Teetotal Gaming

Musical Memories

2010-09-10T20:21:00.001-07:00

Funny how listening to a new album when you're reading/playing/experiencing something new will bond the two memories together. I've got a couple to share here.

Fire Emblem + Green Day's "Dookie"

Pretty simple, although I had first heard Dookie literally a decade early on a cassette walkman while visiting Cape Breton so maybe Dookie just bonds with my memories better than it should. Anyways I digress, bought Fire Emblem and Dookie on CD from FutureShop, put the CD in my portable CD player, and put Fire Emblem into my GBA SP, and I just remember playing thru the tutorial to Welcome to Paradise, Basket Case, & Longview. The fact that Fire Emblem remains one of my top 5 favorite series likely helps the memory survive.

Franz Ferdinand's "This Fire" + Horrible Horrible Love Pains + Burnout 3

Okay this one's ugly, And I've deleted every copy of This Fire that I have because of the memory, although I'd probably be okay nowadays it was rough for a bit; talking 'bout eyes swelling bad. Anyways the weird thing is I got the song stuck because Franz Ferdinand was a British band (Maybe just UK?) and this girl had gone off to Europe, and the song was in Burnout 3 which literally had you driving around Europe and somehow my brain connected them all into this. I also can't play Burnout 3, but since Burnout 2 and Paradise are so much better anyways thats no loss.

Scott Pilgrim Comics + Hawksley Workman's "Milk"

This one is very recently actually, but started reading the Books when I was on a plane to PAX and turned the new Workman album on my MP3 player. They bonded up quite nicely what at least I like to envision that they will continue to stand up in my memory.

Metric's "Live It Out' + Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently"

Pretty much the same as above, replace plane with city transit and rain and you've got memories for life baby cakes. Good tunes with an... interesting... book.

MachineHead's "From This Day" + DBZ
I've seen alot of DBZ music videos, but for some reason this one I saw stuck... Okay maybe the Limp Bizkit "Break Stuff" will also occupy the same place but they're both pretty awesome. Also I find it kinda funny that alot of my first exposure to music was via DBZ music videos.

My Chemical Romance + Dad has a Heart Attack
Most people dislike them because they're super pop-rock, and I won't deny that, but to me they'll always be the music I was listening to when I found out my Dad was in the hospital, and left me feeling like a bomb had just gone off in my head and all I could hear was some emo-bullshit about pain and other crap that couldn't even match the real deal.

Tea Party + 9/11
Defining moment of my life. Probably. If there's one thing that constantly reminds me off the fact that the western world's prosperity is built upon the backs of the southern hemisphere these would be it. Sitting around a table in high school, learning that the impossible had just happened. That something I had just casually ignored as a prank that morning on my way to school was in fact, well fact. It was scary, and there was this damn song from my friend's portable CD player and I didn't really get it, I would but not for a few years.

T.Rex (Pretty any of his songs) + Awesomeness time with Dad

Okay so you're 4 years old, your Dad plays his favorite record's and you proceed to develop a new definition for rock'n horsey. I just assumed that the rocking horse was to be used when listening to rock'n roll music. To better get into the 'rock'. Yea my Dad is all sorts of awesome. Sometimes.

Slipknot + Teenage Angst

To be fair I never actually had teenage angst when I was a teenager. I didn't really start with that until my university years when I began to realize just how truly scary life can actually be. Needless to say certain Slipknot songs can really bring out some memories for me and are pretty handy at bringing the tears on, which is handy when you need an outlet.

So now the only question is what music will forever bond me with my new car? Hard to say.

But I'm just gonna toss out Tegan & Sara's new album because I don't have it yet and I really want to get it. It shall be.
Oh yea. I'm back. So yea... Howdy.

Please Look Into The Camera More. Please.

2010-02-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

See that? See it? It is a nice piece of DVD box art. Which apparently is so rare these days that it isn't even funny. Seriously. I noticed something at work recently. DVD box art is really, really pathetically bad. Of nearly a thousand DVDs, I found, maybe, possibly a dozen that were decent. Almost every single one of involved the exact same formula. What is this formula you ask?

1. Put all your lead actors on the box.

2. Have all your lead actors looking directly out at the shopper as though they are trying to seduce them with their eyes.

3. Alternatively, if it is a Rom-Com you may have the two lovers staring longingly at each other. Also sad movies may have the actors staring up or down with mopey expressions.

Here's an example: Ironically enough taken the basic version 1 Disc of the Inglorious Basterds, the top image was the special edition.

So yea, come out DVD picture picker people! You get this job practically done for you. Take a movie's poster. They frequently are already perfectly acceptable, granted many are used, and still follow the rules listed above. Point is I don't care if cheap-o lame brain Rom-Coms have shitty box arts, but I'd like to see something moderately compelling, you know like how Lord of the Rings had a giant ass ring symbol and elvish on it. Of course all the individual releases had shit covers on them, so basically this trend doesnt seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Bummers.

Console Games of '09

2010-02-06T20:45:00.001-08:00

Okay you never really asked for it. But you're gonna get it regardless!
My favorite console games from last year:

Rock Band 2:

Yes, it came out in '08. It still had me turning on my 360 more often throughout the year than any other release in '09.

Resident Evil 5:

It is the Fifth in the series. With a plot that makes no sense, but combat that while being strangely restrictive somehow also has a fairly decent sense of accomplishment and good feel behind it. Arguably weaker in almost every area compared to RE4, it nevertheless is a damn good game.

Uncharted 2:
Drake is undoubtly a character built specifically to appeal to people, and he does. He is incredibly charming and the graphics are good enough to make you believe that he and his comrades in arms are all living people. The gunplay feels light years ahead of the first game, melee combat is still awesome, sure they removed the puzzles but it is a very fun very rewarding game.

Demon Souls:
Because if you really shouldnt enjoy playing games. You should have to work your way through them. You should have to learn every precise nuance to every enemies attack style and maybe just maybe you'll have a chance at victory. Doubtful. But hey it could happen. I mean the game doesnt even tell you how to beat the game. It isn't linear, it never tells you where to go. It starts you off and then you don't get so much as "HEY! LISTEN!" It shouldn't exist, I'll never beat it, and a part of me doesnt even like the game, but I can't deny some part of me adores it.

Shadow Complex:

Its Metroid, in the real world. With a decent enough story to boot. Combat is strangely satisfying for a game that is pretty much auto aimed. Rag dolls be blessed.

Anddddd... I might just have to do another post just to cover all the handheld games I played. Because there was alot and I will need to glance them over once more to decide which are the worthy ones.
Stay tuned.

My Games of '09 PC Games

2009-12-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

First lets clear some, there will be no games of the decade, the decade hasnt finished until 10 ends. Bloody people and their inability to read years properly, thereby perpetuating errors to ad infinitum.

So my favorite games? In no particular order whatsoever.

Torchlight:
Makes the wait for Diablo 3 just a touch bit better and substantial worse at the same time.

CoD: MW2:

Because sometimes you need to play a game that is just point and shoot kill the other team and who cares if the game has no value for any form of skill whatsoever, it is fun, carnal fun that has you swearing at 1811 using pieces of shit. Oh, but the single player is utter shit; stupid story that has more plot holes than the local hooker's nylons.

Champions Online:
Because beating up people hasn't been this awesome in quite some time. Sure it doesnt change the MMO at all, but I don't think change is a constant requirement for games, sometimes you just want to jump into a horde of robo-dinosaurs, beat them all up then fly off to beat up frog aliens who are threatening your city.

Batman AA:
Because Batman is awesome, and this game gets that right. Even if most of the riddles were too easy, the combat was a touch simple, and the boss fights were so console games 3 generations ago; this game exemplifies how a good, nay superb presentation can go a long way to making you overlook otherwise deafening defects. Also the solid story helped a great deal, errr, minus that Joker boss battle bit.

Empire Total War:
Because writing your own history of the world from your chosen nation is just as awesome with musket warfare. Also conquering Canada and making it part of America was somewhat strange for me. Winning a battle with my last dozen Swedish troops to wipe out a faction, only to have his 6 allies declare war on me the next turn. Just what I didn't want, but also precisely what makes me enjoy the game.

League of Legends:
Okay so you like Defense of the Ancients. But you are getting sick of the Warcraft III interface, and could go for some better graphics. Also you're wondering where else the DotA gameplay can go. Well LoL has some answers. They aren't all the best, but it is there. The game has lots of balancing to work out, needs more modes, maps better stat tracking, but it is a wonderful start. Oh yea and it is free. So like try it.Dragon Age: OriginsUh because it is a Bioware RPG. Go play it now. Just go. You get to kill huge dragons.

Borderlands:
Okay it is like Diablo with guns, with more attitude. I throw a bird out that acts like chain lightning. That explodes people.

Harvest Massive Encounter:
Free-form tower defense that utterly rapes me. But it is utterly simple, brutally tough, and a perfect game to burn through podcasts with. You can make death stars with it.

Defense Grid:

Because Harvest Massive Encounter doesnt have levels or a story or lots of interesting tactics with lots of towers, there is a more traditional tower defense game that was made with lots of care and effort and made me go through the game grabbing every single Steam Achievement, well accept 'Nail Biter' Because I'm just that good.

King's Bounty The Legend:
It came out it 2008? Screw that! I played it this year and it is awesome it gets in my 2009 list. Great art style, great gameplay, challenging and charming. I saved a zombie woman, made her human and married her. Now my kids give me stat bonuses. Also the sheer diversity in how you can form your army is pretty broad. Undead? Archers? Knights? Gryphons? Dragons? Insects? Any mixture of the above, go for it, you can pretty much make it work.

Plants vs Zombies:
Presentation over everything else. The gameplay isn't better than anything in Defense Grid or Harvest Massive Encounter, but it does prove that being unique and different does count. Oh and the actual strategy is quite solid, if the game is a little too click laden for my taste.

Warhammer Dawn of War 2:
Anything that puts more thinking into strategy games is good with me. Sure the multiplayer just turned into a micro-fest, but Singleplayer let you think over your moves far more than most supposed RTS games let you.

Personal Spite of the Year Award: Demigod
The game that somehow I should have enjoyed, but ended up loathing with a hatred beyond reason, Demigod just did not mesh with me. I can't tell if it was the maps that felt like Quake 3 maps (a previous game of spite for me), the lack of choices in the heroes available, the interface, or the difficultly in getting anything close to a decently matched game going. All I can say now is that it didn't work out, and it might be my fault. I'm sorry Demigod, can we still be friends?

So there you have it. If I get around to I'd like to do a post about console games. We shall see.

Big Business Impacts On Gaming

2009-11-20T12:41:00.000-08:00

The recent news that Dante's Inferno the upcoming beat-em up hack 'n slasher has again pulled a PR stunt is shocking to me. PR Stunts are not new to the gaming industry but they usually are limited to one choice stunt at an event and then the game is usually out. But with Dante's Inferno over the past year I can count up several PR stunts that have brought this game to my attention over and over again. Maybe thats precisely what they want, I mean I honestly would not care at all about the game otherwise. But now I'm thinking about the game too much. Such that I'm thinking, if this game needs this much coverage just to attract people to it, what is the real story about this game's development?

The question I'd like to address is the notion that EA is attempting to beat their competition through pure publicity? At the end of the day Dante's Inferno could be good, or mediocre but will it come close to matching the craze that is God of War III, its key competition. And do not forget there is only a month between the two titles, with Dante this February and Kratos in March, you can bet your dog/cat that EA knows they are taking on the champ in the ring in 2010. But is this how you do it?

There was a point in the gaming industry when you became a best seller by making the best possible game, but is that point long gone now. When Ubisoft brags about how great the Imagine series of DS games sells in spite of the dreadful quality capitalizing upon a market that can't tell a Mad Dog McCree from a Half-Life? It feels like EA have capitulated to the line that their marketing department fed them: "You can't make a better game than Santa Monica, but we can sell a game better than they can." I mean I cannot understand any other reason why they would waste so much time and effort on cheap (that snag a photo of your act of lust was nothing else) ploys that accomplish nothing beyond proving that there is no such thing as bad advertisement.

This is a troubling concept to me. Does this mean that in the future more publishers will adopt the attitude of marketing the game harder than the other guy? We know it works in other mediums, otherwise how would trash like Transformers, Robert Langdon novels, Twilight, and the current Disney music act of the week; rise above content that is genuinely moving their mediums forward (or at very least asking questions or their readers/listeners/viewers and making them think about the content before them). Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe the crap I just listed is popular because I am out of sync with quality entertainment today. But then again, I'm pretty sure anyone who has to used marketing ploys to push their game/movie/book is not concerned about pushing a medium forward (hell probably dont even care about keeping it lateral) and just want to make some money. Actually not even make some money, they want to make assloads of money, more than anyone else, they want good reviews also, but not because they want their game to be enjoyable for those who play it, but rather because good reviews are a means to an end. Good reviews = easier to sell the product with a shiny sticker that says "Indigenous Gaming Newts calls it spittle inducing good times!".

Course I could be wrong, and Dante's Inferno was alloted a shit load of cash the developers didn't need, so they authorized crap loads of tacky and blatant PR stunts to burn through that wad of cash. It could happen.

And in comic book stuff: Rage of the Red Lanterns is pretty awesome, can't wait for Blackest Night when the collections start to come out next year.
That will be all. See you in a few months.

Play Batman: The Animated Series Theme Music Here

2009-09-25T13:56:00.001-07:00

Well, I played Batman: Arkham Asylum. Not to be confused with Batman's AA class, which consists of him punching you in the face until the drinking stops. I jest. Anyways as you've probably heard it is the greatest comic book based game ever made, and I have no desire to disagree. It is an excellent title and fans of good games should try it out. I just wanted to talk about it because it deserves to get more said about it.

Fans of Batman should also check it out, as it bears little resemblance, beyond Joker taking over Arkham, to the Graphic Novel written by the ever so esoteric Grant Morrison. And fans of good games and Batman have no reason what so ever to not pick it up. Those who might also be interested: Fans of beat-em ups; Fans of stealth games; And fans of games that are just plain old pretty to look at.

The game is interesting because it exists in a sort of limbo, being moderately placed within the world of the Animated series, but clearly not (the art style and time period of the game are at odds with the show); And yet not existing in the world of the comics either. Perhaps we can expect this to indicate that there will be a separate canon established for Batman's new gaming franchise (which clearly there will be given the amount of praise lavished on it).

And that's all I have to say about it. If you want a full review go check the big boys (or small boys) they've got very nice ones. Hell Yahtzee at The Escapist even enjoyed the bloody game, and he doesnt like anything. The combat is fun and works, the stealth is fun and diverse enough to keep you entertained, the gadgets are gadget-esque and you punch giant muscled giants in the face then ride them around like cattle. What else do you want.

Oh I'll add that the final fight was so out of character and so "gamey" that it almost ruined the entire game for me. The whole event seemed out of character for Joker (GASP HE'S THE END BOSS? what did you think it would be?) but then I suppose you can just argue that the Joker exists as a character who lives to be different. So I'll let it slide. Still "gamey" end boss fights are so friggin' kitschy that I can't bring myself to play the game again. I'll just remember it.

Oh yea Harley = Pure Hotness.

If I Was Only This Much More Super!

2009-09-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Alright well I've had Champions Online for quite some time now, pushed a character pretty far into the game, level 30, and while I do not feel that I have seen everything the game has to offer, I feel I've seen enough to get a nice impressions/review piece out. Which is interesting because I've put easily 70 hours into the game over the past month and that does not feel like a significant portion of time to offer anything truly concrete about the game beyond impressions.

So lets just dive into it, I enjoy Champions Online. As far as MMOs go it is not trying to change anything, I wouldn't even say that it is trying to perfect what has come before. It is simply trying to exist as an awesome experience for those of us who adore Superheroes and wish we could do that. So put bluntly, if you do not enjoy comic books then you most likely will not enjoy this game. Plain and simple, there is too much service paid to comic book cliches to make it anything else beyond a comic book nerd's fantasy made real. You will venture through cities beating up gangs, you will stop super villains in fantastical bases, you will feign defeat to surprise a villain in their lair. You will find an amazing travel power and most probably beat/slash/incinerate/freeze/mentally assault thousands upon thousands of thugs into what I can only assume is death.

You will have fun. For a time. There is a problem in that the game tends to keep you in an area just 1-2 hours longer than you would prefer to be. Upon entering a new section there is a euphoric realization of the new sights and sounds before you and how refreshing they are; for me the biggest was the Robot Cowboy section with an amusement park, that just took my breathe away. But then 4-6 hours later the feeling of this grand unique setting was worn off almost entirely as I struggled to make my way through the canyon. Had the game only put me there for 2-3 hours I believe looking back I would only have my Euphoric memories, but now in hindsight I have the two conflicting opinions. One of sheer amazement and the other tedious boredom at wanting to be blown away again. And I was when I did move on, but the cycle continued.

It isn't a horrid scenario but it meshes terribly with the feeling that the amount of content just barely scrapes you along. You need to grab every quest available to push follow the leveling path. Miss one (difficult because you can access a list with all quest givers shown on it which will then highlight them on your map) or worse come across a broken mission and you'll find yourself struggling to keep up with the missions. If they would increase the exp reward (or alternatively lower the leveling requirements) then it would let you leave missions alone giving you different stuff to play through later with alternate characters.

Luckily the core gameplay is an absolute blast. Combat is a joy, with plenty of options available for you to approach your foes. Do you focus on one at a time and drop them like dominoes one after another. Or do you max your AOE and kill them off in one huge explosion. I honestly cannot tell you which is better, but it keeps things different, sometimes i use my cone attack, other times my single target high damage attack, or my close range flurry of melee attacks, or my sphere aoe to annihilate everything (which also pulls everything in sight to attack me which is dangerous but simultaneously awesome). Combat keeps you paying attention, you have to watch for indicators to block, (which have saved me numerous times from fights I could have lost) and in general stay on your toes.
It is true the game requires someone to go over the power set descriptions and delineate everything about them, because often times they have simply left code up that really fails to explain what they do. Thankfully the Powerhouse exists for you go and sample your prospective powers before you are locked in with them (although respecs are possible). So really if you grab a power that doesn't work as you would like it to or expect it to you can only blame yourself for not trying it fully out.

But how does the game function as an MMO? Well that's interesting because it is true that you will constantly see people, hear their chat logs, and on occasion fight for mission goals. But for the most part, you will be soloing unless you and a friend are constantly grouping (this will also make the game easy as pie for you, as there are very few missions that require more than one person let alone two). The game does not care at all about who last hits or deals the most damage to a target; you hit it once you'll get credit, although actually resources and experience are allotted based on damage dealt. You get credit for your mission just by tagging the target once.
Another unique facet of Champions is how the servers are split into shards, or up to 100 people, this means there is never a need for server transfers, nor will you and your friends ever have to recreate a character because you did not know what servers you were each on.

Of course I really should not end this before discussing the largest perceived problem with the title, the end game drought. I honestly cannot comment on this issue at the present time. I have been busy with plenty of content so far and promises of more content several time a year seems sufficient in my opinion. I will be sure to address this in the future should an issue present itself towards the pro or the con. I will say that playing through with my alts is very tedious. You just do missions you have already done (albeit you do them better the second time around) and aside from playing a radically different powerset (the various powers really do differentiate themselves from each other) there truly is little reason to replay the content beyond utilizing unique powers each go around the proverbial merry-go-round.

Crafting is another issue present within the game. It exists and you can do it, but the main reason is to build very useful healing items and damage shields that can prove their worth in battles that are not going your way. The gear you can craft usually is on par with loot found or earned from missions. The requirement for learning special recipes needs to be explained however, as there appears to be random drops earned from breaking down components. It all adds up to craft system that has some perks but seems more like a bullet point rather than a fully developed feature.

And I'll end on the positive note. The character creator. It is without a doubt in my mind brilliant. If you can envisage a character concept you can make it pretty damn close to what you want. You will want to make alternate Champs simply because it is a joy flexing the creative potential of the creator and making a robot dragon who uses rocket boots because your nemesis tore your wings off.

I should also comment on the nemesis system. It is very cool. But shows up 10 levels too late. It is very fun building your rival and explaining your feud that led to the nemesis status between them, but the fact that it arrives at level 25 instead of 15 or sooner seems strange. The concept is perhaps the lone unique idea that Champions has and they decide to make you work towards it. I suppose in a game you'll be playing for months to come it will not be a huge impact but I would like to be able to at least form the Nemesis at the same time I make the hero so I can build them around a single, perhaps contrasting, concept. Once you get it though, awesome, nothing like seeing your traitorous brother trying to kill you over and over again.

So in closing. Champion Online. Bring almost nothing new to MMOs. Yet surprisingly still a compelling and unique experience thanks to its central theme of being about superheroes. If you like combat and comics, and are not turned off by the prospect of spending the next year or so playing the same game, then I think you'll find a charming game in Champions. It is clearly not built for everyone, but for those who can find something to relate to. Well they will really enjoy it.

Words Go Here? Seriously!? Go Figure.

2009-09-13T18:31:00.001-07:00

So its been quite some time. Lets talk about games. Good games of course. I'd love to be able to dissect horrid games, but I'm just not going to pay money for games that are bad.

So lets talk about games I have played. Street Fighter IV & League of Legends (finally NDA was lifted!).

First lets get Street Fighter IV out of the way. I'm playing it on the PC with a keyboard. Which is interesting, because it falls somewhere between the gamepad, and the arcade stick, certain moves are very easy to pull off once you get the finger motions down, while some are very hard, (I'm looking at you 720-ish degree spins). However my limited time (according to Steam roughly 10 hours) with game has revealed several things to me.

1. Damn I suck at Street Fighter IV.

2. Damn this game is very beautiful. So much love and care went into making the visual fidelity of this game stunning. The filters are a nice touch also.

3. Damn this game is basically a simpler version of DotA or rather AoS (Aeon of Strife) styled games are basically team oriented real-time strategy versions of the fighting game genre. Much of your success in both genres is based upon the amount of knowledge you have going into the match, and from there quickly analyzing your opponents' play style to figure out an effective counter style. In Street Fighter it consists of learning every character in the game's moves and combos and how to effectively avoid/block or otherwise negate such moves. In DotA exact same thing; you need to understand what skills each hero has, what items complement and counter those skills and further you need to understand map layout, how the fog of war breaks lock-ons during chases and so on. It seems to me the AoS is a logical extension fighting game principles applied to a RTS game where the only function is a competitive multiplayer environment. The core difference being the team environment contrasted against a fighting game's simply One versus One. The sheer strategy and fine skill that is involved in both is surprising. But then any competitive really ultimately falls into requiring effective strategies and sufficient skills to obtain victories so I suppose this is more of a general statement of human competitions in general rather than merely an observation between fighting games and DotA clones.

So, if you enjoy Fighting games, you will probably find Street Fighter IV a worthwhile purchase. Too bad the sale on Steam already ended. Oh and Sagat needs a nerf. What do you mean fighting games don't get patched?

Next up, since I've gone on and on about DotA clones it seems appropriate to move onto League of Legends. So the game functions like DotA, two sides smash grunts at each other forever. Each side gets 5 champions and they vie for their side's victory. They level up gaining more skills and gain gold for grunts, champions and buildings destroyed. The player functions as the summoner. A benevolent god-entity who exists to order his Champion around. You as the summoner are granted two skills that usually have cooldown timers of 2-6 minutes. You also possess runes and masteries. For masteries think WoW talent trees. Slightly buffing your champions stats and abilities. Runes are basically swappable meta-game items that further buff the stats and abilities. You can have 3 pages of rune setups. For quick swaps of various builds based on what character you use for that match.

The game feels like a logical extension DotA. Which makes sense because the brains behind League created most of DotA as we know it, Mr. Guinsoo, if you will. The game plays out largely similiar to to DotA, with a very similar map to DotA's. Albeit with some subtle changes, shrubs can be used to hide in, which are great for ambushes. Perhaps the most notable change is the shift away from hero kills = team win which very much dominates DotA. Very rare is it possible for the carry to rise up and lead your team to victory as is the case in DotA. Rather effective use of pushes and team defends of your own base are essential to your victory. It is possible to dominate a team through kills, but often unless there is a follow through with a strong base push, champion killing serves little purpose beyond fattening the wallet, although not especially well.
Further the art of last hitting has been greatly reduced. Denying is out. Although last hitting enemies grunts is still viable to slow passively slow your attack. Towers are absolutely devastating in the League, making assaults very risking without extensive grunt support or having exceptional items are the purpose of tanking.
And the item system. It is probably the best method to use DotA's item recipe system and have it make sense to newcomers to the game. It gives you nice flow charts of what items to buy, lets you skip buying smaller parts if you already have the raw cash, and most items allow you to build your champion in a diverse way. They have stats that boost everything about your Champion: cooldowns, spell power, attack, attack speed, dodge, movespeed, hp, armor, magic armor, dodge, if you want to boost it, odds are there is an item that will grant it.

The style of the game falls directly into comedic hilarity. Which is an interesting choice. Because the game has no desire to make you feel connected to some realistic scenario that might play out in some mythical realm. Simply put the game is aware it is a game and doesnt try to convince you otherwise. Sure they do right up Champion descriptions detailing who these figures are, but really, they don't matter.

At the end of the day I like it. There are some changes I would like to see with match making; mainly just that the only mode of play available for legitimate matches is the Blind Pick option, whereby you can not see what champion the opposition has chosen until the match has already begun. I want to see all random, drafts, and no duplicates modes made available. This is a very minor gripe that I have though, and largely just works to keep things interesting long after the game has been out.The gameplay is very solid, the controls are tight, lag is non-existent in my experience for well over 90% of games played. All this adds up to game that when it actually launches will keep me coming back for more. Now I just wish I had some friends to play it with.

Quickies

2009-08-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Some quick impressions of some of the games I've played recently:

Shadow Complex:
Very fun, although very easy. It is clear that a lot of effort went into the game, and it shows. Very pretty. The 3D aiming is really trippy, and confusing at times, but it largely works. Taking cover from enemy fire on the other hand... not so much. It is not a huge deal, you simply have to shoot the enemies first. A solid title to pick up if you enjoyed the old 2D metroid games. Best of all is that game gives you a plethora of tools at your disposal and lets you decide how to get past the various obstacles. I somehow skipped the hookshot and got it second last, but my skill with the foam gun meant it didnt really matter. And yes, everything you've heard about the foam gun is pretty well true; it is a fairly unique weapon that helps the game stand out just a tinsy bit more... Not that there is much competition in the Metroid-esque game genre.

Zenoclash:

Initially I had my doubts, by the second level I was concerned. It was moderately fun, but failed to pull me in. The art style seems like it is trying too hard. But the game's story is fairly interesting, certainly different. The best thing about it is its diversity. It mixes things up quite regularily, such that you do not get stuck in the motions. And this game lets you fight your way through fights however you decide. Maybe you want to use the guns (if you can call them that) or maybe you want to beat people up using a regular combo. Maybe you want to just through people around. It lets you decide how to win, well except against the big guys, you just gotta smack them around with large blunt implements. And first person melee combat. Sure it works, I already saw it work back in 2006 with Dark Messiah of Might Magick, a game that holds a special place in my heart, despite its numerous flaws.

The Path:
This game clearly is not for me. It is more art than game. The gameplay seems to be get lost, get scared shitless that a wolf is gonna eat you, then quit the game because you just wandered around for 4 hours and nothings happened, and you like games that at least tell you what the point is; and I swear if someone tells me that there is no point IS THE POINT, it will not be pretty. I'll admit the presentation is there, indie quality, but it definitely has it style. I just cannot fathom what the purpose is. The game seems like a blend of art and games, with emphasis placed on the art rather than the gamplay. Meh, I'll just step back and say that the game totally was not for me.

Droplitz:
Interesting puzzle game. Has quite the learning curve, although only on the larger boards. You really need to practice to get good at it. Once you do though, it plays as well as any puzzler I've played.

Trine:
Alright now this game is simply awesome. I talked about games giving you options earlier in the post, and this game really gives you freedom to get from point A to point B, and you can usually get there through at least 4 routes. Build towers, throw rocks, Swing off platforms, build bridges. Basically get through it however you want. Very fun. Although that last level. Well lets just forget its there. After all things are about the journey, not the destination.

Champions Online:
It's City of Heroes, with a new coat of paint, and loot drops. Simply put, my dream game. I really liked it. Such that I purchased the lifetime subscription, which I tend to do. Hopefully I dont get burned like with Hellgate; oh god the memories, I should never think back to that. Anyways, I'm pretty pumped about the launch on the first of September.

Cogs:
Puzzle Box game. Literally. You get boxes with puzzles on them and you solve them. They are pretty tough later on. But the game is more about speed runs, which is something I really couldnt care less about. Its not bad, its just there is not a whole lot to it. The puzzles dont have multiple solutions, and after I've revealed how much I adore multiple solutions this game does not mesh well.

On a side note I'm pretty sure thats why I hate adventure games. The requirement to collect arbitrary items to move on always has burned me, I want to adventure, not solve problems that question patience above logical analysis.

Democracy 2:
Okay I have not put much time in the game yet, but my short time managing a country that values liberalism above all else was brilliant. I failed miserably but adored every moment of it; apparently going 300 trillion in debt is a bad thing. I had this brilliant planto cut the military completely, but forgot that all my political capital comes from ministers agreeing with my policies (which they didnt, the stinking alcoholic, war mongering, capitalists) and so the budget spiralled out of control. But when it was working, hoo boy... what a rush. The game is probably very niche in appeal, but I like.

And thats it. I'm torn over my next purchase. Should it be Batman, Borderlands, or Alpha Protocol. I'm getting Uncharted 2 already, and Dragon's Age in November, with the slate left empty for December. I fully intend to get Alpha Protocol at some point in the future, but I dont mind waiting for it to drop in price or have a sale on Steam or some place. I think I'll wait on Borderlands, maybe try a demo. And I think I'll probably just wait for a sale on Batman as well. I pretty sure I figured out the ending anyways. *wink wink*

Ciao for now.

The Storm That Supposedly Rages.

2009-08-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

Apparently there is a "huge" hub bub going on about Shadow Complex. It is being covered on every gaming blog everywhere so what the hell why not throw in my 3 cents.

Not the game itself of course, because that would quite frankly make sense and render the entire argument much simpler. Rather the cause for concern is that the game exists within a universe that was created by one Orson Scott Card, a well known writer, which means that his own beliefs are well publicized. He is apparently quite against the notion of non-traditional marriage (or men marrying men/women marrying women if you need it put bluntly) such that he advocates for and funds groups to actively prevent the notion gay marriages in America.

The issue is that should we, as gamers, boycott this game (shadow complex) because of the involvement of Mr. Card in its creation. Put simply and in my own personal opinion. No. For a couple reasons, some related to game, some less so.

It feels like the entire boycott is fruitless. Mr. Card's payment likely does not relate to the game's success, I suspect he is already paid for his services/use of his IP. I could understand a boycott if the game was about getting into some power armor then proceeding to hunt down a secret "terrorist group" that is promoting gay rights. But the content within the game shares no connection to Mr. Card's own personal beliefs. I do not think it is fair to the dozens of others involved in the game to right-off their game simply because they actually hired a real writer to give their game something substantial.

Let me finish this by saying that boycotts get thrown around so much nowadays that they have completely lost any relevance to anything gaming related. Why? Because you can say one thing on the internet then turn around and do the opposite. Starcraft 2 boycotts, Diablo 3 boycotts, Arma 2 boycotts, L4D2 boycott, boycott boycott boycott. Seriously its like the only way gamers think they can affect anything is by linking arms and trying to stop the bulldozer.

What should gamers do? Simply voice your opinion, talk to developers, send them emails, twitter them, stop by their office if they happen to live near you. Just be cordial, polite, and able to effectively compose your argument such that it does not come out like some pedantic forum troll's bile speech.

People say money talks. And I suppose it does. But talk talks much louder, and usually more concisely. If you do feel that this is an issue to you, then not only should you withhold your money (that includes NOT playing the demo, why should you get enjoyment at all?) but you should actively tell Mr. Card and the developers at Chair why you did not purchase their game.

Thats my 3 cents on the non-issue as I see it.

Thought Experiment!

2009-07-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

Okay so here's a thought. When you think of a franchise which specific title comes to mind? I mean when someone says "Call of Duty", what game jumps to your mind? Do you immediately think of Modern Warfare, or rather do you think to those quaint idyllic times shooting Nazis in the face? Here is a quick run down of how it works out in my mind.

Quake:

I think of Quake II. Specifically of a corridor, in the first level with those lil grunts running at me with their pea-shooters and the awesome death animations they had.

Call of Duty:

I do in fact think of Nazis killing time. Specifically the Expansion Pack, where you hold a house during Battle of the Bulge, with tanks coming at you as you frantically run around grabbing bazooka rounds which are located in a horrid spot, and then you have to run to another spot to fire safely from some cover. Oh and the Nazis keep on storming your tiny house. Then the flyboys come and carpet bomb you to safety. With sweeping music that brings a tear to your eye.

Duke Nukem:

"Shake 'em Baby". Simple.

Final Fantasy:

The Fourth Title, which actually is not my favorite, but rather the first one I played. Specifically I remember how you play ass a bad-ass who becomes a pussy. And thats pretty much Final Fantasy games, seriously unless its a bad guy, then eventually any FF hero will start to cry, or save a box of kittens/puppies, and tragically punch something in frustration. At least 12 made it clear that the main character was this from the get go.

Okay, so thats all well and good, that I identify certain parts of games specific games with entire franchises. But if I dwell on this, it appears to me that a game, or rather franchise memories, are built upon the first memorable experience you have within said franchise. Which leads me to believe that it basically amounts to the first part of the franchise you played. So I started with CoD 1, and I buy the others because I trust in that franchise (well when it is being made by Infinity Ward at any rate) because I have that memory of my first experiences in the game. That brings up the question of why I bother getting excited for any Final Fantasy games when I know half the characters are going to be unlikable cry-babies; I'll just give that one to the hype-machine.
Thats pretty much all I got. For now.

Ciao.

Games That Defined Me

2009-07-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Shamelessly ripping off RockPaperShotgun.com, you know what they say about imitation. Anyhoo figured I should probably reveal games that helped to mold me into the gamer you now know and well, you know me. Gonna keep it to the PC games that defined my formative gaming years. Console games would greatly lengthen an already lengthy topic.

Lemmings/Danger Dave/Shareware Stuff

Okay so the deal is I didnt get a computer until I was around 7-10... I'm fuzzy on the details, and my mother refuses to acknowledge that she ever started the whole thing so I know it occurred at some point around then. Anyways those old shareware games you could find at the Shopper's Drug Mart bargain bins were what I cut my teeth on for home PC gaming. It was alot of Apogee side scrollers, although Commander Keen never wound up there shockingly. The main thing my mom bought was a typing program game because she wanted me to at least gain something from the computer. Although problem was that the computer was MS-DOS, which meant that if I wanted to play a game she had to be there to type in the cd/ and dir and all those other commands. Eventually I picked them up and figured out how to boot games up from the floppy disks.

During this time my mother had a friend whose house I was ferried off to, and they had another PC there. But it had Windows 3.0! What an amazing surprise to see you could click to play! Anyways it was really just playing more Apogee type sidescrollers, something about a guy and a jetpack named Dave, a Tetris rip-off (that was still very addicting), and a game that was beyond all my comprehension created solely to make people smash monitors. Lemmings. Oh how I tried to stop them. I made them build bridges, I made them have parachutes. I made some block. But invariably, I always lost. But the options! There was diggers, and exploders (although I couldnt fathom why you would want that.)

Anyways, eventually time moved on and so did I. Finally the mystical age of 10 hit me. Ten is big year for me. I mean I was born in '85, which meant that my tenth birthday was when Windows 95 hit. I cant remember if we got it in '95 but I remember that I got a Pentium 166 with MMX, and an S3 Virge graphics card. (I later discovered that apparently the card was one of the few ever made that actually made it harder on PCs to run games.) Now not exactly being from a wealthy family, I didnt exactly get to play a lot of games on the computer at first. I grabbed all of those old MS-DOS games and tried to get them to work. They sorta did. But for the most part the new PC just sat there. Well thats not all true. I started using my small allowance to purchase PC Gamer magazines, mainly for the demo disk, but I think I started with a Strategy Gaming Magazine and I kid you not it came with literally 40+ demos on it many were turn-based wargames only a grognard could love and I avoided them, But I foudn some fun in a title called Age of Empires, something about Hittites and spears and harvesting meat. Those kept me busy when my school work was done.

This is where friendship enters. By grade 6 I had made friends with a grand 'ole chap whose Name doesnt really matter. But eventually he showed me a little game called Doom.

DOOM/Duke 3D/Mechwarrior 2

You see this friend had an older brother and that meant he could buy things. My friend played the shit outta Doom, I had never played a FPS at the time so I just sat there and watched, as he showed me how to get every single secret in all the levels. He showed me Duke Nukem 3D as well. Ahhhh my first digital breasts. And my first hint that my friend had wayyyyy too much time on his hands. He'd use cheats to build elaborate mazes of tripwires that he'd train my FPS skills on. I never did get through them. He'd show me it was possible, but I just really wanted to see enemies get stepped on, frozen, or blown to gibs.
Then one day he showed me Mechwarrior 2, I suppose this was probably the first simulation game I played and jesus christ, death from above, full fire, PPCs, using the fragile speedster Mech to run circles around the giant one and pick him off from afar with missiles. I never was good at Mech, but my friend was so good that I still adore the game. Most of all my friend showed me that gaming was better with a friend. Even if it meant going to his house, and having your allergies act up for a week, and possibly being mauled by his giant dog. We would later discover another game together, but that's after I played some games by myself as well.

Tie Fighter

Perhaps the first "real" PC game that I ever cut my teeth on was Tie Fighter. You see one christmas I got this gift called the Star Wars PC Gaming Collection. It game with Rebel Assault I+II, and some other ones as well. But the real crown of the collection was Tie Fighter. Full Disclosure, I sucked at the game. Really, really badly. But I was like 11, so who cares. Luckily the game had two options that rocked. "Invincibility", and "No Collisions". So technically I cheated my way through the game. But then I never actually beat the game either. Alot of the challenge in the game is simply getting the objectives done, and protecting Vader is not easy. There was also the sheer grandeur of shooting down a star destroyer with a Tie Fighter. Something I dwelled upon alot. I'm pretty sure I was a fan of Star Wars before the game. But after Tie Fighter it was alot more.

Starcraft

Okay so after Tie Fighter had run its course with a mere 1000 hours or so (hey you get one good game you play the shit outta it), my Dad began to ask his friends at work if he could borrow any PC games, my Dad being a super nice guy always managed to get me some nice games. I managed to get to play Dark Forces 2, and woah, this was set in Star Wars, but you got to use a Light Sabre! It was a fun game. I even tried to play it online, but was horribly confused, stumbling into a gaming server browser called Gamespy. Anyways I, regretably, was forced to return the game to its rightful owner. But my Dad said he had a new game for me. Starcraft. This game I did not give back. I remember getting the box, looking over the manual, reading the in depth history that Blizzard had given these races. When we went on Vacation to the lake, a place with no video games at all, I would bring the Starcraft manual with me, I loved the setting THAT much. Anyways Starcraft hit me hard. I never was good at it, in hindsight, but I didnt care, I'd play with cheats on, or stomp computers with a friend, A guy at school allegedly could rush 5 computers at once with the Zerg. I asked him if he had beat Starship Troopers. he had not. You see my love of mods is first born here. The custom map scene for Starcraft was insane, there was RPG maps, RISK maps, World War scenarios, crazy battle royals. You name it and Starcraft probably had a custom map about it. Art of Survival was perhaps my favorite. Just a single unit, against huge swarms of enemies that are mind numbingly vast and strong. Oh and there was lots of Dragon Ball Z custom maps, it was pretty big at the time. The other game brought my love of the mod scene was of course Half-Life.

Half-Life

I cant imagine my life without Half-Life. In game server browser! Amazing single-player. Amazing multi-player, and these strange things called mods. It was my friend who actually showed me the mod scene, well he actually just followed PlanetHalflife.com and he played through all the mods they presented. Typically going with the mod of week (or was it month?) but always willing to try out a new one. Anyways getting ahead of myself.
You see my computer had become drastically slow. Oh sure Half-life ran on it. Technically. But it was pretty bad, settings as low as possible, constant jitters and stutters, it was a wonder I beat the game.

Then god, or wizards, or some great pasta bowl in the sky sent me a sign. My mother by shopping at Safeway had won a new computer! I COULD PLAY THE GAMES! granted it didnt come with a fancy 3DFX graphics card or anything, but still. Half-life became half playable. My 33.6 modem got almost doubled to a 56k modem. Starcraft ran like lightning, and I could sometimes get a ping of about 200 in half-life multiplayer. Okay so the computer was a AMD K6-2 (i think) with Windows 98. Bad sign, Tie Fighter frequently refused to boot. But sometimes would. Unreal Tournament somehow ran on it. And shockingly the PC lasted to play Dungeon Siege beyond all comprehension of mine. Yes that PC was great, I knew it wasnt the greatest, but it was free and it was all I had so I couldnt complain. Anyways, I had played Half-Life originally by renting the game from a movie store, (they actually did that!) and beating the single player. Then returned it. Then my friend showed me Uplink, Half-Life's demo. I then remember I still had the full game installed! Tried to play it. But no dice. Figured I should try the multi-player, and somehow it worked! The game did not require the CD to play multi-player. So a modding I went. As I said my friend scouted them out, and then we'd find a server, he'd ICQ me the IP address; or just host it himself (his family used cable internet way back in 1999 for a home business)

Counter-Strike

Then one day I decided to find a mod on my own. Found this strange game called Counter-Strike, was quite good I'd heard. But the download was huge. I'd need to leave the computer online a long time to get it. So I told my friend that I was coming over and we'd play it at his house first. If it was good, I'd download it later. We got it. And found ourselves in a map called De_dust. very sandy map, with a dark tunnel, and the guns rarely aimed where you shot them. My friend repeatedly would round a corner and die. Then I'd play and fair no better. The weapons system was crazy. You buy guns to use, but if you die you lose them, and most people usually died. We eventually purchased a Mac10, my friend ran at some guy near the ramp on terrorist side and somehow killed a guy. Our first kill. We were livid. Never had a kill proved so hard, or rewarding. We were addicted. We formed a clan with some other guys. My friend could join any clan he wanted with his amazing internet connection. He could host games! The only reason I got accepted was because he vouched for me. Nobody wants the guy with 200+ ping on their team. Thing was though, I was good. Beyond my friend, for awhile. Trouble was I was whenever I played my friend he was silky smooth. My computer choked on CS, and it showed. My friend was remarked at my house. HOW DO YOU PLAY? I cant remember. I just learned to play with the lag, and compensated for my poor PC by running the game as low as possible. Oddly enough whenever I played with the Clan from my friend's PC they were shocked. Counter-Strike was my birth into the multi-player FPS. It also told me that, if I wanted to game, I needed to put the money down. It would be 2004 until I actually did that.

Anyways that was fun. Oh the memories. How far I've come, and the industry too. My love for Strategy, & Shooters revealed. Oh and my guilty pleasure game over all that time? Carmaggeddon II. I played that demo alot, it was weird, and had these crazy challenges, but it had this timer on the demo.

Sorry for massive text blobs.

Games Of Summer

2009-07-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

'09 Edition!

So Summer is always an interesting time of year. It is when all the young ones return home fresh from having their brains perforated with vast quantities of information. It is when the not so young, but still pretty young ones in college get to work day jobs so that they might have their brains riddled with ludicrous amounts of information that will plague them until drunken one night stands replace them. And it is the time when the old folks scream and yell at their summers consistently remain ruined by the blight that is the collective youth ruining their nice days.
Oh and summer is when the gamers shun the sun and embrace the warmth of Liquid Crystal Displays (or plasma if you swing that way!) to spend all their precious free time on games, having squirreled away their gaming time like delicious nuts.

So enough with the rambling! The games that define this summer are interesting and seems to be forming a pattern which I shall now explain.

- To start with we have lots of kids friendly movies out in theatres, this means the arrival of the great blight. The licensed game! (booo hiss!) Yes, the annual summer blockbusters bring out the crap that is games made with no desire to further gaming as a medium of entertainment, but rather purely as a cash-in. This should not be expected from the source material however, I mean that basically all summer blockbusters are for anyways. Games of this ilk include, UP!, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Transformers 2, Harry Potter 6, Ice Age 3, Terminator Salvation, etc... there is pretty much 2-3 released every week, and almost all can be safely skipped. One possible exception might be the Wolverine game, this is however a mere exception that proves the following rule. Licensed game = Shit.

- Up next we have the time sink games. These typically are the type of games that have large open worlds to explore. GTA IV emerged this time last year. And this year we have at least 3 more similar titles in Infamous, Red Faction Guerrilla, & Prototype. Brownie points for those who will also know of Monster Hunters Freedom: Unite!, although it is rather hardcore it seems. Of course this year also sees the release of Arma II, perhaps one of the most realistic war games ever to simulate your monitor. These are the games that require a lot of time to chew through and fully digest, so an arrival in summertime seems apt to me. In addition their arrival against opponents that are chiefly movie tie-ins means they stand head and shoulders above the competition, and should do fairly well, monetarily speaking. Their quality can be all over the place, some can be superb, others are meh, or even bad. But the standard thus far seems to indicate a tendency to being better on average, with scores appearing to be over 80ish for most titles mentioned.

- The next cage on our tour is the Beta... a vicious and savage juvenile animal, that only reaches maturity through sacrificing thousands upon thousands of not so innocent souls. The the ritual of the beta test is the only known way for it to become the final cute gold masters disc that will ship to your door. Beta's thrive in the summer months, when the developers too release that they can harvest the extra bodies that the summer holidays produce. I have seen at least half a dozen betas open in June (Section 8, Crimecraft, Aion, and Huxley to name a few) July seems to be keeping the pace with the rumours of the behemoth at the gates, Starcraft II. Who knows what others will appear to have their gaming gaming-ness refined through the tribulation of the beta beat.

So, that's the summer of games for this summer. There is quite the eclectic mix of games out. Most crap, true, but then that happens regardless. Keep your wits about you and you'll do all right. Now I hear the Americans are celebrating something about independence from British dominance, whilst still utilizing the English language. Seems like somebody did not fully commit.
Ciao.

What Ever Could I Have Been Up To

2009-07-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

Ahh yes. The posting of things that are important about the commentary of video gaming and so on. Well I'll have you know that I have no good reason for the delay. Surely I could try to argue that the search for employment has driven me straight into a despondent state of depression. But that would be a lie. I could argue that I have successfully found a new career and the pursuit of it in earnest has delayed my gaming greatly. That too would be a lie.
Simply put, I forgot. But here is a quick summary of what games I've been playing.

DotA: Playing the shit outta this, new patch is awesome.

TF2: Also playing it a lot. Working on my scout. Found a rather interesting server where they loathe people who use any of the weapon unlocks. Being called a 'cunt scout' is annoying but then that is why there is mute.

Crimson Gem Saga: Oi, the game is fun, but annoying. It is really old school. Which is great and not so great.

Super Robot Taisen OG Endless Frontier: Combat is awesome to watch, everything else is sorta like some strange mash-up involving stuff, with nice pictures of very attractive anime gals.

Knights in the Nightmare: Okay now this game is like out there. I cannot possible describe it but here goes anyways. You are the stylus, and you have troops, but they do not move and they cannot attack unless you possess (you're like a ghost thing). You do not have a life bar, but a time bar. When time runs up your turn ends. Any enemies you killed get respawned (although you can partially control which enemy spawns) and you can reposition your troops. Your troops have a finite amount of attacks, and they can be given weapons that let them use skills which do the bulk of your damage, although weapons can only be used so often. Luckily you find lots of weapons so you can upgrade and combine to ensure they do not break or run out. Your troops however can only get more attacks by sacrificing them to another troop. Which means you have to play favorites. However the more used a troops is when sacrifice the greater the benefit.

Needless to say this game is deep. Like really deep. But the actual mechanics once you figure them out are pretty simple.

Oh I should add the game is also a pseudo-bullet hell game. Yea. It is out there.

Lord of the Rings Online: Still working away at it.

Sid Meier's Railroads!: Great little game for unwinding while listening to a podcast or something.

Rumor is there is something going down next week. My guess is Lemmings is back.

And Starcraft II appears to have let the press into a Beta of some kind. And the beta is suppose to go on for at least 4 months. Which is nuts. But hey, it might be balanced. Probably not, but whatever.
Well there you have an update. Oh I'm also replaying Uncharted on the hardest difficulty, because I figure I should get at least one Platinum trophy.

Okay that will do. I'll try to think up some grand gaming conundrum for my next post. I swear it wont be about Demigod. I'm swearing it off from this blog forever.

Ciao.

At Worst Frustrating. At Best Boring

2009-06-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

Sums up my current feelings of demigod. There is not enough skill in playing a hero to make a difference, and there is not enough strategy to make it interesting. Everything moves like slug, unless you purely want movespeed. Level design remains shitty-rubbish. Reinforcements are bafflingly pointless unless you save up like 15,000. And all the heroes get played the exact same way nowadays. The game has been meta'd with little point to skills that are not at peak efficiency. And there are standard item sets that you just get. no question. The good stuff is far too expensive, and the cheap stuff is beyond worthless. Most citadel upgrades follow the same pattern. Must-have or dont even bother. It would be nice if you bought all the little upgrades they were as effective as later upgrades. But they are not. The problem is hurt even further because money is a huge problem. Simply put kills pay the bills. No kills, no money, no items, no nothing. Matches turn into a test of patience rather than skill, with the first person who decides to tower dive ultimately deciding the fate of the battle.
In essence after 5-10 minutes of play you largely know who is going to win.
In my opinion it stems from the lack of control you have over your hero. Sure he can walk around and such. But all units have noclip on. They cant interact with each other. They walk through each other. You cant block units, you just go through them.

Meanwhile DotA lays down a massive patch that greatly switches up the game, adding multiple ways to further diversify your hero and build your own little strategies. Bugs and exploits were smashed to pieces; mainly the backdooring issue which if the patch works should end it in its entirety. Further the emergence of stat-tracking auto-hosting services gives you stats. Something Demigod still can't get done properly in a retail product.

To summarize

Demigod continues to disappoint. DotA continues to delight.
I'll give demigod credit that they've really tried to fix it. But they are only working on the networking/servers debacle while the core issues that plague the game remained unaddressed. But then those are my concerns with the game. And thats that. The publisher steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the core game is broken so I doubt GPG will bother to address it. I'll try another match of demigod in a coupla weeks. But as DotA gets better and better demigod appears worse and worse in contrast. Pity. Oh well.

Shhhhh. Be Verrrrrrry Quiet.

2009-06-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

So, got into this beta. The game's beta had an NDA. I didnt read it, but I have heard that means I cant talk about the game. So I wont, technically. Because if I dont tell you the name of said game then I am at liberty to tell that it sorta works. But the pvp is a watered down version a genre that works better. And the other genre it is set in is better represented. So basically if you like watered down shooters, and water down MMOs, well this game is for you. Of course it was just the beta. So who knows, maybe they'll make the weapons, setting, enemies, map design, and story all compelling before the full game comes out. It looked moderately decent. So there is always that.

The thing that really irks me however is that when you join they tell you go and read 3 excellent topics in their forums that explain the game. Too bad that you cannot view those threads in their forums until blah blah techno babble authorizes your account. No. You dont make the user wait to get a damn account authorized, you get them to see the stuff so they can understand the game you made. If that means making a pdf file attached to the file they just downloaded so be it. If it means putting the information on a website great. But do not say that it is all there in a forum that you'll just have a wait 24 hours to get access to. In 24 hours I could be playing another game completely and guess what? I am. So there you have it.
Of course a twitch based MMO-shooter never did sit right. Planetside failed. And it seems that, oh boy, now I cant even remember the name, but whatever the name is, it does not seem compelling.
Oh yea. Huxley.
Whoops my bad.
Beta though. I'm sure they can fix everything. Well except the art style and enemies that's pretty hard to change this far along.

Ciao tho.

P.S. Crimson Gem Saga is awesomely old school. and the World Ends With You finished greatly.

Winner Is You!

2009-06-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

So I've thought about it. The E3 that has come and gone and decided that ultimately, the winners are us. Not immediately of course, but the sheer quality of titles that are coming out that seem so bright with promise and hope makes the gamers the winners of E3. The individuals companies may have done what they set out to do. But they almost all ended up looking like a tool in the pursuit of 'x' objective and will be scourned by some segment of the gaming populace for such a response. No the only way to survive E3 is to simply not attend, glance at the coverage and beam with optimism over it all.
I've seen a lot of coverage online and most of it good. (the content, not the coverage itself who gives a fuck if IGN has bias or Gamespot cares more about looking at titties)
The established franchises (Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, etc...) are bringing predictable extensions of their franchises, while upcoming developers like Platinum Games bring the creativity and originality that will form the new bedrock for future franchises to be milked.
The casual crap will come, and then will get some more, and then more. Because they sell, but once you're actually into gaming such games have no purpose, they lack depth to continue playing them and they only earn rage from the dedicated crowd who will push greater games upon the masses with every attempt.

Speaking of rage I'd like to address an issue that touched me very personally as E3 went on. The Left 4 Dead 2 announcement. Initially I felt it was too soon, I wasnt enraged, rather I simply felt it was too soon, I mean I still put a good 3-5 hours into the game a week because the content released is that compelling to me. I simply saw no reason for a full fledged sequel so fast. Games that have rapid cyclical release schedules are frequently games that I completely avoid, Jak, Ratchet & Clank, Splinter Cell, and so on. But then I read about L4D2 and saw that basically the game is introducing many new things that I find incredibly compelling. Melee weapons are not them. Daylight levels are. More story is. The removal of the corner strategy is tantamount to my side switching. Simply put, cornering (when all 4 survivors jump into each other in a corner and spam bash/shoot) is effective but stupid as shit. New characters are meh. New campaigns are neat, assuming they are good. So, Left 4 Dead 2 should be good and I bear it no ill will. But damn it better deliver or my wrath shall be, well non-existent.

And now a quick list of things that have me Hopeful:
L4D2; Scribblenauts; AvP; Bayonetta; Alpha Protocol; Assassin's Creed 2; Mass Effect 2; Old Republic; Dragon's Age: Origins; Metroid: Other M; Alan Wake; CoD:MW2; God of War III; Uncharted 2; Golden Sun DS; League of Legends; Batman: Arkham Asylum; Dissidia Final Fantasy; White Knight Chronicles; Sin & Punishment 2; Final Fantasy XIII

That'll do. God knows how the hell one is suppose to play all those games. At least they arent all out at the same time. I'mma go and try to finish some of the portable games I've been getting of late.
Some Robot Tensei OG, with Crimson Gem Saga, and Knights in the Nightmare due to hit my house very soon.
Ciao.

Figured I Should Digest These Ones A Bit

2009-06-03T13:48:00.001-07:00

Ubisoft:

Stuff looks good. Funny Host. Presenters were gawdawful boring. Do not show talk about your game/movie and then leave without having shown anything. Because Now I'm likely to actively avoid your game just to spite your existence. Red Steel 2 has a gret art style, and Splinter Cell is... well its splinter cell, never liked them, so I dont care what they do. Sam Fisher is a character who hold no heft in my world. Is he suppose to be an American James Bond who feasts upon the shadows. I suppose my main problem is I loathe games with night. I always question why is this at night? So I specifically cannot see the shitty graphics/textures/character models you were too lazy make look nice in Sunlight? Yea, thats what I thought. Assassin's Creed 2 looks great, but no news if they've actually made some interesting stuff to do in their vibrant city-scapes. The Thing about Imagine games however killed the conference. Please. Do you honestly think we give a flying fuck that you can sell shitty games to tweens. I mean honestly, Oh look all the Mario games are sold out and all thats left on the shelf is this Imagine Dresses game, whatever will I get. When such an event occurs I tell the customer this. "You are better off going to another store that has games worth your Child's time, just do not buy that trash."
Do not brag that you swindle small children out of their allowance. Sounds like a fucking cigarette company. I'm sure Ubisoft is listening to this so they really should heed my advice and simply focus on games, and try not to brag. Seriously, gamers hate bragging. We love to do it ourselves but hate it when someone lords it over us. Although snagging No More Heroes 2, thats a lil better.

Nintendo Conference:

Apparently Nintendo felt that rollercoaster is the best ride to model your system after. And what a ride it was, from random jerking the Casual audience into a climax, to crushing our hope to dreams, to some really great anouncements. After its over you feel like you just had sex, and then find out she took your wallet, and your computer, but hey it was a good time. So new Mario games. Galaxy 2 should be interesting. New Metroid game seems like some kind of fan-dream team project pulled from the minds of crazy die-hard Nintendo fans. The Vitality doo-hickey is well. It is not for me. A balance board I can sorta understand, but a scanner? Yea, suckle that casual tit until its dry Nintendo. Nintendo, I just dont know what to make of you. You sort of try to convince that you care about the hardcore. Meh, at least your games are cheaper than the other ones.

Sony Conference:

Um. Games, lots of games. A new PSP, without a UMD slot. Should be good, too bad I already got a PSP and am not really interesting in another at this point. Good to have options I suppose. Games, like God of War III, now with more killing! some Agent game that we know nothing about but it'll be BIG. Speaking of big, how about MAG, the game with 256 multiplayer sessions. Yea, I know, spray and pray becomes a legitimate strategy again, I mean you're bound to hit somebody. There was other stuff too, Like FFXIII which seems nice.

But by this point there is so much information about so many games that it is easy to get lost, I could talk about any of them for paragraphs and on. I simply do not know what to do with all of it. It is too much and I just wanna play some games. Man, I really feel sorry for those people who are down at the actual E3, that must be bad. Yet good.

Oh Uncharted 2 beta = great fun. Kinda burned out on it now though. Deathmatch to 25 points is super short. The Capture the treasure (Plunder as its called) is wicked though. Wish people would how to throw the treasure though. Seriously 4 people gather around and watch as one guy fails to throw it. The entire enemy team rolls in and drops us all. Co-Op though... little buggy, fun though, not when you fall through the ground though. But thats why it is a beta right? I may have said too much. Egads! Its all good stuff though! The game is very good. And is on my must buy list now!

EA's Conference

2009-06-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, So I think I get why I didn't like Microsoft's conference so much. Watching the EA conference was all about the GAMES. Microsoft pushed their games to be sure. But then they ramble on about stuff that is on the periphery. Stuff that is not playing games, and thats what I want to play games.
EA being a mere publisher is only concerned with their games and so thats all they showed. Bringing in the devs, and pushing their partner plan.
The games they showed look nice.

The Old Republic's cinematic was amazing, and definitely raised the hype for the game itself.

Brutal Legend looks good.
Just glad to get a look at the games. Trying to sell your system is completely outside of my concerns. The games are why I game, not because it plays music/movies/TV/lets me blog on my TV...

Apparently Ubisoft has a conference later today. What could they show?

Microsoft Press Conference Impressions

2009-06-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

Some nice looking games. And then a buttload of frivalous stuff that doesnt interest me whatsoever. I use my PC more than my 360 because it is easier to type stuff in and use a mouse than to use a gamepad.
Lots of stuff to pull non-gamers, but still tech-centric individuals in. Facebook/Twitter/last.fm
The new Project Natal stuff seems interesting. But showing it at a press conference is one thing. Getting it to actually work is another. There is potential, but then The moon has potential to smash into the Earth at some point so Potential doesnt exactly mean much. Hell DNF had potential.

The Lionhead demo of Milo is incredibly interesting, but Then Lionhead tends to exaggerate their projects.
Also, it may inadvertently destroy mankind. Good job Molyneux. I do think that some of the facial recognition stuff would have great applications for gaming.

Side Note; Business Type People with patting themselves on the bat makes me squirm. Maybe it is expected but regardless I dont like it.

Overall I think Microsoft is all right. They've got a bunch of interesting stuff that is not gonna a damn thing for gaming, and is unlikely to pull any new consumers in. The Natal stuff will at best raise eyebrows, of skepticism. It did in me.

One other thing. Apparently Microsoft has completely abandoned the Windows platform for gaming, because I did not see anything about it. So Microsoft can piss off, PC Gamers are sick of this bullshit from them. Either try or don't but dont half-ass it. You can't say you're committed to the PC platform and then not even bother to put in a Sizzle reel, let alone an actual segment on PC gaming, for your E3 Press Conference.

Where's My Dictionary?

2009-05-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

This has been a long time coming, but it is an issue that is dear to me, even if in the end my core arugment might be summarized as mere semantics, but I do not really care. The use of the term strategy, in Real Time Strategies has long irked me to great end. Because having focused rather extensively upon military history my professor took a class to carefully make sure we each understood what Strategy meant in war. He established it by stating that it took place involving certain numbers of troops, and if you went smaller then you descended into the realms of tactics. And there is a difference between tactics and strategy.
Tactics wins battles, strategies win wars.
Since almost all RTS games are more about battles than an overall war, it should stand to reason that tactics is what matters in the game. Being able to have better memorized a specific build order, or micromanage your troops to effectively maximize their damage outputted while minimizing whats taken has next to nothing to do with strategy.
Basically I'm saying that the 'Craft' series by Blizzard, the C&C games, and the billions of their clones, have all failed to bring strategy into the RTS genre. This extends beyond mere multiplayer matches, most singleplayer games leave out the strategy as a part of the storyline. Which I can understand is necessary in many cases, but it means you are not playing a strategy game. You're playing a game in which you given tactical control of a series of battles to linearly progress onwards to the next battle. There are some actual "strategy" games, but the only dominating my thoughts at the moment would be Total War, and it is a partial Turn Based.
I should be clear, this is not a condemnation of the style of play that dominates RTS games, but rather a critique that most of them fit more into FPS style play than strategy gamers will care to admit. Precise skill and control is far more valuable in RTS games than it should be. I mean strategies are carefully formulated, but in an RTS time is of the essence so it is better to get a shit load of something. Put simply, it is my thought that RTS games contain as much strategy or less than a shooter. The only true strategy games are turn based games. Where you can form plans, respond to changes effectively and generally see a strategy fall apart and try to salvage it.
One of the most horrific moments of late is watching the Starcraft 2 Battle Reports, which feature two pros battling. The fact that blizzard is actively encouraging the use of workers as meat shields, the micromanagement of units for peak performance is complete garbage. It only promotes the multiplayer game as something that advocates a ludicrous style of play that has no real world significance and completely ignores the advances done in recent years of RTS. Sure Dawn of War I & II and Company of Heroes are just as guilty as being more tactical than Strategical, but the Relic openly admit to it; Supreme Commander attempted to bring the Strategy into RTS and made significant inroads.
I'll still get and adore Starcraft 2, but the multiplayer is not a part of RTS games that has any appeal to me. Micromanagement fests between economy and battles is not my idea of compelling strategy gameplay. Being hit by an early game rush accomplishes nothing other than tell me that the game embraces quick reflexes over sound thinking. And if I want to play a game about reflexes I can play DotA, TF2, L4D, or any other number of shooters. If i want a strategy game I play turn based ones. I'm pretty sure that story interests me more than the actual gameplay of 'Craft' games ever has. Well that and the custom game modes that inevitably show up.

Thats all I've got to say and matters of 'strategy'.

Ciao.

Well Since Everyone Else Everywhere Has Done One!

2009-05-29T00:59:00.001-07:00

Here goes my E3 Predictions:

Microsoft will make a big deal about something that no one will care about and will be largely ignored, but will still have enough wowswers stuff that they arent pushing yet that it wont really matter too much. There will be no mention of their Games for Windows beyond the plastering of the logo on games that are being pushed on 360.

Sony will show lots of great new stuff, lots of their old franchises that we're all waiting for, and some system changes that are not really all that compelling to anyone. They'll do something with the PSP but it wont amount to anything.

Nintendo will try to seem hip and cool to the hardcore and casuals and they will fail miserably. It will not matter though because critical acclaim is now irrelevant to Nintendo. They'll show a brief sizzle reel that will wow the dwindling hardcore gamers they do have.

The Third parties will show us all the real good stuff and will rise to conquer the earth as we know it. Which it turns out is in fact just a lot of basements in very small sections of urban centers. Weird.

There you have it. I spent all of like 5 minutes thinking those up so if they turn out to be right I demand worship.

Night. Ciao.

We Are Intrigued

2009-05-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've never really thought of myself as an uber-min/maxer when I play RPGs. But my sister recently started playing Mass Effect because she wanted to play a game and that was the only one that really has any appeal to her; Her appeal being JRPGs, or games with obscenely pretty male protagonists. Anyways I watched her playing a bit and was shocked that she did not fully explore conversation options, and tried really hard to bite my tongue when she went to the level up screen. I mean I quickly realized that playing an RPG is all about your own experiences when you play it. And just because I played the game a specific way in no way means that she should follow mine. If hers works great, if it doesnt she can figure out how to get past it herself or can ask me for help.

I think this is a problem with hardened hardcore gamers we see a game and immediately think of the cost/gain effect in gameplay terms. But Casuals just look at the game and experience it, they dont care about trying to find which skill/item set maxes their damage, nor do they care if they miss an extra quest that gives them a wicked +5 Fire damage Mace.

Maybe thats something we hardcore could learn again. But then again, you cant regain innocence once you've lost it. I even though I might try to simply experience a game, I think a part of me is always going to continue to try and game the game to the fullest for those min/max benefits. Meh I guess as long as I enjoy the game at the end of the day what does it really matter?
Okay. Thats all.
Ciao.

YOU SHALL LIVE!

2009-05-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Since the new TF2 update, the servers are alive again. It is nice. And the new item system, while confusing the crap outta everyone, seems to be great for new player to try out new weapons.

Oh and Star Ocean 4. Pretty fun. Great boss fight I had today. But the cinematics. Dear god. Its like they asked how to make them as bad as possible and then one upped that.

Thats all I got right. I'm told it is an American holiday so that would explain the lack of news.

Ohhhh My Favorite Little Game I Love To Hate

2009-05-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

Oh Demigod. So faithful. I just don't know what I'm gonna do with you. On the one hand you have many appeasing factors. On the other hand I have no clue if it is balance issues or a lack of general knowledge about what to do.
See in DotA if you've got skills you can pick up the knowledge along the way. But if there is no skill involved and just memorizing what items to buy and how to level your character up then the so called depth of said game is gonna be short lived. Hence unless I feel like reading dozens upon dozens of blog posts how each character should be built to deal 'x' foe, assuming he is using 'y' build, then i will have 'z' chance of victory assuming that my partner is somewhat decent as well, and assuming the other opponent is also moderately skilled.
But then I realize the core problem with Demigod.
I have never played a Multi-player match with more than 4 players total. That means 2v2.
Perhaps if I could try a 4v4 or 5v5 I would be greatly illuminated as to things, as matchups are far more interesting when you have a diverse field of demigods to combat with.
Yes I believe I have made a realization here.
2v2 Demigod is boring and devolves into who luckily got matched up with Demigods that they have inherent advantages over.
4v4 or 5v5 however. THAT would be a match I would be interested in seeing.
Too bad the system apparently can barely manage 3v3's and it is highly unlikely that I'll ever get to play a good 5v5 match.
For the record 5v5 is DotA's standard size. Accept no substitutes, if you arent in a 5v5 match then you are not playing DotA proper. You are playing some side gimmick that has no real worth.

It would seem Demigod may be similiar. Hopefully they release a massive patch that will enable the removal of P2P hosting and switch to servers for gameplay. Because that would be far, far, far better.

Oh Demigod. I only bitch because I care.

Super Duper Quick Observation

2009-05-23T13:25:00.001-07:00

Funny how Duke Nukem Forever's biggest press release after being announced was that the game is dead in the water some 12 or so odd years later.
That will be all.

Oh It Is Truly Is A Grand 'Ole Time

2009-05-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

Headshotting people, getting achievements, backstabbing and being backstabbed (since I suck with the spy). The new patch is out and brought something very strange with it that highlights an issue that is very important when patches come out.
They changed the method in which the new weapons are unlocked. Suffice it to say they used to be tied to the achievement system. But now they are like random loot that you get for... well, thats the problem no one really knows why certain people are getting weapons. Often times duplicates.
The point is developers need transparency behind the changes they make in a game. So if you say you changed something. You need to explain precisely what those changes are and what they are trying to accomplish by changing it.

Allegedly Valve will explain the new unlock system later today. So that is alright.

Another game that is pretty good with the transparency is Demigod. Although to understand the aims of patches one needs to find the dev journals on the demigod forums and read those. But the results are quite interesting providing very detailed explanations to thoughts regarding why certain choices were made and so on and so on.
DotA used to suffer horribly from 'bad patch notes' syndrome. Whereby you would read the patch notes and find horribly vague things like 'x' item altered, 'y' hero remade, 'z' hero slightly weakened... Nowadays the map maker, Icefrog, realizes the first thing the community would do was gut his patch notes and expand them so people could actual understand that the item's cost was increased 100 gold, and its damage increased 2 points. Or that the hero had its Str gain lowered by .4 per level. Now Icefrog includes the detailed patch notes himself since it is just easier, although more time consuming.

So word to the wise. Do not treat the gaming community like fools. Give us the gritty details (well not super technical gritty) to explain what is going on with each point of a list of changes. Most devs are usually pretty good with it.
But finding something like:
- You now find new and old items as you play, instead of through achievements.
Gives us absolutely no fucking clue as to the meat of what the change actually does. And demands further explanation.

Meh I'm probably overblowing this whole scenario, I mean in 12 hours we should have the TF2 blog update which explains the whole thing. Then we can get back to bitching about how now that we understand it in detail, we fucking hate it, and want the other way we hated back.

Yeesh. There is just no pleasing us gamers is there?

Ciao.

Just In Case You Forgot Who Was The Best

2009-05-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

Valve steps up to remind us all why they are one of the big guns of developers. This week it seems will be a batch of double update goodness for Team Fortress Two. Originally slated to simply be the Sniper Update week, with the traditional bundle of goodness that accompanies any TF2 patch, we were abruptly surprised to learn that the Spy update had infiltrated to also get out this week. Today we discovered a Meet the Spy video, which Valve had virally leaked over the weekend. (Side note, I really need a better network because the viral video did not reach me, which means I'm tragically out of the loop. Although maybe that is a good thing...) Anyways, Does this mean we can expect further double doses of update goodness in the future. Perhaps, but who knows. We are left with 3 remaining updates, the Soldier, the Demo, and the Engineer.

After which there is rumored to be a tenth class in production that will be rolled out.

All I can say is Valve makes the wait for Episode 3 non-existent. Who cares when there is such compelling multi-player between Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2.
Just thought I'd put something out there.
Also, Bow and Arrow = Wicked.

Ciao.

Just Suck It Up and Say It Already

2009-05-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

So I feel the need to ammend an earlier argument I had against Demigod. I stated that I felt the devs would be unable to continually patch it.
But Visiting their forums I found a brief video of their madness after working on fixes for 48 hours straight. It is enough for me to admit that if they continue with this kind of devotion the end product will be quality.
Too bad the game is still working on fixing connection issues. But they are committed it appears, so my hats of to them.
Now if they could just make one truly great map, with some actual design elements within it. And get some balance patches out already, seriously, the game is more or less pretty balanced but you can always make it better.

Oh and for Lost fans. Wasnt that an awesome Season Finale, quite epic. Well minus the ending, I mean I loved the cut to white, that was awesome, but the complete lack of any reveals for next season is gonna me nuts. Great episode though. Hope Sayid is dead, not because I dislike but because I think he needs to finally be able to rest, he's gone through so much. Hope Juliet doesnt die, because she's smoking hot, and Sawyer and her were great. Hope Jack is dead, because that flip flopper deserves it by now.

It May Be The Most Important Garden Ever

2009-05-12T17:36:00.000-07:00

So Plants vs Zombies, or Lawn of The Dead as it should have been named, is put simply an outstanding game. First of all it is cheap. $10. You get a lot of good gameplay for that price. It is from the makers of Peggle, but I believe it is head and shoulders above that game. Peggle is addictive, but there is alot more interesting gameplay in PvZ.

It has its basic lawn defense gameplay, whereby you plant plants to shoot back the invading zombies. You need to manage sunflowers for resources and deciding how many sunflowers to plant is crucial to your home defense. Even more robust is the number of flowers available to use, there is well over 50. Each person will find their own favorite strategies. Personally I prefer to use the kernel launcher, with starfruits and spikey traps. But the options available are incredibly diverse and profound. The options are often limited more by your mind than anything else.

Needless to say, the game costs 10 bucks, is awesome, so just get it. Worst case scenario, you dont like it and you are only out $10.

I'll end this post by saying that the new Batman game looks pretty fun, and have my fingers crossed. Also Wolverine looks fun, but not $70 of fun. $30 and I'm sold.

Ciao.

Thy Imprenetrable Fortress Is Not So?

2009-05-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

So, I was thinking about things at work today, as I often have much free time. And I noticed that our sales were quite low in general. We were not meeting any goals or anything, and while I brings me no immediate cause for concern, it is somewhat striking for the video game industry as whole. Here's why.

We've heard the analysts brandy about sayings like the games industry is recession proof. But I think that is something of a misnomer, because the video games industry has simply been recession proof. Which is all great and fine. But things change. Demographics change, your core audience is altered and your expectations get bigger and bigger.
Put simply, the industry that survived prior recessions does not resemble the current industry that faces this recession. As such, it is foolish to expect the gaming industry to automatically receive a free pass because 'well last time it did not crash so why would it this time around?'
I am saying this because look at the current climate, lots of developers are struggling. But more interesting is that publishers are taking it much harder, regardless of how they react, they are taking losses. Sure they can take the hit. I'm not worried about the future of gaming. It will always go own, so long as there are people out there with PCs who want to express themselves. But the issue is that gaming has become too successful, a business ruled by corporate interests first and game quality second.
But is that such a bad thing? Most things in the world are governed by corporate interests. Sure it tends to mean that if you don't understand how to tell quality from crap you'll find yourself knee-deep in crap without noticing it. But the crap only illuminates the good stuff all the better.
Thats all I've got. Gloom and Doom. But meh, I wanted to talk about so I have.
Will the recession knock out the gaming world. No.
Will it subdue the current giants? Doubtful, but who knows.
I know this. If gaming publishers ever go to beg for a hand out from the government, It will be a sad sad day.
Ciao.

So I Know This Guy Actually Its Not Even A Guy

2009-05-07T15:40:00.001-07:00

He's an alien from Tau Ceta province, anyways he has this problem. He really likes playing games, especially on his PC, but you see he has Steam, which he feels is awesome (rightfully so I think). But the problem with Steam is they continue to get compelling titles brought onto the service, that are merely a click away from being purchased. As a result this alien friend of mine, Bob from Tau Ceta province, sees good games that he'd like to purchase and he sees them with a nice little 10% off discount for the first week. This immediately compels him to purchase whatever great title it happens to be. For example last week King's Bounty emerged. Clickity-Click Click, and he bought it. Yesterday, Men of War arrived on Steam, Click Click Cluck, got it. Now getting game's quickly, easily, and at a reasonable price is all well and good. The problem emerges with so you are buying a game a week.

How in the name of the great googamooga is one expected to actually play them all an acceptable amount?

Bob told me this morning that there are dozens of games he has purchased through Steam and failed to even start them up. Many he has played a coupla times before being forced to move on to the next title.

Worst of all, Bob is in charge of export and imports for the Tau Ceta gaming commission (they handle gambling and such not video gaming as one may expect), as well as prisoner transfers from nearby the Staffholdt Prison cluster.
Needless to say Bob cannot find the time in his section (roughly a month) to alot for all the requisite gaming time to play his games to completion. I told Bob to piss off. There are alot of people who only wish they could have too many games to play.
Yeesh some people.

Side Note: Crafting in LotR:O... little pricey.

Ciao.

Oi Vey

2009-05-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

Seems like a tough time to be a game's publisher. Make good games and you lose money. Make shit games and you'll probably lose money. Make Wii games and you might make money, but you could still lose money.

EA and THQ have recently posted significant losses of late, and last year they put out some very compelling software for gamers, that did fairly well critically and in units pushed. So the question that arises to me is what is wrong with their business models? Lets be clear though, large publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and THQ have incredibly huge "money banks" if you will, and a bad year is not the end for them. However what it does mean is certain developers will get the axe, often times despite quality.

Do they simply have too many games that are costing too much, are not compelling titles and do not sell? Or is it that a AAA title takes too much money to develop and as such the profits cannot possibly add up to match it. Are they blowing money producing far too many copies far outstripping any possible demand? Is piracy bleeding these companies dry as they often claim?

Is there any possible solutions? I've got a few but most are not exactly sunny and great.
They could charge more for games. Increase the cost and you get more money. But then push it too high and people begin to feel like they are being ripped off.
They could charge less. Decrease your profit margins with the hope that a cheaper game will sell more. Valve has posted some very interesting findings of sales on Steam resulting in huge increases in units sold. However much of the Steam community strikes me as being fairly affluent and content with most games. Further the Steam purchase system seems to be built for impulse purchasing.
They could get advertising involved even more so in games. I mean television works because of advertising. In television I have read that it takes roughly 20 failed shows to get one hit. That is horrid and seems fairly in line with what goes on with game development. We get a lot of shite games, plenty of decent enough games, and a coupla games that are worth our time. The problem with the comparison to TV is that you do not have to pay money for each show you watch, you pay a flat rate and get them all regardless, the whole thing you invest is your time. This appears to make advertising in games rather difficult to work. Because if you buy a DVD boxset, you do not want commercials to play. And further you expect to be able to skip them.

Overall the whole game's industry is a strange beast. Rest assured, though the industry is not going to up and disappear, as long as there are profitable giants like Valve and Blizzard there will be enough incentive for those Venture Capitals to try to duplicate them and reap the benefits. Tragically it seems like alot of interesting IPs/game ideas might die for it to happen.

In other news Plants vs Zombies is pretty compelling for a Popcap casual game. Full of plenty of strategy and zombie killing goodness. I heartily recommend it to all, especially given it $9.99 price point. Maybe there is something to be learned from a publisher like Popcap. Good simple games, that many people can enjoy and bring in the profits. Sure they are not producing Half-Life or Fallout or Company of Heroes, but they are not in danger of anything.

Also, your Demigod update, game is slowly growing on me. Getting into game's is better but still not as robust as it should be. I'm winning games, but I feel it is more because of opponents lack of skill rather than my superiority. There is some definite problems between Assassin heroes and Generals, that the generals by and large are superior as long as they dont die. Seriously the game has big issues with addressing the reward for pushing. Towers give no experience or gold. Killing grunts gives no gold, only experience. Summons give no gold or Experience. Heroes give moderate experience and shitloads of gold. Control of the map is important, but if you die trying to gain control of the map you're hooped.
But it is fun, and the heroes have good diversity, although standard builds are emerging as people figure out what skills are worth getting/maxing and which get left behind. Updates continue to be fairly regular so there is no reason to be negative though. I'm not giving up on it.
LotR:Online is still a fun game. But i think I've talked about it enough.

Cya round.

There's More Than A New Paint Job On This MMO

2009-05-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

So, I've put considerably more time into Lord of The Rings Online, and I feel confident that I can state that while it is roughly a WoW copy, a significant difference is the much greater emphasis on the story elements that it is able to pull from. WoW, is good but its story never truly makes you feel attached or valuable to the world, it never makes you feel like anything more than a good samaritan, at least from experience with it a few years back.
I should also like to point out that I have finally returned to The World Ends With You, and it is a great little title, in so many ways. Art Style, Music, combat... all unique and pulling from that Platinum Games/Clover Studio/Suda51 japanese developer resurgence. It is refreshing to turn it on and just have a game play unlike anything I'm used to playing. Most importantly though is that all the previously mentioned elements coalesce with the story. I simply really feel attached to the story of the game. I mean the amount of games that are set in modern times, in your average urban environment can be counted on one hand, but then you mix this strange type of death/spirit game competition, and the strange use of ghosts/noise as opponents. The sheer diversity of how combat flows makes me love to turn the game on. You get these little 'pins' and they determine what attacks you get. But there are dozens of different types of attacks, and only 6 equip slots to put them. Further, you can level up your pins to make them stronger, some will evolve. Further, there is different types of experience available and only certain types will make some pins evolve a specific way. Needless to say, the game is a touch complex, but I adore it for the depth, because it gives the game so much more reason to come back.
I also got Final Fantasy Tactics A2, and it seems good so far, but i haven't put enough time into it yet to say too much. I like the changes to the Judge system, and how your clan operates. Not a huge fan of how they modified the experience/leveling system, but i understand the necessity to prevent exploitation from people who felt the need. I do think the MVP feature is nifty, but not really sure what happens when the trophy is fully built, eager to find out though.
Oh and Left 4 Dead now has pretty detailed stats. Apparently I never miss with the uzi (literally 100%), and headshot them far more often than seems possible. And I think it is missing alot of my gameplay. But oh well, nothings perfect and I still like the stats function.
Oh and Demigod is starting to develop for me, but the utter lack of any depth beyond skill order and items to purchase makes me question if it is a worthy successor to DotA. I am currently leaning towards DotA because the higher skill demand makes winning or losing feel like it was more than just picking the right skills and items.
Thats my thoughts. Ciao.

Survive This?

2009-04-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

So Left 4 Dead released some new stuff. Two new versus maps (which are in fact merely the other two maps that were not yet versus compatible made so they are) and a brand spanking new Survival Mode.
How are they. Well they're fun. But they're different.

The versus maps are easier to address so lets start there.

After playing through Dead Air and Death Toll on versus it makes you question a few things.

0. Was there a huge surge of people to decided to start playing Left 4 Dead again now that there is new content?

1. Did the player base recently all become newbies somehow?

2. Are these maps simply just too new for people to understand how to survive them?

3. Is this why these maps were not available for versus play up until now?

I say this because wiping is fast and frequent in these new maps. Prior to the the patch you could randomly join some guys in versus and be reasonably sure that you would do alright assuming the other team is stacked full of friends who have pre-planned everything. Post-patch

The three above points cover my main thoughts as to why there is so much wiping in versus.

Lets get rid of #3 and #2 right away. Go play the old versus maps and you'll see early wiping occurring as well. Although #2 may explain why it is much more so in the new stuff.

This means everyone either sucks now, or people came back after not playing. You can figure that one out.

I will say this. The versus maps that just came out are far more difficult than the other two. There are many more options for flexible and diverse attacks and further the fact that many are unaware of where attacks are likely to come from means that it is harder to defend against them.

Simply put, we've got a compounding situation. The new maps brought back people who had left, but the new maps also confused many.

The maps themselves? They're good. But like a said they feel pretty lop-sided in favor of the Infected side.

Survival Mode.

So the other half of the update is a new mode that seals off sections of the maps and tasks you to simply not die. How is it. It is either too easy, or too hard. The one map made specifically for this task "Last Stand" is exceptionally hard. But it is in a good way. You can't simply adopt one strategy for it and find success with it. I've tried numerous strategies that all work fairly well for a time, but ultimately crash and burn.
That is the problem with the other survival maps, culled from prior content, they are making the best out of what they have. Some are easy, and involve just standing near the ammo and dropping tanks with 3 auto shotties ASAP, while the M16 guy picks off smokers and other specials from a distance.

Overall I really enjoy survival, but it makes me want to play with friends more so than any other mode. You really have to be comfortable with these people to tell them your opinions on where you think you should shoot zombies from, or rather what the general plan for your survival will be.

So the survival pack? It sure was good for me. And really free content... kinda hard to bitch about it.
Strange side note. I've seen more girls in Left 4 Dead matches since the patch, which is worth noting because girls either hide their gender, from fear that everyone else in the game will begin to hit on them. Or they wear it on their sleeve and torment all the guys in the game to make them feel shit. Please note I am not suggesting that more girls playing Left 4 Dead is the reason that there are so many wipes. In fact the girls were better than most other players, myself included.
Well yea. Zombies and Girls and such. CRAZY!

I'm Just A Dwarf Stuck in a Horrible Mess of a Situation

2009-04-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

So LotR: Online apparently recently hit its two year anniversary and was offering the game + expansion for 9.99, with a sale of monthly credit at 9.99 a month as well.
Having literally just finished university I realized I would need a time sink, and immediately began my quest in Middle Earth as a Dwarf champion (a DPS tank).

How is the game might be a question to ask. But put simply the game is World of Warcraft, with a gritty style of graphics, and the Lord of the Rings mythology. Which is another way of saying that it is absolutely awesome. Assuming you enjoy Lord of the Rings. And it follows the books, so lovers of the cut material can rejoice, the Barrow-Downs are in.

Of course the game has numerous differences from WoW, most quite subtle, but overall the game works, has a nice community (from what I've seen so far, I typically solo in MMOs) and has one hell of a bitching player driven music scene that is pretty awesome when you're in town and hear 3 people just jamming on their horns and lute's.
I am very pleased with it overall and shall resume my adventure, I have recently met Strider and shall help him.

Farewell.

More Cheese With That Demigod Whine.

2009-04-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Demigod.

I'm still playing it. Multi-player is easier to connect now that a patch hit. And the number of players playing it has really jumped up, so that is heart-warming, and makes me think that the game really does have a future, contrary to my previous posting.

There are still many issues that make playing the game frustrating. Like most abilities seem to be limited only by your mana reserves rather than by cooldowns. This means a good ability can be spammed to hell once you buy mana boosting shit. But overall I think there is alot more good in the game than bad.

Its pretty, competitive, challenging and most of all, pretty fun. Now if only the average length of a game could get shortened by 10 minutes. I'm sick to death of every game ending in one hour or more.
But I heartily recommend Demigod, although I still think DotA is at the moment a better game. DotA does not have the maps, the graphics, the stat tracking, the achievements, the favour items, the diversity of different match types. So Demigod is looking better everyday.
Cheers. and Ciao.

I Could Be A God But I'd Rather Be An Ancient Allstar!

2009-04-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

It is here. The retail release of DotA... except think for a second about that. DotA exists as it does only because it is a mod for a game that is mindlessly simple to get running. That has low system specs, that is easy to find a match, and (heres the kicker) that is actually balanced.

None of the issues that currently afflict Demi-God are beyond repair. In fact DotA has struggled with balance since its inception.

The problem is that DotA doesnt have to pay employees, it only has one. Demigod has a fucking assload of accountability. It may get better, but I seriously doubt it. The game will get some good patches but the player base will have moved on. I mean the entire time I play Demigod the only thing I'm think is that DotA did, and does, it better. I think I'll talk about the actual game now.

So Demigod is a retail attempt to cash in on DotA's game. Specifical taking the AoS (Aeon of Strife, a very old starcraft custom map mode that has had more spin-offs than Happy Days) in a direction for the mainstream. The game works like this. You get a hero and he is a sargeant in his sides army (light or dark). He can be a hero killer ("assassin") or a summoner/hero killer ("general" in the game's nomenclature) and his (and yours) is to level him to make him stronger, kill your enemies, and eventually achieve the objectives that have been set out before you. They can be hold flags to obtain a certain amount of points. Completely obliterate the enemy. Deathmatch to kill points. Or break a specific number of forts first.
These specific objectives are nice, and may be one of my favorite parts of Demigod.
Perhaps one of the most important parts of an AoS is the heroes you get to play as (or Demigods as this game calls them). They are nice, the artwork is unique, the models look and animate great. But they probably look too good. Lag not a good thing in this kind of game. All heroes feel clunky, slow, unresponsive.
Perhaps even worse is that there are only 8. But then you can realize that there are multiple ways to play each hero, depending on what role you feel like playing in the battle. However this makes me ask... Why not just make each role into a seperate demigod? Oh right because making those 8 models was likely very expensive so might as well role 30 hero classes into 8 model types. This is suppose to be a game friendly to the noobs. But making heroes have such diverse paths just makes you wonder how to play them most effectively, and will mean that numerous people get gimped heroes.
This is compounded by the fact that it is not easy to get into a match. At all. Period. I had to keep trying dozens of time click the button. Wait. Someone's router is not forwarding ports. Game wont ever start. Woohoo. You know I've got this thing with my multiplayer games. They should just work. I dont care how pretty the game. How much fun the game is. If I can not get and out quickly. I am not going to start playing it.
What really burns me most is the little things. Death makes it so you cannot see the map anymore. Nifty graphic overlay, but really ineffective for gameplay reasons. I cannot tell if my friendly heroes need help in the east. Further there is no easy way to look around or jump to a section of the map. You have constant tunnel vision on your hero. Nice for focusing on him. Shitty for thinking about the larger battle you're fighting.
It is like the developers of Demigod looked at Dota. and ignored all the little things that make it great, and just went off to their own little corner. You cant look at whats in the shop unless you are right beside it. You cannot upgrade your side's stuff unless at the base building. Everyone seems to move at the same speed. Items make little to no sense, beyond raising your mana and health, i have no clue how good +25 dmg is. You cant tell what items you or your enemies, or even your friends have equipped. health seems super high for no reason. The developers should take every number in the game and divide by 10. Makes nice small hundreds. Thousands are scary. People dont like thinking in thousands. Thousands of dollars? Thousands of Cats? Thousands of litres of blood? I mean, hundreds is much more easily grasped by our minds.

Ughhhh. Honestly thinking about Demigod is strange. It demands balancing and patches. It wont get them because it needs to sell units, needs to make money, needs to be big. Being big means making it simply. Adding complexity makes it less likely to appeal to a broad audience.
DotA is the pinnacle of a complex game that those who like adore it for that. From last hitting, to juking in the woods, from understanding which heroes function better with early game stats and which need those skills. I mean there are 90+ heroes in DotA, and for the most part they are all balanced. Most have one role. But alot of them can be played differently.
I think Demigod is a nice effort, I'll keep trying it out. But If i cant play a single match of DotA before I even get to play match of demigod, and DotA's gameplay is just as if not more compelling why on earth would i bother with Demigod. I think thats my answer.

But damn I hope I'm wrong.

I Like To Think April Brings Out The Best of My Worst Qualities

2009-04-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

Having the new computer back is great fun indeed. Until I realize of course that I have dozens of "new" games to play through. Meh, could be worse.

Currently I'm looking at many, many games.

Assassin's Creed; Also known as spider man without all the swinging, and slightly more lethal.

Brother's In Arms: Hell's Highway; Also known as shootie Mc-Think or Shoot.

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valour; Also known as dear sweet god never let this pleasure end, or what over so soon?

Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope; Also known as lolita monster rape-esqueish. With Swords. (Technically a 360 game, but meh)

The Club; Also known as I hate you on the inside and the outside so why would I run on your PC?

Unreal Tournament 3; Also known as Mc-Shootie Shooter with strange and diverse weapons and scenarios beyond deathmatch, but still very Quake-esque.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary; Also known as Face Lift the poor old girl's control schematics but not combat.

Demi-God; Also Known as I'm not actually out till Tuesday the 14th so squirm little man.

Empire: Total War; Also known as I'll take your natives, your women, your forts, your cities, your colleges, your ships, and your monies. But you can keep the 20,000 dead you committed to defending your capital. Also who cares if the British are your archenemies why would you ally with someone against them? They'll just buy Louisana first chance a crazy midget emperor gives them the chance.

Thats pretty much it. I mean job 'questing' begins soon, which hopefully will end nicely and if it doesnt things will get strange. But meh.

I continue to put hours into L4D, half done expert, and the new stuff arrives in a week or so. TF2 continues to delight. Waiting on final piece of DLC for Fallout 3. Working my way through Dawn of War 2 on Primarch which is interesting. But in a good way. And Defense Grid's challenge mission is being a bitch. I have missed gold by like 80 points 3 times in a row. what the fuck is it's problem.
Oh and I'm also going through the back catalog of Steam games for fun stuff. It includes Max Payne 2; Dark Messiah of Might & Magic; Bioshock; Half-Life series; GTA IV; Titan Quest; And Call of Duty 4 & 5 (4's Multiplayer, 5's singleplayer); and then some Alien Shooter Vengeance.
And I'm finally getting back into The World Ends With You, awesome rpg for the DS.
because i havent said enough game titles in this post.
yeesh. Ciao. Enjoy your finals if you're writing them.

I Think I'm A Flaming Emblem

2009-03-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

Oh thats right. It is time at last for more discussion of my favorite portable franchise ever.

No not Pokemon. I mean Pokemon is fun and all, (The legit games at least) but rather of Fire Emblem.
It is certainly an interesting scenario, Fire Emblem is a great SRPG. But this is not the next generation of Fire Emblem. It is a remake of the first, and boy does it show. Keep reading and I shall enlighten you as to this.

The graphics represent the problem that is inherent in this remake. One the one hand alot of the graphics are beautiful, the map screens, and menus, the unit model also look very nice.

Once the animations start running though. In a word, ugly. But to be honest it is really more lazy than anything else. Criticals usually have no extra flair at all added, and most animations are stiff. Some of the upgraded units have animations that look nice, but that is the exception rather than the norm. Spell effects do look much nicer with the new engine. Of particular dissappointment is the lack of weapon models available to units. It is not a huge deal, but even the Royal Weapons lack special models, Which greatly lessens the thrill of using them in combat. The white flash across the screen is nice, but thats all you get.

Sounds are fine, the music is moving enough to grant some emotion to the drama that exists.

The story is garbage, the plot itself is servicable, but it shows that it was a NES game with the razor thin dialogue, and complete lack of support conversations there is no emotion as to why you give a fuck that Marth deserves his Kingdom back. Characters have next to no emotion, and there are more characters than you can count. You easily collect dozens upon dozens within the first few moments. This is the first Fire Emblem game where losing a few units didnt affect me at all.

The actual combat though is the real meat of the game, and it is also a mixed bag. On the one hand it is classic Fire Emblem, but on the other hand, it is the easiest I've played. The game simply throws huge numbers of units at you. You sit back let your knights tank them, while the others move in to finish them. Class switching is interesting but only makes me think that the units in the game are even more disposable and that the developers were too lazy to tailor each unit as a specific class as such.

I suppose the thing with Fire Emblem is that it really shows it age. Things that were neat in the first game, are no more. I suppose I should add that I did enjoy the game, and I have not tried the online stuff yet, which could greatly enhance the replayability. I recommend the game to fans of Fire Emblem who are bored of the other English ports and are looking for something new. If you havent played the other ones yet though, try to cut your teeth on those first, they are far more enjoyable in almost every way. Hopefully this was just a quick job for the developer as they work on the next legitimate sequel Fire Emblem/Advance Wars.

Time Apart Really Makes Me Miss You

2009-03-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

Why? Most likely because you leave all these unresolved feelings that demand to get out but you have no way of releasing them.

Of course I refer to my PC which died a few weeks back. Which sucks, but I have classes to worry about (something about a Term paper for a seminar course) and also I have plenty of other games to get into.

But then I remembered that my Space Marines had not yet saved the day, and that Empire: Total War came out last week, and the tears, well they did not flow, but inside they did. And the TF2 Scout update (which isnt that big a deal because my old PC can play TF2 just fine). And there was my Farcry 2 game which remained unresolved.
Man, I really want my PC back.
It really reminds me that the good games call you back after time spent playing something else. Sure I'll always dive into the new games, but the truly great ones bring you back. I'm not sure that any of the ones mentioned above will do that in the future but maybe they will.
So my point?

That great games are defined by how long you can keep coming back to the well over and over again. And right now I think I'll list some games that have already accomplished this feat for me.

Warcraft 3: Oh the mods, the gameplay, it is to die for.

Zelda OoT: I mean come on. Its the Zelda game you have to play.

Diablo 2: Because they mastered the flow of killing demons and evil things perfectly, hopefully the sequel finally wrests it away.
Chrono Trigger: Man, this game is probably the best RPG you can play. It is purely exquisite, even after playing through it half a dozen times I still love playing through it.
Duke Nukem 3D: He's the king of innovative level design. Along with hilarious enemies I usually get pulled back in every coupla years.

Well that'll have to do for now. And I'll end this post with a quote that has shown up far, far, far too often in the past few days for me.

You Are Likely To Be Eaten By A Grue.

NOW ONLY NINETY NINE NINETY NINE NINETY NINE NINETY NINE!

2009-02-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

So's I got myself a new PC. It works wonderfully. Although getting everything installed was a bit of a 4 hour excursion. And installing all the old games will likely take a solid week, given that most of them need to be downloaded, and that's gonna take some time.
But the machine cuts through games like a vibroblade through a wookie. Just in time for Dawn of War II on Thursday. It will be glorious. In a mass blood, and robots throwing corpses across a battlefield kind of glory way.
Well that will have to do. I've got more stuff to do. And more Vista smashing to work on. Getting rid of UAC, seems to only have been half the battle.

Too Human Thoughts

2009-01-26T21:28:00.000-08:00

Well, I picked this up for cheap at boxing day, and... wow. What to say about this game.

It does some things right, and can feel quite good at times. And then there is the time when you just dont have a fucking clue what the devs were thinking.

Death has no penalty other than a durability hit. Oh also the death animation is like 1 minute long and bores the shit out of you. So the biggest penalty is that death wastes your time. Pretty much. I mean and the sad thing is alot of the times I died I wasnt sure what I did wrong. I simply went up against enemies that were vastly stronger than me, but the thing is enemies autoscale in level to match your level, so you cant exactly level up to ease through the game. So Grinding is useless except to get more loot.

And dear god is there alot of loot. If there is one thing they got TOO right in the game it is the loot system, you get a lot of loot and you can customize it quite effectively. Tragically the game is only about 10 hours long which means that most of it is utterly pointless.

The combat itself is all over the place, its typically mindlessly easy with little challenge thrown at you. Unless you suddenly face the tough enemies which means you'll just have to slowly chip away at the hp of some uber guy who is beyond you

The story, well its basically Norse mythology given a super high tech bend. Which worked for me, but kinda meant I knew what was coming. Further it seems like they went to alot of effort for a lot of the things in game but maybe they should have spent that time getting the combat to actually flow.

The RPG stuff is basically non-existent, you apparently have stats, but you dont control them, but are told they increase with each level. Also you can apparently boost your dexterity and strength with items but are never given a clue as how that actually benefits you. You do get skill points to put into various passives and a few actives skills, but basically they dont matter. My ability to root enemies to the ground was never apparent to me, nor was richochetting bullets. So basically I had skills that did stuff that I was unclear if they actually worked.

Overall I did enjoy the game. The combat is fairly fun, if simple and annoying at the same time, and the presentation of the story worked for me. But then I did not pay $60 for it. So that certainly helps my opinion of it. If I had paid $60 I would not be happy.
The real shame is the game ends basically setting up the sequel, which I'm quite certain is not happening. Certainly not anytime soon.

So there you have it. Too Human is a game that is all over the place and may or may not be worth your time. Yea, thats all I got.
Wait, wait. Do you like Diablo? Yes. Did you like Dungeon Siege? No. Titan Quest? No.
Basically if you adore hack 'n slash rpgs then there is a good chance that you'll enjoy Too Human, if you like Diablo because of its polish and didnt enjoy Dungeon Siege or Titan Quest because they werent quite Diablo-calibre, then i'd stay away from Too Human.

Yay. Ciao.

Canadia strikes me as unpatriotic

2009-01-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Okay so here we go, its a little late I know, but here are some of the games in '09 that I'm looking forward to playing.

Dawn of War II.

You say that the base building is gone so that I might worry entirely about tactics of the battlefield ala Total War? I will make love with your orcish hordes. Also shit bleeds and dies horrifically to sweeten the deal.

Empire: Total War

Uh, I'm a history major who loves war. So this is kind of a no brainer. The ability to conquer the globe, and finally have control over naval battles in a Total War game is awe inspiring.

Starcraft II

Starcraft got me into PC gaming, I'm not about to leave it now. Plus, all the custom maps will be awesome. tower defense has come along way since starcraft.

Resident Evil 5

RE4 remains on my top 5 games of all time (which I feel could be one of my future posts), and since this is basically that game with a new story and an actual Co-Op gameplay how can it not (Answer? It better not!)

Madworld

Brutally Violent Wii Controls. Meh, hopefully it'll be good. The all black and white and red asthetic might get annoying but it certainly is catching.

Fire Emblem DS

I want this game right now. I'd import if it wouldn't cost me over $100. But all the places with decent prices are sold out. Bummer. Oh well hopefully North America gets it in a month or two.

And that's pretty much it. There are some more titles that I am curious about, like Star Ocean 4, Killzone 2, Street Fighter 4, and that game with jack black by the guy who made Full Throttle, yeah that one too.

Oh and I would have put Diablo 3 on the list if I felt it was going to come out in '09. But come on people, this is Blizzard we are talking about here. We'll be lucky to see it in 2010. And if I'm wrong then I'll be the first to eat those words.

Stay Frosty

2008-12-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

So, we all know that games are supposedly one of those great forms of art that allow people to bring their own experiences along for the ride and as such enable each person to have their own favorites.
But gaming is not like movies or a book or a painting, because games need an exhaustive amount of effort invested simply to ensure that the game is able let you play it. Then the game designers have to apply what is possible with some form of story and experience to make gameplay exist. Simply if a game fails on a mechanical level it would be the equivalent of what would happen if Leonardo had decided that the public wanted to see Mona Lisa so bad that he would simply have it put on display with only half of her face drawn in.
As such games that fail to do this are usually derided by gamers and critics alike because they are not fun, even if the story is great or at the very least intriguing.
But when certain local print publications begin posting their best of 2008 and put games with such glaring flaws in them, I begin to question that publications quality. To be fair a local newspaper is not the best source for hardcore gamers to go. Newspapers are literally the source of gaming info for the casual creature.
There was a few grievous titles that were left on this list that make me question the quality of the list in general.
First up, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Good game. Not best of the year by a long shot however. Especially in light of the fact that one mission is utterly broken (Dtar Sestroyer). This moment completely ruins the game. Also the fact that the game is basically God of War in Star Wars without blood or dismemberment, or the superb calibre of God of War's combat fluidity. Or considering that Ninja Gaiden II came out in July maybe you would think they'd at least try to compete with that.

Sure the maybe if you were a hardcore Star Wars fan you might call it one of the best of year, but then you have to explain that you are a hardcore Star Wars fan. This was not present. The story was good, but not superb.

Next up, Fable 2. Does advertising that you can jump fences, even though you really wont be able really qualify a game for best of the year? Or does shipping the exact same game with a slightly better combat engine? Maybe if you did this in 1 year. But if you did it over 5 years and said that the game will make you feel love and blah blah blah. I cannot reiterate Peter Molyneux's words here for fear that I may summon him, and listen to him hype me into oblivion.

Now maybe it isnt fair for me to bash the game because, well I never played it *wink*, but I will give this game credit for at least not being completely broken, well minus that thing that can break the game that needs a patch that still needs to come out, oh and there is the issue of the DLC that was planned to ship before Christmas that smacks of coulda made it into the gold code but Microsoft decided it would look better as 800 Microsoft points.

really I'm just sore because games like Valkyria Chronicles, No More Heroes, The World Ends With You, Boom Blox, Burnout Paradise, Ninja Gaiden II, Rock Band 2. Hell they did not even include Metal Gear Solid 4 for fucks sake. I mean I'm sorry but the role of the gaming press should not be to hype the fuck out of what is already gotten 2 months worth of press coverage. At a year end best of the year you should remember the games that you played and you know other people did not play. I mean could drone on and on about GTA IV or Gears 2 or Mario Kart Wii, but i know they all sold in excess of 7 million copies and everyone who played them knows what I would say about them. But if I talk about games that less people played maybe they'll go out and grab those games, maybe they wont because I'm bashing the fuck out of the game but at least I'm giving the game something. But if people buy good games, more good games get made. If we praise adulations upon games that are technically broken, that exhibit signs that they dont know how to playtest (looking at you Star Destroyer pull down sequence) then they treat their paying customers like idiots.

I mean Force Unleashed and Fable 2 weren't bad games, they pretty fun. But they are mediocre games being included in list that is leaving out vastly superior games, that may only be lower profile. And that doesnt slide with me. Oh well at least the enthusiast press is a little better. I mean IGN gave Sins of a Solar Empire GotY, that gives some hope.

Oh and I've decided to simply put quotes from my favorite shows in the Title. Its fun that way.

Just In Case You Are Curious

2008-12-25T23:09:00.000-08:00

My gaming-esque presents were:

Chrono Trigger on the DS. Awesome.

Thats it. I'll prolly get Resistance 2 for PS3 if I see it cheap ever.

Oh, but I did get Seasons 4-6 of Scrubs; Futurama: Bender's Game; Sphere (Novel); Doctor Who: Series 4 (Since I have the first three already).

Also got socks, and pajama pants.

Oh, and $500. It was nice.

Played Rock Band with relatives, and got to feel good about being the second best player there, as well as the only one with the confidence to actually sing when no one else would. I believe I even boasted that if necessary I would simulataneously play the Drums, Guitar, and vocals. But quickly realized I lacked the number of limbs required to do that.

My next post I plan to talk about games I'm looking forward to in 2009. I doubt I will talk much about the Blizzard franchises though. They dont exactly need the coverage.

I'm Told the Holidays Occur at this Point in Time

2008-12-23T18:39:00.000-08:00

Quick update.

Finished Fire Emblem on Wii at long last. Game time registered 70 hours played. But taking into account resets and start overs a time of 100+ hours is more likely. Good game though.

Now I am currently trying to track down copy of the new DS Fire Emblem that is not yet out in north america but is out in the UK. I've found a few copies. But I'm not tossing $100 out for it a month early. I'm willing to spend about $50 max. But I think I'll prolly just wait till it arrives here in february or whenever. No release date is regrettable.

In other news I am debating what game to play next. I continue to play nightly rounds of DotA and L4D, but my days (holidays = time to play games in the day!) were filled with Fire Emblem. My main games I'm debating are currently Valkyrie Chronicles, No More Heroes, or and number of other PS2 rpgs that i have yet to finish (list includes Star Ocean 3, Persona 3, Dragon Quest 8)

Also playing a decent amount of time with Rock Band 2, which is very fun. Suck at the drums ( my foot doesnt like being involved and gets very painful ) but vocals and guitar are always a blast. Slowing working through things on Hard, but playing on medium as well to unlock stuff.

In pseudo-gaming news, I'm getting a new PC pretty damn soon. I'm thinking of an Core i7, Nvidia 260. prolly get an Asus motherboard. Hopefully for the first time in my life I will get a computer that can actually get upgraded too. I almost always get a motherboard that doesnt support newer CPUs, or that forgets something rather important (this time it was PCI-Express, so no new graphics cards).

Should set me back around $1500, which is a savings of over half of what i paid last time. But then I wanted bragging rights on a Voodoo PC.

So i better get to L4D right now. Ciao.

Ger-Wha?

2008-12-06T12:50:00.000-08:00

So I put in a new Wii game, No More Heroes, and was shocked to find a game that uses the Wii to amazing effect. You dont waggle your remote excessively, although you do use the waggle for a reload/recharge, you dont have dumbed down controls, you dont have needlessly pathetic looking graphics.

The game came out like a year ago or so, so i'm kinda late to the game, but the entire presentation of this game makes me glad i got it. I mean the main character wantonly chops limbs and heads off with a bastardly "FUCK YOU!". There are so few games that do what this game does on any system.

My favorite moment however was when your characters cell phone rings, you dont know what button to press to answer it, but you quickly realize it want you to press '2' and then the call comes in entirely through the speaker in the remote. You put it up against your ear just like a cell phone. Why hasnt anyone else done this? It is awesome! I've never felt such immersion in a game as when the sound came entirely through this fake cell phone.

Also, I really need to get back into Fire Emblem on Wii, i was doing so well in it but then shit hit the fan.

Also i need to get back into Valkryie Chronicles. Oh and the Witcher... It's gonna be a busy holiday.
Oh. Also Rock Band 2 is quite fun.

Get It Off! Get It Off!

2008-12-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Words you will hear alot playing Left 4 Dead, perhaps the greatest co-op game ever built. The game oozes with quality, and is simply full of the trademark Valve-isms that Half-Life 2, and Team Fortress 2 have begun to make standards of gaming. From the thousands of lines of dialogue that may potentially be spoken, that dynamically re-acts to the action unfolding around you. (Although I've yet to find any dialogue as funny TF2's Spy being lit on fire "I seem to have spontaneously combusted.") Get your friends together, plug in your microphones if no one is in the LAN, and start killing off the zombie hordes.

Okay so perhaps you'd like a slight explanation of what Left 4 Dead actually is. Well it is a game that occurs in the zombie apocalypse. You and 3 other survivors find yourself trying to escape the hordes and well survive. The game does not try to be realistic, which works well. Pistols never run out of ammo, but do have a significant reload, and fairly significant damage-distance ratio making them fairly ineffective at long range. Survivors can take punishing brutality from zombies and never become infected. (The game explains by saying that you are the random element of humanity that is immune to the infections, at least I think it says that somewhere...)

Anyways, you start at point A, you need to get to point E. Which is your rescue. The levels are fairly linear, but have enough variety in the paths to make it possible for minor route changes to have significant impacts on gameplay. For example a shorter path may be known, but is guarded by a witch. You can take the longer route and therefore avoid her completely. Or you can just headshot her with the shotgun; but to be fair that is pretty damn hard. So along the way to Point E you stop at Safe houses which basically serve to slow the pace down, and also are when the new level loads.

The standard co-op is great fun, assuming you have somewhat decent teammates, but the game only truly comes to life when you play in VS mode where the boss zombies are played by real live human opponents. This mode is brutal. The normal mode gives you brief respites every after intense fights. But VS mode is constantly intense. New players spawn as the boss monsters. Although the Boss monsters always spawn in the same frequency. Two Hunters, fast leapers who fully immobilize their prey but must get to their target. One Smoker, long range tongue user who brings his prey to him. And One Boomer, who vomits on survivors which brings in the horde to assault the survivors, Oh and he can also go boom! when shot. Basically they will fuck you over. Badly. So badly that you will want to leave the game right away. It will be that bad.

But you should not. For after the hordes are done feasting upon your tender flesh you will get you hunt those who only moments ago slaughtered you. And you will make them feel the exact same as you felt.

Well, I should clarify, this is assuming your team knows what it is doing. If not, well it is not doing to be pretty. Although there are few things that are as redeeming as outsmarting a human opponent. Hell thats why we play multiplayer games. Beating real people just makes you feel superior.

So who should get Left 4 Dead? Um... well most people who should get it already have it. But if you like zombie movies, or enjoyed Valve's previous games but was unsure of this one. Well just get it. I'd recommend PC over the 360 version. But then I am very Biased towards the PC. (Or am I? I mean I dont exactly own any companies that directly benefit from the sale of PC games, and I'm not in the hardware industry. So I suppose I'm really not biased. Meh, go figure.)

So yea. Left 4 Dead is awesome. I hope you get it, and enjoy it.

Post War Analysis

2008-11-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

World at War analysis I should clarify.

So I've beat it and toyed around in multi-player. And well, I think was hitting the singleplayer a little hard for things that maybe didnt deserve it. Overall that is a moderately emotional game. So I think they should be commended for that. However the overall gameplay within that emotional game cannot be called as moderately good. It does what CoD 4 does but at best it matches it. Usually it isnt as good though.
If we start talking about multi-player though. Then the game deserves some cookies. This game is a good game to play with others. First of all. Tanks. They are fun, or annoying when the other team has 4 of them all over the map. But if you build your class properly and are careful against them (like you should be when facing a tank) then you can be a thorn in their side. Of course if they complement their tanks with supporting infantry, well you're teams in trouble.

Now i just wish i could find some servers with decent latency to me. But usually I looking at 100 for a low ping. In Source games i can usually find hundreds of games with pings that are 50 or lower. But The multi-player is still quite fun, and If you love Call of Duty 4, but want more. This is it.

Left 4 Dead will be my next topic to discuss. Whenever I get around to it.

Teaser:

It's My Multiplayer Game of The Year.

More CoD 5 Rambling

2008-11-21T09:50:00.000-08:00

Just to make it short. Fun game. Although Singleplayer has some very poor design choices. Not the gameplay. Gameplay typically is fine (albeit that sniper bullshit still pisses me off). Multi-player is CoD 4 with new skins. So it's still great. Few new modes even.

So it appears that While most of the time the Japanese simply up and Ran straight at the Americans in Bonzai charges, there was a few cases where they did not. Noticably on Peliliu. How on that island they actually never Bonzai charged. So when the game depicts them doing it there they really shouldnt be. They had all these secret hole that they could jump out of and then kill a few americans and retreat into them again. The game has them come out of the holes, but then just bonzai rush you.
Also the Makin campaign makes no sense to me. There is 2 traps set up for your squad. But the thing is the Makin raid was a surprise raid. Why the fuck would the Japanese have traps set up on and Island that they dont think is coming under attack yet? Exactly they didnt. The Makin raid surprised them and was a pretty decent surprise attack. But the Navy decided they would stick with ambibious landings.

Oh and the Russian campaign this time around is utter crap. When it isnt being a stupid ass sniper mission that is obviously trying to copy CoD 4's "All Ghillied Up", it is pounding your ass with a Miracle shot German sniper. This campaign alternates between stupidly easy and stupidly tough (I was playing on Hard, so i do expect a challenge). The thing is the main reason I suffered was that your guy calling shit out says stuff like "He's behind the car!" and there are three cars out there. Awesome. Fucking awesome.
Oh and then there is a intro-animations which seem like some ultra-bs-patriot garbage shit that could not have been used at the time. See the thing is the intro's are very much like CoD 4. But CoD 4 got away with those because we have that technology for briefing our troops going into the field. In World War II they did not. Look at how CoD 1 & 2 handled intro cut-scenes. They used military maps, on projectors and slides, and gave you diary entries to read. So that it actually felt authentic.

I mean the game itself is good. Mostly. And Multi-player doesnt suffer from these because it gets the benefit of being an arbitrary fight between two sides that ressurect every 5 seconds. It's just there are some strange choices. And I Swear if I hear that damn Reznof or whatever cry for German blood one more time, I'mma kill the racist bastard. He's one step away from screaming "RAPE THEIR WOMEN AND CHILDREN!" which is something that I'm sure many Soviet troops cried as they entered Germany, but that doesnt mean I want to play a game about it. There is a point where historical accuracy should take a backseat. Honestly the push into Berlin the worst feeling I have ever had playing a game. Shooting troops in the back on their homeland has no good feelings to it. Especially when the CO is goading all the troops on like some racist prick. I mean somehow they had to differentiate this from the push on Berlin that happened in the other CoD games.But Taking it this direction... bad call.

Guess I'll finish the rest of the game now. Thank god I think the Russian crap is over. I really want to play the first two (+the expansion) over again though. Play some well done russian campaigns.

My Apologies

2008-11-14T19:39:00.000-08:00

For you know.

The lack of posts. Essays and studying does not promote good blog keeping.

Also the want to spend what little time I do have playing games futher inhibits my ability to write here.

So this will just be a quick update.

Fallout 3

Awesome, Very good RPG. Best one since the Witcher & Mass Effect.

Valkyria Chronicles

Really amazing art, fun twist on turn based combat. Neat story, that draws some strange parallels to the real world. I'm really enjoying it.

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm

It is a Naruto game for the Naruto fans. The presentation is good, but a little underwhelming if you dont know whats going on. Very little effort to cover everything about the story, so it is clearly made for those who already know it. The graphics are amazing however. This generation of video games have really figured out how to bring Anime into 3D engines. Oh and the specials in the fights. Wow. Just Wow.

Wrath of the Lich King

Oh I dont play WoW. So yea it's probably more of the same though.

Left 4 Dead (demo)

Its interesting very fun when it doesnt lag out, and everyone understands what they are doing. Should be good to get to fully play a campaign and also try out the VS. mode.

Call of Duty 5 (World at War)

It is Call of Duty 4 in WWII. The multiplayer is literally exactly what you saw in CoD4 but with more. If you really like the setting I suppose it could be worth it. However seeing the Japanese portrayed as tactical geniuses in those Island battles is just nuts. Honestly they used Bonzai attacks over and over and over. And typically suffered 7 men dead to kill one American and wound a few others. Guess gameplay trumps historical accuracy. Meh long as its fun I guess.

Edit: too many edits. Made a new post.

If I'm Here I Do Not Have To Write Essays!

2008-10-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

So lets get onto some stuff.

Resistance 2 Beta:

I think i can talk about this. And if I cant well then whoops. Send a crack legal team over steal my hundreds of dollars of assets.

It is pretty fun. the Co-Op is all i've tried out so far, but it is good. Mainly play the medic. Which is fine for me because they get like double the exp of everyone else when they are played correctly, because healing instantly tosses up like 20-100 exp where as most kills are only around 20-50 exp. The leveling up system makes you feel like progress is being made with actions, and it seems like a long progression system.

Overall the game seems good. Good aiming system and hit detection, nice graphics, all good production values. Giant monsters to kill in a team. I'll definitely get it at some point in the future, prolly not at launch though. Too much to do.

World of Goo:

Jeezus christ this is how we need to push games. The aesthetics are brilliant, the sound effects are perfect (how did they know that goo should sound the way it does, how do you figure out what noise it makes when it sways in the wind?!) and the music ohhhh boy. yes if you like finding those gem of an indie game. This one you should look at. There is even a fairly lengthy demo.

The game is best described as an architectural puzzler. Because you have to build buildings to bring the goo where it needs to go. Sounds crazy, But believe the first time you figure out how to get across the pit (no spoilers here but i really enjoy just figuring out the solutions because it is totally not a fixed path, there are probably at least a couple of valid ways to get through every stage.

Spectromancer:

Turn based card battler! Well I adore turn based strategy games so this was pretty much a no-brainer. Especially once Tycho of Penny Arcade fame pushed it on his little website. It is very fun. And upon completion of the demo, i was compelled, NAY obligated as a lover of turn based strategems to give them their $20, so that I might continue to play it.

Oh also apparently there is like 6,200 games coming out in the next 6 weeks. Woohoo. Well I do have multiple research intensive (or is it extensive?) to pump out. So I had best mosie on to those.

Ciao. Oh and if you've read this far. I love you.

So I Lied.

2008-10-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

See there was this other game that I got that I totally forgot to talk about. And the funny thing is, it is a rather high profile title. Also I quite enjoy it. I simply had been avoiding it for the prior 3 weeks because of its ability to pull me into it far too effectively.

I am of course speaking of the one and only:

Spore

It certainly gets credit for being unique. Also for being fun. If not for difficulty. Although the final stage helps with that. But lets go a little more in depth to its lack of depth.

Cell Stage: You are pretty much Pac-man. You eat the color of food that matches what your mouth can eat; jaws eat the red meat bits, which you can get by killing things also, filter feeding mouth eats green bits you find on plants. It is fun enough, and it is pretty short. The evolution mechanic here is simple and doesnt give you a whole lotta flexibility, but it isnt suppose to yet.

Creature Stage: You are in an action RPG that has little to no purpose. You either befriend neighbouring creatures, or you slaughter them all into oblivion. It's alright and seeing your first Epic creature is quite a sight. I actually got to see two of them fight, although the winner then turned around and killed me... so yea. Fun Fun. Creature creator here is the real fun, the potential you have is basically unlimited. If you can think it you can probably make it. And it is fun just making things. Sometimes you make quick easy things just to make it. Other times you want the windows to look just right, or you fiddle getting the eyes in right spot, then you move the tail around just right. Positioning the arms and legs though is the real challenge. Get that done well, and your creature can be pretty badass.

Tribal Stage: RTS so fucking light. You basically mass produce your guys and rush the other tribes. The clothing editor Is very fun to fiddle with though.

Civ Stage: RTS slightly heavier than before. Basically you get to build buildings and vehicles now. I made a tank, which was awesome for me. The quest for spice is interesting, although also quite easy. I really like making buildings. Especially homes.

Space Stage: The WTF where did this massive game come from. Okay you know how there are 100 Billion stars in the Galaxy? Go visit all of them. Also there are going to be crap load of other Aliens out there also exploring and doing stuff. Many of whom will be dangerous to you. I swear if I get anymore simultaneous attacks on three colonies at once again. But once you actually get the feel for the flow of space stage you can easily lose hours on end playing it. The game's entire depth is in this part of the game. There is no quick way to finish it, there is barely even a truly finish the game proper. But you certainly can have fun, and if you like having fun, in unconventional games, well then you cant go wrong with Spore.

Whats that you say? You're not sure if Spore is for you? Well answer this. Did you enjoy the Sims. If you said yes, then yes you should get Spore. Different game, but the experience overall is similiar.

So yea, I'm done with Spore for tonight, but every now and then it is one hell of the game to blow an evening playing.

Ciao.

Stuff = No Posts

2008-10-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

School's Back in the swing, so it's hard to get extra time to type stuff out but here I go.

Force Unleashed:

Fun game, The story of it is very, very nice. Must play if you are a Star Wars fan. The gameplay is decent but really lacks depth. Sometimes you feel totally badass, other times you just feel like ass. Often during the same fight. I am specifically referring to enemies who sometimes recoil upon being hit with lightning and other times do not. Very annoying.

Overall it is a solid rental for all. Especially since it only is around 10 hours long. -ish.

Braid:

Very fun game. Pretty short, but the puzzles make you think. I had to cheat a bit to get through them, but I dont especially enjoy thinking over a static puzzle for hours on end. Didnt really get the story so maybe thats just me. And the game seems to make you draw connections to Mario games for no apparent reason. I seriously do not believe that it is a fair comparison to draw principally because they are fundamentally different games. (Mario games very rarely test brain power beyond simple implementation of simple ideas the compound to produce somewhat more complex gameplay/puzzles; While Braid focuses exclusively on interesting highly unique puzzles that often involve the manipulation of time and a freaking goomba look-a-like.

Buy if you have $15 burning a hole in your pocket.

Castle Crashers:

If you have friends with a 360 and you often play games online together with it, then you owe it to yourself to get this. It is a classic beat'em-up with an awesome sense of humor with fun combat, cool levels, and even cooler enemies. Awesome game to play with friends.

Other than that. Well, I suppose I'll talk about the games I'm playing right now:

Call of Duty 4; Yep got suckered into the multiplayer again. It's fun as ever. Especially since I'm focusing on LMGs now. Nothing like unloading round after round into a house and killing people via deep penetration.

Team Fortress 2; It's always there, it most likely always will be. It is simply an awesome game and probably the most balanced team game I've ever played.

Defense of the Ancients; Man if you told me a custom map of Warcraft 3 would have me playing Warcraft 3 for 3 years straight I probably would never have believed but DotA is just that good.

Mass Effect; I'm trying out being Evil this time around. Not quite as fun as being a Sith in KotOR but still pretty satisfying, and not as blood curdling; It's not evil purely for evil sake.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn; The one on Wii. I never beat it so I'm about 50 hours into it now. It's classic Fire Emblem gameplay all over again. The Team I've got is pretty badass now so it is all coming together. Still fucking tough as hell though.

Witcher: Enhanced Edition; Oh my dear fucking gawd, they actually fixed the load times? Wow. Also the inventory is quite a bit nicer. Other than that I havent played enough to notice the new dialogue, but the game still rocks like it did last time I played it.

Halo 3; Sometimes it is the most fun you can have playing an Online shooter, other times it is so fucking stupid you just want break shit. That is what I did recently. Oh well. Live and learn. Also I need a new headset. So like would anyone like to buy me a new one?

That is pretty much it about the gaming I'm up to right now. Warhammer Online seems really fun, but I do not have the time for an MMO until April. (When I can roam the streets with my Bachelor's Degree in hand and ask politely for a high paying job in the Oil Industry)

Oh yea and I was at PAX at the end of August. It was very fun and really cool to see there actually are other hardcore gamers out there. Also getting to meet and talk to Felicia Day, and getting her to autograph my dvd of The Guild was very awesome. It was a great time, and Seattle, man that city fucking rocks. I really wish I had a city with that much culture in it. I'd settle for like 1/10 of it's culture. All our street performers are lame, all our gimmicks shops are lame. But then again I hate Calgary's cowboy love affair. (nothing against the Cowboy stuff, just have problems with this city's over indulgence in it)

Oh and If you arent watching The Office or 30 Rock, what the shit is wrong with you?

Ciao. I've got some busy weeks coming up. My reward however shall be great.

Fallout 3 awaits me after 2 papers and a midterm. Mmmmm bloody mess trait.

It's All In The Name

2008-08-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

So names mean alot, usually. But they do not actually mean anything really. I mean honestly names are just tags we use to identify ourselves from the others who more or less look pretty much the same as us.

So obviously gaming frequently gives us the option to choose a name for ourselves. Most usually in the multi-player gaming scene. Single-player RPGs sometimes let you give yourself a name as well. But in that context it is utterly pointless as most games will simply take your name to be "x" variable at insert whenever "x" is called for in the game's script.

But in the multiplayer games the choice of name is very important and I for one feel that people need to spend either a great deal of time thinking up their name, or none at all. Because either you want your name to be meaningful or you dont.

If you dont want it to be meaningful then great. Just use your own name with some numbers after it. I would recommend "Bob11Forty". Or in my case: "Ryan17Forty". Just make sure to put Forty in it for me.

If you want it to be meaningful however then take a great deal of time to analyze what you want your name to reveal about yourself. Maybe you would like reveal your profound love of DBZ, and therefore call yourself -xXx-Goku-xXx-. I wouldnt recommend naming yourself after the main character of an incredibly popular show however. A lesser minor character might be acceptable, but the main character, it lacks originality. Unless it is the main character from a long defunct show that lends credit your "geek credentials"

However this leads into another point. The use of prefixes and suffixes and what we assume they will apply to our "gaming cred", if you will allow. For example, someone might add a simple l33t in front of their name in imply that they are in fact "Elite". This should be avoided, at all costs. If you are in fact an elite player of the game, your opponents will find this out very soon. Your name need not tell this to them. Conversely you might think that putting noob in your name should be commended. This too should be avoided, for you never want to give people on the internet any advantage to lob insults at you. They will find something regardless and there is no point to give them easy shots. This point was proven when someone named themselves "gay boy" and proceeded to record the litany of insults that the Xbox Live community unleashed upon him. Being truthful is not to be pursued.

So what should you put in your name? I would personally recommend your nickname that friends call you. They typically are in short hand so people can quickly say it if they need you to turn around and kill the spy about backstab you. However you might want to add something that defines who you are.
Myself for example have used RyePunk for over 6 years now.

Rye is shortened Ryan, and Punk is because I am something a fan of Punk ideals. However I like to point out that I am a punk against the punks because they are practically the norm nowadays.

If i was to recreate a new name I would probably use something that reflected my love of history. So maybe something like "PyrrhicRye". Actually that's not half bad. Might use it in a future game.

So there you have it. Well almost. If you are choosing a name for an online RPG then basically you want to choose a name that fits the setting. So for World of Warcraft think Tolkien-esque names. For something set in Star Trek or Star Wars, I'd recommend a combination of name from various characters that you liked. But not Kirk Spock. Or Luke Skyclimber. I usually use Galcyon. Why? Because the random name generator in KotOR tossed it up and I liked how it sounded.

So that is pretty much all I have to say about names at this point in time. just remember a few more bits and bobs. Names that are essentially bragging rights should be avoided at all costs. Randomness gets extra brownie points, having a name that says you are elite, pro, extreme or and such positive reinforcements to your already overinflated ego should be avoided.

Okay? Well do try to apply those. Thanks. And buh bye for now.

SC 4 & BC:RA

2008-08-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

very light reviews today. Sorry for lack of updates. either too tired from work and just want to game, or just dont care enough. My bad. I've got some rough drafts of stuff that I'm slowly working on so stay tuned for those.

Soul Calibur 4,

it's Soul Calibur on the Next Gen systems. If you liked the previous ones you'll like this. Pretty much nothing has changed, barring slight moveset adjustments, and the inclusion of the armor break/soul crush moves. The soul crush moves almost never come into play though so it's kind of a moot point. If you like Soul Calibur you probably already have it.

If you've never played Soul Calibur but would like to try a new fighting game for when friends come over then I would highly recommend this title. Its fighting system is simple enough that new players can pretty much jump in and mash buttons to a degree of success, while veterans can show off their skill utilizing slightly more advanced moves like counters, impacts, and parries.

Oh they also increased the boobs. So i guess that is a plus.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed.

Its the classic old school game brought back. With shiny graphics and mind fuckingly stupid secrets. Honestly I never once played the original so i'm in no place to review this title as someone who played it. What I will say is pretty bashing, but oh well.

No jump. No movement in air. (none, zilch, squat, zippo) Horrible collision detection. And retarded decisions on how the bionic arm shoots out.

If i was simply talking about the single player game's default stuff. Then the game is quite good and most of the above negatives dont really apply, however it is nothing amazing. If however I take the fucked up challenges and the plethora of stupidly secret shit in the game, then I would be forced to knock it for not including such basic features... Like a jump button. I mean for fucks sake. they only use 3 face buttons.

Is it because adding a jump button would make the game too fucking easy?

My biggest reason for this complaint is that I played Ninja Five-O. A game that uses a grappling hook AND has a jump button. There are no stupid puzzles that make no sense because the military forgot to teach it's troops something as basic as JUMPING OFF THE GROUND! I wouldnt think you'd need to be a damn ninja to figure this shit out.

So if the game was a straight remake I wouldnt hold the exclusion of the jump against it. But because they went to elaborate lengths to add numerous extras, and even through in a "new" side swing option, and failed to add something as basic as JUMP, I cannot in good wisdom recommend this title to anyone but those who played the original. It is simply too archaic and stuck up its own ass to see current modern innovations. Like a jump button.

But the game is quite fun. As long as you avoid the challenges. My god avoid the challenges. Avoid them. Avoid them. Avoid them. They will bleed any enjoyment you might get from the game into dust. And then kick you in the nuts.

my idea of a challenge is something that makes me think "what do they want me to do here"
These challenges ask no such question. The path is almost always obvious. The only problem is pixel perfect timing is required when you launch your stupid fucking arm, and slight deviations result in failure. At least the game lets you restart instantly. I have no desire to acquire "eagle" times on the challenges. They sapped any fun I might have procurred from the game. And I very much doubt I shall return to it again.

So yea avoid the challenges, stick the main game. Because the normal levels are awesome fun, and the boss fight are also very fun. Just ignore the extras, or you will loathe the game like I now do. For the record I have currently completed roughly 75% of the challenges. With only the most irritatingly difficult ones left. Most that remain are quite simple in goal, but the actual execution on such a flawed control scheme makes it a trial of your patience more than of actual skill. I do not want to be punished for missing a grapple by .2 seconds. If I grapple the fucking platform that should suffice.

It is simply poor design on the challenge. Now you might say it is suppose to be "CHALLENGING". True but challenging and ass-rape are two very different things. One makes me think about what I am doing wrong and makes me correct it. The other has me doing the correct thing, but still has me failing for missing by mere pixels, and results in me throwing my controller into the wall.

So yea. Fuck you "challenges".

E3 Ala Penny Arcade.

2008-07-16T22:29:00.001-07:00

Kudo's to Gabe and Tycho for simplifying 6 hours of presentations into 3 panels. Bravo.

E3 Blergy Blarg continued

2008-07-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

Sony Press Conference

Having seen Microsoft getting down on their knees for the anticipatory money shot that is the casual market's giant collective wallets. Nintendo and their further groping for yet more Casual hook-ups. What could one expect from Sony. Apparently a history lesson. I myself am a student of History, so seeing the teleological view of Sony's past as recounted by one Mr. Sony Head Dude, left me a slight bit skeptical. However what they did show seemed fine. Some nice looking games, most genres represented, apparently they do still care about the PS2 and PSP, which I suppose is nice. Even if it is just like me saying I'm looking for a lady with a nice personality, when really all I want is someone who's good looking. (Hey I can find personality after I've had a trophy gal for a day or two...)

So overall I'd have to say that the big winner this year of the conferences was (as stupid as such a premise may seem):

Uhhh you actually want an answer. Um, I'm going to say Fallout 3 wins. That game looks awesome. Then I'll say Sony. I guess it is true they have the most exclusives. Although that 360 sure has a lot of RPGs coming up soon. So it can have second place for that. Nintendo doesnt really deserve a mention until they put out a game that uses swords to have a bloody bloodfest of a game that takes advantage of the new peripheral they have made.

Although that Madworld game looks fucking tight. Ramming a sign pole through a guy's face... Yes Please! someone give that dev team a cookie.

So that's the main events of E3. Nothing Earth Shattering this year. But still lots of high quality games to look forward to. I look forward to not being able to afford them while I attend school. Awesome.

Ciao.

E3 This and That. Egads.

2008-07-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

First some ground rules, before I talk about conferences. Any talk of sales figures or more or less partisan-esque fanboyish bragging rights is not going to impress me, especially if you appear to be twisting the figures. Also multi-platform games. Dont act like them coming out means anything.

Microsoft Conference Thingy

Or I suppose I should say the Xbox 360 Conference. Games For What-dows? As a PC Gamer this is insulting. But I move on and live, I dont rely on Microsoft for my PC Gaming, they honestly continue to half ass it and as such I dont look to them for PC Gaming, I look to Valve and Blizzard. But enough of that.

Getting Final Fantasy Games is nice. But I have all the systems, and the PS3 version will rape the 360 version simply because of Japanese release, but Multiplatform releases are not the end of anything. Multi-platform releases should be encouraged.

All the games shown all look very nice is press trailers, but then thats what a trailer does so I wont say much about the games. Well I will say that Co-Op in Resident Evil 5 is gonna fucking awesome.

Apparently the 360 will be getting Wii'd. Avatars, and a stupid number of attempts to grab that precious casual market. Thing is, the casual market already has their Wii's. They arent going to run out and get a 360 for these features because they like their Wii's enough already. Even if the new stuff does appear very compelling. My only question with all of those new and very compelling features (like the party system, and game shows thingies) is how much is all this shit gonna cost? I dont exactly want to drop more money on all these things even if they are just 6 bucks each. All I'm going to say, is: Damn they really want to get blown by the casual market.

The one answer I didnt get that I really wanted was Castle Crashers release date. The game is gold, it's just waiting to come out. Oh well.

Overall though, good job Microsoft, things look nice for the 360's future. If you only you gave a shit about the PC.

Nintendo Conference

This one's really easy for me. Lots of bragging, and boasting. Lots of "I told you so!" The message to "hardcore gamers" was pretty short though.

The mario and zelda in house dev teams are working on the next versions of those games and we'll have more on them at an undisclosed later date. So yea.

New Wii Sports, A snowboarding game, Animal Crossing, Wii Music. And Activision milking Guitar Hero even more. It's a good expansion of Nintendo's current strategy, but leaves most old school nintendo fans out in the cold for now.

Although GTA on DS might be really cool. We'll see I suppose.

The new 1:1 Wiimote attachment could be very cool. But Only if someone makes a good game for it. The Wii Sports Resort is interesting but unless it's $30, i cant see myself getting it.

Gonna watch the Sony Conference and then I'll post on it.

The Problem With The Halo 3 Experience

2008-07-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

For the most part Halo 3 is a very, very good game. Although my recent experiences have brought forward some revealing truths behind it. Most of my complaints do not deal with the gameplay itself, but rather the matchmaking system. So I'll hit the gameplay problems first.

- Headshots happen, but only if you use certain guns. What the shit is that? If I shoot a guy in the face with a battlerifle or sniper rifle, then it deals more damage than normal . But using the assault rifle or anyother close range gun apparently has lost the ability to do critical damage by aiming for the noggin. This is most likely for balance because otherwise assault rifles would drop fools so fast at close range that melee would be pretty much pointless.

-Next up we have a problem with lore conflicting with gameplay. The fact that your shield apparently is weaker around the face. Why? Who the fuck knows? It makes no sense that an energy shield would be weakest around the most vital section of the body, but apparently it is. Basically the shield system should utterly negate the ability to make headshots until the shield drops, but given that you are effectively at no life once the shield fails it would make headshots stupid. However removing headshots would eliminate the need for precision when utilizing sniper rifles, you simply would need to hit the target twice.

-Matchmaking is fucking broken is the next problem. This only really impacts the casual Halo 3 players. Simply put the system relies entirely on TruSkill for ranked matches. This seems nice except each "playlist" maintains it's own unique TruSkill that is independent of the others. Basically you can rank up Truskill of 20+ (over 20 seeming to be very high to me) in one mode, then jump to a different playlist and start at the bottom again. The game sees you in the new playlist as a noob for all intents and purposes despite the fact that you may have played hundreds of games in another ranked playlist. This pretty much results in teams being stacked when one player ends up gutting the entire enemy team. The game should compare experience and Truskill together when matchmaking. True this would be longer but, if I have to fight anymore people who have 1000+ matches under their belt I'm gonna fucking puke, I play it casually for a little fun, but being owned into oblivion is fun for no one but idiots who run around screaming "I PWN NUBS!!!"... More on those idiots in a later post.

Basically that's my problems with Halo 3. When the game actually does get you matched up with opponents of similiar skill the game is a blast and easily one of the best shooters available for consoles. (Although to compare it to PC shooters then it is mediocre at best).

Also I guess my time buying video games is at a close for the summer. I have some credit at EBGames, enough for one new game, so i'll wait for reviews of some good games before I decide what to get. Now I begin the saving up for school. Whoop-dee freak'n doo.

Ciao.

Oh And Go Play More DotA

RyEpUnK on the USWest server if you wanna play with me.

Lots To Say

2008-06-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

But I want to be brief. So I will try.

MGS4. Great game. 10 worthy. Meh, maybe if you classify as a half game half movie. But the gameplay and the cinematics while both being excellent, do not especially compliment each other as well as one would hope for. It does have some good plot resolution. Assuming you have an ability to follow the MGS plot in the first place. Here is a hint for following, ignore an existential questions as mere ramblings of a dellusional mind and try to to think too much about everything that occurs. The less you dwell on it the more sense it will make.

Operation Darkness. Turn-Based Strategy RPG, set in alternate universe WWII with vampires and other things mythological in nature. I enjoy it in the same way I enjoy the Dynasty Warriors series. As a game that is fun when you simply stop trying to play the best games ever, when you are sick of games that try to constantly innovate simply for innovation's sake.
Apparently is a horrible horrible game. It certainly is nothing amazing. But I for do not feel that it is deserving a score below the 50% mark. Certainly hovering at 50% is legitimate. But I feel anything in 20% range means the game fails to function at all, or kills off a member of your family while you try to play it.
The game has bad graphics. Yes, it does. But they arent trying to be great.
The camera is horrid. Yes it is. But how many games have a camera that isnt broken? Granted it is very hard to effectively use, but then again you arent exactly being pressured into making high stakes rapid decisions. It is a turn based strategy game, you are allowed to carefully look around see where everything is consider your options.
Honestly the game plays like Fire Emblem with guns. And with a stupid camera that actively is out to prevent you seeing your opponents. But stupid camera's are something that goes with playing 3D games.
The story is out there, but then again games dont really have good stories ever. The VO is mediocre at best, but most times I've found it to be tolerable enough.
Perhaps I'm making too many excuses for a game simply because I paid money for it. Perhaps.
I'd hope not though. I am enjoying in small portions. Which is how I play all of my strategy rpg games. I never burn through them. They tire me out playing them like that. I can only handle taking several hours each mission before I need a 2 week break from the entire genre. I remember when the GCN Fire Emblem came out I played it for 2 weeks, then put it away for literally 6 months, picked it up again at the end of an August and finished it. Had a great time.

Oh well. If you dont like Operation Darkness that's fine. I do. Even with all it's flaws.

Oh and one more slight bit of news.

DIABLO 3 :)
Ahem. yea small game. Giant fan of the hack'n slash genre so this is my new most anticipated game. Man I really hope they put a beta out next year. With a release in 2010. Somehow though I just know I'm going to end up waiting until 2011. Which will suck. Blizzard and Valve own my life. All other devs could vanish in a puff of smoke and I wouldnt care. They make good enough games that I could play Valve's shooters, and Blizzard's RPGs and Strategy games forever, and be perfectly happy.

So that's really all I wanted to talk about. If you'll excuse me I have a Diablo 2 copy to install.

This, That and Gears of Metal

2008-06-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

So, several things have occurred in gaming world during my Blog's absence. Most notably (to me at any rate) was the launch of Ninja Gaiden II, and of Metal Gear Solid 4.
I'll start with MGS4 because I havent played much yet, so very brief impressions.
I should open with the statement that MGS4 did provoke me to purchase a PS3, and that is exactly what I did. So far I have not been disappointed. The limited time with MGS4 has been positive overall, and the purchase of Singstar (more on that near the end) cements the confidence I maintain in my purchasing decision.

So MGS4, well it is impressive looking if nothing else. The entire interface is mind blowing, crystal clear, beautiful and utterly awe inspiring. This is a game that has production values through the roof and it's smacking you about the face with them. The game is quite simply the greatest looking game I have ever seen. Crysis may 'technically' be better looking, but the character model of Otacon continues to make me gasp, everytime he shows up on the "ear-chat" info chat-fests, the amount of detail put in his appearence blows me away.
But graphics arent everything, although for the record, MGS4's graphics are perfect to me, they in no way limit the experience and only enhance it. I am not normally a person who cares for graphics but these are quite drool inducing.
So Gameplay. You've played a previous MGS? Pretty much the same, solid sneaking mechanics, with the raw combat engine being somewhat passable this time around.
The best moment I've seen so far was when I got spotted and a troop escaped to report in and request backup. The command replied by stating "No backup currently available, make due with what you have." That blew my mind, for once no unlimited spawning enemies? In MGS? What? Of course I then minutes later found a respawning area of enemies and that illusion was crushed. But then I quite frankly dont give a shit about MGS's gameplay anyways. It's all about Snake baby, and I hear good things about this story. So I'll stick around.

Ninja Gaiden II
You kill shit, shit bleeds, alot. You will become frustrated and want to smash something (you may smash something repeatedly as I did) and you will hate this game. But ultimately the game simply needs you to push your abilities to understand how the AI fights; that is to say if you block too long you get brutally grabbed, if you dont attack you will be attacked, and if you stop moving you will die. Oh and learn to pull off Ultimate Techniques, otherwise the game will bitchslap around certain parts.
The weapons are awesome, the combat is invigorating and demanding.
Tragically I havent actually really said ANYTHING about the game however. At least not anything important. The game is fun, and hard, maybe it's harder than the First, but probably not. The bossfights certainly are easier. Simply dont use cheap moves and keep your feet on the ground and bossfights are viable. Just need to die a few times to learn what moves you must avoid at all costs.
Overall I really like the game, The enemies are for the most part interesting and it is quite enjoyable to slaughter them. Although the rocket troops are kind of a cop-out to the actual difficulty. Anytime they are around it basically prevents you from even being able to block, but technically they dont show up alot until you play the game on 'Hard' mode.
I wouldnt recommend the game to most of my friends, but they arent exactly hardcore gamers. It certainly is not casual game, at least not Normal mode. Easy mode very well could be quite generous to newcomers, I wouldnt know.
But I like it and if you like action games that only got the action right, then Ninja Gaiden is about as purist as you can get nowadays. Just dont expect a good story. There is evil shit and it needs to bleed, and you have many sharp weapons to make them bleed with.

Singstar
Awesome party game. All I need now are people to come over and play with. The fact that it can use webcam to record the singing only contributes to even greater showboating.
So, like, if anyone wants to come and have a grand 'ole time singing songs for laughs feel free to tell me.

Until I remember to post again. Ciao!

Let's Talk About Achievements

2008-06-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

On the Xbox 360, obviously. Achievements have since their arrival been heralded as the greatest thing to hit console gaming since the notion of saving your game between levels appeared. (Believe me that took a very long time to arrive.) The concept is behind them is utterly simple, yet the implementation was pulled off very effectively, surprisingly so. It is as follows, designers are told that their game must have achievements in it. They must add up to 1,000 points, and the designers are pretty well free to make them whatever they want. When designers make achievements something notable it can really add to your bragging rights and also serves as a visible testament that you actually accomplished the "achievement". At long last gamers can no longer proclaim their greatness without any viable way to test it. You can simply look up that person's gamertag and voila! You can find out right there if they are as good as the boast. Further boosting the lure of the achievement is the fact that an overall gamerscore is generated adding all of your achievements into a single score. Making for an overall bragging rights, although given there are no actual quality control for achievements bragging about overall score is quite pointless given that if you are willing to rent every game you'll probably outpace someone who simply plays a few select games and masters them getting all 1000/1000. Thereby negating the entire allure of having achieved something.

So overall achievements are probably a good thing for the evolution of gaming right? Well overall yes. Although recently several sights I've seen around the 'webs' seem to have me concerned with the future of achievements and games.
It centers around the notion of bragging about overall "gamerscore" which, as stated above, is pointless. The system is not controlled enough to validate bragging about having the most point when you can play only 'kiddy' games and make thousands of points in a few weeks, versus someone who goes for 1000/1000 in Mass Effect. (Something that would take roughly 150 hours of gameplay, perhaps even more.)
What really has me concerned is the consumption of games solely for the acquisition of more achievement points. In this situation we have people getting games solely for their point value and nothing else. The concern with this is that game quality becomes utterly irrelevent to those 'gamerscore whores', the mere fact that it has 1000 precious points to be juiced out is reason enough to purchase the game. Hell, I'm amazed someone hasnt approached Microsoft with plans to sell achievement points outright (I could toss a joke about Avatar, but that's been beaten to death.)

The problem that I have with this situation is that it utterly destroys the merits gaming. No longer is there any reason to play a game. You purely power through it to get achievement points and then move on. One particular occurance of this was surrounding the launch of Penny Arcade's new game. (Great game by the way, very good if you're a fan of the site) A site i frequent decided that it would have an achievement contest, whereby the first to get all achievements would get to brag about having done that. No longer is merely getting the achievements, enough of an achievement for these people, they must now create further achievements out of achievements. With that game especially, I felt that rushing through the game was a disservice to the title. There are lots of little touches in the game that if you ployed through solely to get the achievements you could very well overlook them.
Further worsening this is the fact that if consumer's dont care about the content of their games, then developers will gradually get lazier and lazier, knowing that so long as they provide the achievements, the games will practically sell themselves.

Basically achievements work when you are bragging about having achieved a specific achievement over your buddies. But the overall gamerscore needs to be shot in the back and left for the dead until it gets a revamp or a reclassification of achievement points (maybe achievements earned in any game specifically aimed at 4 to 12 year olds should have their points classified under a seperate gamerscore. While hardcore games get their own as well.
Because honestly does anyone really care that you have 50,000 achievement points. I mean bravo you have played through over 50 games of which at least 35 had to shitty games that werent even worth playing except for your little achievements.
Hopefully a revamp of achievements does occur with the next iteration of the Microsoft console, but for now the system works pretty well and is indeed fun. Unless you're achievement whore in which case i reserve a special level of hatred just for you.

But that's all i got for now.
So Ciao.

Boldly We March Into Fitness

2008-05-28T23:52:00.001-07:00

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.

Wii would like...

2008-05-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

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.

Its Approach Looms Like A Rabid Ferret

2008-05-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

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!).

GTA IV Impressions

2008-05-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

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!

Oh Noes Its The End of Everything.

2008-04-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Chumps. Idiots. Morons.
People who go to such elaborate lengths to critique things that are utterly melted if you do any research into the topic drive me insane.
My favorite example of sport's commentators who never fucking understand the concept of hindsight. They bemoan players for making the wrong choice and then draw over the play what that player SHOULD have done given how everything happened. Too fucking bad if that player had made a different move, EVERYONE ELSE WOULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENT FUCKING MOVE! Sure some might still do the same, but nothing occurs in a damn void, and assuming that things do only imply you cannot comprehend the interconnectedness of decisions. Chaos Theory might be taking it too far but if you pass instead of shoot, I'm sure you had a decent reason for it. Maybe you could have scored. Maybe the goalie was already protecting the area you were planning on aiming for and werent in a position to shoot somewhere else (this is hockey talk).

Where this meshes into gaming, is the idiocy of some blogs crying foul because the big guns (IGN, Gamespot, 1Up and all those magazines) get little things called Exclusive Reviews. Like a fucking Exclusive instantly means your blowing the developers and all their publishing buddies, and therefore your credility (they actually say the ethics of the entire business are at risk, but that is such complete and utter garbage. Ethics? Please) is instantly shot for said review. IGN gave GTA IV a 10.0 and hence they therefore must be on the take, or have compromised their integrity as a "distinguished" fucking press outlet.
Tragic thing is that if you read into the words of said review, they talk about the game, they say (paraphrased obviously) "yes, it is getting a 10, but thats not because its perfect, but because this is the example that every game should strive for, a game that pushes boundaries and shows others where they will going."
The thing is all anyone is looking at is the review's score. 10/10. Whoop dee fucking doo. Like that means shit.
Secondly, A REVIEW IS FUCKING SUBJECTIVE! Who gives a shit what someone else said? A music reviewer could call the latest Jay-Zee album god's gift to music, and I would still ignore it and call it crap. Not because it's bad music. Its not my kind of taste in music. GTA IV is probably a very good game. I'll pick it up today/tommorrow or something. But I have no illusions that opinions are more than that.
Although traditionally gaming reviews are quite objective in nature as well. If the game simply doesnt fucking work, it flat out is a bad game. This is why movie reviews work so well. Very rarely does a special effect shot in a movie not appear. The movie will play in your VCR if you put it in it. But often times the mechanics of a game will simply fail.
Luckily the good, big budget games are pushing to the point where games, more and more of them, can be reviewed far more subjetively than in the past.

In terms of full disclosure I would like to add that I am a regular at IGN, i rarely comment on the site itself, and have only submitted to their mailbag feature once. Overall however i trust IGN for my gaming news, previews, and reviews. Why? Because I understand the reviewers there, I know of their personalities and the games they like, so I understand where they are coming from. I myself have no ties with anyone in the gaming world, nor am I connected in anyway shape or form to the industry. I am simply a fan of gaming, commenting on shit as I see it. I have no desire to get an exclusives myself, nor do I have any desire to get first hand comments from developers or publishers on specific topics. I'll call things as I see them, and nothing more.

I'm tired now. So this will wrap it up.
Everyone calm down. Whether or not reviews are corrupt means jackshit in the grand scheme of gaming. If one place becomes corrupt, another entity will simply take its place. People for the most part do not rely on reviews for purchasing a game. Otherwise there is no fucking way Wiiplay would be the bestseller that it is. Just chill. And find a place that you can relate to for reliable information.

They Be Crazy For The Plumber.

2008-04-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

Mario Kart Wii... Its seems fun, i wouldnt know, but it appears to be selling quite well.
That was the indication I got at my work anyways.

GTA 4, is closer now. Mawahahaha.

They Just Dont Get It

2008-04-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Most people can skip this if they dont want a rant about gaming and society.
People.
Tragically they just dont get it. Sometimes its understandable. Mostly its ignorance. Largely I try to pay it no attention. But that kind of shit builds up in you. And every so often you tend to lash out.
I thought I had moved beyond this. I supposed it was because I had assumed I simply grown up. And largely I have. Sorta. But ignorance persists, even greater, and now it acts like a cancer. Eating at me from the last spot I had ever wanted it to. Although I suppose in hind sight it isnt much of a shock.
I am of course speaking about negative associations that go along with gaming. It is something that I have struggled with for most of my intelligent life. I enjoy gaming, and for the most part, all I enjoy is gaming. Oh I dabble in the numerous other facets of "life" I know about most of history, understand a considerable chunk of the knowledge that exists on the scientific, I read and watch all things that geek culture relates to, but gaming is what I devote my time to. And I am proud to be a gaming geek.
If only others around me understood. But they dont. They expect me to move past it, to simply fall in line with the others in society. That I should expect what other people expect. Oh sure they dont mind that I game, but since I'm not out talking to "real" people, I must be devoid of some miraculous substance that only occurs in person to person communication.
I'm not sure what to say to those who think I'm on a socially doomed path. I probably am. With THEIR society. However I have no concern for that, we all see society before our eyes daily, it functions more or less "efficiently" but I see no need to participate in it.
I like gaming. Alot. And I'm sick of being looked down on for it, I dislike being seen as a degenerate. I dont want much, just respect, and the courtesy to be left alone if they dont agree with my opinions.

Onto a brighter topic (sorta, anyways) GTA 4 is out very soon. It's getting rather crazy reviews *cough* 10/10s *cough*... so i suppose I'll check it out and put some impressions and such after I've tried it out.

I've been playing more of R6 Vegas 2, and while it has gotten better than my initial impressions, I think I've just about had enough.
The guns arent quite balanced, but when you get into a good evenly skilled match its usually quite fun.

Also I wanted to talk about Operation Darkness.
It's a title by Atlus, who always makes the same sort of unique games that never get alot of buzz but are quite often very good.
The game is a tactical strategy game with RPG elements. So its like Fire-Emblem, if that means anything to you. Except the game is set in WWII, and your squad is tasked with the assassination of one Adolf Hitler. No small task in itself. Especially once you realize the game is set in an alternate timeline where the Nazis are secretly Vampires and the Americans have Werewolves. More or less the game plays out like a crazy strategy game that happens to be set in a weird setting.
I enjoyed what i played of the demo and hope to try it some more. The interface could use some work (very hard to control camera, and picking out enemy soldiers from scenery can be tough) but it is passable.
It comes out in June, so I'm hoping it will be my indie game of the summer.
That'll do for now. Ciao.

What A Nice Birthday Gift

2008-04-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

Soul Calibur 4 for my birthday. Awesomeness. My favorite fighter returns, with Star Wars characters too.

In other news I'm still trying to get into Vegas 2, but the multiplayer still doesnt feel right. Especially any of the objective games. Deathmatch however flows just fine, and its clear thats what the maps were meant to be played with. I just cant shake the feeling however that the game would be much better with a mouse and keyboard.
This was proven correct when i got Vegas 1, for my PC and can quite easily dominate it. Keyboard + Mouse = my friends. Gamepad = evil little toy for little boys.
Nah thats too harsh. Gamepads are awesome for action games, they just really suck for RTS and FPS games. Therefore leave them on PC. Tragically ever since Halo proved you could have 'fun' in a console shooter it seems the new home of FPS is the console, even with the tragically gimped control scheme.
Oh well.
I'll play through Vegas a bit more, mostly just want to rank up... anything else is sorta beside the point.
GTA 4 comes out soon though, so Vegas has until then.
Also, Wii Fit in May, which I am actually super excited for, just because I'm a whore for charts and graphs of progress over time. That shit turns me on. Seriously, it does, which concerns me greatly. But more important than my lack of proper turn-ons, is that Wii Fit can probably mesh into my gaming life quite easily. A half-hour or so a day is all you really need I've heard. And it seems 'fun', whereby I mean that the game is more fun than going to a gym and having some muscle bound heartthrob yell at you till you do the damn reps. (alternatively it's a smoking hot woman whom thoroughly trounces any manliness that remains.) Suffice it to say, I'll take a Wii Fit right away. Granted There is borderline no way in hell that Wii Fit will drastically alter my BMI (body mass index, you imbeciles) but there is more to it than that. Like balance. Which I've always thought was
awesome, but of late I've come to realize that while my balance may be awesome, it also
seems to be some mutant creature thing that defies all logic.
Well thats all for now.
Classes are pretty much done, Finals next week, then my Spring Class a week after that. It goes until June, then 2 months of work, and I'm on to my final year. Graduate and then...
Well, I'll cross that bridge this time next year.
Ciao.

Formalities be Damned!

2008-04-12T23:02:00.001-07:00

I cant be bothered to write formal reviews, I'll write about games and talk about them, you'll get my impressions and that'll have to do. Because the formality of a game review for a blog I'm writing seems questionable at best. Well to me anyways.
So Devil May Cry 4, no review coming. EVER!!! The last post covered it quite well and I believe that will do. If you enjoy stylized frenetic difficulty based games, then you should definately give it a spin.
N+: Quirky adorable platform puzzler-ish that is so fucking hard you will need to buy new controllers. Awesome sound effects too. Visuals are bare but surprisingly
effective.
Awesome physics are what make the game. So yep. Its like $10, and it's easy
to play a few
levels at a time. Your call. Quite hard to beat the later stuff however. Multi-player is hilarious though.
Las Vegas 2: Its a fairly competent "tactical" shooter. Its not really tactical and the PVP, multiplayer is mediocre at best, but I want to talk about that more in depth in a moment.
I had not played the first and hadnt played a Rainbow Six game since the first came out 10 years ago or something, so the story made no sense whatsoever. Overall though the Singleplayer was enjoyable, fun sequences, good challenge, could have used a coupla better placements of checkpoints. And making you rely on teammates is good, but then suddenly pulling them out and dropping you in a place where simply seeing your opponents is a challenge, and expecting survival is a joke at best. Luckily Co-Op play countered that quite well. But still, it shouldnt be forced to simply beat a level. However the rest of game was good enough that it is still a very good game.
Overall if you have a buddy to play with, definately get it. If not... well you might just wanna rent it.

Okay but playing multiplayer for Vegas was brutal. Simply because the maps are complete and utter crap. CoD4 suffered for the exact same thing. Halo 2 & 3 as well.
I should clarify that however. All of the game mentioned have awesome deathmatch/team deathmatch levels. But These games also have many different modes of play that are much "better" (imo) than decade old deathmatches. Tragically the maps are never made with this in mind, (sometimes downloadable content is made with alternate modes in mind but they are sold seperately and thus dont count in an original purchase decision) so you get deathmatch levels that are being forced to run objective based play. Which you should never do. Objective based play needs objective based map design. This is considerably harder, Team Fortress shipped with 6 maps. But they are infinately superior maps specifically because they were created for one purpose (you might counter that cp_well can be played as ctf_well, but ctf_well doesnt work as good as the capture point it was originally built for, and i think simply furthers my argument that levels should not be jack-of-all-trades).
Basically to summarize the point I want deathmatch levels for playing deathmatches, and objective based levels for playing objective based modes. None of this lazy level designing that says make 8-14 maps that can play every game type and call it a night.
Now i understand that maps take lots of time to make, believe I tried my hands at such things back in my Counter-Strike days. But having a single map that exists solely for one gameplay type is an infinately more enjoyable level than one level that can play every gameplay type ever conceived.
My other gripe is the recycling of singleplayer levels for multiplayer matches. Thats really just topnotch slack on the multi-player level design team. Sure its technically efficient use of a limited number of resources, but usually those levels are no right being there.
The ideal i have in my mind is of course based on the original multi-player king.
Unreal Tournament. That game comes withn over 40 maps, mostly deathmatch, but many also specifically objective based, many solely capture the flag, many solely domination, many solely assault (when we had it). Although Unreal tournament was a game built to be multiplayer, largely eschewing its
singleplayer completely.
So guess I'm saying that I like my multi-player games to be built around multiplayer. None of this add it on later.

Also work sucks. Especially managers. Burn in Hell you shitty shitty horrible person.

Long Time No See Huh?

2008-03-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

Busy Busy. Well I'll try to say something about something now. Since i feel all guilty about neglecting this tiny portion of my life. Seems with my limited time I'd rather just play games than write about them, but here goes anyhoo.
N+ is fun. very very fun little challenging Ninja gold gathering platforming game. Lots of skill involved but very rewarding once you get it down. Overall I'd recommend most people get the demo and if they like it then buy it. Its $10. and there is a lot of value in this with something like a couple hundred levels.
Playing through Mass Effect again. This time as a jack ass character, quite fun, although being this much of a douche bag doesnt feel right. I'm a mild jackass in real life, but Bioware always gets the writing perfect so when you're a douche scumbag that is really how it comes off. Although its nowhere near as bad as i felt playing darkside in KotOR... some parts where you basically destroy innocent lives is absolutely stomach wretching stuff.
And I think I'll get Rainbow Six: Vegas: 2, because i dont have the first and the whole leveling up in a FPS is mindlessly addicting to me.
The Club refuses to work on my PC, so i went through the whole customer service jive and all they came up with was a resounding.
"Are you sure you purchased your copy from a reputable store?"
Which is really just the polite way of telling me that they feel I have a pirated copy of the game. Pricks. If you're gonna accuse me of something then fucking have the balls to come out and say it. Dont dance around the damn issue. Fact is I bought the game through Steam. And I've gotten maybe 2 hours of play in roughly 5 minute intervals at best because it randomly kicks me back to desktop... I could live with that... if logging into Games for Windows Live (henceforth to be called GFWL) didnt take 5 minutes by itself.
They say a patch is in the works. And I'm a nice guy so if it ends up making the game work, then all will be forgiven. If not, well sorry Bizarre Creations, you'll never get a cent from me again.
Too bad too, the game itself is pretty fun. From what I've played anyways. Nothing exceptional, just above average shooting thats really really fun.

Devil May Cry 4 Review:
Full review soon. As in after my term paper is done in my Seminar Course. Sorry but I've got the Battle of Kursk on the brain.
Heres a snippet of Devil May Cry 4 though.
If you enjoy crazy action, nonsense stories that make no sense unless you abandon rational thought, and scantily clad gals every now and then. Well you may just like the game. Luckily difficulty is not an issue. The easy difficulty makes the game very, very, very easy. But everything above it should give a fairly decent challenge. You'll have to grind up your skills a bit if you start on the Demon Hunter difficulty, but overall its not too difficult. Just dont expect to beat every boss on the first fight, you will need to learn attack patterns and such. Playing on the higher difficulty levels however really boosts the game's challenge, especially since it throws new combinations of enemies for you to fight that you otherwise wouldnt see at all (I'm looking at you Mr. Lightning guy who annoys the crap outta me!)

Well that'll do.
Oh and Smash Bros. Brawl. Get it now if you have friends to play with. Not a better fighting game out until Soul Calibur 4. And this one gets bonuses for hilarious fights that you will enjoy even when you lose. Thats a good game. You lose and still enjoy it.

Busy Busy Of Late

2008-03-10T08:21:00.001-07:00

Hence the lateness with the posting.
School had me reading alot so not much time to write up reviews right now.
Devil May Cry 4 is in the pipe, hopefully I'll get time for it late.
SSBB Came out yesterday and it's awesome if you loved the previous ones. If you didnt like it in the past its not going to change your mind though. Hopefully get a review up after I've played much much longer. Only have about 7-8 hours so far. Mostly in subspace mode.
I had a lil post about GDC stuff that interested me, but the internet died and it was lost in a series of tubes, which sucks.
Lots of interesting development talk went down though.
Well I've gotta get to classes.
Adieu.

Witcher Review... WHEN?

2008-02-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

Apparently a new version is due out sometime around summer, so i'm going to set the game aside until then... Should buy me some precious hard drive space. Normally I'm pretty big on reviewers reviewing the game that ships, but I am not currently (nor have I ever been, although i may aspire to some form of game "journalism", if you will) a professional reviewer. As such I am free to review the game whenever i feel like it.
So the new version will add a shit load new animations when conversing; as well as add lots more NPC models so the towns actually have more than 4 people walking around.
Also shorter load times and better UI, but really Ialready really enjoy the game so its just like putting gravy on ice cream (inside joke). And cannot wait for this "patch" to bestow the true Witcher game on me.
Its still prolly on gonna let women be whores... but who are we to decide if that universe is sexist and our own is not? Oh-kay i just like Sexing it up in-game... You caught me... Moving on, no Witcher review anytime soon. Bummers.

I will however get a Devil May Cry 4 review up sometime soon. Reading week is helping me quite a bit with the gaming stuff... not so much with the reviewing of a historical periodical by some Stolfi chap... oh well. I'm pretty sure the Soviets win.

Also Ninja Gaiden Black on Xbox Originals coaxed me into buying it. And damn, the game still looks pretty good. Plays even better, and is serving as a nice warm up for getting ready for the bitch slapping that Ninja Gaiden 2 will serve me when it comes out later this year.

Apparently GDC is going on this week (right now in fact), so maybe I'll say something eloquent and intelligent about the state of gaming after having been enlightened by the God's of Gaming. For now I just wish i could remember how i managed to beat Ninja Gaiden the first time around...
Oh Well... Nighty Nighty Folks.

Here We Go Again

2008-02-11T19:34:00.000-08:00

Burnout Paradise Review:

Zoom Zoom. Although zoom doesnt exactly encapsulate the speed
of this game. Its rare that a game actually requires an HDTV to fully
play the game, but the speed you end up moving at in Paradise has such
a degree of blur and speed that to fully "see" all the surroundings
accurately (and hence avoid crashing into the many things you
'zoom' by with much gusto).

The question though is does this sense of speed make the game fun?
I mean sure its great that the game looks amazing but how does the
game play. So the basic premise of the game is that you are dropped
into Paradise City and allowed to driveall over the city spinning your
wheel at light intersections to initiate the various challenges, like
Race, Road Rage, Marked Man, Stunt, and Burning Lap. All of these
are quite fun. But simply tooling around Paradise city can be an
unbridled joy, as you look for the special Jumps, Billboards
and secret paths that are littered all over the game.
If you've ever played a Burnout game before you know its about
driving fast, really really fast,
and seeing amazing crashes. And the crashes in this game are nothing
short of brilliant, the game slows down switches angles to show the
heap of metal spiralling through the air and into well pretty much
anything, cars, buildings, signs, buses. The crashes are also pleasant
even when its costing you that Burning Lap event.

The real question with this game is how exactly will you find your
enjoyment with it? Because the game really doesnt tell you what to
do and what order to do it in. It simply informs you of the possibilities
and then lets you go.

Annoyances however are things like the bloody EA DJ Atomica,
whom it seems is going to be gracing more and more EA titles much to
my chagrin. Also there is no way to quickly jump to the events, you have
to drive across the whole city. Which can sometimes be annoying, but
honestly i really enjoy driving across town to get to the various events,
finding the various secrets along the way.

Would I recommend this game to others? Oh yes.
buy it if you're a fan of the Burnout series especially. Or if you liked
the old San Francisco Rush series, then this brings back the crazy
secret routes of that game. The game itself doesnt really lend itself
to rentals given that it simply is the kind of game that you will want
to own forever and keep at it. I suppose you could plough through
the game in a weekend if you are so inclined but in my own opinion
I feel like this is a game you will want take your time and enjoy every part.

Review Time (At Last)

2008-02-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

Super Mario Galaxy Review:

Its the game that Sunshine should have been. At least thats what I've heard several times in the past. But personally I really enjoyed Sunshine and did not see what people's problem was. But this is about Galaxy. And rest assured whether Sunshine burned you or not (no pun intended) Galaxy is a real treat, although i think it has been over reviewed thus far by most.

You've played Mario 64 Ihope? If so you understand the premise, Mario goes for walk, Bowser shows up steals Princess,
Mario runs around and collects stuff (new collectible is shiny star bits, although they might as well be coins).
Then you fight bowser several times and get the classic "your princess is in another castle.

The deal is this all happens in space. Its quite well done in fact. There are these Galaxies (Apparently Nintendo doesnt get the difference between a solar system and a Galaxy, but whatever)
Also apparently Mario isnt allowed to punch in any game that is not Smash Bros. Because they removed that. Mario can jump or spin now. Well he can jump then spin, but no more punching or diving (i adored his dive move).
The camera is annoying. Mainly because when you're upside-down you are upside down, and i want the camera to follow me a flip upside-down so that i can actually see where i am. It is very difficult to accurately land on something when your view is distorted beyond comprehension.
Now this gripe isnt really much of an issue in this game because the game itself is so easy a mildly retarded child with down's could figure out how to beat it. The game is very, very forgiving, and this is in essence my whole problem with the game.
By the time you start actually enjoying the game the level design is challenging you and working with the controls (not telling you run upside down and jump on a fucking thousand goombas).
There is no challenge to the game. And to me it feels like this was done to compensate for only partially making the controls feel effective at controlling Mr. Stache.
You can still enjoy the game, but its for a different reason than I want in game. I cant even describe why I like the game. Its doesnt test my ability to beat it. Sure there are the "challenge bits where you have a time limit, or you only get one health, but they literally make up an optional 1/5 of the game.
My final problem is the length of the game. It is far too short. You might argue that getting 100% will take a substantial investment. But honestly I dont think it would. Maybe 30-40 hours to 100% the game. But only maybe 10 hours max to beat the game. Certainly it might be enough, many games are less and still excellent games. But the strength of those games is that the gameplay itself is so finely compact and refined that you feel like its was amazing.
I guess my point is that Mario Galaxy is merely a fun game. You will enjoy it, but it doesnt do anything unique.
The character of Mario is can be so much. In Smash Bros. He is a bad ass fighter, in the RPGs he is an utterly aloof idiot. But in Galaxy we see Mario as nothing. He's some guy who doesnt speak, who saves the princess and has absolutely no reactions beyond the most basic emotions that you would expect given his situations.
So Who should Buy Super Mario Galaxy And who should simply rent it.
Any self respecting gamer should at the very least rent it. Those with families would do well to buy it. The children will enjoy it for quite some time, and the content is as wholesome as you can find in video games that are actually good.
The Halo fanboys would be advised to stay away, although they too would enjoy the game.
The People who should utterly avoid the game are those who adore Ninja Gaiden and its ilk of trama inducing difficulty challenge based games.

So go rent it. Sure it sounds like I didnt much enjoy the game. But really its a treat, my tastes have simply moved beyond it. Most will delight in it.

One More Quick Overview

2008-01-31T00:21:00.000-08:00

So Smash is out in Japan now... well sorta. Lots of shortages and so on...
but damn it is one full game. I mean if you only get one game on a system it should be a game as full of goodies as Smash. The replay value of that game looks to be at least 3 years.
Devil May Cry 4 is out next week and I am hotly anticipating it. the demo got me started. But now i need the full thing.
The Club has me intrigued, but i'll wait for reactions before i personally jump on board.
Mario Galaxy is down the pipe now (if you will allow that), so the review will be up as soon as I finish my Patriotic War Term Paper Outline (thats all you'll hear of it, i dont want to make this a blog about my personal life, but its about Kursk if anyone cares).

Put some more hours into the Witcher, its still a long ass game, so I'm guessing the review will be done in about 3 months or so. Probably after finals sometime, given the current pace.

Also Burnout: Paradise. Hot damn thats a good racing game if you like Arcade racing games. I'll get a review of that up soon as possible also. lots of interesting things, and many new features that i hope other games implement in the future (albeit with some changes).

GTA4 is dated for an April release. To which i say whoop-dee-frack'n-dah. I thought the first 2 were unique odd games, but the others all just suffered from horrid controls and poor implementation. Granted I've heard GTA4 is suppose to address those concerns. I just find it hard to care about sandbox games... I dont have the time to dump into those kinds of games. The only sandbox games that interest me are the utter brilliance of a Will Wright game... Spore... mmmmm i shall create life in its most horrific form ever... oh yes. I shall. I shall them "Shazoomzles"...

thats enough.

Still Alive

2008-01-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

Simply lacking focus at the moment. I'll post a new review of a game as soon as finish The Witcher or Galaxy. (Galaxy is likely to be first, since i'm pretty much done it, just want to play all the levels a good amount before I finish off Bowser) Also I've begun playing Zack and Wiki, so expect a review of that at some point also.

Smash Bros Brawl being delayed is sad, but it doesnt bother me too much. Devil May 4 is out on in early Feb, so that'll do until Smash comes in March. The Witcher review wont be done for a long time. Game is super long, and i dont want to rush through it. Its suppose to be like 80 hours and i've got around 20-40 i think.
And now that school is back I have to manage my time so that my classes doesnt suffer. Which means even more time for reviews, but oh well. I'm pretty sure no one reads this anyways. Its just for me to keep writing, which is important for me.

Any other news i could comment on? Microsoft gives Undertow away for free next week. Thats cool, i wanted to try the game but didnt want to spend $15. (I think its $15, MS points make no sense to me)
So yea, Hope my lack of posts hasnt offended my non-existent followers, but real life is taking over.
I'll try to at least make a post a week. But no promises. In 3 weeks the pace will have slowed a little bit (i think, it might not have, but my classes look like i have a slight break between weeks 5 and 8, so That might be when i get some more game stuff up for sure)
I digress.
Ciao.

Mass Effect Review

2008-01-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

Here we go, it's Mass Effect. The console RPG to own right now. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, its not as good some PC RPG
contenders. But it is still a superb game overall. One I heartily
recommend to all fans of good rpgs. Most fans of games should
enjoy it as well.
If you justwant the basic story and some decent action then I
would recommend renting it, because you can burn through the
game in under 15 hours. If you fully explore the game and attempt
to do everything expect over 30 hours. And multiple playthroughs
if you want to play the game through with every character and see
exactly what they each have to say throughout the game
(something that is definitely worth it, in my opinion).

So I've told you its good. But why is it good? Quite simply i would
have to say its because of the overall presentation of the game.
It gets the feel right. And when you're in the midst of the main
campaign, damn is it fun. The party members you get are all
amazingly, and this is important in RPGs, real. These are characters
driven by motivations and emotions that are justifiable especially as
you get to know them better, who will react to your actions and
speech. They wont ever leave you because of it. But they will
express disappoint at certain decisions. One thing the game does
well, is make you feel like you're in a movie. Well some of the time
it does at least.
Most of your time will be spent doing obscure buggy exploration
of uninspired empty planets. Its not to say that these parts are
bad, per say, but they are tedious and repetitive. And i've no
desire to go over every planet again. But the main quest is done so
well, and presents itself so differently from most RPGs out that the game feels remarkably fresh, even if in truth it really isnt.
I say this because the dialog system is just Neverwinter
Nights and KotOR with some minor cosmetic changes.
The combat is a step back from the pseudo-turn-based genius
they had previously. Although its much better than Jade Empire's. The problem with the combat is that there is no
challenge at all. The whole game goes by and the only reason
i ever died was because they through 15-20 enemies and they all have one shot kill rocket launchers. But
the combat is still pretty fun for the most part. So at least it
doesnt detract from the experience. The story is what will
keep you going though. The entire universe that has been
created for this game is mind boggling. Accurate, plausible
scientific explanations of how and why things function like
they do ground the game in a sense of reality and the game
almost never treats the player like a moron. I say almost
because there are some dialog exchanges where even though
the dialog option you pick might be well done and delivered
effectively, the idea of the your main character convincing
the evil lead pen- ultimate bad guy the error of his ways in
a mere THREE lines of dialog is laughable at best. Luckily
the game only really does that a few times.
The sound is superb, the music expertly composed and always
complements the mood that should be present. The sound effects
are cool and subtle and effective, laser guns sound well laser-ry
enough for me. And most importantly, the voice acting is perfect.
And the character models match it, which keeps you focusing on
the words themselves. The graphics are shiny and very pretty.
They dont detract from the experience at all, and thats all that
I really care about graphics for. Its not hurting the experience
so its fine with me. I dont play games for pretty shiny stuff. I
play for gameplay mechanics. Load times can be annoying,
but I had heard about 5-10 minute load times and the most
I ever had was 2-3 minutes so, thats fine.

Ultimately, this is the best RPG you can get on the 360. So
if you like RPGs go get it. If you're interested in RPGs then
rent it. If you really really like fragging people in Halo, you
might like it as well. But you probably wont. Mass Effect is
a perfect example of a game that relies on the sum of its part
to be great. Since none of its individual components are really
that great. Yet as I finished the game I could not help but feel
a real sense of accomplishment, despite the complete lack of
challenge. It even made me want to play through the game again.
Although I wont right away, got many more games to get to.
Especially once i saw that achievements have the double benefit
of sometimes granting minor bonuses to the next play through.
Nice subtle incentive.
------------------

So thats my review. Hope there is something in there that makes sense.
Coming up soon i hope to get a review of Mario Galaxy, and then The Witcher.
But The Witcher is shaping up to be a super long game and i might not get it
finished for a few weeks.

If you want to contact me you can do through Xbox Live: ELRyePunk
or you can look for "RyePunk" on Steam.

Ciao.

Edit: I just noticed that the blog has been cutting off some of my lengthier lines. Weird... I fixed the Mass Effect review so the entire thing should be readable. But i dont really feel like going over the other posts to fix it. I'll just watch for it in the future.

Quick Impressions

2007-12-29T15:03:00.000-08:00

So havent actually finished any games yet, so i'd rather not give full impressions just yet.
Also I'll reveal my scoring system. Or the lack of one. I dont want to quibble over numbers. So i Have a simple tier based system. However I'll also explain which type of gamer will fit into that. So any strategy
gamer will enjoy Company of Heroes; But Total War does not appeal to them all.
Buy It - Games that almost all fans of games can enjoy.
Rent It - Games that may be worth buying if you especially enjoy the genre, but for most its a better bet to rent it, or wait for a price drop.
Skip It - Mediocre games that are usually Movie/TV tie-ins. Unless you are a hardcore fan, you probably wont be able to look past the glaring
issues. But hey at least these games are usually playable. Unlike the next category.
Toss It - Buggy unplayable games. That you should actively seek to destroy. Developers should be rediculed for making a game like this. Or at least flame the publisher's email, since they probably rushed it.

Mario Galaxy: Controlling an upside down/sideways character is suprisingly difficult. Yet so unique. Great controls, although the timing on the jump combos is different from Mario 64... which i had nailed. Also jumping on enemies is borderline impossible upside down. Its a pretty short game. But the quality is excellent.
Too bad about some minigames. I've never really liked shitty uses of the Wii remote's motion sensing, and the minigames in Galaxy continue to make me hate motion sensing on anything but Wii Sports. Granted this is best i've seen them aside from Wii Sports. The Ray surfing is almost tolerable. But turning by wrist tilting is far too sensitive, and since i naturally tilt my hand to play the game, any game that doesnt let me define the dead zone on the motion sensing is not going to feel good. The balling rolling is fun, but "finicky", if you will.

Mass Effect - Its a good fun romp. The graphics will blow your mind, the presentation in general is very very good. Too bad combat's a nuissance. Its either stupidly easy, or tosses so many enemies from 6 directions with no cover that its stupidly hard. There is no middle ground. The inventory system is borderline pointless. You basically get loot based on your level. Which is to say that at level 30ish you will recieve Mark IV - Mark VI gear. almost all of it looks the same, with maybe 3 skins for each weapon type, with 3 colors for each skin. Whoop dee fucking do.
I would have prefered it if they just dropped the whole system of items for this game. They dont serve any purpose. Also... Money. WHY IS IT IN THIS GAME? You dont need to ever buy weapons. The combat is not that hard that you even need to buy the "better" gear from the merchant. And the enemies give you so much gear it blows my mind. The story and the universe that has been crafted for this game allows you to
forget these massive shortcomings. So if the story ends well, it may just end up being a buyer.

The Witcher - Utter sublime gaming brilliance. Better RPG than Mass Effect. Everything about it is done better. And just goes to show how "consolitis" can weaken a game. There is variety in the things you do, and your actions actually have consequences.
If you dont protect that bimbo on her way home. She isnt gonna be able screw you the next day
The combat is sorta repetitive but you're constantly switching your styles, changing targets and saying focused on when to click so that your combos keep connecting. This gives the combat a great deal of substance and makes it very meaningful.
You feel like you are actually killing these vicious monsters (or ugly ass thugs). It certainly doesnt hurt that the animations in combat are motion capped and look amazing. The graphics in general are amazing. Especially considering this is the engine that built the Neverwinter Nights and KotOR and Jade Empire; Albeit heavily modified.
I've barely scratched this game's surface but if you like PC RPGs then go get this game already, its the best Single-player rpg i've played in years.
Need convincing? Your character has to kill demon weeds, and in order to get more money for the task he drinks the NPC under the table until he gets a better deal. You then have to kill the weeds while piss drunk. Then walk back into town teetering around with the best drunk person animations i've ever seen. Go get this game. Now. I think it can be bought online from like direct2drive or something. Go. Now.

Okay so more to come.
Playlist:
The Witcher; Mario Galaxy; Mass Effect; Alien Shooter Vengeance; Hellgate London (just while i listen to podcasts), And Team Fortress 2 if i feel like multi-player.
Watching: Arrested Development Season 3.
Reading: Jurassic Park.

Ciao.

2007-12-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

My Top Games of 2007.
I've decided to catagorize because i feel like it.

Oh, and these are in no particular order. And if i havent played the game it wont have a description or may be left off the list if i havent followed a game. For example, i dont have a PS3, and do not care much for the Ratchet and Clank series, so you will not find it below. I simply have not tried it. It could very well be a nice game worth time.

Best Shooters
Call of Duty 4 - Same old, same old; But it nails its elements perfectly. Multi-player is fun, but i'm not sure why the level cap is 55. You cant exactly go raiding in this game once you max your level. So once I hit 55 i havent played it since. If you dont have any other multi-player shooters however i could see it getting more play time

Orange Box - 3 games. One price. Woohoo. Yes Portal is brilliant. Half-Life Episode 2 is very cool. But Team Fortress 2 is what will keep you coming back for more. Balance is perfect, and if you're teams losing a match there is something you can do to fix it. ( Well unless some clan stacked the teams. Pub stomps, are the work of sick minds, and a weak clan.)

Bioshock - Its just crazy, the atmosphere this game has will pull you in like a good book. The story is intriguing and the gameplay is actually quite good, even if it does end up being slightly too simplistic. Its effective at least. Get to Fort Frolic and behold true gaming greatness.

Halo 3 - Its Halo. Great balance, shitty controls. I'm a PC Gamer through and through. So i just played for the singleplayer portion. It was excellent. Until the last 3 levels. If the beginning campaign had not been so great i would not have finished the game. These levels are that bad. I suppose if you like fps games with a gamepad, this could be your multi-player game for a long long time. But for me. Nah. I might jump on eventually. But i've got other games to play.

--------
RPGS
Mass Effect - Mmmmm Bioware tastiness. A shame they built a mediocre real-time combat system. I would much have preferred the old D&D turns system they used with the KotOR and Neverwinter Nights games.
But regardless of mediocre combat, the story telling is top notch, even if the decisions you make ultimately dont really seem to have too much of an effect on whats going to happen. Still the game is amazing.

The Witcher - Basically what Mass Effect missed, this nailed. Cool new, unique combat system, decisions have impact. And a really cool universe. (Mass Effect does have a sweet universe, i love reading that game's back story via the Codex)

Persona 3 - A gem of uniqueness. How many games let you summon a powerful spirit thingy by shooting yourself in the head? Not many. The game has a really interesting blending of japanese life sim, and dungeon crawler. The life sim aspect makes the game feel very very broad, that you arent forced down any specific path besides the main plot that hits every full moon. Unfortunately i believe this game is now very difficult to locate.
Also i never got it but i've heard good things about Odin's Sphere. Another unique and now rare game that came out this year.

Platform/Adventure

Mario Galaxy - Its A Me! Yep, he's back and he's as good as ever. Tragically this game awaits me under the Tree.
I'll post a full review for it after i've gotten a better opinion of it. But i have the faith.

Metroid Prime 3 - Samus is back also, and damn if she doesnt show how interesting a first person adventure game is. This time around the game becomes much more action oriented but I still argue that it is an adventure game. Good use of Wiimote, and doing many new things, particularily things you might not expect from a Nintendo game. Voice overs? Woah thats new.

Underdogs/Guilty Pleasures
These games are games that are admittedly not the best game to come out this year, but still have some aspect thats drawn me to them (read: addictive)

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Its Fire Emblem, the game's so tough you might very well never finish it.
Especially if you use those oh so tempting strong units you get early in the game.
But thats part of what makes Fire Emblem so great. The challenge, and this is a game that will test you.
I myself havent picked it up in a month, i gotta play it in bursts when i can get past the punishing difficulty.

Hellgate: London - ZOMG, London is invaded with demons. Kill some demons, then kill some more, then some more. Thats pretty much all thats going to happen. Built by the Diablo 2 team, with an interesting subscription system that is currently an utter waste. Still, killing lotsa demons is suprisingly fun when the combat system is good.

Alien Shooter: Vengeance - You shoot aliens. With a vengeance. Read the hellgate london blurb above, replacing demons, with aliens. And Built by a team with a pedigree, to built by the team who made Alien Shooter 1. Apparently i find shooting stuff fun, especially lots and lots of stuff.

Expansion Packs
Dawn of War: Dark Crusade - Two new races, a cool new singleplayer campaign, and lots of new strategies. Perfect expansion pack? Pretty much. Very worth the price of admission. This may have come out in 2006... i cant remember. i played it in 2007.

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts - Two new sides, and new singleplayer stuff as well. More Strategies result, go figure. This seems to be a theme... well this was made by the same company, Relic.

Medieval 2: Kingdoms - Go on a crusade. Or repel a pesky crusade. Or declare the Milanese your blood foes and wipe them off the map for being so damn greedy. Its your nation. Go do whatever you want, with giant armies of Knights and other medieval type units. Just remember, the details matter.

Well that pretty much sums up my gaming experience in 2007. Good year. You might be wondering what i was playing until all these games came out though. Well mostly Warcraft 3 total conversion: Defense of the Ancients. really fun multi-player game. Dont play it at all anymore though.
That'll do.

In the future i plan to get a review of Mass Effect, Mario Galaxy, and do list some of my anticipated games of 2008. So stay tuned.
Oh and comment.

Ciao.

Um Hi, Introductions and Intentions.

2007-12-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

So Hello. And welcome, however you found this blog. Although i find the likelihood of that questionable at best;
I can at the very least amuse myself to some extent
I suppose i need to talk about something, so I've wanted to get started on this blog dealy thing for quite some time now.
The idea behind it is a "sober" opinion, that would be my opinion, on the video gaming scene.
I really do not want to talk about personal issues. Suffice it to say that i'd like to keep this blog on a specific topic.
Gaming specifically. Well and other geek type stuff, like comics, anime and TV/Movies. Maybe a lil music. But since i mostly spend my time absorbing gaming tidbits, thats pretty much what i know best.
Specifically PC Gaming. But i try to follow the whole industry.

I'll think I'll try to start with a teaser for my next post. I'll do a Top 10 games of 2007. And by 2007, i mean the last 5 months of 2007 because honestly any game that comes out between January to June gets forgotten in the glut of holiday gaming goodness.
Evidence: Resident Evil 4.
So theres the Teaser, for the next post.

But before i go, I'll toss out some personal details.
I'm Ryan, from Canada. In Alberta. Thats enough geographics for now.
I'm currently in University and study History, mainly military stuff, but general history is nice too.
For god knows what reason, I suppose i really do enjoy the courses, but thats not gonna help once i start job hunting in 2009.
I currently work in retail, more or less smashing my face into the counter for shits and giggles.
But sometimes i get to inform the less informed masses about video games, and try to keep licensed games out of their hands.
Apparently i'm a very distant person. But i'm actually just shy and dont want to break the ice.
Oh and I live a "clean" lifestyle. Thats sorta where i grabbed the Blog's name. I wish i had a decent reason for why i dont drink or do recreational drugs, but i dont, I just think its sorta stupid, so I dont do them. Dont mind people who do though. Long as they dont try to force them on me.

But thats enough about me.
So Goodbye.
Hope i remember i created this.
Really hope people actually read this.
That be cool if people did.

Ciao.