Judge Dredd Video Games

There have been a couple Judge Dredd video games in the past, but none of them were that good. I thought the Judge Dredd vs. zombies phone game was decent, but phone games barely even count as real games. What I want is a quality console game where you play as Judge Dredd. For best results, I'd say that they should combine elements from the movie and the comicbooks, like having more aliens and weird sci-fi stuff than the movie, but maybe a little less than the comicbooks. Judges and their guns should have a movie inspired look, but I think the lawmaster bikes should be much more like they were in the comicbooks. Where gameplay is concerned, this game should be an open world third person shooter with a little bit of RPG thrown into the mix. Picture Skyrim combined with Red Dead Redemption, Fallout, and Far Cry 3, set in the world of Judge Dredd. I'd say a large section of Mega City One should be completely open to the player to explore, and filled with both simple crimes to stop and also some more complex side quests like Skyrim. Traversal should be primarily reliant on Dredd's lawmaster bike, which would work like a horse in Red Dead where you can summon it from afar, since he does that a lot in the comicbooks. It's a big city though, and even if you're only in part of it, this game would be best with a map roughly the size of Skyrim's. So with that in mind, a fast travel system should be set up similarly to Far Cry 3's, so in this case, Judge Dredd can fast travel to Justice Department outposts around the city, then take his bike or any other vehicle he finds the rest of the way. Combat should work almost identically to Red Dead Redemption's third person shooter style, except with a melee button for getting up close and personal. Also, there should be more than one melee move so that you can take guys down hand to hand without getting bored. The bounty system from Red Dead could be adapted to serve as Justice Department assignments, except you don't choose whether or not you take the perp in alive or dead. Now picture that, but with an RPG element too. Due to the extreme versatility of the lawgiver pistol, I'm thinking maybe that should be the only weapon the player uses, with an inventory wheel like Far Cry and Red Dead for selecting different types of ammo instead of different weapons. Defeated enemies should drop money and regular bullets, but the special stuff like high ex. or ricochet ammo and health syringes like Far Cry 3 should have to be bought at the Justice Department or one of its outposts like the way you buy things in Far Cry 3. There should  also be items that you can pick up and either sell or use in a quest. These could be stored in an inventory like Skyrim's, along with possibly other ammo types that don't fit in the quick select wheel. If this is the case, the wheel should work like a favorites menu, where the player decides which items are available in it. Found items being equipped and used doesn't really make sense since judges have better stuff than most criminals, plus they have to be in uniform, but it could get boring if there's no way to get better gear. I'd say that XP points earned by taking down criminals should be spent in a perk menu with a few different skill trees like an armor tree, a lawgiver tree, maybe a vehicle tree, and probably a couple others. Maybe a negotiation and speech skill tree. Yeah, I think that'd make a cool gameplay element doing things like negotiating hostage situations and stuff.  In terms of the main quest line, I'm pretty flexible, but Id like it to involve the Angel gang and the Dark Judges, but the story shouldn't be just the generic villain team up against hero story. That's been done so many times now. I want something fresh. The reason I suggest these villains is that fighting the Angel gang could result in a few quests going outside the city into the Cursed Earth, and a fight with the Dark Judges could take place in their alternate universe. Or maybe the Angel gang could be in a separate DLC quest line instead, which could open up a portion of the Cursed Earth for exploration, complete with side quests and random acts of violence to stop. Badically picture the Fallout games except you're Judge Dredd. They could also make an expansion that opens up more of the city, or one that takes place on the moon colony. Or best yet, they could release a disk with all of these areas on it to download onto your system (since I like hard copies of things), and also include new perks to get, new vehicles to drive, and new lawgiver ammo types. Maybe the game could have some multiplayer in the form of Justice Department training simulations where judges shoot each other for practice. Ideally these could be accessed directly from single player by visiting a specific areas. That said, it's not a necessity. The only other thing this game does need is the option to yell "I AM THE LAW!"

Musical Powers

I've decided that it would be pretty cool to have super powers based around playing music. For example, flying while playing an instrument. Something like this guy playing a jazz adaptation of the Skyrim theme:

A little more than halfway through the video, he starts flying. But he's completely unaffected by gravity, air resistance or wind. He just plays in a standing position while his body flies through Skyrim and into space. And that's exactly the kind of musical flight I want. Also, I realize that the sidescrolling background was just an effect and not intended to show acual motion, but effortlessly sliding sideways without moving my feet is also something I'd like to be able to do. I don't know how to play the sax, and I'm more of a rock n' roll guy anyway, so I'd probably end up learning to play the guitar. I do know how to play the piano and viola, but those don't quite work for this. My vocals are pretty awesome though (even if other people don't think so), so I suppose I could do that if I had a microphone, but a guitar would be best.
Peace!

Some Video Game News

First up is Skyrim, which is getting even more DLC! Available now is the Dragonborn DLC, which takes you back to the island of Solstheim, which you'll recognize if you played Morrowind. You also battle the first dragonborn, get some new powers and weapons and stuff, and I'm fairly certain the ability to ride a dragon. I know a lot of people have been waiting a long time for that. And unfortunately for PC and PS3 gamers, they'll have to wait even longer since 360 gets it first. Most people who don't have a 360 and want this DLC have my sympathy, but the annoyingly arrogant PC gamers who think they're better than everyone else deserve this and more. And now a rap by me:
 If you're havin' game problems I feel bad for you, son.
I got 99 problems, but Skyrim ain't one.
.... I promise I won't do that again. That just popped into my head and my brain to keyboard filter isn't working very well.... Do me a favor and forget about that. In other news (see how smoothly I transition?), Deathstroke is a confirmed playable character in Nether Realm's Injustice: Gods Among Us, and he looks awesome. They released a gameplay trailer showing him in action, so if I wasn't completely sold on the game before (we all know I was, but for the sake of the discussion, let's say I wasn't), I am now. Deathstroke is one of the characters that I was hoping would be in Injustice, since I want to play as him, and I heard such bad things about Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, I never played it. It makes sense too, since when you think about it, he's a perfect character for this genre of game. He relies heavily on unarmed brawling, he has mele weapons, and he uses long range attacks too. But guess what? I have even more news. This time about Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. As promised, I'm updating this post after finding a gameplay video. At Spike's 10th annual Video Game Awards, a new trailer with gameplay was released. We've already seen a trailer showing Gabriel as a superpowered vampire kicking the collective a** of a whole army, but we hadn't seen any gameplay before. Mind you, this trailer reallly doesn't have that much gameplay in it, but it's still nice to see some. I just remembered that in interviews, the developers have commented on the first trailer and mentioned that the new healing system is based on drinking blood instead of using light magic, so we already had evidence that you still play as Gabriel, but now there can be no doubt. That makes me very happy because his awesome (awesome is a noun now) has increased exponentially, and if he wasn't the protagonist, I wouldn't want to buy the game. In the first trailer, we saw him teleporting, turning into a smoke bat thing, and killing people with a long red energy whip, but now we see him killing guys with what looks like some sort of glowing longsword, so I'm curious which is the primary weapon, and how many other weapons and powers Gabriel has now. Or should I say... Dracul? And now here are some trailers:

Spiders

I've decided that giant spiders are my least favorite enemies in video games. Most of them aren't that hard to beat, but they're just annoying. In Skyrim, frostbite spiders are my least favorite minor enemies because of the annoying sound they make when they walk, plus they shoot poison at you that adds a greenish tint to the screen, which also bothers me. Darksiders also had a level where you fight a bunch of different types of spiders. The smallest ones weren't that annoying but they still were just because of their numbers and the fact that they jump onto you, but the big ones were way worse. There were four micro-bosses that you had to pull their outer shell off with a grappling hook, and they still just took way too long to die, then there was the mini-boss, an even bigger spider that it took me half an hour to figure out how to kill it, and finally the boss, who I knew how to kill, but it kept teleporting. Corpsers from Gears of War are also one of the tougher enemy types, so they annoy me just with their sheer hardtokillness. Giant Spiders from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow are also bothersome because they're fairly tough, but also they keep jumping around and can trap you if you're not careful. Then there are robot spiders. They're typically relatively small, like Dwarven spiders in Skyrim. They're not that hard to kill, but when you do they explode in a ball of lightning stuff that hurts you. In the Amazing Spider-Man game, there are robot spiders with force fields protecting them. Those are a pain to take down. In War for Cybertron, there are little spiders that crawl around in large numbers and try to surround you. Not all robot spiders are small though. One War for Cybertron boss was a giant robot spider. And Spider-Man also had a huge robotic spider type thing with lasers and missiles and stuff. I hate spiders.

Skyrim + Dawnguard = Skooma

If you're one of those arrogant PC gamers who looks down their nose at other platforms, then 360 players getting Dawnguard first serves you right. But chances are, you're not, so if you lack a 360, are a reasonable person, and want Dawnguard, you have my sympathy. But anyway: As some of you know, it wouldn't be entirely unfair to call myself a recovering Skyrim addict. Dawnguard is not helping. I pretty much just stopped playing for a while, but I picked it up again right before I got the Dawnguard dlc, and now I'm playing it kind of a lot, but it's so cool. If you side with the vampires like I did, you revive a vampire not unlike Selene from Underworld from a kind of stasis using blood, not unlike in Underworld, then become a vampire lord not unlike the one from Underworld Evolution. But also you can get other powers like turn into a swarm of bats, summon a gargoyle, turn into mist, and vampiric grip, wich is essentially force choke. So you have some of the powers of Marcus Corvinus, classic Dracula and Darth Vader. Plus you can feed on people while they're awake now, plus turn people into thralls and sleep in coffins. Joining the Dawnguard and hunting Vampires gets you some new weapons, including a crossbow, and some new armor, but I think that's about it. I expect the reason for most of the people that join them is so they can be a werewolf. And now both vampires and werewolves have perk trees, but you can go from vampire lord form to human form and back again as many times as you want, whenever you want, plus you can do awesome vampire magic and stuff, so I chose to prey on the innocent and become a vampire. And I heard that there was at least one more shout being added to the game, but now I can confirm that it's at least two. My biggest concern was that vampirism would mess up my character's face and make him look bad like in Oblivion, but my guy's face looks way cooler now, plus you get glowing eyes. And I'm not very far in the questline, but so far each one has been interresting and unique.