Whatever it is that's watching, it's not human. It doesn't ever blink. What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me, into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly, because I can't any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone's sake the scanners do better. Because if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I do, then we're cursed and cursed again like we have been continually, and we’ll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.
- Paraphrased from A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Holiday 2010
I'm getting Black Ops for Christmas. That has been prearranged with my wife. For adults most of the magic is lost from the Christmas experience. If I were a child I would "ask Santa" and then spend December with my fingers crossed. You can drop "subtle" hints as an adult, but I don't have the patients for that. If by some chance she doesn't get it for me I'll just go buy it myself, so either way I'll be playing it before the new year. Yay Christmas.
Until then I'm trying to prestige a second time in MW2. I seem to be leveling up crazy fast as compared to my first time though. less than two months and I'm lvl38. It took me 11 months to Prestige the first time.
Until then I'm trying to prestige a second time in MW2. I seem to be leveling up crazy fast as compared to my first time though. less than two months and I'm lvl38. It took me 11 months to Prestige the first time.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
How Do You Spell Awesome?
With an M and an E.
I beat it. I beat Mile High Club on veteran. I feel great. I am great. I am the man.
Sure I'm not the only one who's ever done it, but if you want a challenge in gaming this is it man. This is the one. And I did it in about 40 min today. I spent probably around 3 hours on it yesterday with no luck. That's always the way it is though isn't it? You have to step back from a problem, come back at it refreshed the next day, with newly grown brain cells specifically designed for the task. Neuropathways mapped out for your eventual success.
This feels like the kind of rush I used to get after a really great race. It feels like setting a new PR in the 800m. It makes me want to go for a run.
So now I have my first 100% complete game.
Technically Borderlands was my first with 1000 GS and 100% of the main game's cheevos (Fallout 3 was my first with 1000). But Xbox doesn't recognize 1000 as 100% if there is any DCL achievements (weather you have the DLC or not!), so it doesn't show up. So I will have to buy two more expansions for Borderlands if I want an official 100%. Which of course is bullshit. Same thing with Fallout 3, but I'm not going to bother playing through with a third character just to get the neutral-alignment achievements anyway so oh-well.
I'm going for a run.
Also, Happy Birthday to my love!
I beat it. I beat Mile High Club on veteran. I feel great. I am great. I am the man.
Sure I'm not the only one who's ever done it, but if you want a challenge in gaming this is it man. This is the one. And I did it in about 40 min today. I spent probably around 3 hours on it yesterday with no luck. That's always the way it is though isn't it? You have to step back from a problem, come back at it refreshed the next day, with newly grown brain cells specifically designed for the task. Neuropathways mapped out for your eventual success.
This feels like the kind of rush I used to get after a really great race. It feels like setting a new PR in the 800m. It makes me want to go for a run.
So now I have my first 100% complete game.
Technically Borderlands was my first with 1000 GS and 100% of the main game's cheevos (Fallout 3 was my first with 1000). But Xbox doesn't recognize 1000 as 100% if there is any DCL achievements (weather you have the DLC or not!), so it doesn't show up. So I will have to buy two more expansions for Borderlands if I want an official 100%. Which of course is bullshit. Same thing with Fallout 3, but I'm not going to bother playing through with a third character just to get the neutral-alignment achievements anyway so oh-well.
I'm going for a run.
Also, Happy Birthday to my love!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Buck Futter
I have been playing this level for about 2 hours. Or more. Time sort of slips away with this kind of thing. I know that when I started it was light out, but no longer. Fuck this level. Fuck This level too. I'v been trying to beat that one for a while now. Some say it's the hardest COD level ever. But maybe they don't know about Mile High Club because they havn't beaten the game? The video I put in the last post makes it look easy, but I guarantee you the person who made that spent a significant segment of their life force to create that. Not life TIME, life FORCE.
I've come soooo close to beating this level. I know it's possible and that only makes it worse . I'm going to have to quit for the night. I want to soldier on (like I did through War Room) but I've been playing this shit for about 5 hours strait now and I can feel my brain swelling. This is the kind of psychological "treatments" they give prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Just one goddamn achievement to go...
OH and did I mention the worst part? MY OWN FUCKING TEAMMATES KEEP SHOOTING ME IN THE BACK!!! LIKE 50% OF THE GODDAMN TIME! I walk down the first hallway and there is no one to shoot me from the front, it HAS to be them. AAARRRGGG!!!
I've come soooo close to beating this level. I know it's possible and that only makes it worse . I'm going to have to quit for the night. I want to soldier on (like I did through War Room) but I've been playing this shit for about 5 hours strait now and I can feel my brain swelling. This is the kind of psychological "treatments" they give prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Just one goddamn achievement to go...
OH and did I mention the worst part? MY OWN FUCKING TEAMMATES KEEP SHOOTING ME IN THE BACK!!! LIKE 50% OF THE GODDAMN TIME! I walk down the first hallway and there is no one to shoot me from the front, it HAS to be them. AAARRRGGG!!!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Prestige
Last week I finally reached Prestige in MW2. It felt good to finally get there. My rise through the ranks since then seems to be going much faster than it did the first time. I'd like to think I'm better at the game than I was 11 months ago, but I'm pretty sure the enlisted levels require a lot less XP. We'll see haw fast I can get to Prestige 2.
My wife asked me if I wanted a game for Christmas and I told her I wanted CoD Black Ops. I don't usually think of myself as a primarily FPS player by it's the only new game I'm genuinely excited about. Fallout New Vegas should be a great game, but I still have 2 expansions for Fallout 3 to get through so I won't be playing F:NV anytime soon. I'm going to try really hard not to buy any new games for the rest of the year, partially to save money but mostly because I have a ton of great games I haven't given enough attention to.
Next up: Even more Borderlands. I'm lvl 38 and just started playthrough two. The new DLC bumps the level cap to 70... time to roll up my sleeves.
My wife asked me if I wanted a game for Christmas and I told her I wanted CoD Black Ops. I don't usually think of myself as a primarily FPS player by it's the only new game I'm genuinely excited about. Fallout New Vegas should be a great game, but I still have 2 expansions for Fallout 3 to get through so I won't be playing F:NV anytime soon. I'm going to try really hard not to buy any new games for the rest of the year, partially to save money but mostly because I have a ton of great games I haven't given enough attention to.
Next up: Even more Borderlands. I'm lvl 38 and just started playthrough two. The new DLC bumps the level cap to 70... time to roll up my sleeves.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
If Missiles Opened Doors
What I'm thinking about now:
Going out and buying all three Etrian Odyssey games... and a DS to play them on. Why? Who the fuck knows. I barely knew they existed until an hour ago when I read this. That led to a visit to the games' websites. Which led to me wanting them. I don't necessarily like this kind of long winded, sadistically difficult JRPG, but I like the idea of them. I want to like them. I may have spoken before about my attraction to Atlus games. The two most recent for me were Disgaea and Odin Sphere. They are two phenomenal games but they are deep-fat-fried in the 'ol grind aesthetic and Odin Sphere has that punishing difficulty that is so typical of Atlus. The bottom line is, I just don't have enough days in my life to dedicate to these pursuits. Perhaps if I were sickly and could not leave my bed.
I finished Shadow Complex yesterday in what I think was a five hour stretch. Lack of sleep had me in a fog so memory of the event is blurry, but I have the achievements so I know it happened. If I were to review this game I would use a single word: Metroid. Or if I used two words: Super Metroid. You can tell these guys have played that game before and you can tell it's been on their minds quite a bit since. There are sections of the map that are almost direct translations. As a fan of SM myself Shadow Complex grew on me more every time I was reminded of it. If we had never made 3D games, if sidescrollers were still king and continued to progress graphically this kind of thing would have sold millions. A part of me wants to live in that world.
Lord of the Rings Online is now free to play and that has spurred me to play it just as it did a year ago. There is still money involved to be sure, but it's involved via micro transactions. This idea I really like. While I haven't spent any money on the game yet, I feel I'm much more likely to spend a few dollars for some extra content than I am on a subscription fee. It just never made sense to me to pay over and over again for the same game. When you don't know how much you are going to be able to play in a given time period, you don't really have a clear idea of what you are paying for. But if some super-special armor costs one dollar American then I know exactly what getting and what it's costing me. I really hope this business model works out for Turbine and other developers because it sure works out for the consumer. I also want to point out how cool it is to play in Middle Earth. LOTRO as a game hasn't shown me any real stand-out moments yet, but the ability to explore all the locations from the books is very cool. Game enthusiasts are always talking about immersion. LOTRO doesn't make me float out of my chair or anything, but it makes it easier to imagine myself a traveler in Tolkien's world.
Going out and buying all three Etrian Odyssey games... and a DS to play them on. Why? Who the fuck knows. I barely knew they existed until an hour ago when I read this. That led to a visit to the games' websites. Which led to me wanting them. I don't necessarily like this kind of long winded, sadistically difficult JRPG, but I like the idea of them. I want to like them. I may have spoken before about my attraction to Atlus games. The two most recent for me were Disgaea and Odin Sphere. They are two phenomenal games but they are deep-fat-fried in the 'ol grind aesthetic and Odin Sphere has that punishing difficulty that is so typical of Atlus. The bottom line is, I just don't have enough days in my life to dedicate to these pursuits. Perhaps if I were sickly and could not leave my bed.
I finished Shadow Complex yesterday in what I think was a five hour stretch. Lack of sleep had me in a fog so memory of the event is blurry, but I have the achievements so I know it happened. If I were to review this game I would use a single word: Metroid. Or if I used two words: Super Metroid. You can tell these guys have played that game before and you can tell it's been on their minds quite a bit since. There are sections of the map that are almost direct translations. As a fan of SM myself Shadow Complex grew on me more every time I was reminded of it. If we had never made 3D games, if sidescrollers were still king and continued to progress graphically this kind of thing would have sold millions. A part of me wants to live in that world.
Lord of the Rings Online is now free to play and that has spurred me to play it just as it did a year ago. There is still money involved to be sure, but it's involved via micro transactions. This idea I really like. While I haven't spent any money on the game yet, I feel I'm much more likely to spend a few dollars for some extra content than I am on a subscription fee. It just never made sense to me to pay over and over again for the same game. When you don't know how much you are going to be able to play in a given time period, you don't really have a clear idea of what you are paying for. But if some super-special armor costs one dollar American then I know exactly what getting and what it's costing me. I really hope this business model works out for Turbine and other developers because it sure works out for the consumer. I also want to point out how cool it is to play in Middle Earth. LOTRO as a game hasn't shown me any real stand-out moments yet, but the ability to explore all the locations from the books is very cool. Game enthusiasts are always talking about immersion. LOTRO doesn't make me float out of my chair or anything, but it makes it easier to imagine myself a traveler in Tolkien's world.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friend Request Pending
Two years ago when I first got my 360 I set to the task of populating my friends list. Two of my friends, being in the military were not able to immediately accept. The worst was my friend Dan who only now has gotten around to getting back online. It's weird not having him at the top of my friends list with "pending" next to his name.
Four of us had been talking for two weeks about a game night. We had to badger Dan into renewing his gold membership. As usual there was a lot of email chatter about what we would end up playing. At some point someone mentioned Doom II on XBLA and somehow that's the idea that got latched onto. So when Dan did get around to renewing, he downloaded Doom II as well. It turned out to be the only game the four of us had in common. So there we were, four dudes on different corners of the Earth, connected trough miles of high-speed fiber optics and networking equipment, with thousands of dollars in state of the art entertainment systems, running a game that was made over a decade ago.
It was fun.
Friday, September 3, 2010
How the Hell is it September Already?
In my last post I wrote how I was listening to two great progressive rock albums by Steely Dan and Supertramp. Continuing in that tradition I’m now listening to Closer to the Edge by Yes. Wikipedia says that this album is considered by many to be the high point of the prog movement. It certainly is out there. The title track is 18 minutes long, and has recordings of birds. It’s not as lame as it sounds though. Maybe by the end of this post I’ll be able to give you a full impression.
Soooooo, lets see, what’s happened since August 19th? Shit. Let me distil this into micro sound bytes:
Devil May Cry, Sins of a Solar Empire, FIFA ’08, Gears of War, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Ghost in the Shell.
Mmmm, that was fun.
The big surprise of the last few weeks has been my quality assurance class. I thought it was going to be pretty easy, and I suppose it is, but our homework has consisted of finding bugs in games. These are existing games, not games in development. This is actually really hard. For the first assignment I was able to find five bugs in Fallout 3. I didn’t find them after the fact, I knew about them before hand. Some of them I had experienced only a couple of times and only knew about only because I had logged well over 200 hours in the game. The second assignment tasked us with finding 10 glitches in a different game. I managed to find only three in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Regardless of what grade I get at least I was reminded of what a fun game it is. I think I’ll try to beat it this weekend.
The real cool surprise is that my teacher may be getting us “field trips” to play test real games at local game companies. Some of these will be companies you would have heard of, and games you are anxiously waiting to play. When I heard this news I kept it cool of course but inside I squealed like a girl. An excited young girl.
So here we are at the end of the post and I haven’t finished the album because my wife started watching Lost. I didn’t want to interfere with her experience, so I’ll let you know how it is next time.
Soooooo, lets see, what’s happened since August 19th? Shit. Let me distil this into micro sound bytes:
Devil May Cry, Sins of a Solar Empire, FIFA ’08, Gears of War, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Ghost in the Shell.
Mmmm, that was fun.
The big surprise of the last few weeks has been my quality assurance class. I thought it was going to be pretty easy, and I suppose it is, but our homework has consisted of finding bugs in games. These are existing games, not games in development. This is actually really hard. For the first assignment I was able to find five bugs in Fallout 3. I didn’t find them after the fact, I knew about them before hand. Some of them I had experienced only a couple of times and only knew about only because I had logged well over 200 hours in the game. The second assignment tasked us with finding 10 glitches in a different game. I managed to find only three in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Regardless of what grade I get at least I was reminded of what a fun game it is. I think I’ll try to beat it this weekend.
The real cool surprise is that my teacher may be getting us “field trips” to play test real games at local game companies. Some of these will be companies you would have heard of, and games you are anxiously waiting to play. When I heard this news I kept it cool of course but inside I squealed like a girl. An excited young girl.
So here we are at the end of the post and I haven’t finished the album because my wife started watching Lost. I didn’t want to interfere with her experience, so I’ll let you know how it is next time.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Stowing Away the Time
Maybe it's the fatigue but I've been extra responsive to music tonight. Physically responsive. Goosebumps, hairs on end, shivers, eyelids drooping.
Listening to Supertramp's Breakfast in America, followed by Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill. I got both albums back in February and they have yet to wear out their welcome, in fact they seem to get better every time I listen to them. While I'm not the type of person who likes to hear things over and over within a short period of time, I find that if I give an album about three good listens and then put it a way for a while, when I come back to it the music is much better. Maybe my brain is just set to receive it. I need time to grow the appropriate neuron receptors.
I've been feeling very creative too. I think the stronger my ADD symptoms the more I'm able to find the muse, and lately I've been a scatter-brained mess so the creative juices are certainly flowing. I've been writing lyrics, something I've not felt like doing in over a year. I've dabbled with songs all my life but never felt like I could find my lyrical voice. I think maybe I need to determine what kind of music I'm keyed to writing for. I may have been trying to hard to write for hard rock, when I should have cultivated a move progressive, even pop mindset. Another possibility is that I just haven't worked hard enough at it.
You know, let me better express how awesome Breakfast in America is. I'm giving it an early nomination for my favorite of 2010. It really is an amazing album.
Listening to Supertramp's Breakfast in America, followed by Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill. I got both albums back in February and they have yet to wear out their welcome, in fact they seem to get better every time I listen to them. While I'm not the type of person who likes to hear things over and over within a short period of time, I find that if I give an album about three good listens and then put it a way for a while, when I come back to it the music is much better. Maybe my brain is just set to receive it. I need time to grow the appropriate neuron receptors.
I've been feeling very creative too. I think the stronger my ADD symptoms the more I'm able to find the muse, and lately I've been a scatter-brained mess so the creative juices are certainly flowing. I've been writing lyrics, something I've not felt like doing in over a year. I've dabbled with songs all my life but never felt like I could find my lyrical voice. I think maybe I need to determine what kind of music I'm keyed to writing for. I may have been trying to hard to write for hard rock, when I should have cultivated a move progressive, even pop mindset. Another possibility is that I just haven't worked hard enough at it.
You know, let me better express how awesome Breakfast in America is. I'm giving it an early nomination for my favorite of 2010. It really is an amazing album.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Borderlands
I had two days off this week. In those two days I logged about 16 hours on Borderlands. Christ that game just sucks time like a black hole. I feel like I should pack an over-night and feed the cats before I start playing. Hella good fun though. Will and JT accompanied me for a good part of it. I havn't touched the DLC yet. I can't wait to play it more. I got the shakes baby, daddy's got the shakes baaad!
Planning a ho-down for some time this weekend. If I can get enough people I want to have one last Modern Warfare 2 party before the world forgets about it and gets involved with whatever the holiday lineup has to offer. If I can't get enough people then maybe we can get a fourth for Borderlands. If nobody wants to play with me at all then I'll sulk and read a book or something. Who I am kidding, I've got way to much single player crap to finish up to waste time on books! Silly books. And their pages. Silly.
Planning a ho-down for some time this weekend. If I can get enough people I want to have one last Modern Warfare 2 party before the world forgets about it and gets involved with whatever the holiday lineup has to offer. If I can't get enough people then maybe we can get a fourth for Borderlands. If nobody wants to play with me at all then I'll sulk and read a book or something. Who I am kidding, I've got way to much single player crap to finish up to waste time on books! Silly books. And their pages. Silly.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Compulsion
I bought Blacklight again goddammit.
They got my money. They got my money twice. Curse this affliction of a hobby!
I also bought Preemptive Strike by DJ Shadow. I got it for the song Organ Donor which had been teasing my brain cells since I first heard it on Pandora. I can't stress enough how utterly fucking mind-blowing this song is. It's why we have techno. It's what Willis was talking about. You're listening to it and right away you think, "this is a cool song" and then it stops fucking around and throws 26 layers of incredible on your eardrums and you think... nothing because the part of you that listens to things is busy visiting the holy land.
Reasonably I thought that the rest of the album would be just as stellar. I had heard of DJ Shadow but hadn't really heard him before this song. If that was the kind of quality song I could expect I would gladly pay $9.99 for an album. I'm not going to say the album is bad, or even disappointing, it's just not what I expected. It's sort of a chillout album, very low-key and loungy. Organ Donor is the black sheep here. I imagine if you had not heard it and listened to the album all the way through, that when you got to Organ Donor (the last song) it would have an even greater impact. A sonic-ninja-skullfuck kind of impact. The rest of the album lulls you into a false sense of security before the kung-fu-grip-happy-ending you didn't know the Chinese lady already charged you for.
They got my money. They got my money twice. Curse this affliction of a hobby!
I also bought Preemptive Strike by DJ Shadow. I got it for the song Organ Donor which had been teasing my brain cells since I first heard it on Pandora. I can't stress enough how utterly fucking mind-blowing this song is. It's why we have techno. It's what Willis was talking about. You're listening to it and right away you think, "this is a cool song" and then it stops fucking around and throws 26 layers of incredible on your eardrums and you think... nothing because the part of you that listens to things is busy visiting the holy land.
Reasonably I thought that the rest of the album would be just as stellar. I had heard of DJ Shadow but hadn't really heard him before this song. If that was the kind of quality song I could expect I would gladly pay $9.99 for an album. I'm not going to say the album is bad, or even disappointing, it's just not what I expected. It's sort of a chillout album, very low-key and loungy. Organ Donor is the black sheep here. I imagine if you had not heard it and listened to the album all the way through, that when you got to Organ Donor (the last song) it would have an even greater impact. A sonic-ninja-skullfuck kind of impact. The rest of the album lulls you into a false sense of security before the kung-fu-grip-happy-ending you didn't know the Chinese lady already charged you for.
Friday, July 30, 2010
My Discount Goes to Eleven
This week's special offer on XBL is all the DLC for Borderlands at half price (400 ms points each). This is fortuitous since I just bought the game. I've already grabbed The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and I've sent out the call for my comrades to do the same. Gamespot has said some very nice things about this expansion, even giving it an Editor's Choice award. It raises the level cap by eleven (hence the title) which of course they make a big deal about. "Hey check us out we saw that rock band movie too!" Actually I've noticed that pretty much everything in Borderlands is some kind of pop culture reference. I'm not complaining. It's like MST3K was a video game... and had more guns.
The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned also looks good and if the sale is still going on I might grab that too. Not to sure about Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot however.
Now I just have to wait a few more painful days before I can dig into this with my friends.
The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned also looks good and if the sale is still going on I might grab that too. Not to sure about Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot however.
Now I just have to wait a few more painful days before I can dig into this with my friends.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Welcome to the Wasteland
I finished no less than three games this weekend. Red Faction: Guerrilla, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Fallout 3 all rolled their credits across my TV before the Monday morning dawn. Coincidentally all three of these games came out around the same time in late 2008, but I bought them at different times, and then finished them within days. Friday night I spent about 6 hours playing Red Faction’s multiplayer with Will and JT. They live in Hawaii now, and being 6 hours behind me actually works out well. Once they went to bed I dug in for end of the campaign. Red Faction was a great game and the last mission was particularly satisfying. You square off against a whole army of baddies, but it’s OK because you get to drive a big ass tank.
The Force Unleashed was a disappointing game only because it was hyped so much. I got it for Christmas and I’ve spent less than 10 hours with it in the intervening 7 months. It’s not that it wasn’t a fun game, it was, it just wasn’t as good as it could have been. I might play through it again on a harder difficulty or mine for achievements… or I might forget about it entirely. I had heard that there were two endings and going into the last stage I fully intended to get the “evil” ending but when the moment of truth came it was unclear what I was supposed to do and I ended up with the “good” ending simply because I walked in the wrong direction.
I’ve been playing Fallout 3 for almost a year now. I had played through to the very end with one character, Ilsa, who I played as a good-guy (or good-gal). I only had one side quest and the last main quest left when I stopped and started a new game with a character named Norman. The side quest was “Strictly Business” where you are tasked with enslaving four denizens of the waste. I had a very clear idea of who Ilsa was at that point and while she’s an opportunistic bitch she’s not a slaver. Slavery is not her bag, baby. Norman is a different animal. He’s a sociopath at best and a homicidal maniac at worst. He had no problem enslaving those people and shooting his way out of Rivet City in the process. I started Norman’s game out with the Operation Anchorage DLC, which I wrote about in a previous post. Anchorage is a very easy campaign made for low level characters and playing it first completely changes the main game. I basically started with a level 8 character, power armor, and advanced weapons. My goal for Norman - his entire purpose really - is completely different from Ilsa. While Ilsa was created to play the game, Norman was created explicitly for evil. I needed him to get the bad karma achievements that Ilsa never could. His story arc has nothing to do with finding his lost father or combating the Enclave. His story is about getting to level 30 as fast as he can, as brutally as he can. As you can imagine this makes for a very different gameplay experience. I don’t usually spend this much time with a game this dynamic, investing myself in multiple playthroughs. I can’t think of another game where I’ve played it twice and played two different games. My hat’s off to Bethesda on this one. All that’s left now is the Broken Steel expansion, and perhaps Mothership Zeta.
Will has been cajoling me to get Borderlands for a while now. He and JT have already played through it but he promised me that he would play it again if I jumped on board. I grabbed the game Sunday morning and we spent a couple hours with it. I’m liking it so far. The description “FPS Diablo” was thrown around a lot before it came out. I can’t argue with that. Level grind + loot orgy + guns, that’s Borderlands. Will is out of town all week and I’ve got to work all weekend so the earliest we’ll be able to play it again it next week, probably next weekend. I think it was this kind of agonizing waiting that made me reluctant to get the game. I wasn’t worried that I wouldn’t like it, I was worried that I would like it too much.
I guess in the meantime there’s Midnight Club LA…
The Force Unleashed was a disappointing game only because it was hyped so much. I got it for Christmas and I’ve spent less than 10 hours with it in the intervening 7 months. It’s not that it wasn’t a fun game, it was, it just wasn’t as good as it could have been. I might play through it again on a harder difficulty or mine for achievements… or I might forget about it entirely. I had heard that there were two endings and going into the last stage I fully intended to get the “evil” ending but when the moment of truth came it was unclear what I was supposed to do and I ended up with the “good” ending simply because I walked in the wrong direction.
I’ve been playing Fallout 3 for almost a year now. I had played through to the very end with one character, Ilsa, who I played as a good-guy (or good-gal). I only had one side quest and the last main quest left when I stopped and started a new game with a character named Norman. The side quest was “Strictly Business” where you are tasked with enslaving four denizens of the waste. I had a very clear idea of who Ilsa was at that point and while she’s an opportunistic bitch she’s not a slaver. Slavery is not her bag, baby. Norman is a different animal. He’s a sociopath at best and a homicidal maniac at worst. He had no problem enslaving those people and shooting his way out of Rivet City in the process. I started Norman’s game out with the Operation Anchorage DLC, which I wrote about in a previous post. Anchorage is a very easy campaign made for low level characters and playing it first completely changes the main game. I basically started with a level 8 character, power armor, and advanced weapons. My goal for Norman - his entire purpose really - is completely different from Ilsa. While Ilsa was created to play the game, Norman was created explicitly for evil. I needed him to get the bad karma achievements that Ilsa never could. His story arc has nothing to do with finding his lost father or combating the Enclave. His story is about getting to level 30 as fast as he can, as brutally as he can. As you can imagine this makes for a very different gameplay experience. I don’t usually spend this much time with a game this dynamic, investing myself in multiple playthroughs. I can’t think of another game where I’ve played it twice and played two different games. My hat’s off to Bethesda on this one. All that’s left now is the Broken Steel expansion, and perhaps Mothership Zeta.
Will has been cajoling me to get Borderlands for a while now. He and JT have already played through it but he promised me that he would play it again if I jumped on board. I grabbed the game Sunday morning and we spent a couple hours with it. I’m liking it so far. The description “FPS Diablo” was thrown around a lot before it came out. I can’t argue with that. Level grind + loot orgy + guns, that’s Borderlands. Will is out of town all week and I’ve got to work all weekend so the earliest we’ll be able to play it again it next week, probably next weekend. I think it was this kind of agonizing waiting that made me reluctant to get the game. I wasn’t worried that I wouldn’t like it, I was worried that I would like it too much.
I guess in the meantime there’s Midnight Club LA…
Friday, July 23, 2010
Blacklight Reactive
Attention: Blacklight: Tango Down is on XBLA. You don't have to be a dumbass like me and buy it for PC! You have been warned!
Yeah I had one of those stupid impulse-shopping moments and bought Blacklight, ironically enough, via Impulse. Actually it's not ironic at all. Stardock named it that on purpose knowing that people will buy shit from their house if they think they can play it right away. Well think again assholes! You still have to download it, and then download Windows Live (why doesn't Windows Live come installed on Vista?) and then install both of them, and then realize that the two programs are somehow smelted together, and then wrestle with Windows Live's idiotic interface. I still don't know if I can play Blacklight offline. It certainly won't let me play it without logging into my profile. Not that you would want to play the single player game.
The PC version isn't necessarily bad, it just doesn't run as well on my PC as it does on the 360. And while a twitch shooter like Unreal belongs on the PC, a more tactical game like Blacklight demands the button layout of the modern controller. Let me demonstrate with a mathematical expression:
WASD + mouse = Awesome
WASD + QERFCV1234 + Shift + mouse = Frustration
I'm sure there are some hard core PC jocks out there who can handle it but I'm not one of them. The 360 controls are practically identical to Modern Warfare's (which I'm sure wasn't an accident) so they fit me like a glove. So now I have to decide if its worth buying twice, or rather worth paying $30 for. $15 yes, go get it, $30 I'm not so sure. I suppose I could chalk it up as a donation to a struggling start-up. Maybe I can score some karma for when I am (hopefully) in the same position.
Yeah I had one of those stupid impulse-shopping moments and bought Blacklight, ironically enough, via Impulse. Actually it's not ironic at all. Stardock named it that on purpose knowing that people will buy shit from their house if they think they can play it right away. Well think again assholes! You still have to download it, and then download Windows Live (why doesn't Windows Live come installed on Vista?) and then install both of them, and then realize that the two programs are somehow smelted together, and then wrestle with Windows Live's idiotic interface. I still don't know if I can play Blacklight offline. It certainly won't let me play it without logging into my profile. Not that you would want to play the single player game.
The PC version isn't necessarily bad, it just doesn't run as well on my PC as it does on the 360. And while a twitch shooter like Unreal belongs on the PC, a more tactical game like Blacklight demands the button layout of the modern controller. Let me demonstrate with a mathematical expression:
WASD + mouse = Awesome
WASD + QERFCV1234 + Shift + mouse = Frustration
I'm sure there are some hard core PC jocks out there who can handle it but I'm not one of them. The 360 controls are practically identical to Modern Warfare's (which I'm sure wasn't an accident) so they fit me like a glove. So now I have to decide if its worth buying twice, or rather worth paying $30 for. $15 yes, go get it, $30 I'm not so sure. I suppose I could chalk it up as a donation to a struggling start-up. Maybe I can score some karma for when I am (hopefully) in the same position.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Anticipation 2010
For me summer is all about waiting for the fall blockbusters. By this time we’ve had E3 and we know what will be coming out for the Christmas season, and we’ve had a glimpse at what lies beyond. I thought it would be a good time to list my top ten most anticipated games.
…But then I could only think of five:
5. Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium Online
Publisher: THQ, Developer: Vigil, Release: TBA
I Don’t play MMORPGs. This game might change that. E3 brought us the first trailer but no real gameplay demo. I wasn’t impressed with the trailer but it’s still early on. At this point I’d love to just get some details. Basically, if they make a game where I can grow from a mewling heretic into a civilization-crushing Chaos Lord then I’m in.
4. Rock Band 3
Publisher: MTV Games, Developer: Harmonix, Release: Octoer 26th
Music games aren’t as hot as they were two years ago when Rock Band came out. Back then every party I went to had people playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I never got Rock Band, mostly due to the price and space requirements of all those damn peripherals. I’m thinking of jumping in with both feet this time. Rock Band 3 will support 7 players. It will have a two octave keyboard and a Pro guitar with 102 buttons for every note on a real guitar. It will have a Pro mode, a setting above expert were you can play the real notes. It will support all the songs from RB 1, 2 and RB: Green Day, as well as all the DLC. This is the Cadillac of music games. They are pulling out all the stops, and my prediction is that this will be the game that decides if music games stay in the spotlight or prove to be just a passing fad.
3. Fallout: New Vegas
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, Developer: Obsidian, Release: October 19th
I’m a longtime fan of Fallout. I played the first game on a 133 MHz Pentium Uno. It was a serious time investment because moving from one screen to the next took a full minute or more to load. I’ve spent more time with Fallout 3 than I did with the first two games combined, and I still haven’t finished with it. I’ve got DLC for it I haven’t even touched. So I’m fairly psyched about New Vegas. Two points of interest: One, it’s being developed by Obsidian, a developer with members of the original Black Isle team than made the first game. Two, they are revamping the NPC system. That second point might not seem exciting, but as I may have mentioned before, the ONLY significant problem with Fallout 3 was that your NPC companions were drooling idiots who consistently ran head-long into flaming death. Keeping them alive became a whole game in itself and it made having companions more of a liability than an asset. New Vegas is supposed to fix that by making the AI more robust and giving you more command options as well. For me the idea of putting together an actual team rather than deploying living SCUD missiles is very appealing.
2. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Publisher: Konami, Developer: Mercury Steam, Release: Q3 2010
3D Castlevania games have not done very well in the past. There have been decent 3D offerings from the series but they never stood up to the pedigree of the 2D games. I enjoyed Curse of Darkness on PS2, but I have to agree with the vocal majority that it was missing that spark of greatness. It just seemed like it was made by a second-rate studio, not a giant like Konami. Lords of Shadow is supposed to change all that. It’s hard to say exactly why I’m so optimistic about this game. All I’ve seen are a few trailers with gameplay footage… but it just looks awesome! I’ve got a good feeling about this one.
Side note: In a few days I’ll get a surprise summer gift in the form of Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. I love the 2D “Metroid style” Castlevanias. While the series has faltered on consoles it has flourished on handhelds. While I enjoyed my time with titles like Circle of the Moon, I always found myself wishing I could play them on a TV with a controller (the Game Boy Advance SP was not made for giant man-hands or old people eyes). Now just yesterday I found out about Harmony of Despair, a 2D side scroller for XBLA. The game will have a co-op element and a new way to explore the castle. Instead of uncovering little bits at a time you can zoom out to see the entire thing including where the boss is. You then have to figure out the best way to reach him. And it comes out in two weeks!!!
1. Brink
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, Developer: Splash Damage, Release: Q1 2011
I seem to be starting a trend where I have one shooter per year that I play the hell out of. In 2009 it was Rainbow Six Vegas 2, 2010 is the year of Modern Warfare 2, next year it will be Brink. Probably. This game looks sick. I saw it played at PAX last year and was very impressed with the whole package. It has:
- Progressive character development and customization
- Adaptive mission system within competitive multiplayer
- Some sort of new movement system that allows previously unseen agility and obstacle navigation
It’s going to be hot, I can’t wait. Have a great summer everyone!
…But then I could only think of five:
5. Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium Online
Publisher: THQ, Developer: Vigil, Release: TBA
I Don’t play MMORPGs. This game might change that. E3 brought us the first trailer but no real gameplay demo. I wasn’t impressed with the trailer but it’s still early on. At this point I’d love to just get some details. Basically, if they make a game where I can grow from a mewling heretic into a civilization-crushing Chaos Lord then I’m in.
4. Rock Band 3
Publisher: MTV Games, Developer: Harmonix, Release: Octoer 26th
Music games aren’t as hot as they were two years ago when Rock Band came out. Back then every party I went to had people playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I never got Rock Band, mostly due to the price and space requirements of all those damn peripherals. I’m thinking of jumping in with both feet this time. Rock Band 3 will support 7 players. It will have a two octave keyboard and a Pro guitar with 102 buttons for every note on a real guitar. It will have a Pro mode, a setting above expert were you can play the real notes. It will support all the songs from RB 1, 2 and RB: Green Day, as well as all the DLC. This is the Cadillac of music games. They are pulling out all the stops, and my prediction is that this will be the game that decides if music games stay in the spotlight or prove to be just a passing fad.
3. Fallout: New Vegas
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, Developer: Obsidian, Release: October 19th
I’m a longtime fan of Fallout. I played the first game on a 133 MHz Pentium Uno. It was a serious time investment because moving from one screen to the next took a full minute or more to load. I’ve spent more time with Fallout 3 than I did with the first two games combined, and I still haven’t finished with it. I’ve got DLC for it I haven’t even touched. So I’m fairly psyched about New Vegas. Two points of interest: One, it’s being developed by Obsidian, a developer with members of the original Black Isle team than made the first game. Two, they are revamping the NPC system. That second point might not seem exciting, but as I may have mentioned before, the ONLY significant problem with Fallout 3 was that your NPC companions were drooling idiots who consistently ran head-long into flaming death. Keeping them alive became a whole game in itself and it made having companions more of a liability than an asset. New Vegas is supposed to fix that by making the AI more robust and giving you more command options as well. For me the idea of putting together an actual team rather than deploying living SCUD missiles is very appealing.
2. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Publisher: Konami, Developer: Mercury Steam, Release: Q3 2010
3D Castlevania games have not done very well in the past. There have been decent 3D offerings from the series but they never stood up to the pedigree of the 2D games. I enjoyed Curse of Darkness on PS2, but I have to agree with the vocal majority that it was missing that spark of greatness. It just seemed like it was made by a second-rate studio, not a giant like Konami. Lords of Shadow is supposed to change all that. It’s hard to say exactly why I’m so optimistic about this game. All I’ve seen are a few trailers with gameplay footage… but it just looks awesome! I’ve got a good feeling about this one.
Side note: In a few days I’ll get a surprise summer gift in the form of Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. I love the 2D “Metroid style” Castlevanias. While the series has faltered on consoles it has flourished on handhelds. While I enjoyed my time with titles like Circle of the Moon, I always found myself wishing I could play them on a TV with a controller (the Game Boy Advance SP was not made for giant man-hands or old people eyes). Now just yesterday I found out about Harmony of Despair, a 2D side scroller for XBLA. The game will have a co-op element and a new way to explore the castle. Instead of uncovering little bits at a time you can zoom out to see the entire thing including where the boss is. You then have to figure out the best way to reach him. And it comes out in two weeks!!!
1. Brink
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, Developer: Splash Damage, Release: Q1 2011
I seem to be starting a trend where I have one shooter per year that I play the hell out of. In 2009 it was Rainbow Six Vegas 2, 2010 is the year of Modern Warfare 2, next year it will be Brink. Probably. This game looks sick. I saw it played at PAX last year and was very impressed with the whole package. It has:
- Progressive character development and customization
- Adaptive mission system within competitive multiplayer
- Some sort of new movement system that allows previously unseen agility and obstacle navigation
It’s going to be hot, I can’t wait. Have a great summer everyone!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Odama for President
The day after I got all those games I drove up to my parents house. They live in the Shenandoah Valley in this little Virginia town. They moved there to get away from civilization and they did a pretty good job. This is one of those towns where people are proud of their Walmart. Not a Walmart, not even the Walmart, their Walmart. As if they built it themselves. Bumper Sticker: "My Walmart is an honor-roll student at..."
Anyway I was surprised to find a game store there that was very well stocked. It was attached to some video rental chain I had never heard of, kind of a Hollywood Video/Game Crazy kind of thing. They didn't have anything older than last generation but they did have a great selection of Xbox/PS2/GameCube games. In my zeal I bought two games for the Cube: Odama and Viewtiful Joe. In a previous post I stated that I was mostly done buying Cube games, but I guess with me "done" is relative.
Odama (NOT Obama) is a game that always intrigued me, both because of its premise and because my wife wanted to play it (again, see previous post on Tetris Attack). I had heard that the game sucked due primarily to awkward control. This rumor is entirely true. I'm not going to say that the game sucks but saying the control is awkward is like saying the ocean is wet. Here is the idea: you play as a general in a medieval Japanese army. The battlefield is a pinball machine and you control a giant ball with pinball flippers at the bottom of the screen. You use the ball to complete objectives and run over the enemy. You also control your army by using the GameCube microphone and issuing voice commands. If you don't have the little bracket that holds the mic onto the controller then you are screwed. What we did was my wife played the pinball part with the controller and I used the mic to control our men. Even with two brains to keep track of things it was, um, a clusterfuck. You've got to get your men to pick up these things, and fight the enemy, and open gates, and the ball is rolling over you and... yeah. I'm willing to give it another try but I have a feeling this one's going to be more collectors item and less actual game, that you know, I play.
I haven't spent enough time with Viewtiful Joe to say anything important about it. So I won't.
Lastly I got Doom 2 and Shadow Complex from XBLA. They are fun. That is all.
Anyway I was surprised to find a game store there that was very well stocked. It was attached to some video rental chain I had never heard of, kind of a Hollywood Video/Game Crazy kind of thing. They didn't have anything older than last generation but they did have a great selection of Xbox/PS2/GameCube games. In my zeal I bought two games for the Cube: Odama and Viewtiful Joe. In a previous post I stated that I was mostly done buying Cube games, but I guess with me "done" is relative.
Odama (NOT Obama) is a game that always intrigued me, both because of its premise and because my wife wanted to play it (again, see previous post on Tetris Attack). I had heard that the game sucked due primarily to awkward control. This rumor is entirely true. I'm not going to say that the game sucks but saying the control is awkward is like saying the ocean is wet. Here is the idea: you play as a general in a medieval Japanese army. The battlefield is a pinball machine and you control a giant ball with pinball flippers at the bottom of the screen. You use the ball to complete objectives and run over the enemy. You also control your army by using the GameCube microphone and issuing voice commands. If you don't have the little bracket that holds the mic onto the controller then you are screwed. What we did was my wife played the pinball part with the controller and I used the mic to control our men. Even with two brains to keep track of things it was, um, a clusterfuck. You've got to get your men to pick up these things, and fight the enemy, and open gates, and the ball is rolling over you and... yeah. I'm willing to give it another try but I have a feeling this one's going to be more collectors item and less actual game, that you know, I play.
I haven't spent enough time with Viewtiful Joe to say anything important about it. So I won't.
Lastly I got Doom 2 and Shadow Complex from XBLA. They are fun. That is all.
What Ninten-Don't
Whew, a lot's happened since last post. A friend gave me a box with three classic systems and a shit ton of games, I made some odd impulse buys, and... crap I hate it when I can't come up with three things.
A co-worker of mine heard that I collected games and told me he had some old stuff that I could have if I wanted it. Of course I said yes, but some time went by and I forgot about it. A while later I was coming out of work late (stupid work) and he was still waiting in the parking lot with the stuff. So that was cool of him on two counts. He hands me this box and in it is a NES, SNES, Genisis, 32X, controllers, cables, and a crap load of games. I did NOT expect him to have that many games. Rather than explain everything here you can just watch the video.
-video upcoming-
I haven't gotten the NES to work yet but the Genesis does. I've played a few games, most of which suck. I'll let you know when I get everything shiny and I've tried all the games.
A co-worker of mine heard that I collected games and told me he had some old stuff that I could have if I wanted it. Of course I said yes, but some time went by and I forgot about it. A while later I was coming out of work late (stupid work) and he was still waiting in the parking lot with the stuff. So that was cool of him on two counts. He hands me this box and in it is a NES, SNES, Genisis, 32X, controllers, cables, and a crap load of games. I did NOT expect him to have that many games. Rather than explain everything here you can just watch the video.
-video upcoming-
I haven't gotten the NES to work yet but the Genesis does. I've played a few games, most of which suck. I'll let you know when I get everything shiny and I've tried all the games.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Lost and Dissasembled
In this installment of "How I Waste My Time and Money" we talk about modern classics of the Marvel Comics Universe and mainstream television, Oh the HUMANITY!!!
I saw the finale of Lost. I'm just glad I didn't spend the last six years waiting for that. I started watching the show on Hulu back around the beginning of the year and finished season five just in time for season six to start in February. It wasn't a bad ending per say. It just left to many things unanswered; answers I'd been waiting for from the beginning of the show. The final big reveal only has to do with season six, not the rest of the show, and when you find out what has been going all all season it's a big WTF moment. Frustrating.
On a more positive note I picked up the TPB of Avengers: Disassembled. This story is supposed to be the beginning of all the major Marvel Universe events that took place over the last seven years, culminating with the Siege storyline that just came out. I had heard that this was a great story and I was not disappointed. I'm not really a big Avengers fan. I know most of the characters but as a team I wasn't really aware of their backstory. My lack of history with the franchise didn't matter, it turned out to be the best comic I've read in a long while. This book starts off with a bang and the shit just doesn't stop hitting the fan until the last page. It sets up the events in the reality-altering House of M storyline which is next on my list. I'll let you know how it is.
I saw the finale of Lost. I'm just glad I didn't spend the last six years waiting for that. I started watching the show on Hulu back around the beginning of the year and finished season five just in time for season six to start in February. It wasn't a bad ending per say. It just left to many things unanswered; answers I'd been waiting for from the beginning of the show. The final big reveal only has to do with season six, not the rest of the show, and when you find out what has been going all all season it's a big WTF moment. Frustrating.
On a more positive note I picked up the TPB of Avengers: Disassembled. This story is supposed to be the beginning of all the major Marvel Universe events that took place over the last seven years, culminating with the Siege storyline that just came out. I had heard that this was a great story and I was not disappointed. I'm not really a big Avengers fan. I know most of the characters but as a team I wasn't really aware of their backstory. My lack of history with the franchise didn't matter, it turned out to be the best comic I've read in a long while. This book starts off with a bang and the shit just doesn't stop hitting the fan until the last page. It sets up the events in the reality-altering House of M storyline which is next on my list. I'll let you know how it is.
Tetris Attacks My Wallet
Went to Play N Trade the other day to satisfy my hunger for old-ass games. In The Human Animal Desmond Morris says that people collect things to satisfy an innate instinct to hunt. I'll buy that. Haha, pun! Anyway, PNT had just received a wealth of trade-ins and were fully stocked in the awesome classics department. I picked up Tetris Attack for the SNES and Crimson Skies for the Xbox.
Crimson Skies is the first game for the original Xbox that I've acquired. A while ago I made a short list of titles that I would consider buying. I looked for titles that I felt were icons of the system, highly acclaimed, and held at least some game play appeal (I didn't want to just keep them on the shelf after all). Also I wanted to make sure they were known for working well on the 360 (since I don't have an actual Xbox). The list was short primarily because like the current generation, the last one saw most AAA titles come out for both Xbox and PS2. Since the PS2 is my primary system for that generation (again, I don't even have an Xbox) It makes sense to me to buy dual system games for the PS2. Here are a few notable titles from my wish list:
Jade Empire
Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2
... um actually that's it. I told you it was a short list.
Crimson Skies is pretty fun. For about and hour. The air combat is fun but you follow a fairly linear set of missions, and they degenerate into bullshit fairly quickly.
Tetris Attack on the other hand is a true classic. I wasn't really aware of it as a quality title until recently when I was looking over a SNES top 100 list on the net. The authors were hailing it as one of the best puzzle games on the system, so when I saw it at PNT I gave it a chance, despite the $15 price tag. The game play is solid. It's a match-three game like Bejeweled, but your moves don't have to result in a match, so there is a lot more strategy involved as you set up big combos. On top of that there are a crap load of modes and even tutorials, which was pretty unheard of back then. My questions is, how is it they got to call it Tetris Attack when it had nothing to do with Tetris?
The best part of the game is the multiplayer. I say this for one big reason: MY WIFE WILL PLAY THIS WITH ME. In case you don't know my wife let me assure you this is huge. She'll play games every once in a while but her attention span for them is like my attention span for everything else. After about 15 minutes she's had enough. I got her to play Tetris Attack with me... FOR OVER 2 HOURS! That's right, 120 whole minutes. Amazing.
It's not surprising that the game is so good. It came out in 1996, the end of the system's life cycle, and was made by a first party developer. The developer, Inteligent Systems also programed Super Metroid, and were the developers behind the Fire Emblem series.
On a side note, apparently someone had come in to PNT a few days before me and traded in their N64 and all their games which included pretty much every good game for the system. It was very hard for me not to drop the cash and walk out with it all. Maybe next week.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Impressions: Final Fantasy XIII: Part 4: Finally Finished
With story mode anyway. Story mode... not sure why I called it that, but now that I think about it, it makes sense. FF13 is two games. First you play through the linear story going from chapters 1 to 13, and after you beat it you get to play the second game. You can play the "other game" a little bit in chapter 11 but you aren't really supposed to. What you are supposed to do is wait until after the credits have rolled, and only then can you play what sometimes seems like the REAL Final Fantasy.
I knew from the beginning that you could continue playing after defeating the final boss. I knew this because the strategy guide told me from the very beginning. It's authors went out of their way to tell me not to bother power leveling my characters or items until "much later in the game" (Chapter 11). Once I got to "much later in the game" they encouraged me to quickly return to the main plot. It's not until after you beat the game that you are supposed to do the side quests.
Why wait? Because the final level of the crystarium isn't unlocked until after you beat the last boss. I knew this, but I was under the impression that the game just continues after the credits. I thought it would let you keep on running around doing shit and explain it as, "you beat the evil boss and your reward is to run around Pulse killing shit." This isn't the case however. After the credits you are asked if you want to save your game. When you do, you are transported to a save point just before the last boss, and it's like you never fought him! There's nothing wrong with this I guess, it's just so ass-backward. Why did they do it that way? Maybe they wanted you to be only so powerful for the last fight. It's a little jarring that's all.
Anyway the game is great. Not GREAT great, just regular. I've had fun with it and I'm sure I'll put just as much more time into it as I already have.
I knew from the beginning that you could continue playing after defeating the final boss. I knew this because the strategy guide told me from the very beginning. It's authors went out of their way to tell me not to bother power leveling my characters or items until "much later in the game" (Chapter 11). Once I got to "much later in the game" they encouraged me to quickly return to the main plot. It's not until after you beat the game that you are supposed to do the side quests.
Why wait? Because the final level of the crystarium isn't unlocked until after you beat the last boss. I knew this, but I was under the impression that the game just continues after the credits. I thought it would let you keep on running around doing shit and explain it as, "you beat the evil boss and your reward is to run around Pulse killing shit." This isn't the case however. After the credits you are asked if you want to save your game. When you do, you are transported to a save point just before the last boss, and it's like you never fought him! There's nothing wrong with this I guess, it's just so ass-backward. Why did they do it that way? Maybe they wanted you to be only so powerful for the last fight. It's a little jarring that's all.
Anyway the game is great. Not GREAT great, just regular. I've had fun with it and I'm sure I'll put just as much more time into it as I already have.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
2010 Triangle Game Conference
For the last couple of years there has been a gaming conference here in the Triangle area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) aptly named the Triangle Game Conference. It's put on by my school Wake Technical Community College (where I'm studying game design) and some of the local game companies like Insomniac and Epic. Not many people know this but this area of North Carolina is home to more than 40 game or simulation companies.
I meant to go in previous years but was to busy. This year however I had a chance to go. I was impressed with the size of the conference. It's no E3 or GDC by any means but for only being around for 3 years I think it's doing quite well. I think what sets this conference apart is its focus on students. All of the seminars held throughout the two days were aimed at the burgeoning designer/programmer/artist. Most of the attendees were students which initially surprised me but makes sense since its put on by Wake Tech and there are a lot of colleges in the area (NC State has a top rate computer science department, so I've heard).
I only went for the second day but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well. The best seminars I attended were given by writers. Writing is one of the avenues I'm looking at for getting into the industry so they were relevant to me. But I found that writers also make the most engrossing speakers (duh). On the other hand I should have known better than to expect to get anything out of a 50 minute seminar on advanced physics engines.
I meant to go in previous years but was to busy. This year however I had a chance to go. I was impressed with the size of the conference. It's no E3 or GDC by any means but for only being around for 3 years I think it's doing quite well. I think what sets this conference apart is its focus on students. All of the seminars held throughout the two days were aimed at the burgeoning designer/programmer/artist. Most of the attendees were students which initially surprised me but makes sense since its put on by Wake Tech and there are a lot of colleges in the area (NC State has a top rate computer science department, so I've heard).
I only went for the second day but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well. The best seminars I attended were given by writers. Writing is one of the avenues I'm looking at for getting into the industry so they were relevant to me. But I found that writers also make the most engrossing speakers (duh). On the other hand I should have known better than to expect to get anything out of a 50 minute seminar on advanced physics engines.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Suck of Anchorage
So I finished Operation: Anchorage. It started off as a fast moving diversion, but the ride was too short and the scenery along the way wasn't that great. Things went down hill when I realized I had missed one of the intel items and upon walking all the way back to get it I realized it was in a section of the map I couldn't get back to. It let me go back to the long section right after it so that I wasted 10 min walking through it, but no, not the section I needed to get to. Why didn't they block off all the past sections so I wouldn't waste my time? Or better yet, not block off sections at all? There was no reason to do it in the first place. Anyway, being the tight-ass completionist that I am, I had to revert to a previous save and wasted yet another hour.
After the opening part of the Anchorage simulation you have all your guns taken from you and you have to requisition equipment kits as if you were playing Battlefield or something. Why??? Carrying a variety of weapons is one of the things that makes Fallout such a fun game! None of the loadouts includes the coolest weapon in O:A, the Gauss rifle. You can get the rifle but only if you pass a speech test which I failed because I was only level 4. Why would you make an expansion with only one interesting new weapon, and then make it really hard to get? I should get to play with it the whole time! That's what I paid five dollars for!!! Stupid.
The coolest part is that you put together a squad of AI companions from a list of the usual soldier archetypes, a mister gutsy, or a sentry bot. I picked the sentry bot. This is cool until you realize that Fallout 3's weakest point is its piss-poor companion AI. You have no control over your team. You tell them when to attack and they do it until the mission is done. They kill things well enough, almost too well. The game is so easy I could have gone without them; there are health and ammo refills all over the place.
It didn't actually get hard until the end when you fight the Chinese general.
**Kinda Spoiler Alert**
The last part of the simulation is a raid against the Chinese stronghold. You run in to this last area together with a few U.S. soldiers in power armor (who's presence makes the game even easier) and in front of you is this general and some elite Chinese soldiers. You exchange some meaningless dialog and then the general attacks you, head on, with a sword. Well hes going to have a hard time against my gun! No, it turns out he's got more hit points than a whole pack of deathclaws. So I start shooting him but I don't have a lot of action points so I'm forced to fire outside of V.A.T.S.. I realize I'm taking a lot of damage but it doesn't look like he's hitting me. Suddenly I'm dead. I figure that maybe the Chinese soldiers are shooting me but when I target them they are green (friendly). I finally realize that it's my own fucking men shooting me! As I attempt to shoot the general they keep running through my line of fire, and when they get hit they turn on me! What kind of STUPIDMOTHERFUCKINGSHIT is that!? WHY ARE THEY EVEN THERE!?!? The Chinese soldiers aren't shooting at me so its not like they are protecting me. The whole thing is just to create the illusion of a battle. Sorry, but the illusion was shattered when a hand full of frag grenades failed to scratch the tiny oriental man who's only protection was a cotton uniform!! In order to beat it I had to run in circles around the battlefield so that the general couldn't hit me, waiting for my AP to recover so I could shoot him in V.A.T.S., so as not to accidentally hit any of my own men. If I were to summarize the experience it would be: Not. Fun. At. All.
Basically Operation: Anchorage takes all the things that makes Fallout 3 great and trows them out while accentuating the few crappy parts. If you think about it, an expansion where you get to go back and fight one of the pivotal battles of the war that destroyed the world should have been Amazing! Instead it's just a big disappointment. Just to make up for it I blew up Megaton three or four times. Awesome. Every. Time.
I'm taking a Fallout break and going back to Final Fantasy 13 for a while.
After the opening part of the Anchorage simulation you have all your guns taken from you and you have to requisition equipment kits as if you were playing Battlefield or something. Why??? Carrying a variety of weapons is one of the things that makes Fallout such a fun game! None of the loadouts includes the coolest weapon in O:A, the Gauss rifle. You can get the rifle but only if you pass a speech test which I failed because I was only level 4. Why would you make an expansion with only one interesting new weapon, and then make it really hard to get? I should get to play with it the whole time! That's what I paid five dollars for!!! Stupid.
The coolest part is that you put together a squad of AI companions from a list of the usual soldier archetypes, a mister gutsy, or a sentry bot. I picked the sentry bot. This is cool until you realize that Fallout 3's weakest point is its piss-poor companion AI. You have no control over your team. You tell them when to attack and they do it until the mission is done. They kill things well enough, almost too well. The game is so easy I could have gone without them; there are health and ammo refills all over the place.
It didn't actually get hard until the end when you fight the Chinese general.
**Kinda Spoiler Alert**
The last part of the simulation is a raid against the Chinese stronghold. You run in to this last area together with a few U.S. soldiers in power armor (who's presence makes the game even easier) and in front of you is this general and some elite Chinese soldiers. You exchange some meaningless dialog and then the general attacks you, head on, with a sword. Well hes going to have a hard time against my gun! No, it turns out he's got more hit points than a whole pack of deathclaws. So I start shooting him but I don't have a lot of action points so I'm forced to fire outside of V.A.T.S.. I realize I'm taking a lot of damage but it doesn't look like he's hitting me. Suddenly I'm dead. I figure that maybe the Chinese soldiers are shooting me but when I target them they are green (friendly). I finally realize that it's my own fucking men shooting me! As I attempt to shoot the general they keep running through my line of fire, and when they get hit they turn on me! What kind of STUPIDMOTHERFUCKINGSHIT is that!? WHY ARE THEY EVEN THERE!?!? The Chinese soldiers aren't shooting at me so its not like they are protecting me. The whole thing is just to create the illusion of a battle. Sorry, but the illusion was shattered when a hand full of frag grenades failed to scratch the tiny oriental man who's only protection was a cotton uniform!! In order to beat it I had to run in circles around the battlefield so that the general couldn't hit me, waiting for my AP to recover so I could shoot him in V.A.T.S., so as not to accidentally hit any of my own men. If I were to summarize the experience it would be: Not. Fun. At. All.
Basically Operation: Anchorage takes all the things that makes Fallout 3 great and trows them out while accentuating the few crappy parts. If you think about it, an expansion where you get to go back and fight one of the pivotal battles of the war that destroyed the world should have been Amazing! Instead it's just a big disappointment. Just to make up for it I blew up Megaton three or four times. Awesome. Every. Time.
I'm taking a Fallout break and going back to Final Fantasy 13 for a while.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Guns of Anchorage
Don't remember if I mentioned this but I grabbed two of the expansion packs for Fallout 3; Broken Steel and Operation: Anchorage. It appeared as though all the expansions were part of the weekly discount on XBLA at %50 off. Believing the discount to be temporary I readily added 1000 MS points to my account and picked two. I think it may be a permanent thing though because I checked the next week and they were still at the discounted price. I hadn't yet beaten the main game (I still haven't) so I put in a few hours with my main character who I plan to use for Broken Steel. If you are not aware it is a continuation of the main game, letting you play past the ending and raising the level cap to 30. For Operation: Anchorage I chose to use my evil character, and go strait the the expanded content right away. Making it across the map to get there was challenging at level 2, especially since I was used to playing at level 20+. It was actually refreshing to have a lone raider with an assault rifle be a credible threat and gingerly negotiating such an obstacle was actually fun. I'm at a point with my main character where I'm more or less moving down a checklist tying up loose ends before the last mission. It can be tedious.
Anyway the little bit of Anchorage that I've played has been fun. The whole thing is a simulation, a game within a game. The mechanics are stripped down for a faster moving experience which again is refreshing. you don't have to mess around with item management as much because it's a "game" so you refill your ammo and health at stations along your path. There are intel items to find as well, and grabbing all ten before the end of the simulation grants you a special perk.
I'd really like to get all the achievements for this game but that puts me in a position to have to buy The Pitt. They did that thing that they sometimes do to games with DLC. They added the achievements to the game whether you have the content or not. So you could get all 1000 points from the normal game and still have an annoying 250 keeping you from %100 completion. I guess most people don't care but I'd like to see %100 for certain games and now I have to pay extra for it. I don't really want to play The Pitt either, out of all five of the expansions it seems to be the least interesting. I'm much more interested in Mothership Zeta since it's the most different, and Point Lookout looks cool because I grew up in roughly that geographic area so it would be like playing in my post-apocalyptic back yard. Whee.
Anyway the little bit of Anchorage that I've played has been fun. The whole thing is a simulation, a game within a game. The mechanics are stripped down for a faster moving experience which again is refreshing. you don't have to mess around with item management as much because it's a "game" so you refill your ammo and health at stations along your path. There are intel items to find as well, and grabbing all ten before the end of the simulation grants you a special perk.
I'd really like to get all the achievements for this game but that puts me in a position to have to buy The Pitt. They did that thing that they sometimes do to games with DLC. They added the achievements to the game whether you have the content or not. So you could get all 1000 points from the normal game and still have an annoying 250 keeping you from %100 completion. I guess most people don't care but I'd like to see %100 for certain games and now I have to pay extra for it. I don't really want to play The Pitt either, out of all five of the expansions it seems to be the least interesting. I'm much more interested in Mothership Zeta since it's the most different, and Point Lookout looks cool because I grew up in roughly that geographic area so it would be like playing in my post-apocalyptic back yard. Whee.
Monday, March 29, 2010
PAX East
So I missed the inaugural PAX EAST this weekend. It would have been nice to go but with all of the traveling and car repair lately it was just not financially feasible. I'm planing on going to PAX10 in the fall though. Hopefully I'll have a new job by then that isn't hourly so I don't feel each tick of my off-time like a stab to the wallet. No I don't get vacation time. No not sick leave either. >:-(
Anyway I am going to the Triangle Game Conference next week. I don't know what kind of people attend this thing but let me tell you, if you aren't a student be prepared to shell out for this one. I got a one day pass for $25 but that was with my student discount AND my IGDA discount. Without those I would have paid $120 for a one day pass! Well I wouldn't have paid that but that would have been the price.
Anyway I am going to the Triangle Game Conference next week. I don't know what kind of people attend this thing but let me tell you, if you aren't a student be prepared to shell out for this one. I got a one day pass for $25 but that was with my student discount AND my IGDA discount. Without those I would have paid $120 for a one day pass! Well I wouldn't have paid that but that would have been the price.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Stuff that's not Final Fantasy
Taking a break from Final Fantasy this week. I've been playing a few rounds of Modern Warfare 2 each morning when I get home from work. I feel like I'm getting better at it. I play mostly free for all deathmatch and I manage to get a "kill-cam" win about once a session now. It may sound noobish to get excited about such things but the feeling of improvement is one of the best feelings a human being can have and it's one that "1337" players seldom get to enjoy. I've found tremendous success with the care package and sentry gun kill counts. Using a care package as camping bait is an old strategy but I like the twist of planting a sentry gun and letting it do my camping for me. The 4 and 5 kills necessary to get these makes it easy to do.
I had to go to the doctor the other day which required me to drive to a part of town with a Play N Trade nearby. Proximity to a Play N Trade almost guarantees a purchase. I went in looking for SNES or PS1 games as usual but ended up with copies of KOTOR2 and Twilight Princess in my hands. KOTOR2 was less expensive but I've been eyeing the Zelda game for few years now. Damn Gamecube games are still hella expensive for their age but you know you're buying quality. Plus if they haven't gone down in price buy now they're not going to later, or get any easier to find. Although I'm not likely to play through the whole game (much like Metroid Prime) I'm glad I grabbed it and now I'm considering TLoZ: The Wind Waker and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door to round out my GC collection.
...OK and Starfox Assault. But that's it!
So I had a scare the other day. I was tidying up and accidentally dropped my wife's 14 year old Game Boy Pocket. I guess the glue had worn out because the plastic shield over the LDC screen popped right off. There was a moment of panic but it turned on just fine. A light application of modeling glue and a few hours later the shield was back in place. My Spring cleaning endeavors also resulted in me moving my SNES and old 13" TV into the office. This opened up a lot of space on my dresser which is cool because I had some framed photos I needed to find a place for. I had to store all my modeling supplies to make room for the SNES and TV but I play way more video games than I do modeling.
Lastly I mentioned Brink in a previous post after seeing it at PAX last year. I saw the most recent videos for it yesterday and it looks like it's going to be a fantastic game. I have a feeling I'll be doing some campaigning among my friends come fall to get them to buy it.
I had to go to the doctor the other day which required me to drive to a part of town with a Play N Trade nearby. Proximity to a Play N Trade almost guarantees a purchase. I went in looking for SNES or PS1 games as usual but ended up with copies of KOTOR2 and Twilight Princess in my hands. KOTOR2 was less expensive but I've been eyeing the Zelda game for few years now. Damn Gamecube games are still hella expensive for their age but you know you're buying quality. Plus if they haven't gone down in price buy now they're not going to later, or get any easier to find. Although I'm not likely to play through the whole game (much like Metroid Prime) I'm glad I grabbed it and now I'm considering TLoZ: The Wind Waker and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door to round out my GC collection.
...OK and Starfox Assault. But that's it!
So I had a scare the other day. I was tidying up and accidentally dropped my wife's 14 year old Game Boy Pocket. I guess the glue had worn out because the plastic shield over the LDC screen popped right off. There was a moment of panic but it turned on just fine. A light application of modeling glue and a few hours later the shield was back in place. My Spring cleaning endeavors also resulted in me moving my SNES and old 13" TV into the office. This opened up a lot of space on my dresser which is cool because I had some framed photos I needed to find a place for. I had to store all my modeling supplies to make room for the SNES and TV but I play way more video games than I do modeling.
Lastly I mentioned Brink in a previous post after seeing it at PAX last year. I saw the most recent videos for it yesterday and it looks like it's going to be a fantastic game. I have a feeling I'll be doing some campaigning among my friends come fall to get them to buy it.
Impressions: Final Fantasy XIII: Part 3
Warning, minor story spoilers!
40+ hours in:
So I've reached the part of the game where things branch out a bit. I'm on chapter 11 where the party has finally arrived on Pulse, the giant world that the much smaller Cocoon floats above. There is a very nice cut scene involving an airship just before the party gets there, and then another impressive one right after that. The second is a montage of Pulse with some voice-over exposition that showcases some of the world's more fantastic features. So that was fun. Pretty soon after getting to Pulse you get to the first real open area in the game. There are some monsters here that are gargantuan and are not meant to be taken on at this point in the game. It's cool to see what you have to aspire to in the late game. This area is also the first opportunity to take on a sidequest and go somewhere other than the next checkpoint. The game has missions that are a lot like XII's hunts. You track down a specific beastie, subdue it, and receive some high quality rewards. You can do the missions more than once but you'll only get the reward once.
In my last addendum I mentioned that at the beginning of chapter 10 you get to choose your party. Well right after I posted that I got a little further and the "crystarium" opened up so that all characters can learn all job rolls. This diminishes my earlier criticism of the linearity of the progression system but only a little. First it sucks that it took 30+ hours of play before I get to choose who does what. Second it's still pretty linear, you're just choosing between 6 lines now instead of three. Third the three extra rolls each character has are much more expensive to develop that their primary rolls, encouraging you to stick to the primaries. Finally each character's primary rolls offer a much better spread of abilities. For example, Snow is designed to be the best sentinel as he gets great stats and all of the sentinel abilities. However if you wanted to make him a healer and developed his medic roll you would find that he gets much fewer abilities than Hope does. The characters are designed to be specific things, so there isn't much point to developing their extra rolls until you've completed the primaries. So mad about that.
Also a little irritated by the eidolons. In order to get them you have to fight them. Nothing new there, it's a standard of the series. Only now you're not so much fighting them as you are auditioning for them. It's like a summoning tryout. You have to figure out which abilities they like and then use those abilities in the battle to fill a Gestalt gauge (this game is big on gauges). Fill the gauge and hit the X button and it transforms into these awkward "vehicles" that look like they were made from K'nex, and you get to ride them. That's a cool idea in theory but there's nothing I hate more in a game than not knowing what to do. Maybe it's just my personal psychology but I don't want to fight a battle AND solve a puzzle, that's not fun for me. I realized that the whole thing is kind of like a mating dance. You're trying to discover how to attract this strange and wondrous creature to you before it bites your head off. Of course I was never good at that sort of thing... WHICH IS WHY I PLAY VIDEO GAMES. Or maybe it's the other way around. My failings at social interaction aside I like the idea but it still feels a little to trail-and-error-ish to me. The last one I fought I more or less knew what I had to do, but finding the perfect paradigm to fill the gauge in time (did I mention there was a time limit?) took me about seven tries. I was at the controller throwing stage by the end of it.
Did I mention this game is hard? It's freaking hard.
40+ hours in:
So I've reached the part of the game where things branch out a bit. I'm on chapter 11 where the party has finally arrived on Pulse, the giant world that the much smaller Cocoon floats above. There is a very nice cut scene involving an airship just before the party gets there, and then another impressive one right after that. The second is a montage of Pulse with some voice-over exposition that showcases some of the world's more fantastic features. So that was fun. Pretty soon after getting to Pulse you get to the first real open area in the game. There are some monsters here that are gargantuan and are not meant to be taken on at this point in the game. It's cool to see what you have to aspire to in the late game. This area is also the first opportunity to take on a sidequest and go somewhere other than the next checkpoint. The game has missions that are a lot like XII's hunts. You track down a specific beastie, subdue it, and receive some high quality rewards. You can do the missions more than once but you'll only get the reward once.
In my last addendum I mentioned that at the beginning of chapter 10 you get to choose your party. Well right after I posted that I got a little further and the "crystarium" opened up so that all characters can learn all job rolls. This diminishes my earlier criticism of the linearity of the progression system but only a little. First it sucks that it took 30+ hours of play before I get to choose who does what. Second it's still pretty linear, you're just choosing between 6 lines now instead of three. Third the three extra rolls each character has are much more expensive to develop that their primary rolls, encouraging you to stick to the primaries. Finally each character's primary rolls offer a much better spread of abilities. For example, Snow is designed to be the best sentinel as he gets great stats and all of the sentinel abilities. However if you wanted to make him a healer and developed his medic roll you would find that he gets much fewer abilities than Hope does. The characters are designed to be specific things, so there isn't much point to developing their extra rolls until you've completed the primaries. So mad about that.
Also a little irritated by the eidolons. In order to get them you have to fight them. Nothing new there, it's a standard of the series. Only now you're not so much fighting them as you are auditioning for them. It's like a summoning tryout. You have to figure out which abilities they like and then use those abilities in the battle to fill a Gestalt gauge (this game is big on gauges). Fill the gauge and hit the X button and it transforms into these awkward "vehicles" that look like they were made from K'nex, and you get to ride them. That's a cool idea in theory but there's nothing I hate more in a game than not knowing what to do. Maybe it's just my personal psychology but I don't want to fight a battle AND solve a puzzle, that's not fun for me. I realized that the whole thing is kind of like a mating dance. You're trying to discover how to attract this strange and wondrous creature to you before it bites your head off. Of course I was never good at that sort of thing... WHICH IS WHY I PLAY VIDEO GAMES. Or maybe it's the other way around. My failings at social interaction aside I like the idea but it still feels a little to trail-and-error-ish to me. The last one I fought I more or less knew what I had to do, but finding the perfect paradigm to fill the gauge in time (did I mention there was a time limit?) took me about seven tries. I was at the controller throwing stage by the end of it.
Did I mention this game is hard? It's freaking hard.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Impressions: Final Fantasy XIII: Part 2
I'm at 30+ hours now, and at the beginning of chapter 10. Just got to the point where I have everyone together and I can choose who is in my party, so I'm excited about that. Got to pick who I wanted for the boss fight at the end of chapter 9. I decided I wanted to switch out Fang and bring in Sazh to join Lightning and Hope. This allows me to have a Commando and two Synergists for the openings, a Commando and two Ravagers for offensive chaining, Two medics and a Synergist for when I get in trouble, and two Commandos and a Ravager to finish things off. It's worked out pretty well so far.
In my review I don't think I made it clear just how gorgeous this game is. I don't usually care to much about graphics but it's hard not to be impressed by every environment and model. The battles are really spectacular. They did a great job with the spells, which are flying around constantly. The fights are chaotic and because of the speed at which they progress and the prevalence of flashy spells and attacks they are a joy to watch.
In my review I don't think I made it clear just how gorgeous this game is. I don't usually care to much about graphics but it's hard not to be impressed by every environment and model. The battles are really spectacular. They did a great job with the spells, which are flying around constantly. The fights are chaotic and because of the speed at which they progress and the prevalence of flashy spells and attacks they are a joy to watch.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Impressions: Final Fantasy XIII: Part 1
So It's been out for 10 days. I've had it for 9. A lot has been said about it in that time, some have spoken praise and some have spoken words of derision, including people who's opinions I hold in high esteem. But now I'm going to have my say. The following is my initial impression of the game. I'm currently about half way through the main story (chapter 8 of 13) and have logged 24 hours of play time.
The curse of the Final Fantasy series is that it's never really final. There are 13 of them (including X-2 and excluding XI) and every new installment has to been held up to all those that have come before. As perhaps the most celebrated RPG series in the world, living up to your predecessors is no small challenge. There is folly in comparing the games however because each one stands alone as its own complete experience, the installments having only token similarities that are really more like traditions than rules. Perhaps the greatest Final Fantasy tradition is to break with the standards of previous games. What makes a Final Fantasy game then isn't so much what it has in common with the others but what it does differently. Invariably fans will cry foul, declaring that the series has been ruined, screaming of sacrilegious changes to familiar formulas and calling for designers' resignations. I believe the whole point of Square Enix's flagship series is to push the company to produce something that is both familiar and totally new at the same time. Well with Final Fantasy XIII they have certainly done that.
So I know it's ironic given what I just said, but I'm going to start of by comparing XIII to another game. More than anything else this game reminds me of FFX. The story is similar. It’s about a small band of people who's mission will likely spell their doom whether they succeed or not. They both have a progression system that abandons traditional levels in exchange for a branching path that increments attributed one at a time. They are both highly linear games with limited opportunities for sidequests or exploration. Finally, they are both the first Final Fantasy games for their respective console generations, setting new standards for graphical excellence.
So there's that comparison. Now lets talk about what makes XIII unique, and we'll start with the obvious, the battle system. Back in 1991 Square put out FFIV and with it a new battle system called the Active Time Battle system. ATB changed the way we fought battles from a turn based system to one in which time "flows" and characters act when their individual ATB gauges fill, usually a function of their speed stat. Since FFIV every game since has had some variation of the ATB system (with the exception of FFX).
FFXIII's variation is the most radical yet. Your character has a bar that fills like normal only now the bar has segments and different actions use up different numbers of filled segments. This means that you don’t have to wait for your bar to fill completely before executing an action. For example a basic attack only costs one segment. If you had a bar with two segments filled you can hit a button and use up the first two segments to instantly perform two attacks. If you had the third segment half filled it would carry over to the first segment, so you it wouldn’t be wasted. This can be useful if you know an enemy is only going to take two more hits to kill. You can finish it off quickly and move on to the next without having to wait for the bar to fill.
It doesn’t stop there. Did you notice before I said “your character” has a bar? It’s singular for a reason. In battle you directly control one lead character. The other characters in your party (max party size is three) are controlled by the computer and their actions are dictated by whatever their paradigm roll is; more on rolls in a moment. So what happens if your one controllable character dies? Game Over. This means that paramount to anything else is your lead character’s health.
So what are rolls and paradigms? Rolls are like the job classes of the past, only instead of a job with a mix of actions that could span attack and defense the rolls are strategic foci and are highly specialized. When assigned to a roll a character will do one specific thing; a commando attacks, a medic heals, a sentinel defends, a synergist buffs, etc. There is no crossover. A medic cannot do a simple weapon attack for example. The paradigms are pre-set roll assignments for the characters in your party. Paradigms can by shifted on the fly during battle. So you can go from having a commando and two ravagers (a second attacking roll used to drive up a chain gauge, more on that in a moment too) to having a sentinel, medic, and synergist with the push of a button (OK two pushes and some stick work). This would be useful if you were low on health and needed to shore up your defenses.
So what then is a chain gauge? Each enemy you fight has a chain gauge along with their health bar. Buy damaging the enemy their chain gauge will fill up. When the gauge is full the enemy becomes staggered and will take more damage. Staggering enemies is a vital part of FFXIII’s battle system. The whole thing works like this. Enemies have weaknesses that when exploited will drive their chain gauge up faster. Ravagers can cast elemental magic and perform elementally charged physical attacks. You either use a librascope (an item) to scan the enemy’s weakness or let the AI figure it out by trail and error. The ravager’s pound the enemy with its weakness element while a commando, just by being there, slows the chain gauge’s recovery. The enemy gets staggered and the commando starts doing beaucoup damage until it is dead or it recovers from the stagger. Rinse, repeat. And that’s your combat system folks.
So I mentioned that the progression system is like FFX’s. There are no character levels, just stats that are boosted one at a time. FFX had the sphere grid which let you occasionally choose which path you wanted your character’s development to take. FFXIII is similar but instead of a grid you have this weird crystal lattice thing. Each character has three rolls that they can be assigned for the main portion of the game (you get more after you beat the story). Each roll has a path with stat nodes on it. Spend Crystal Points (experience points basically) and you can move along the path from one node to another. Occasionally you can choose whether or not to branch off the main path but this usually only leads to one side node and then you’re back on the main path again. At first glace it has the appearance of giving you a choice but it’s really pretty linear. The only choice is deciding which roll to level up first. The crappy thing is that you can’t power level at all in the main story. Your crystal paths will come to an end and you have to wait until the next chapter of the game before more of the path opens up.
The third big change is the way you get equipment. Every save point is also a store. It’s like a futuristic shopping terminal. You can access stores virtually through the terminal… and I guess they beam you the products you buy Star Trek style. It’s a neat idea that doesn’t make a lot of sense but whatever. There are no traditional stores in the game, you just use the save points. You can equip a weapon and at least one accessory to protect you or confer some ability. Weapons and accessories have levels, and herein lies the true method of power leveling. Enemies you kill drop loot instead of money. You can sell the loot or you can use certain types of loot called components to upgrade your weapons and accessories. This is a game in and of itself with a complicated system for determining how much a component improves an item. Since you can keep fighting enemies and collecting loot you could theoretically build up a really strong character early in the game. However, because of how long this would take it’s really not worth investing a lot of time on loot farming until later in the game.
Well there’s the synopsis of the game. So what are my impressions of FFXIII? For starters let me just say that bottom line, it’s a good game. Is it an amazing, perfect 10? No. What I think Square Enix was trying to do was create a more cinematic and action-oriented game than Final Fantasy games of the past. The battle system is designed to be streamlined and fast moving, and it is! There are times when the flurry of attacks and the rapid shifting of paradigms create a truly exciting game play experience. The thing I don’t like about it is not being able to control all three characters. It was a cool idea and most of the time I dig the paradigm system. But sometimes I just want a character to do a very specific thing and I can’t tell them to do it. All I can do is paradigm shift and prey the AI figures it out. I wouldn’t mind it so much except you can’t dictate who your leader is, that’s determined by where you are in the story. I’ve always found it annoying in FF games when I’m stuck with a certain group of characters but at least in past games I could control those characters. So, it’s an interesting idea SquareEnix but next time no thanks.
The second problem I have is the pacing of the game. Like I said, they made it very cinematic. There are tons of cutscenes! These scenes tell the story at regular intervals throughout the game. The trouble is that they tend to break up the action too much. In past FFs you would enter a new area, have a cutscene, play through the area having many battles, get to the boss, cutscene, boss fight, cutscene, next area. In FFXIII you’ll have a cut scene at the beginning and end of each area but you’ll also have three or four during passage through the area. That could actually be pretty cool except that you only get two or three battles between each cut scene. At first this was OK but as I got towards the middle of the story I found that both the cutscenes and the battles were getting tedious. The battles would get really long because the enemies were stronger but they weren’t interesting enough to justify the length. The cutscenes stopped being impressive around chapter 6. I wish they would just put it all in one big scene and sum it up so I can get back to playing the game. I’ve read elsewhere that the momentum picks back up in the latter third of the game. We shall see.
Hands down, the weakest part of the game is the crystal leveling thing. Like I said before it doesn’t give you the freedom to develop your character as you might think it would. Really it just feels like work. Instead of leveling up my character automatically they make me do it, but the experience doesn’t have any appeal or feel rewarding. I’m just holding a button while watching a line and some crystals light up. On top of that the whole thing is presented in this 3D crystal model which is pretty to look at but unwieldy to use. It’s just too much trouble when I have to use the thing every ten minutes. Something like the sphere grid from FFX or even better the license grid from FFXII would have been a better choice.
That’s the bad stuff. On the plus side the graphics and amazing; even on my dinosauric standard definition TV. The story is pretty good. It’s your standard Final Fantasy story. It’s not going to win any awards but it’s engaging none the less. It’s interesting enough that I’m anxious to see how it turns out. OH! And they get a big thumbs-up for putting a story summary in the game that you can read at any time. I love it when RPGs do that, and they really went all out creating an encyclopedia with people, places, history, and the game summary that updates as you go. The characters are your typical Final Fantasy characters. They can be annoying but none of them are as obnoxious as Brother from FFX/FFX-2 so fear not.
I really do enjoy the battle system despite its flaws. The paradigm system is fun and exciting. The biggest impact of the new battle system is that it increases the difficulty of the game. Having the loss of one character end the game creates plenty of opportunities for failure. I don’t think I’ve ever died this much in a Final Fantasy and that’s a good thing. Finally, I like the weapon upgrade mini game a lot. It’s fun the way the bazaar from FFXII was fun, but it’s a little more straight forward too which is nice. I just wish it played a bigger roll in the early game.
I don’t give games number ratings because I think they’re misleading. All I can say is that I have had fun with the game and plan to spend a lot more time with it. I would recommend it to fans of Final Fantasy and RPG fans in general provided they take into account the negatives I mentioned. If you’re too much of a traditionalist you may just want to go back a play an early FF over again. I can’t say that I’d recommend paying $60 for the game either. It’s $60 worth of game no doubt, and I don’t feel like I wasted my money. However, I’ll bet most folks could stand to wait a while longer until the price drops. If you’ve never played an RPG before this may be a good place to start. It’s simpler than a lot of other RPGs out there, and it might appeal to a more action oriented player.
As I continue to play the game I’ll add updates and let you all know how I enjoyed the latter half of the game.
The curse of the Final Fantasy series is that it's never really final. There are 13 of them (including X-2 and excluding XI) and every new installment has to been held up to all those that have come before. As perhaps the most celebrated RPG series in the world, living up to your predecessors is no small challenge. There is folly in comparing the games however because each one stands alone as its own complete experience, the installments having only token similarities that are really more like traditions than rules. Perhaps the greatest Final Fantasy tradition is to break with the standards of previous games. What makes a Final Fantasy game then isn't so much what it has in common with the others but what it does differently. Invariably fans will cry foul, declaring that the series has been ruined, screaming of sacrilegious changes to familiar formulas and calling for designers' resignations. I believe the whole point of Square Enix's flagship series is to push the company to produce something that is both familiar and totally new at the same time. Well with Final Fantasy XIII they have certainly done that.
So I know it's ironic given what I just said, but I'm going to start of by comparing XIII to another game. More than anything else this game reminds me of FFX. The story is similar. It’s about a small band of people who's mission will likely spell their doom whether they succeed or not. They both have a progression system that abandons traditional levels in exchange for a branching path that increments attributed one at a time. They are both highly linear games with limited opportunities for sidequests or exploration. Finally, they are both the first Final Fantasy games for their respective console generations, setting new standards for graphical excellence.
So there's that comparison. Now lets talk about what makes XIII unique, and we'll start with the obvious, the battle system. Back in 1991 Square put out FFIV and with it a new battle system called the Active Time Battle system. ATB changed the way we fought battles from a turn based system to one in which time "flows" and characters act when their individual ATB gauges fill, usually a function of their speed stat. Since FFIV every game since has had some variation of the ATB system (with the exception of FFX).
FFXIII's variation is the most radical yet. Your character has a bar that fills like normal only now the bar has segments and different actions use up different numbers of filled segments. This means that you don’t have to wait for your bar to fill completely before executing an action. For example a basic attack only costs one segment. If you had a bar with two segments filled you can hit a button and use up the first two segments to instantly perform two attacks. If you had the third segment half filled it would carry over to the first segment, so you it wouldn’t be wasted. This can be useful if you know an enemy is only going to take two more hits to kill. You can finish it off quickly and move on to the next without having to wait for the bar to fill.
It doesn’t stop there. Did you notice before I said “your character” has a bar? It’s singular for a reason. In battle you directly control one lead character. The other characters in your party (max party size is three) are controlled by the computer and their actions are dictated by whatever their paradigm roll is; more on rolls in a moment. So what happens if your one controllable character dies? Game Over. This means that paramount to anything else is your lead character’s health.
So what are rolls and paradigms? Rolls are like the job classes of the past, only instead of a job with a mix of actions that could span attack and defense the rolls are strategic foci and are highly specialized. When assigned to a roll a character will do one specific thing; a commando attacks, a medic heals, a sentinel defends, a synergist buffs, etc. There is no crossover. A medic cannot do a simple weapon attack for example. The paradigms are pre-set roll assignments for the characters in your party. Paradigms can by shifted on the fly during battle. So you can go from having a commando and two ravagers (a second attacking roll used to drive up a chain gauge, more on that in a moment too) to having a sentinel, medic, and synergist with the push of a button (OK two pushes and some stick work). This would be useful if you were low on health and needed to shore up your defenses.
So what then is a chain gauge? Each enemy you fight has a chain gauge along with their health bar. Buy damaging the enemy their chain gauge will fill up. When the gauge is full the enemy becomes staggered and will take more damage. Staggering enemies is a vital part of FFXIII’s battle system. The whole thing works like this. Enemies have weaknesses that when exploited will drive their chain gauge up faster. Ravagers can cast elemental magic and perform elementally charged physical attacks. You either use a librascope (an item) to scan the enemy’s weakness or let the AI figure it out by trail and error. The ravager’s pound the enemy with its weakness element while a commando, just by being there, slows the chain gauge’s recovery. The enemy gets staggered and the commando starts doing beaucoup damage until it is dead or it recovers from the stagger. Rinse, repeat. And that’s your combat system folks.
So I mentioned that the progression system is like FFX’s. There are no character levels, just stats that are boosted one at a time. FFX had the sphere grid which let you occasionally choose which path you wanted your character’s development to take. FFXIII is similar but instead of a grid you have this weird crystal lattice thing. Each character has three rolls that they can be assigned for the main portion of the game (you get more after you beat the story). Each roll has a path with stat nodes on it. Spend Crystal Points (experience points basically) and you can move along the path from one node to another. Occasionally you can choose whether or not to branch off the main path but this usually only leads to one side node and then you’re back on the main path again. At first glace it has the appearance of giving you a choice but it’s really pretty linear. The only choice is deciding which roll to level up first. The crappy thing is that you can’t power level at all in the main story. Your crystal paths will come to an end and you have to wait until the next chapter of the game before more of the path opens up.
The third big change is the way you get equipment. Every save point is also a store. It’s like a futuristic shopping terminal. You can access stores virtually through the terminal… and I guess they beam you the products you buy Star Trek style. It’s a neat idea that doesn’t make a lot of sense but whatever. There are no traditional stores in the game, you just use the save points. You can equip a weapon and at least one accessory to protect you or confer some ability. Weapons and accessories have levels, and herein lies the true method of power leveling. Enemies you kill drop loot instead of money. You can sell the loot or you can use certain types of loot called components to upgrade your weapons and accessories. This is a game in and of itself with a complicated system for determining how much a component improves an item. Since you can keep fighting enemies and collecting loot you could theoretically build up a really strong character early in the game. However, because of how long this would take it’s really not worth investing a lot of time on loot farming until later in the game.
Well there’s the synopsis of the game. So what are my impressions of FFXIII? For starters let me just say that bottom line, it’s a good game. Is it an amazing, perfect 10? No. What I think Square Enix was trying to do was create a more cinematic and action-oriented game than Final Fantasy games of the past. The battle system is designed to be streamlined and fast moving, and it is! There are times when the flurry of attacks and the rapid shifting of paradigms create a truly exciting game play experience. The thing I don’t like about it is not being able to control all three characters. It was a cool idea and most of the time I dig the paradigm system. But sometimes I just want a character to do a very specific thing and I can’t tell them to do it. All I can do is paradigm shift and prey the AI figures it out. I wouldn’t mind it so much except you can’t dictate who your leader is, that’s determined by where you are in the story. I’ve always found it annoying in FF games when I’m stuck with a certain group of characters but at least in past games I could control those characters. So, it’s an interesting idea SquareEnix but next time no thanks.
The second problem I have is the pacing of the game. Like I said, they made it very cinematic. There are tons of cutscenes! These scenes tell the story at regular intervals throughout the game. The trouble is that they tend to break up the action too much. In past FFs you would enter a new area, have a cutscene, play through the area having many battles, get to the boss, cutscene, boss fight, cutscene, next area. In FFXIII you’ll have a cut scene at the beginning and end of each area but you’ll also have three or four during passage through the area. That could actually be pretty cool except that you only get two or three battles between each cut scene. At first this was OK but as I got towards the middle of the story I found that both the cutscenes and the battles were getting tedious. The battles would get really long because the enemies were stronger but they weren’t interesting enough to justify the length. The cutscenes stopped being impressive around chapter 6. I wish they would just put it all in one big scene and sum it up so I can get back to playing the game. I’ve read elsewhere that the momentum picks back up in the latter third of the game. We shall see.
Hands down, the weakest part of the game is the crystal leveling thing. Like I said before it doesn’t give you the freedom to develop your character as you might think it would. Really it just feels like work. Instead of leveling up my character automatically they make me do it, but the experience doesn’t have any appeal or feel rewarding. I’m just holding a button while watching a line and some crystals light up. On top of that the whole thing is presented in this 3D crystal model which is pretty to look at but unwieldy to use. It’s just too much trouble when I have to use the thing every ten minutes. Something like the sphere grid from FFX or even better the license grid from FFXII would have been a better choice.
That’s the bad stuff. On the plus side the graphics and amazing; even on my dinosauric standard definition TV. The story is pretty good. It’s your standard Final Fantasy story. It’s not going to win any awards but it’s engaging none the less. It’s interesting enough that I’m anxious to see how it turns out. OH! And they get a big thumbs-up for putting a story summary in the game that you can read at any time. I love it when RPGs do that, and they really went all out creating an encyclopedia with people, places, history, and the game summary that updates as you go. The characters are your typical Final Fantasy characters. They can be annoying but none of them are as obnoxious as Brother from FFX/FFX-2 so fear not.
I really do enjoy the battle system despite its flaws. The paradigm system is fun and exciting. The biggest impact of the new battle system is that it increases the difficulty of the game. Having the loss of one character end the game creates plenty of opportunities for failure. I don’t think I’ve ever died this much in a Final Fantasy and that’s a good thing. Finally, I like the weapon upgrade mini game a lot. It’s fun the way the bazaar from FFXII was fun, but it’s a little more straight forward too which is nice. I just wish it played a bigger roll in the early game.
I don’t give games number ratings because I think they’re misleading. All I can say is that I have had fun with the game and plan to spend a lot more time with it. I would recommend it to fans of Final Fantasy and RPG fans in general provided they take into account the negatives I mentioned. If you’re too much of a traditionalist you may just want to go back a play an early FF over again. I can’t say that I’d recommend paying $60 for the game either. It’s $60 worth of game no doubt, and I don’t feel like I wasted my money. However, I’ll bet most folks could stand to wait a while longer until the price drops. If you’ve never played an RPG before this may be a good place to start. It’s simpler than a lot of other RPGs out there, and it might appeal to a more action oriented player.
As I continue to play the game I’ll add updates and let you all know how I enjoyed the latter half of the game.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
It's Been Four Years, I Can Wait Nine Hours
So It's 0100 on Wednesday the Tenth of March, which means two things. First my Dad is an hour into his birthday, Happy Birthday! WOOO! And second Final Fantasy XIII has been available in North America for a day and an hour. Due to the cancer in my life that is my job I have not been able to pick it up yet. The Universe is testing me... but I shall prevail. I've been waiting for this game since 2006, I can wait until GameStop opens at 1000 this morning.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A Public Service Announcement
::Attention::
If you are a dirty redneck slut and you are at a party stoned out of your mind, please do not randomly bite me or my friends. Seriously, it will just work out better for everyone if you don't.
Great, now that we've got that out of the way I can tell you about the weekend, or rather three weekends ago. Last weekend contained very little video game time. It did contain a trip to Texas, a last minute wedding, being awake for 56 strait hours, and a strange series of events which prompted me to make the above statement. And that's all we need to say about that weekend.
Three weekends ago I had the pleasure of driving up to my old home town in northern Virginia to see some old friends and play some old games. Er, new games. When I arrived the host (who I shall call "David") was busy pulling a new TV out of the box. This modest 46" was going to go in his bedroom eventually, but for the festivities we set it up on his kitchen table. In the dining room (or what was intended to be a dining room) there was a second set-up. Will brought a projector from work and aimed it at the blank wall. The host had his own not-so-modest TV in the living room and Will's little brother had yet another spare TV next to him. We all had 360s and the 5 of us (my other friend who I shall call "Vlad" was there but systemless) spent the next 48 hours playing all sorts of shit. Highlights included Modern Warfare 2 (which is great when you have everyone in the same room), a rousing 4 player run through I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT, and a 2 hour push into Gears of War 2's horde mode.
I also found time to play a little Forza 2 and over the course of those sessions I finally reached career level 50. So that was cool. Got to try out the first 15 or so minutes of Bioshock 2. It seemed like a great game but considering I've spent the same amount of time with its predecessor I wasn't inspired to go out and grab a copy. I did however pick up Red Faction Guerrilla, which is hella fun. It has some issues no doubt but played about 15 hours of it over 2 days so they must be doing something right. I'll put up an Impressions post about it later.
Needless to say that weekend kicked ass despite the drive and sleep deprivation, which is becoming old hat for me at this point. I'll try to throw up some pictures once I figure out how to pull them off my phone.
If you are a dirty redneck slut and you are at a party stoned out of your mind, please do not randomly bite me or my friends. Seriously, it will just work out better for everyone if you don't.
Great, now that we've got that out of the way I can tell you about the weekend, or rather three weekends ago. Last weekend contained very little video game time. It did contain a trip to Texas, a last minute wedding, being awake for 56 strait hours, and a strange series of events which prompted me to make the above statement. And that's all we need to say about that weekend.
Three weekends ago I had the pleasure of driving up to my old home town in northern Virginia to see some old friends and play some old games. Er, new games. When I arrived the host (who I shall call "David") was busy pulling a new TV out of the box. This modest 46" was going to go in his bedroom eventually, but for the festivities we set it up on his kitchen table. In the dining room (or what was intended to be a dining room) there was a second set-up. Will brought a projector from work and aimed it at the blank wall. The host had his own not-so-modest TV in the living room and Will's little brother had yet another spare TV next to him. We all had 360s and the 5 of us (my other friend who I shall call "Vlad" was there but systemless) spent the next 48 hours playing all sorts of shit. Highlights included Modern Warfare 2 (which is great when you have everyone in the same room), a rousing 4 player run through I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT, and a 2 hour push into Gears of War 2's horde mode.
I also found time to play a little Forza 2 and over the course of those sessions I finally reached career level 50. So that was cool. Got to try out the first 15 or so minutes of Bioshock 2. It seemed like a great game but considering I've spent the same amount of time with its predecessor I wasn't inspired to go out and grab a copy. I did however pick up Red Faction Guerrilla, which is hella fun. It has some issues no doubt but played about 15 hours of it over 2 days so they must be doing something right. I'll put up an Impressions post about it later.
Needless to say that weekend kicked ass despite the drive and sleep deprivation, which is becoming old hat for me at this point. I'll try to throw up some pictures once I figure out how to pull them off my phone.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Price of War
I beat Modern Warfare 2 on veteran yesterday, leaving me with just Fallout 3 to finish before I feel ready for Final Fantasy XIII. It was a satisfying win to be sure but I was surprised that it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. There were certainly some really hard levels. I mentioned Takedown in the last post and I feel I must bring up Contingency and Loose Ends as well. These three levels are exercises in pain. In a lower difficulty Contingency isn't that bad but on veteran you have to finish a certain part in a 3 minute time limit. This negates the essential strategy for beating veteran which is to go slow and take your time. For a level like Takedown it's a strategy you must employ but in Contingency you have to run through as fast as you can and I found myself doing something that bordered on trial and error, running through it 20+ times trying something a little different each time. Loose Ends is a level that just pisses me off, there's no other way to put it. It was a pain in the ass on regular and it was a rage inducing shit-fest on veteran. The whole level is a paper cut and lemon juice festival but the last segment is just one big kick-in-the-balls-cake with a big fuck-you-cherry on top. I'm not going to spoil it for you, if you've played it you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't be prepared. I'm not kidding, the game literally gives you a big fuck-you at the end as a special thanks for playing.
Those three levels aside, it wasn't that hard. My basis for comparison is Call of Duty 2 in which every level is agonizing on hardened and up. I really like MW2 though. It may be the best shooter I've ever played. You feel like you are in a summer blockbuster, every second is a fantastic set-piece battle. Having gone through it twice I was still eager to go back and find all the intel items, which I did on recruit. Let me tell you, recruit is an entirely different game. Parts that on veteran would take you 30 minutes to slog through take 30 seconds as you execute a brisk walk through a raging firefight. The difficulty levels in a Call of Duty game are kind of like a spectrum ranging from arcade to simulation only instead of arcade having more enemies it has less which makes it not as fun. That's what they need for the next game, a mode with recruit level damage but a veteran or more level of enemies. I'd play it.
On a bitter-sweet note I just got 10 great cds for 30 bucks. The bitter sweet part is that it was from a going out of business sale for my favorite used cd store. Damn this recession, damn this recession to hell!
Those three levels aside, it wasn't that hard. My basis for comparison is Call of Duty 2 in which every level is agonizing on hardened and up. I really like MW2 though. It may be the best shooter I've ever played. You feel like you are in a summer blockbuster, every second is a fantastic set-piece battle. Having gone through it twice I was still eager to go back and find all the intel items, which I did on recruit. Let me tell you, recruit is an entirely different game. Parts that on veteran would take you 30 minutes to slog through take 30 seconds as you execute a brisk walk through a raging firefight. The difficulty levels in a Call of Duty game are kind of like a spectrum ranging from arcade to simulation only instead of arcade having more enemies it has less which makes it not as fun. That's what they need for the next game, a mode with recruit level damage but a veteran or more level of enemies. I'd play it.
On a bitter-sweet note I just got 10 great cds for 30 bucks. The bitter sweet part is that it was from a going out of business sale for my favorite used cd store. Damn this recession, damn this recession to hell!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Preorder
A few days ago I preordered Final Fantasy XIII along with the collector’s edition guide book. I know this goes contrary to my normal practice of buying games more than a year after they come out and at a fraction of the price but part of the reason I do that is so every few years I can afford to buy the newest Final Fantasy game. The total between the game and the book will be over $90. Well worth it (hey I could have spent $120 on Tony Hawk Ride). Final Fantasy is the exception to my rule. Which rule? All of them. I am not the kind of person who gets excited easily. Things that get most people worked up to a frothing frenzy of joyous anticipation usually only manage to induce from me a shrug and a muttered "meh". But for Final Fantasy I am what could be modestly described as a fanboy. And to be a Final Fantasy Fanboy (or F3 if you will) you pretty much have to be unimpressed by things. You have to have an unhealthy amount of patience and the uncanny ability to distract yourself from diabolically long development times. FF13 has been in development since before 12 came out. That was in 2006. That was four years ago. It's a good thing the games are so long you can spend at least some of that time hooked up to the Final Fantasy intravenous drip, a few precious months where the black muddy cloud of life can be diluted by a water-color rainbow. When you're chasing the dragon the rest of the grime smeared world fades away behind you, your vision tunnels as if approaching the speed of light, and the ground falls away beneath you while you float without effort suspended by naught but your neurons in the humming syrupy aether. At this point the existence of self is barely credible, an argument held aloft by a chorus of laughing sub atomic particles mankind will forever lack the fortitude of spirit to discover.
So yeah, March 9th, woo-hoo.
My task now is to complete all of my other self imposed gaming obligations so that my plate will be squeaky clean for the advent. This will mostly consist of trying to finish Fallout 3 to a satisfactory extent. That last sentence is a fool’s errand in and of itself. Epic poems could be written about "finishing" a game like Fallout 3. The word "sisyphean" comes to mind. On top of that I've decided to try and beat Modern Warfare 2 on veteran. If you've read previous posts you have an idea of my relationship with Infinity Ward and their venerable franchise. Challenging their dreaded hard mode is an act of suicidal self destruction that has produced in me fits of rage so pure they result in memory loss and permanent increases in blood pressure. These are periods of my life where I can only recall the aftermath; as if I awoke to stumble from my basement storm shelter and found that my home was no longer there. They call it "veteran" instead of "hard" because you come out the other side with post-traumatic stress disorder; like you've lived through something that will be read about in textbooks by bored school children. No man knows how he will die, but for me I would put money on a Call of Duty-induced heart attack or stroke. The description for veteran says, "You will not survive". They are not talking about the game.
I'm optimistic though. I'm already half way through it and the hardest level of the game, "Takedown" is behind me. As for Fallout 3, if I just concentrate on completing the official missions I could feasibly be finished by the end of the month. But then there are the expansions and the temptation to play through again as an evil character... and then again as a neutral one...
So yeah, March 9th, woo-hoo.
My task now is to complete all of my other self imposed gaming obligations so that my plate will be squeaky clean for the advent. This will mostly consist of trying to finish Fallout 3 to a satisfactory extent. That last sentence is a fool’s errand in and of itself. Epic poems could be written about "finishing" a game like Fallout 3. The word "sisyphean" comes to mind. On top of that I've decided to try and beat Modern Warfare 2 on veteran. If you've read previous posts you have an idea of my relationship with Infinity Ward and their venerable franchise. Challenging their dreaded hard mode is an act of suicidal self destruction that has produced in me fits of rage so pure they result in memory loss and permanent increases in blood pressure. These are periods of my life where I can only recall the aftermath; as if I awoke to stumble from my basement storm shelter and found that my home was no longer there. They call it "veteran" instead of "hard" because you come out the other side with post-traumatic stress disorder; like you've lived through something that will be read about in textbooks by bored school children. No man knows how he will die, but for me I would put money on a Call of Duty-induced heart attack or stroke. The description for veteran says, "You will not survive". They are not talking about the game.
I'm optimistic though. I'm already half way through it and the hardest level of the game, "Takedown" is behind me. As for Fallout 3, if I just concentrate on completing the official missions I could feasibly be finished by the end of the month. But then there are the expansions and the temptation to play through again as an evil character... and then again as a neutral one...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Top Gear
I just watched the first episode from season 10 of Top Gear. What a great show! I'd only seen one other episode before where the host was in a little 4WD thingy and was being chased through the country side by a British hunting party with hounds and horses. That was pretty cool but this episode was way better. The three hosts each had a lightweight supercar and were driving around Europe looking for the perfect road. They ended up in the Swiss and Italian Alps on this amazing stretch. What impresses me the most about the show is the quality of the production and camera work. There were some incredible shots of both the cars and the country side. It's also fun to watch a group of guys who love cars and know so much about them given these awesome machines to play with. Also, the guys' witty banter keeps the pace nicely. I'll definitely be watching more of this show. So what does that have to do with video games? Nothing.
I'm gonna go play some Forza...
I'm gonna go play some Forza...
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Impressions: The Maw
So from now on any article that is a review will have the prefix title "impressions" because that's what the article will contain. I'm not really interested in doing a hard and fast review with a score and all that, primarily because a million other people do that and also because I would have to conform to some sort of format. I would prefer to do a more free form discussion as though I were speaking to a friend.
So a while ago I downloaded The Maw demo from Live Arcade. It had the first level which I found to be a pleasant diversion. This week's "Deal of the Week" was the full game for half price, so I grabbed it. In The Maw you play as a little alien guy in a yellow jumpsuit who escapes these other aliens when their ship crashes on a planet. The titular Maw is another alien whose body consists of purple ooze and a giant mouth. The gameplay revolves around guiding the Maw around by a leash beam and getting it to eat all the other animals in the level. Eating creatures makes Maw grow bigger which lets it eat even bigger creatures. There is a puzzle element that comes from eating special creatures. These creatures confer an ability to Maw like breathing fire or floating in the air, and are necessary to get past certain obstacles. So far there hasn't been anything I've gotten stuck on, it's all pretty much geared towards a younger audience. There have been a few satisfying head scratching moments though. So is the game any good? I would say it's amusing. The controls work and its got solid gameplay. I'm not screaming at for unfair deaths or glitches. In fact there aren't any deaths at all. Should you buy it? If you have kids this is probably a good game for them. It will exercise their young minds without being to hard, while providing some entertainment. As an adult I find it a good option if I want to kill some time without investing a lot of energy. I usually play it in a free half hour before I have to go do something else.
My biggest complaint with the game is that it's pretty short for a fifteen dollar game. There are less than ten levels and it takes about thirty minutes to finish a level. The production value is fairly high for a XBLA game but I still feel a little ripped off. The bullshit part is that there are three levels offered on the marketplace for 100MSP each so that's another $3.75 if you want all the levels. Why weren't these levels in the original release? The descriptions say they happen in between the normal levels and they are referred to as director's cut levels. So it would appear they were taken out on purpose just to squeeze me for another $3.75. Really $18.75 (the total for all of it) isn't a lot of money, but I expect more game for that, and offering cut levels for more money is just shady. It's the principle of the thing. It's like how the recently released Dragon Age Origins had an expansion pack released the SAME DAY. Why couldn't they have just put it in the full game? Because there are a bunch of dumb assholes out there who are willing to pay for it and the publishers know it. Smells like bullshit to me.
So a while ago I downloaded The Maw demo from Live Arcade. It had the first level which I found to be a pleasant diversion. This week's "Deal of the Week" was the full game for half price, so I grabbed it. In The Maw you play as a little alien guy in a yellow jumpsuit who escapes these other aliens when their ship crashes on a planet. The titular Maw is another alien whose body consists of purple ooze and a giant mouth. The gameplay revolves around guiding the Maw around by a leash beam and getting it to eat all the other animals in the level. Eating creatures makes Maw grow bigger which lets it eat even bigger creatures. There is a puzzle element that comes from eating special creatures. These creatures confer an ability to Maw like breathing fire or floating in the air, and are necessary to get past certain obstacles. So far there hasn't been anything I've gotten stuck on, it's all pretty much geared towards a younger audience. There have been a few satisfying head scratching moments though. So is the game any good? I would say it's amusing. The controls work and its got solid gameplay. I'm not screaming at for unfair deaths or glitches. In fact there aren't any deaths at all. Should you buy it? If you have kids this is probably a good game for them. It will exercise their young minds without being to hard, while providing some entertainment. As an adult I find it a good option if I want to kill some time without investing a lot of energy. I usually play it in a free half hour before I have to go do something else.
My biggest complaint with the game is that it's pretty short for a fifteen dollar game. There are less than ten levels and it takes about thirty minutes to finish a level. The production value is fairly high for a XBLA game but I still feel a little ripped off. The bullshit part is that there are three levels offered on the marketplace for 100MSP each so that's another $3.75 if you want all the levels. Why weren't these levels in the original release? The descriptions say they happen in between the normal levels and they are referred to as director's cut levels. So it would appear they were taken out on purpose just to squeeze me for another $3.75. Really $18.75 (the total for all of it) isn't a lot of money, but I expect more game for that, and offering cut levels for more money is just shady. It's the principle of the thing. It's like how the recently released Dragon Age Origins had an expansion pack released the SAME DAY. Why couldn't they have just put it in the full game? Because there are a bunch of dumb assholes out there who are willing to pay for it and the publishers know it. Smells like bullshit to me.
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