Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (XBLA, 2007)

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Originally Developed by Konami
Port Developed by Digital Eclipse
Published by Konami
Released for XBLA (3/2007)
Also on PlayStation/Saturn
Backwards Compatible on Xbox One

Originally released for the Sony PlayStation back in 1997, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night stood out for delivering some of the best 2D visuals in a time when the emphasis was on 3D graphics. The game looked amazing back then and due to the detailed sprites the graphics have held up much better over time than most games of the era. Symphony of the Night was quite different than the Castlevania games that preceded it. The game no longer consisted of linear stages but featured a massive map that allowed the player to explore on their own. There are of course areas you will not be able to access initially, but once certain items, relics or powers have been obtained you'll be able to discover areas you couldn't get to at first.

At the time of its release, Symphony of the Night was a top-tier game in presentation, featuring detailed sprite graphics with an incredible Castlevania soundtrack. The enemy diversity is impressive, featuring many favorites from previous titles and tons of new entries. While the game technically takes place in one giant castle, there is excellent variety between the sections of the castle that will keep you wondering what you'll come across next. There is a small amount of 3D mixed in with the 2D sprites at several points within the game but it is well executed and they fit together wonderfully. This was one of the first instances I recall seeing 2D & 3D graphics used together like this and was quite impressive back in the day. The voice acting is almost as cheesy as the original Resident Evil, but it's definitely part of the game's charm.

Symphony of the Night features some tight controls, making it easy to navigate the environment with minimal frustration. The game still features the knockback when you get hit and flying medusa heads knocking you around is just as frustrating as it ever was, but the controls are improved from the previous games and your character is very well equipped to take on danger. There are eight different spells that can be discovered, which can be executed by inputting Street Fighter style joystick + button combinations. In addition to your weapon and special attacks, there are also sub-weapons at your disposal. Several of these are old classics, like the dagger, holy water, axe and stop-watch, but there are also several new additions to the series including the cross, holy book and the arguen. There's a good variety between the sub-weapons, though some of them are certainly more useful than others. Using your sub-weapon consumes your hearts, which can be replenished from whipping candles found all over the castle in traditional Castlevania fashion.

There is a ton of stuff to collect throughout Symphony of the Night, including weapons, shields, armor, cloaks and relics. Certain relics will allow you activate a familiar which will follow you around and assist in different ways. There are five in total: fairy, devil, sword, ghost and bat. Other relics you collect will grant buffs to certain stats, giving the player a good incentive to search every nook and cranny to find some of the more powerful items. As you progress further into the game, Alucard will gain the ability to turn into a bat, wolf and mist. The mist will grant you access through certain blocked walls and the bat will help reach high areas, but to be honest I never found much reason to use the wolf form outside of accessing a secret area. The fact that the game offers so much in the way of customization makes it fun to replay while experimenting with different loadouts.

If you complete the normal castle while meeting certain conditions, you'll gain access to the second half of the game where you run back through the castle upside-down. The enemy layouts have changed completely and there are all-new bosses to encounter in order to keep things interesting. Complete that mode and you'll be able to start a new game as Richter Belmont. Playing as Richter is a bit more like the old Castlevania games as you no longer level-up, nor can you equip weapons and items. Richter is also armed with a whip just like all of the previous Belmonts, and other than the whip the only other weapon you'll be able to use are the sub-weapons. Being able to play as Richter is an awesome bonus and makes the game feel fresh on a replay.

While Symphony of the Night is a great game and a definite classic, there are a few things worth griping about, both with the original title and with this port. It's arguable how useful some of the sub-weapons are as some of them are definitely more effective than others. Alucard will become over-powered rather quick as you find and equip new weapons & armor. Certain weapons pretty much break the game, such as the shield rod and Alucard shield combo, but there are many other options to equip if you'd like a bit more of a challenge. The inverted castle could be looked at as a somewhat lazy way to pad out the game, but the developers did at least take the time to introduce new enemies and boss fights rather than just recycling from the normal castle.

The annoying process of dying, having to view the game over screen, return to the title, select your hard drive and to reload your save has carried over, though you can at least access the pause menu to exit quickly and speed things up a bit. The screen starts out small, and though the game does offer the option to resize the screen, for some reason it doesn't save this setting and requires you to re-adjust the screen every time you play. The only other option for the visuals is an "enhanced" setting which basically just smooths the pixels out a little bit. I've read complaints from other players having issues with the game freezing, but I never ran into any issues in my time spent with the game.

There were several new features added in for the Japan-only Sega Saturn port, including new areas to explore, some bonus weapons/equipment and you could unlock Maria as a playable character. Sadly, none of the Sega Saturn exclusive features were included in this port which would have been awesome considering how expensive it can be procuring anything Saturn-related these days.

It feels a tad lazy that Digital Eclipse just ported over an emulation of the original PlayStation game without giving us much in the way of extras. That's not to say that this is a bad version or anything, as the actual game is emulated well and plays just as we all remembered it. A little extra in the way of content would have been nice, if not the Saturn content mentioned earlier than at least like some unlockable concept art or something. While Symphony of the Night was never my favorite Castlevania game (I prefer the old linear games personally) it is still a fantastic game that has held up remarkably well over all these years. This is a solid port of an old classic, whether you're re-visiting the game or playing it for the first time it's a much more financially-friendly way to play the game than purchasing the original on PlayStation.

It's also worth noting that this was released for the Xbox 360 on a physical disc and can be found in the retail release Konami Classics Vol. 1. Inserting this disc into your Xbox One will allow you to download the game onto your hard drive.

Final Verdict: While the XBLA version is a bare-bones port, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night still stands as a fantastic title that kicked off the "Metroidvania" genre. A 2D classic and a steal for $4.99!

Purchase Links:
Buy Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Microsoft Store
Search Konami Classics Vol. 1 - eBay

Related Links:
Some Handy Maps For Both Normal Inverted Castles
Symphony of the Night Achievement Guide - XboxAchievements.com
Symphony of the Night - True Achievements

Downtown SMASH Dodgeball! (XBLIG, 2009)

Downtown SMASH Dodgeball!
Also Known As ダウンタウン激凸ドッジボール！
Developed by Miracle Kidz
Released for XBLIG (8/2009)

Downtown SMASH Dodgeball! (which was listed as ダウンタウン激凸ドッジボール！on all of  the storefronts, making it a difficult title to search for using English characters) immediately struck me with nostalgic flashbacks of the Super Dodge Ball (known in Japan as the Kunio-kun series) games that came out on the arcade/NES way back in the late '80's. Upon further inspection it became apparent that the developer, Miracle Kidz, is composed of former Technos Japan team members, some of which were the same crew that worked on the old Kunio-kun games. While the character names have been changed, the gameplay has remained the same.

In Downtown SMASH Dodgeball you'll have four players on the court and three more on the sidelines of the opposing team. Anybody can attack with the ball using the A button while the B button passes to whichever teammate is calling for the ball. Pressing A+B results in a jump. Both offense and defense rely heavily on timing, and if you time your throw properly while dashing (or jumping out of a dash) you can unleash super moves that cause big damage. While on defense, if you press the A button right as a shot is about to hit your player you can catch the ball, avoiding any damage. You can also dodge the ball by crouching with the B button, but this risks it bouncing off-sides where the opponent can take possession. When a player loses all of their HP (seen on energy bars on the top) they float away to the heavens in angel form. Whichever team is the first to lose all four main players on the court loses the match. The game allows up to four-player local action and is an absolute blast if have some friends over to play it with.

Before a round begins, you're allowed to select from nine teams and then choose the positioning of your characters. It's always a good strategy to prioritize putting players with the highest attack on the main court. At the main menu you can select from tournament, one to one (the translation is a bit off in this game, but it has its charm and its nice they even bothered to include an English translation), options, controls and quit game. In tournament mode you'll play through eight rounds with a nice mix of different backdrops that rarely repeat themselves. There are five different difficulties to select from, and the harder difficulties will certainly provide a challenge. One to one allows you to just play a single round using the same teams as in tournament mode.

Downtown SMASH Dodgeball allows quite a bit of customization under the options menu, where you'll find of ton of settings you can mess with. You can select the language (English or Japanese), sound volume, toggle stereo sound, adjust game/ball time, shot speed, shot rule (not sure exactly what this is), setup the button layouts, adjust manual catch and a few other options I'm not certain what they do. The controls menu features three detailed pages and serves as the games instruction manual.

The gameplay is very faithful to the source material and after all these years it still feels satisfying to get a running start, launch a super shot and smash the opponent so hard they fly across the screen. The graphics are a tad more detailed but retain the same style of the classic Kunio titles and the sound effects are true to the originals. The music sounds like something you would have heard on an old CD-ROM title and fits the action quite well. While playing the game the characters will have constant banter that will be shown at the bottom of the screen, very similar to River City Ransom. It's a bit tough to read these and play at the same time, but it's a cool throwback to an old classic and surely there's some nice "Engrish" going on down there.

Downtown SMASH Dodgeball initially retailed for $10 when it first hit the indie games store, but it was eventually reduced to $5 before the storefront was wiped from the face of Xbox Live. It's a worthy successor to the Kunio dodgeball games and is a great time for players of all ages. Miracle Kidz would release a follow up for the Wii in 2011, but Downtown SMASH Dodgeball was never ported to anything else. It's a bit of a shame that this one will be for the most part lost in time, and it's yet another indie title that would have greatly benefited from online action on XBLA. I wish Miracle Kidz would have found better financial success with this title and released a River City Ransom style game, but unfortunately this would be the only release from the developers on XBLIG.

Final Verdict: Downtown SMASH Dodgeball! delivers some fun old-school arcade action on your Xbox 360 with support for up to four players locally. An often overlooked gem on XBLIG.

Related Links:
Miracle Kidz Official Site
Downtown SMASH Volleyball! - GameFAQs

Mini Ninjas (Xbox 360, 2009)

Mini Ninjas
Developed by Io Interactive
Published by Eidos Interactive
Released for Xbox 360 (9/2009)
Also on DS/iOS/Mac/PC/PS3/Wii

Mini Ninjas is a kid-friendly stealth/action/platformer title from Io Interactive, a crew best known for the Hitman series of games. The game sports some cartoony graphics that have held up well since the game was released. This is a single-player only game, featuring a campaign that should keep you busy for around 10 hours.You'll assemble a small crew and will have the ability to switch your character at will in your journey to take down the evil samurai warlord.

The graphics in Mini Ninjas have a cartoon vibe to them, but they're not cel-shaded like most games that go for this look, giving it a nice distinct look. The environments are detailed and the characters are all designed well, though you will see the same enemies very frequently. Everything looks a bit cute but not so adorable that it hurts to look at. The boss battles are well done and each feels different from the last. The sound design works well and you'll always know when an enemy is nearby, although I'm sure some will be annoyed by the gibberish talk that spews forth from the enemies. The music fits the theme of the game well, though I'm sure you'll struggle to remember any of it once you've turned the game off.

Mini Ninjas features a beefy campaign that spans twenty-two levels, with several boss fights spread throughout. Levels tend to be quite large, allowing for some exploration, and the developers did a nice job making the levels seem even bigger than they really are. There's a decent variety here too, ranging from green forest areas, grassy plains and snow capped mountains. You're on a quest to take down the samurai warlord and restore balance to the land. Apparently they've been transforming animals into their minions to assemble an army. When you take down an enemy, an animal will appear in their place, helping to minimize the violence and keep an "E" for everyone rating. This is actually a pretty cool effect and definitely reminded me of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game.

As you work your way through the campaign you'll rescue additional ninjas and once you've found them all you'll be able to switch between five separate characters on the fly. Each character works better against certain enemies and to maximize efficiency you'll want to switch them up quite frequently. Once you get the archer who can fire an unlimited amount of arrows the game gets a bit easy, so if you wish to keep the challenge up you may want to minimize using that character. Other than the over-powered archer the characters are balanced pretty well and are fun to use.

Mini Ninjas boasts some unique features, one of them being the ability to possess animals. Larger animals like bears and hogs can be used to attack enemies. Also while in animal form collectibles will be marked in your proximity by purple clouds of smoke. You'll also find a fishing rod which you can use at certain water spots to catch some fish and stock sushi in your inventory. Some of the special abilities are more useful than others, with some like the sunlight power being very underutilized. The sunlight power is used to vanquish the ghosts, which if I recall correctly I only saw on two different levels throughout the entire game. Sunlight spell not included, most of the other spells are fun to mess with and you'll find many of them as you progress through the campaign.

While stealth is an aspect of the game and sneaking up on enemies will result in a one-hit kill, the majority of your enemy encounters will involve direct fighting. I had a tough time sneaking up and killing more than an enemy or two before being detected and having to fight everybody else. Later in the game you will get a camouflage spell that will help you sneak up on enemies, but it's still just as difficult to get successive stealth kills. Luckily the fighting in Mini Ninjas isn't too bad, since you'll be doing a lot of it. You have a standard and heavy attack, and when enemies block (which they frequently do) you'll have to use a heavy attack to stagger them and get some easy shots in. Depending on which ninja you're using you'll attack with a different weapon, including katana swords, spears and hammers. Within your inventory you'll be able to hold additional items to use in battle, such as bombs, caltrops and shurikens. Fighting is basic and works well for the most part, with the biggest problem being the "hatted samurai" that show up later in the game and have teleporting abilities. These guys caused me many problems until I figured out that I needed to use the bow & arrow to easily attack them. Other than these guys I didn't have much of an issue with the combat, just try to make sure you don't let the enemies gang up on you.

There is a fair share of platforming in Mini Ninjas and for the most part there's nothing too frustrating. I did run into a few spots where the camera would turn as I walked, causing me to walk right off the edge, but these sections are few and far between and didn't ruin the overall experience. Being a ninja, you have a wall jump that you'll have to utilize every now and then. Your character swims extremely slow, but luckily you can use your hat as a boat in order to traverse the water much quicker.

As with most modern games, there is a progression system in Mini Ninjas. Defeated enemies will drop little balls which will grant the player XP when picked up. As you level up you'll gain bonus perks such as more health and spirit. The spirit meter is depleted when doing special/magic attacks and sprinting. There are also quite few collectibles to seek out if you're the completionist type. There are 100 "Jizo statues" scattered throughout the campaign in addition to caged animals that can be freed (195 of these in total!). Some of the statues are hidden well and if you're not on the lookout for them can be easy to miss. The collectibles help provide a little replay value if you're the type who likes to get everything.

Mini Ninjas is a solid game and a bit more polished than your average "all-ages" game. I'm not sure how popular ninjas are with today's youth, but I know if I would've had this game in my youth I would've loved it. Even as a 30+ year-old I enjoyed having a run through the rather long campaign. If you find it cheap and have a love for anything ninja related, give Mini Ninjas a shot and you just might enjoy yourself. I was a bit surprised how enjoyable a family-friendly ninja game could be!

Final Verdict: Mini Ninjas is a fun, family-friendly action-platformer with a single-player campaign of decent length. Recommended for those who love some ninja action!

Purchase Links:
Buy Mini Ninjas (Digital) - Xbox Marketplace
Buy Mini Ninjas (Disc) - eBay

Related Links:
Mini Ninjas - Official Site
Io Interactive - Official Site
Mini Ninjas - Xbox Store
Mini Ninjas - GameFAQs
Mini Ninjas Achievement Guide - XboxAchievements.com

Protect Me Knight (XBLIG, 2010)

Protect Me Knight
Developed by Ancient
Released for XBLIG (5/2010)

Protect Me Knight (also known as まもって騎士 Mamotte Naito) was a true hidden gem in the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace. It was listed in the store by it's Japanese title only and due to this was extremely hard to find in the massive library of games available, even if you knew what you were looking for. The game was developed by Ancient, a company founded by veteran music composer Yuzo Koshiro and co-founded by Tomo Koshiro, Yuzo's mother. Yuzo Koshiro is well known to retro gaming enthusiasts, as he composed music for classics like the Streets of Rage series, ActRaiser and Shenmue just to name a few. While Ancient was conceived way back in 1990, they typically just worked on soundtracks for various developers and as far as I can tell Protect Me Knight was the first game I've been able to find released under the company's name.

Right off the bat the game lets you know this is going to be a throwback to the days of gaming past. Upon booting the game up you'll be greeted to a first-person view in front of a television screen, blowing on the cartridge trying to get it start but it keeps loading up a pixelated mess. You'll pop the cartridge back out and press the A button to blow on it and re-insert it, only to be greeted with the same mess of pixels. Anybody who used to game on the old Nintendo Entertainment System will definitely remember these days, and already right from the get-go Protect Me Knight gives you a nice feeling of nostalgia. You can press the start button to skip past this screen at any time and as far as I've been able to tell no matter how many times you blow on the cart it never loads up properly.

Once you press start you'll be greeted to a title screen composed of nice bright pixels and some appropriate chip-tune music. The graphics have a much higher pixel count than the old 8-bit classics, but they still feel like something that came from that era of gaming. The sound is also very true to it's 8-bit roots as well and the presentation on the whole has a very authentic feel to it. If you leave the game idle at the title the game will display profiles for each of the characters, complete with poorly translated "Engrish" to even further cement the retro feeling (these can be viewed here).

Protect Me Knight shares elements of a tower defense and hack 'n slash game. Although there are no actual towers here, you'll be building and maintaining barricades to keep the princess safe from harm. It's up to you to attack the monsters that will try to break through the barricades by utilizing your attack and special attack (called the "killer shot"). You can also guard by pulling the triggers while being attacked. You have the ability to build new barricades at the cost of "love points."  Love points will be gained for taking down enemies and racking up big combos. When you attack next to a barricade it will repair it and if you hold down the build button the barricades can be upgraded. When a barricade is fully upgraded it turns into a catapult that the player can get on and launch boulders at the enemies, taking out groups of enemies if they're bunched together. You don't want to use up all of your MP on building barricades because at the end of each round you'll be able to spend them to upgrade your skills in four different categories: attack, speed, killer shot and defense.

Protect Me Knight has four different classes: fighter, ninja, amazon and mage. Each has their own killer shot attack that can be utilized with the B button, which will consume some of your MP. The fighter throws tomahawks, the ninja drops decoy bombs, the amazon tosses a boomerang and the mage can shoot fireballs. Each of these killer shots are effective in battle and will get better as you level them up. Your regular attacks will also improve as you level them up, and what started as a 1-hit attack will end up as a lethal 3-hit combo. The enemies you'll be defending the princess from come in a nice variety, including goblins, ghosts, minotaurs and dragons to name a few. Some of the boss enemies are pretty huge and the detail in the pixel sprites is quite impressive.

Before starting a game in Protect Me Knight, you have the option to listen to all the music and adjust the volume or you can go ahead and select your character and color. Once you've chosen your character there are two different modes to choose from: arcade and survival. In arcade mode you'll fight your way through ten stages, while in survival you'll face an endless horde of monsters to see how long you can hold out. Both modes support up to four players who can join in at any time. There are also four difficulties: easy, normal, hard and hell. While arcade mode is relatively short and ends after only ten rounds, the replay value is rather high with having four unique characters and also four difficulties to choose from. While some may view the games shortness as a problem, I personally thought it was just right. There's no option to resume your game at a later time and the short length makes it very feasible to complete a game in a sitting. You also can't die, since when you run out of HP you'll respawn back in after a few seconds. You can still lose however, as at the bottom right corner of the screen you'll see the HP of the princess, and if this is depleted then it's game over, but the game is generous enough to allow you to continue from the beginning of the round you died on. The additional difficulties are a nice challenge, but I wouldn't count on beating hell solo so try to have some friends over if you plan to attempt that one!

It's an absolute shame how overlooked Protect Me Knight was, mostly due to being listed only by its Japanese title and probably not reaching most of its target demographic having been released onto XBLIG. This is yet another case where Microsoft should have stepped in and gave the game a promotion to XBLA (online co-op support would have been great!). It's a unique tower-defense/hack 'n slash hybrid and sets a prime example of how to really nail the retro aesthetic. Protect Me Knight is easily one of the finest titles released for XBLIG, the music is outstanding as you'd expect from Yuzo Koshiro and the gameplay is incredibly fun. There's solid replay value thanks to the variety of the characters, the various difficulty settings and the option for up to four-players to join up is an excellent bonus. It's also worth noting that Ancient would release a sequel for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, titled Gotta Protectors.

Final Verdict: Protect Me Knight is a fantastic mix of tower-defense and hack 'n slash with a true retro presentation. Easily among the best games ever released on XBLIG!

Related Links:
Protect Me Knight Profile Screens - Xbox Overview
Ancient - Official Website
Protect Me Knight Trailer - YouTube
Protect Me Knight Article - Wired
Protect Me Knight - GameFAQs
Protect Me Knight - Hardcore Gaming 101
Protect Me Knight Review - xblig.co
Protect Me Knight - Giant Bomb

 Alternate Japanese Artwork

General Battlefield Tips & Tactics | X-Box Overview

General Battlefield Tips & Tactics
X-Box Overview

I have a confession to make: I've spent an enormous amount of time playing the Battlefield games over the years and I'm pretty sure I have an addiction. I play a ton of other games, but these shooters always seem to bring me back for a fix of the chaos these titles offer up. I've heard many players rag on the Battlefield games saying that they don't feel like they're improving as they continue to play, then they promptly give up on the game and go right back to the simplicity of the Call of Duty games. While the games do have a higher learning curve than your average FPS, once you get the hang of it there are few shooters that can compare. Veterans of the series will already know this stuff, but for newer players I'll provide some general tips & tactics from somebody who typically plays with random people that should help minimize your frustrations with the games.

Squad
The first thing you should do upon entering a round is make sure you're in a squad. If necessary, go into the squad menu and select the squad with the most players. If your squadmates aren't sticking together, I'd suggest switching to another squad that runs in a pack. You'll always be more effective when you function as a group in these games so try to work with your teammates.

Class
Take note of what classes the players in your squad are using. If there's nobody using the medic kit go ahead and switch over to that class as it's arguably one of the most important in the game. There's never any need for a squad full of the same class and each one serves an important purpose in the game. Everybody will likely find their favorite class to play, but try to get a good feel for each one and change them up as needed by your squad.

Vehicles
If you're having a bad round shooting enemies while on foot, consider using a vehicle. Tanks, AA vehicles, LAVs, choppers and jets can all help the team immensely when used properly. Try not to get too greedy and spend the majority of the round waiting for vehicles to spawn in though as you'd be much more helpful out on the battlefield helping the team out. If you're having trouble spotting the enemies while in the ground vehicles, equip the thermal optics and/or proximity scan to make it tougher for enemies to get the drop on you.

Check Your Fire-Rate Frequently
Thanks to the 360 controller's crappy d-pad, it's very easy to accidentally hit down on the d-pad while switching to gadgets, which in many of the games will change your rate of fire between single, auto and burst. I can't even tell you how many times I've engaged an enemy only to die thanks to the fact I didn't realize my fire-rate was on single shot. This is extremely frustrating when it happens so try to make it a habit to check it every now and then to avoid unnecessary deaths.

Use the Spot Button!
Make a habit of spotting any enemy in your line of sight. Chances are, even if you can't manage to shoot them, a teammate will notice the enemy resulting in an easy kill. This is very valuable to the team and I've witnessed a large number of players that just don't make use of it. Spot the enemy always!

Know When to Quit
If the game becomes more frustrating than fun, and trust me it will if you play it enough, recognize that maybe your anger is preventing you from playing at your best. Sometimes it's best to just turn the game off or back out and find another server. The game is not worth boiling your blood pressure over or smashing your controller/screen as this will only piss you off even further.

Flank Your Enemy
If you see a bunch of fellow teammates running straight into a bottleneck and dying in large numbers, it's time to consider flanking your enemy. Pretty much every map in the game has more than one way to get to each capture point and getting the drop on your enemy from behind is an excellent way to open that choke point up for your team. You'll want to make sure you have a suppressor on your gun when doing this, otherwise the enemy will be immediately alerted to your presence as soon as you open fire which almost always results in a quick death.

Utilize Those Gadgets!
The Battlefield games provide a wealthy amount of options for each kit when it comes to gadgets, and all of them can be very useful when in the right situation. If the vehicles are tearing your team up, throw down some tank mines in commonly traversed spots. If the helicopter is devastating everybody, use your AA mine or laser paint the target. If enemies keep getting the drop on you use one of the numerous spotting devices that the recon soldiers possess. Mess around with the gadgets and know when to switch them up to get the best use out of them.

Don't Be That Guy...
Don't be that guy who plugs his mic in just to complain about everything the entire time. The type of dude who blames every death on "lag" or blames the team for their shortcomings. You're going to die in Battlefield, nobody really thinks any less of you because of it. I seriously doubt anybody is ever going to look at your stats so don't make a big deal about nothing. Luckily the game offers an option via the scoreboard that allows you to mute players, though for whatever reason sometimes it fails to function properly. You also have the option to just create a party or just turn down the chat volume using the dashboard menu. The other type of annoyance with mic users are the ones who blast the game volume on a loud system which gets picked up by their mic and results in the players on the other end hearing garbled echoes of the in-game sound. If you're going to blast the game on your system, please do us all a favor and don't use your headset. I'll be honest with everybody and admit that I usually curse up a storm something fierce when playing these games, but I don't use my headset mic and I'm generous enough to spare everybody else from having to hear it.

Tea-Bagging Is For Tools
There are several types of gamers, one which takes genuine pleasure in maximizing the saltiness of their opponents. In FPS games, one way that many players like to celebrate a kill is to crouch and stand repeatedly and quickly, signifying that they are "tea-bagging" you. Speaking for myself, when a player does this to me they overtake all other priorities within the game and shoot right to the top of my hit-list. More often than not I'm successful in taking down these guys, which should prove that maybe it's not in your best interest to tea-bag everybody you kill. I once used to play with a gentleman that went by the name of Capt Crunch who said it best, "Act like you been there, bruh!" I can't tell you how many players I've shot down while they're attempting to tea-bag their victims, where if they would have been paying attention they likely could have gotten me. To top it all off it's just bad sportsmanship and unless you're really dominating the player on the receiving end (which is rarely the case) then you just look like a bad sport. This is all my opinion of course, and as long as there are competitive video games there will be taunts like the tea-bag, but if you must use it then save it for special occasions and don't do it every kill to avoid looking like a complete ass.