Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Boldly We March Into Fitness

Or not so much in my case. Here's the stats after 1 week of Wii Fit:

BMI: 22.29 (21.80 Last week)
Weight: 138.7 (135.75 Last Week)
Fit Age : 29 (Irrelevent this statistic will no longer be tracked as it is based off performance in borderline "mini-games".)

So clearly Wii Fit alone does not provoke weight loss in the already borderline thin. Interesting. However my body does feel remarkably the same as it did a week earlier. Perhaps slightly more "fit", if you will. Overall I enjoy it, although the minigames blow, and the aerobics are stupid. The yoga and strength training are awesome. But i find it hard to devote time for the daily exercises, especially when I work earlier in the day and am tired when i return home. So that kinda sucks. But thats not really the "game's" fault.

So, now I'd like to talk about something that I will talk about at a later date. Achievements. Check back later for more on that. Teaser: "They're awesome and horrid!"

So I found a recent gem at EBgames near me this week. Odin's Sphere. A gem  for a mere $20. It's awesomeness and I'm glad i bought it. Cool combat system (that is fucking hard as nails) and an interesting art style that I adore (fairies and norse gods and shit, But with size ranges being drastically different. Reminds me of the Giant Boss fights in the Mega Man X series.
It is a pseudo-RPG that principally is built around combat first and foremost. Although it is based around the notion that phozons are life force that you take from your dead foes and use to power up your weapon, or use it to grow plants for yourself to eat. Yes thats right you garden in this game. But it is battlefield gardening so it's somewhat more intense than Harvest Moon and it's ilk.

Also i began playing DotA again (Defense of the Ancients a warcraft 3 mod) and it's as great as ever. Although the player base still appears to give Xbox live a run for its money in the jackass competition. Meh the game is still fun at least.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Wii would like...

You to get off your fat ass and exercise chubby gamers!
Wii Fit has landed and it's pretty nifty. The balance games seem to hate me tho. Maybe I just have bad balance though. Ski Jumping is fun at least.

But perhaps you wanted to know vital stats of me and myself. Now honestly I had planned to get some photos, but it seems the camera is gone. So I'll take one soon as possible.

But here are the stats regardless:

BMI: 21.8
Weight: 135.75
Wii Fit Age: 21

I averaged 2-3 stars in the yoga exercises, 4 stars in the strength training, 2 stars in aerobics, and 1 star in balance games. Now I just have to keep it up!

So basically I dont need to do much of anything. But then again I am 22, so the fact that I am fit shouldnt really surprise me. So I hope Wii Fit will enable me to maintain a consistency in "fitness" if you will.
Oh and the Wii Fit Board's Avatar in the game. He's really nice. If you're in shape and balanced. Otherwise the dude's a passive aggressive little dickface. He has always been nice to me.
However during my sister's tests her balance was a little off and he threw out the comment:
"Are you frequently unable to stand up?"
Wow. This game is kinda mean.
More impressions later. Penny Arcade Game is also out now.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Its Approach Looms Like A Rabid Ferret

Wii Fit is nearly upon. The culmination of what must be at least nearly a coupla weeks of development is nearly here. Soon I will impress you will tales of my manly physique (photos undecided as of yet, but if i do i will reverse the typical method (gloomy in before, perky in after) just to spite those before and after commercials I loathe) with indexes of BMI and "fitness levels" and god knows what else will appear! Hopefully it will be a fun exercise (sorry, my bad) that will get me slightly more in shape.

In other news, ummmm, Haze sucks, no wait it really is quite good, well unless you read IGN, wait there is a demo. Try that, make your own call. Silly people.
Also Dragon Ball Z fighting game is is moderately mediocre, how unsurprising. At least they are getting better at matching the show. Now if I could only figure out whether thats a good or bad thing. I mean, Dragon Ball Z has had what? Like 40 Video Games made of it? It's been around since the SNES days, so that would make it alive through 4 generations, and it is one of the only reason this reincarnation of Atari's corpse hasn't been raped and buried for other poor soul to be cursed by it.
Honestly I used to really like Dragon Ball, but after oh I saw the series end some 6 years ago or whenever it was finally broadcast on standard cable in Canada, I thought that maybe the games would stop. Nope. They still keep coming, and just as mediocre as ever. Progress? Whats that. Oh well I'll leave this poor dead horse alone.

Ninja Gaiden II is my next hopeful game. Although my financial situation is looking tighter than I had anticipated so the purchase of a PS3 and MGS4 may be put on hold for quite some time, also I have yet to finish MGS2 or 3 so... yea. I'm slow and such. I blame Galactic Civ 2.

Speaking of which, Galactic Civilizations 2: Twilight of the Arnor is a motherfucking awesome 4x game. Seriously, this world needs more strategy games that actually use some fucking strategy in them. I'm sorry, I love Starcraft and the RTS genre, but they have nothing to do with strategy, they are real-time tactics games, frequently with an emphasis on resource allocation. But that doesnt fit so well in a nice box. Honestly I think any game where you have to make a move every 1/20 of a second (like pro-starcraft "people")to be competitive probably isnt very strategic. Thats a fucking twitch game that doesnt let you aim a gun. I'm running on another tangeant though. 
Anyhoo Gal Civ. it's Awesome pick a strategy to win, and run with it. Or try multiple methods. The game doesnt hold your hand but it does give you the choice. Personally i've tried cultural victory (and won, but it was set against low AI), and a military victory (and sorta won). And damn if it wasnt awesome. The military attempt was awesome, I was quietly building my forces when another race made a huge gain in culture and suddenly i had lost 1/3 of my territory to their influence. Pissed off by this move i declared war and quickly blew all their forces out of the galaxy. but lost most of my fleet destroying 90% of their space stations. I had not yet regained influence (military might doesnt extend it unless you wipe them out), but they called for a ceasefire. I extorted several thousand BCs from them and roughly half of their technologies. This in effect made the entire cost of war profitable for me. However my other wars with two other species were not as effective, true i was beating them but my economy could not maintain it. I was dragging into debt, and my population was becoming "upitity". Needless to say the culture race made other leap forward and suddenly controled 74% of the galaxy's influence. They only needed 1 more percent to win the game. Then my computer blue screened on me. Fun times.

Wow that was long. Anyways, play real strategy games, play turn based games.
Wii Fit begins tommorrow (hopefully!).

Monday, May 5, 2008

GTA IV Impressions

Well, I have to say, I honestly was not looking forward to GTA IV whatsoever 2 months ago. But then a little things called the gaming media began to play the actual game, and well hearing that a GTA game actually plays well was sufficient to entice me over. Boy was I glad I drank that kool-aid too, it's damn tasty.

The game itself is massive. Not the game world itself, mind you, it isnt very big, you can probably get across it in 10 minutes taking your time, less once you learn the city. However this is a full fledged city, with lots of detail. It believable enough. There are lots of things you can nit pick at (the recent Penny Arcade about GTA IV is an example of it), but there isnt exactly any reason they really detract from the experience.

The combat is fun now, the story is brilliant (although it seems to borrow a little too much from crime movies for certain missions and themes), and the amount of fun you can have simply randomly driving around is impressive.
The amount of content in the game is mind boggling, hours of TV, several sets of real Comedians, and god knows how much radio content there is. Most of it is genuinely hilarious, if you have a sense of dark humor.
There is considerable questionable material content in the game as well. Well pretty much all of it is adult oriented, but then again the game is not aimed at the tweens of today. Also the primary character of Niko doesnt exactly jump for joy at the prospect of genocide. So for me the fact that you can be incredibly evil in the game wasnt an issue. The worst I've done is run over swarms of pedestrians, which by GTA standards is quite tame.

So when it comes down to it does GTA illicit a purchase of your hard earned dollars?
If you've enjoyed past GTAs then obviously it does. If you've been interested in GTA in the past but always been put off by specific titles then you also should. If however GTA has never sparked an interest to play it then this certainly will not convert you. If you dont like open world games you arent going to start with this one either.

So, if you think you'd like it, what are you waiting for? Go get it!