You sons of bitches are just the spawn of the very living devil you mother fuckers. I swear you’re a bunch of circle jerk baby killers. You slaughter them in their cribs and feast on their tender flesh. I’ll bet you even laugh at their mothers as you smear the blood all over your faces. You fascist shit suckers.
What the fuck made you think it would be a good idea to put a checkpoint RIGHT FUCKING IN FRONT OF A GROUP OF ENEMIES? Did you do it on purpose? Did you really feel it was necessary to force me to watch myself get gunned down over and over again and have to read some bullshit war quote every time?
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about here is the scenario. Call of Duty 2. Second mission of the second level. Veteran difficulty. I and my comrades (read: guys who run in front of my gun while I’m firing so I can be called a traitor and have to restart) have just liberated a station house in the middle of the train yard. As soon as I clear the top floor the enemy stages a counter attack. No problem! I just happen to be on the top floor with a sniper rifle. I’m happily picking off Krauts when suddenly I see checkpoint reached message in the top corner and about two seconds later I’m being shot in the back! I turn just in time to see four Germans who have ascended the staircase behind me pump me full of hot German lead.
So, first of all, WHERE IN THE HELL DID ALL MY GUYS GO?! Are they so fucktarded moron useless that they can’t hold a position for 60 fucking seconds? I don’t even see their bodies. They are just gone. Did they jump out? Did the Germans use a cloaking device and sneak past them? Did the thin third floor atmosphere cause them to pass out? And we just cleared the building! A building surround by open courtyard. So where did those soldiers even come from? Repel in from helicopters? Hide in a cardboard box?
So now every time I respawn I have about 3 seconds to turn around, throw a grenade and crouch behind a flimsy wooden table, shoot the guy who runs around the table, and then pick off any one else. I died about 40 or 50 times. Only twice did I… Wait I forgot one, I had to change weapons in those 3 seconds too because I got the fucking checkpoint holding a rifle instead of a machine gun and it only had ONE FUCKING ROUND LEFT! This means that I had to turn with the right stick, hit the b button to crouch, the right bumper to throw the grenade, and the y button to swap. Usually I died half way through the swap animation. As an aside, why is b crouch? Why isn’t it left stick down like many other games? That makes more sense since it’s movement oriented and frees up your right hand to do other stuff. Like STAY ALIVE. So anyway I managed to get past the initial 4 man onslaught only twice and when I did I found myself trapped on the top floor and when I moved over to the staircase I was immediately shot in the face buy the guy who was just waiting there with his gun pointed at the space where he knew my head would be. That wouldn’t have been such a bad challenge if I had a checkpoint right before THAT. Why couldn’t they have put it there? What did I even do to trigger that checkpoint? I all did was shoot a few guys, I wasn’t even moving! Did it trigger because some of the enemy made it to the building? That would be an example of BAD GAME DESIGN. You put a checkpoint somewhere safe. Somewhere the player can pause if he wants. Somewhere he is not going to get his head BLOWN OFF. You don’t put it right before the enemy kicks down my door, especially not while my BACK IS TURNED!
The checkpoint is designed so that the player doesn’t have to start the level all over again every time they die. This is a wonderful invention that some games don’t even have and for most of this game you do a good job with (this is especially important considering the difficulty level). All of that is ruined by this one experience. In this case the checkpoint did the opposite of what it’s supposed to do. I decided to just start the level over (I didn’t have much choice). As soon as I did I found that I no longer had the same weapons! Instead of the sniper rifle and machine gun I had from the previous mission I had a crappy iron sight rifle and a pistol. A fucking useless pistol! I guess you guys just had to have one more little laugh at my expense. Next time why don’t you just come to my house and stab me in the eye, it would be easier than making a game.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
I Want the Chipper Chicken
I am very excited that in 9 days I will be able to afford Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It is coming to XBLA and PSN, presumably for less that the $80 it goes for on ebay. It would be really funny though if come the 29th it cost 6400 Microsoft Points.
I rented this game quite a few years ago. It was fun to play against others because of the extreme button-mashiness of it. Fighting games are great when everyone sucks. I spent the one player mode screaming hurtful things that I will probably have to answer for in the after life. The game is hard. Yet I still want to play it again. If nothing else I'd play it just to spend hours getting my ass kicked, grinding out points to spend on unlocking the 300-some characters. I really like unlocking things.
*It's not really 300, it's like 50 something. Still though, FIFTY SOMETHING.
I rented this game quite a few years ago. It was fun to play against others because of the extreme button-mashiness of it. Fighting games are great when everyone sucks. I spent the one player mode screaming hurtful things that I will probably have to answer for in the after life. The game is hard. Yet I still want to play it again. If nothing else I'd play it just to spend hours getting my ass kicked, grinding out points to spend on unlocking the 300-some characters. I really like unlocking things.
*It's not really 300, it's like 50 something. Still though, FIFTY SOMETHING.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A letter to Valve: Addendum
Addendum:
OK, I figured it out and it wasn't as bad as I made it out to be but you guys are still jerks.
PS:
I'm so glad that the AI in Left 4 Dead is better than the idiot followers in this game. I'm happy when they die because then they aren't in my FREAKING WAY.
OK, I figured it out and it wasn't as bad as I made it out to be but you guys are still jerks.
PS:
I'm so glad that the AI in Left 4 Dead is better than the idiot followers in this game. I'm happy when they die because then they aren't in my FREAKING WAY.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
A letter to Valve
TO: Valve level designers
RE: Second turret stand off at Nova Prospekt
Dear Valve,
FUCK YOU. You are a sadistic bunch of inflamed assholes and I want you to die. Thank you very much for giving me three auto turrets to aid me in my defense (and by defense I mean futile attempt to survive your hopeless death trap). It's too bad that they are completely worthless. It's too bad that the endless waves of heavily armed soldiers can just run up to them and push them over. It's too bad that if I try to put them up again I am defenseless while I fumble with your awkward controls trying to get them upright. It's too bad that my own weapon runs out of ammo ridiculously fast even though I've worked painstakingly through the past ten or so levels to conserve every bullet I could, and it's nice that you've given me some ammo and extra health laying around but it sucks that I have to hack through a crate to get to it wasting precious time. I'm sick of your god damned game and it's boring endless stupid "puzzles" and cheap deaths and stupid characters. I hate that I have to pick off a shit-ton of little spider things to get to some action and once I get to some action its impossibly hard bull shit. FUCKING GOD DAMMED BULLSHIT!!!!
Love
-The Player
RE: Second turret stand off at Nova Prospekt
Dear Valve,
FUCK YOU. You are a sadistic bunch of inflamed assholes and I want you to die. Thank you very much for giving me three auto turrets to aid me in my defense (and by defense I mean futile attempt to survive your hopeless death trap). It's too bad that they are completely worthless. It's too bad that the endless waves of heavily armed soldiers can just run up to them and push them over. It's too bad that if I try to put them up again I am defenseless while I fumble with your awkward controls trying to get them upright. It's too bad that my own weapon runs out of ammo ridiculously fast even though I've worked painstakingly through the past ten or so levels to conserve every bullet I could, and it's nice that you've given me some ammo and extra health laying around but it sucks that I have to hack through a crate to get to it wasting precious time. I'm sick of your god damned game and it's boring endless stupid "puzzles" and cheap deaths and stupid characters. I hate that I have to pick off a shit-ton of little spider things to get to some action and once I get to some action its impossibly hard bull shit. FUCKING GOD DAMMED BULLSHIT!!!!
Love
-The Player
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Radio
Been listening to a lot of on line radio lately. I have an iPod with every album I own (and some that I don't heh heh) on it which is a lot of music. But I've been opting for internet radio because of the opportunity to discover tons of new music. Usually I listen to Pandora, and I have about 12 finely tuned stations made that I would link to here if I could figure out how to maintain my secret identity. Anyway, tonight I was in the mood for game music which Pandora does not do well. In the process of looking for a site that just streams game music I came across one that's probably even better. StreamingSoundtracks.com plays soundtracks from both movies and games. I find that as movies and games are representative of journeys so too is listening to this station. You would think that that all the different sounds and themes mashed together would be jarring but so far it works quite well. I started out hearing the dramatic main theme from Dante's Peak, then on to an impressive all drum piece from Drumline, then on to Macross Plus. How's that for range? Next up was the intro to Alien Resurrection and then the ending to Final Fantasy VIII. The transition between the two songs was so seamless (their ending and beginning so similar) I didn't realize it had happened. Kind of eerie. Anyway check it out.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Digging in pt. 2
Part II: Playing with friends
So my brother-in-law finds out I have an XBox360 and generously decides to send me one of two games so that we can play online. My choices were Gears of War 2, or Left 4 Dead. I chose Left 4 Dead because the concept appealed to me more than Gears and because my friend (who I will call "William") had it and had been badgering me to buy it as well. So I had gotten together online with William and another friend with the game (who I will call "Jeff") thinking that we would play some L4D but the game had not yet arrived.
I initially convinced them to play some co-op Aegis Wing which is a delightful and might I add free little XBLA game. Bored with that Jeff convinced us to pick up Castle Crashers. I had not anticipated buying anything that night but he promised that if it sucked I could kick him in the nuts the next time I saw him. So we both downloaded the game ans spent the next 4 hours or so with it. Fortunately for Jeff's nuts the game doesn't suck.
If you are unaware Castle Crashers is an old school hack and slash (button mash) side scroller where you play as a knight or any of 20-odd unlockable characters. The fun comes from the frantic action and some small RPG elements. As you grind through the enemies you also grind levels which gives you points to put into speed, strength, defense, and magic. If you play through the story your character will end up around level 30 with probably one of your stats maxed out. You can then continue with that character up to level 99 or play through with someone else. This lends a high replayability to the game because you can choose to specialize in something different each time. There is also an "insane" mode that you can access with any character that's gone though the main game. The part of the game that really sets it apart are the comedic elements. The tone is akin to something you might see on Adult Swim (is that even still on?) with lost of mad-cap poop jokes and references to pop culture. The scene that sticks out in my mind is one in which you ride a deer through a saw mill trying to escape a monster. The deer (apparently due to fear) is propelling itself solely by explosive diarrhea.
So the next day my copy of Left 4 Dead did arrive. I'm not sure I have a lot to say about it. You play a "survivor" making their way through one of four levels going from safe house to safe house (the save points) on your way to some destination that ostensibly will help you escape danger on a more permanent basis. By danger I mean endless swarms of zombies or "infected". The game is fun but you really need 3 friends to get the most out of it. It's designed to be a co-op game and it does a wonderful job of it. Once you've played multiplayer though you really can't enjoy the single player game. At least I couldn't, it just feels... lonely.
I will also point out that the competitive multiplayer mode is the most enjoyable of all. The game has special types of infected that have deadly abilities aside from the normal run-screaming-towards-you-and-eat-your-face attack. In the VS mode four players play special infected and four play as survivors. The survivors play the level as normal but the infected try to stop them. What's great about it that there is a high level of teamwork needed on both sides in order to succeed. Coordinating your abilities into an organized attack with devastating results is a real thrill.
So my brother-in-law finds out I have an XBox360 and generously decides to send me one of two games so that we can play online. My choices were Gears of War 2, or Left 4 Dead. I chose Left 4 Dead because the concept appealed to me more than Gears and because my friend (who I will call "William") had it and had been badgering me to buy it as well. So I had gotten together online with William and another friend with the game (who I will call "Jeff") thinking that we would play some L4D but the game had not yet arrived.
I initially convinced them to play some co-op Aegis Wing which is a delightful and might I add free little XBLA game. Bored with that Jeff convinced us to pick up Castle Crashers. I had not anticipated buying anything that night but he promised that if it sucked I could kick him in the nuts the next time I saw him. So we both downloaded the game ans spent the next 4 hours or so with it. Fortunately for Jeff's nuts the game doesn't suck.
If you are unaware Castle Crashers is an old school hack and slash (button mash) side scroller where you play as a knight or any of 20-odd unlockable characters. The fun comes from the frantic action and some small RPG elements. As you grind through the enemies you also grind levels which gives you points to put into speed, strength, defense, and magic. If you play through the story your character will end up around level 30 with probably one of your stats maxed out. You can then continue with that character up to level 99 or play through with someone else. This lends a high replayability to the game because you can choose to specialize in something different each time. There is also an "insane" mode that you can access with any character that's gone though the main game. The part of the game that really sets it apart are the comedic elements. The tone is akin to something you might see on Adult Swim (is that even still on?) with lost of mad-cap poop jokes and references to pop culture. The scene that sticks out in my mind is one in which you ride a deer through a saw mill trying to escape a monster. The deer (apparently due to fear) is propelling itself solely by explosive diarrhea.
So the next day my copy of Left 4 Dead did arrive. I'm not sure I have a lot to say about it. You play a "survivor" making their way through one of four levels going from safe house to safe house (the save points) on your way to some destination that ostensibly will help you escape danger on a more permanent basis. By danger I mean endless swarms of zombies or "infected". The game is fun but you really need 3 friends to get the most out of it. It's designed to be a co-op game and it does a wonderful job of it. Once you've played multiplayer though you really can't enjoy the single player game. At least I couldn't, it just feels... lonely.
I will also point out that the competitive multiplayer mode is the most enjoyable of all. The game has special types of infected that have deadly abilities aside from the normal run-screaming-towards-you-and-eat-your-face attack. In the VS mode four players play special infected and four play as survivors. The survivors play the level as normal but the infected try to stop them. What's great about it that there is a high level of teamwork needed on both sides in order to succeed. Coordinating your abilities into an organized attack with devastating results is a real thrill.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Digging In pt. 1
Ok so let’s dig in to that list I gave you last time.
Braid. Great little game. I say little when I really mean short. I suppose that if you really just couldn’t figure out the puzzles that the game could be very long indeed. To my credit I finished the game in a couple of weeks but I will admit to looking on line for the solutions to two puzzles and felt awful both times. I guess it’s inevitable but whenever I cheat on a puzzle I immediately go “ooooh, DUH!” I could and should have figured that out. One thing I did learn from looking online after I beat it was that there are 8 stars hidden through-out the game. This isn’t advertised in the game and I don’t know how anyone could have accidentally stumbled upon them because they are freaking HIDDEN. I started to collect them but got distracted by other games and haven’t been back. There is also a timed challenge that I have read is pretty nasty but would nab me the final achievement for the game. Time will tell if I go back to complete these herculean tasks.
The two things you hear the most about this game are the ingenious puzzles and the unorthodox story. Both of these things are great, no doubt, but what I enjoyed the most was the music. Music is always important for setting the mood in a game and Braid has mood to spare, in no small part to the music. It’s almost spiritual, I don’t want to use the word haunting, but spiritual, and makes you feel like this game is some sort of journey or pilgrimage, which I believe is one of its themes. I think I read somewhere that there was going to be a soundtrack available. Ah, here is a collection of links if one wanted to by the tracks individually. I spent some time on Jonathan Blow’s webpage, and I found the time to be well spent. He is a man of many interesting ideas, and I recommend his musings to anyone interested in the state of games, which I assume if you’re reading this that you are.
Unreal Tournament 3. Still haven’t played it. My current highest-tech computer has adequate RAM and CPU speed but is equipped with the Radeon X300 GPU. Not a bad card but older and not designed for games, at least not games that came out four or five years after it did. Looking at the Radeon 4650 HD as an upgrade, not top of the line by any means but more than enough for my purposes. Of course my purposes are ostensibly to use the level editor to practice my game design over the summer. But we both know I just wanted the game… and then an excuse to buy a new graphics card. Shhh, don’t tell my wife.
Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls. I had forgotten until just now that this game was made for the Play Station back in 2003 as Final Fantasy Origins. I passed up on it then, largely because I bought Final Fantasy Anthology in 1999 and was disappointed by the crippling load times. I'm glad I waited six years to pick this up and for a platform more suited to it. The Game Boy Advance has served as a system for the rebirth of great classic games, especially Final Fantasy. It makes sense, being that it's a cartridge system with graphics capabilities on par with the 16 bit systems. Also the game is something better suited to casual entertainment while traveling or sitting on a conference call than sitting down in front of a TV and logging hours.
Really I waited longer than six years to play this game (or games really since the long lost FFII is on there too). Final Fantasy came out for the NES in 1990. I did not have an NES in 1990 and in fact do not own one now. I spent many hours watching other people play this game. Later when I had acquired a SNES and had FF3(6) all to myself that the mystique behind the first game grew and I always meant to go back and play it.
Well now I can. I have to say that even though the game is 19 years old its is still fun to play. The addition of a bestiary is cool I guess. The best part is that you can save anywhere, not just at inns which is nice especially since it's on a portable system and you may be in a place where you have to put it down in a hurry... like traffic. I haven't played FFII yet. Looking forward to forgetting to do that.
Braid. Great little game. I say little when I really mean short. I suppose that if you really just couldn’t figure out the puzzles that the game could be very long indeed. To my credit I finished the game in a couple of weeks but I will admit to looking on line for the solutions to two puzzles and felt awful both times. I guess it’s inevitable but whenever I cheat on a puzzle I immediately go “ooooh, DUH!” I could and should have figured that out. One thing I did learn from looking online after I beat it was that there are 8 stars hidden through-out the game. This isn’t advertised in the game and I don’t know how anyone could have accidentally stumbled upon them because they are freaking HIDDEN. I started to collect them but got distracted by other games and haven’t been back. There is also a timed challenge that I have read is pretty nasty but would nab me the final achievement for the game. Time will tell if I go back to complete these herculean tasks.
The two things you hear the most about this game are the ingenious puzzles and the unorthodox story. Both of these things are great, no doubt, but what I enjoyed the most was the music. Music is always important for setting the mood in a game and Braid has mood to spare, in no small part to the music. It’s almost spiritual, I don’t want to use the word haunting, but spiritual, and makes you feel like this game is some sort of journey or pilgrimage, which I believe is one of its themes. I think I read somewhere that there was going to be a soundtrack available. Ah, here is a collection of links if one wanted to by the tracks individually. I spent some time on Jonathan Blow’s webpage, and I found the time to be well spent. He is a man of many interesting ideas, and I recommend his musings to anyone interested in the state of games, which I assume if you’re reading this that you are.
Unreal Tournament 3. Still haven’t played it. My current highest-tech computer has adequate RAM and CPU speed but is equipped with the Radeon X300 GPU. Not a bad card but older and not designed for games, at least not games that came out four or five years after it did. Looking at the Radeon 4650 HD as an upgrade, not top of the line by any means but more than enough for my purposes. Of course my purposes are ostensibly to use the level editor to practice my game design over the summer. But we both know I just wanted the game… and then an excuse to buy a new graphics card. Shhh, don’t tell my wife.
Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls. I had forgotten until just now that this game was made for the Play Station back in 2003 as Final Fantasy Origins. I passed up on it then, largely because I bought Final Fantasy Anthology in 1999 and was disappointed by the crippling load times. I'm glad I waited six years to pick this up and for a platform more suited to it. The Game Boy Advance has served as a system for the rebirth of great classic games, especially Final Fantasy. It makes sense, being that it's a cartridge system with graphics capabilities on par with the 16 bit systems. Also the game is something better suited to casual entertainment while traveling or sitting on a conference call than sitting down in front of a TV and logging hours.
Really I waited longer than six years to play this game (or games really since the long lost FFII is on there too). Final Fantasy came out for the NES in 1990. I did not have an NES in 1990 and in fact do not own one now. I spent many hours watching other people play this game. Later when I had acquired a SNES and had FF3(6) all to myself that the mystique behind the first game grew and I always meant to go back and play it.
Well now I can. I have to say that even though the game is 19 years old its is still fun to play. The addition of a bestiary is cool I guess. The best part is that you can save anywhere, not just at inns which is nice especially since it's on a portable system and you may be in a place where you have to put it down in a hurry... like traffic. I haven't played FFII yet. Looking forward to forgetting to do that.
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