't care to much for the new style. However, Resident Evil 4 stuck at least somewhat closely to the routes of the series. With the disappointing arrivals of RE 5 and  the recently released RE 6, both of which drained every decent element of the series dry (mostly due to the fact that they attempted to steer the game in a completely new direction, but turned too hard and drove off a cliff), I think it's safe to assume that Capcom used kerosine on this series.

2. Cabela's Big Game Hunter- Another game that left its routes (in this case, a hunting game, where you HUNT for your prey in medium-relatively large locations), tried to become a generic Call of Duty-like action shooter, and failed miserably.

3. Call of Juarez- Another game that left its routes (in this case, a western-fps, where you travel through various western environments and engage in various non-generic "missions" that are actually somewhat interesting), tried to become a generic modern, extremely mature, inappropriate, vulgar, and uninteresting Call of Duty-like shooter, and failed miserably.

4. Dino Crisis- It's like Resident Evil with dinosaurs. This includes that downfall of Resident Evil.

5. Devil May Cry- Honestly, has anything every gone wrong when Capcom tried to take a series that Shinji Mikami started and changed it to suit their own tastes? Of course not, so why not leap at the next opportunity to totally destroy and redo a series that no one wants to see recreated? Sure they could just try to make a decent sequel, but, with all this reputation, why even bother?

6. Lost Planet- I personally enjoyed what little of the first game I played; the idea seems fairly unique (at least to some degree), and everything seemed at least some-what cool, be it the gameplay, the design, the graphics, etc.. Then, all of that was dropped in the shredder, courtesy of Capcom. :)

7. Hunting Unlimited- While the series did adopt the tactic that Call of Duty has made popular, releasing a game every year and making very few changes/ inhancements, at least the game's formula worked. With the release of Hunting Unlimited 2011, it's probably safe to assume that this series took a heart shot.

8. Dangerous Hunts- Another game that left its routes (in this case, a survival, mission based hunting game) and became, at least after the second game, a generic shooter that tells a boring story and offers very little entertainment, mostly due to the lack of elements that made the first one (and in some ways, the second) so great: hunting, fear, suspense, action in mild doses, mystery, etc. Let's blame Call of Duty for this one.

9:  Metal of Honor- Same old Call of Duty story.

10: Ratchet and Clank- To be honest I've never played this one, but Porpoisemonkey recommended it for this list, so I'll just assume it belongs here.

Well, that will be all for now. Please feel free to discuss this list, or topics for future lists, or anything of that nature in the comments section, and be sure to check us out on Youtube!