Infinite Backlog

There is no evil monkey!

2012-02-01T16:39:00.000-06:00

All I wanted was for a postmortem primate to come charging out of the bush, scaring the ever loving shit out of me. I wanted a surprise. There were odd noises heard, but nothing of the sort happened. Just more zombies, limited to one of four flavors with different skins. The scenery has changed, moving from the interesting beach to the less interesting slums to the boring jungle, finally to a prison that looks just like it did prior to the outbreak. Dead Island had one good idea, but instead of running with it decided to shamble off in the same direction of every other post-apocalyptic snooze fest.

I have seen the end of the world so many times that it no longer frightens me. Bring on the fire and brimstone, I welcome the living dead, the devil himself may walk down the street, alien invasions, devastating earthquakes, climate change fueled super storms, civilization ending resource wars, none of it will come as a surprise. The scariest idea is that the world just won't get around to ending, that people will continue on, ad nauseum, until we breed out all the smart people and only the ass holes are left.

Ah, Mike Judge. A prince among men.

...

Early reports from people whose opinions I respect peg Soul Calibur 5 as a worthy purchase. Net code is good, a little slim on fighters, but enough to keep everyone happy. I do wonder how Mitsurugi and Siegrfried has fared, but not quite enough to run out and buy the game. Soul Caliber was another fighting game that I thought I was good at. Then I played someone who actually knew what he was doing and I was destroyed. An entire evening was filled with weapon based ass kickings, and I did improve slightly, though my opponent not being able to see or breath due to severe cat allergies had more to do with that than my skill. I just bought a fighting game that I am not playing, and I will buy Street Fighter X Tekken with or without Blanka, so this is going to be a pass for now. The fighting scene is a fickle beast, jumping at whatever is new, but it always comes back home. So that is where I will wait, saving my hop shenanigans and scrubby mix ups for when the time is right.

Blue isn't scary

2012-01-31T19:42:00.001-06:00

Dead Island has teased something that I really hope it has the ability to deliver on. The trailer featured a zombie child be tossed out of a window, but killing a zombie child is so much worse than killing anything else that it could never appear in a game (because the ESRB has no balls). I knew going in that it was not going to actually happen, so I was not expected anything to even potentially raise an eyebrow in unexpected interest. Surprise, surprise, last night I ran across a recording that described a zombie gorilla. This may not sound like much, but remember, a gorilla will kick your ass even before being undead, and I sincerely doubt that dying and coming back did much to improve its mood. I am really hoping for something like this:

Best. Bear. Ever.

That's a tough act to follow, but I really think that a zombie gorilla chasing me through the jungle could provide a little lift to a game whose lack of real penalty and unfair ways of killing me has gotten rather boring. I seem to remember zombie gorillas in something else...

Oh yeah. Congo. Now that was some grade A+ shit right there.

Yes, I know that my topic is wandering more than usual. Dead Island has not given me anything new to be happy or complain about; just wave after wave of similar zombies. Sometimes I kill them. Sometimes they kill me, and then I come back after losing some money. It's been twenty hours of this and I do not know how much more I can take.

Beginning addiction

2012-01-29T09:16:00.001-06:00

I saw what a hardcore Spyro Skylanders addiction looked like last night, and it was frightening. Having dismissed the game as a collectible card game based cash grab I had not actually seen how it works, so the first time one of the little figures was dropped onto the magic usb device and it popped up on the screen was actually pretty cool. Then I saw a grown man and his two children dive into a large Tupperware box filled to the brim with the figures, spouting off names whose absurdity is equaled only by the latter generation Pokemon, complaining that they are still missing a few of the really good, and I understand what it was. Skylanders really is the successor to the paper crack that Magic: The Gathering was, and I dodged a bullet by never even starting.

The last time I saw something like this almost work was Eye of Judgement on the PS3. It was actually a very good card game first and a shoddy interface with a camera that needed perfect lighting to work second. For the first month or so the gaming 'economy' worked. Rare cards were powerful, everyone had different ones, and every match or two you saw something new. Then people figures out that you could make photo copies of the cards and they worked just fine and it all went to shit. What Skylanders has done is create 'cards' that you can't make copies of and packaged in a a more child friendly way. From what I saw the game itself was nothing special, but the intrusion of the game characters into actual space is the hook, not how the game plays.

...

Dead Island continues to decay. It will nice to take a break from it tonight and indulge in the first of two WWE pay-per-views that I care about. I just wish that it was on a Saturday night instead of a Sunday. Having to work in the morning severely curtails how much I can eat and drink.

Almost all singles have trace amounts of cocaine on them, you know

2012-01-27T16:01:00.001-06:00

The economy in Dead Island is a bit of a mystery. Cash still has worth, which makes sense because people assume that eventually the zombies will be cleaned up and things will go back to normal. Buying and selling items at an inflated price is also to be expected. Upgrading weapons and repairing weapons requiring large amount of cash is just silly, especially when you are doing all of the work yourself. You roll up to the repair table with a beat to shit ax and a new weapon to enhance. Repairing the old weapons costs more than the weapon is worth and attaching a battery and wires to the new one with some duct tape and chewing gum is also not free. I can only assume the money is either burned as an offering to the gods of commerce or ground into a fine powder and smoked to pass the time.

And where do the zombies I kill hide the money I harvest off of them, anyway? Sure, some of them have pockets, but most of the women on the beach don't, and I don't want to think about the level of stank present in a postmortem g-string.

These are things that were dumped into Dead Island because RPG's have them, but no thought was put into if they would actually make sense. Finding the bits and pieces of junk needed to apply mods to weapons is already difficult enough, having to throw cash at the problem is unnecessary. Weapon degradation makes sense, but happens too quickly. Slow the process down and the need to repair weapons is removed without losing the tension of watching your blades group duller with time. It seems like Dead Island picked a genre and did everything it could to fit into it, right down to poor, often unfair melee combat.

I finally have a gun and bullets to fire from it, but they somehow do less damage than a flaming bat or scythe dipped is a paralyzing venom (and why would poison work on a zombie, anyway). Its best use is for killing other humans, all of whom think standing behind cover means crouching down just far enough so their heads are still exposed. They are just as dumb as their brain eating counterparts, they just take fewer shots to kill.

This is so disappointing. Maybe I should go read World War Z again.

...

I just watched the announcement 'trailer' again. It's still the best thing about the game, and I am pretty sure Deep Silver had nothing to do with it.

Undeath is boring

2012-01-26T16:15:00.000-06:00

It appears that I need to take back all of the nice things that I said about Dead Island. In the span of another three hours of play it has regressed to little more than a Dead Rising/Call of Duty cross over. The melee combat was already iffy, but now that zombies are coming at me six and seven at a time the shortcomings are plainly (and painfully) visible. Judging distance is almost impossible and it really seems that a zombies arm can extend to impossible lengths while by tonfa with nails driven into it is a constant victim of Zeno's paradox. It certainly looks like I am close enough to hit them, but it always turns out that I miss by that much.

Dead Island has also managed to lose points for moving away from a recent outbreak to one that has been brewing for months. Zombies in a bright, sunny resort is unsettling. Zombies in a mostly destroyed city has been to do *ahem* death. This area has been destroyed long enough that industrious residents have set up shops and a gang of thugs has taken over the police station. Didn't Resident Evil 2 do this in 1998? The ransacked city looks like a leftover from either Call of Duty or Battlefield whatever, take your pick. I do not understand why the game has suddenly retreated from the one thing that made it interesting.

...

Read this:

http://kotaku.com/5879202/sources-the-next-xbox-will-play-blu+ray-may-not-play-used-games-and-will-introduce-kinect-2

Then laugh.

Until we arrive and a 100% digital market a console will not survive if it completely prohibits the resale of games. Remember Sony's digital only PSP? How did that go?

This is not going to be some sort of rant on the violation of an owners right to do as they please with the items they own or a rabid defense of Gamestop's willingness to capitalize on this market (though both are very, very true). I am not even going to remind people that this would also be the end of the rental market. Instead, I will state this: used game are, more often than not, traded in towards the purchase of new titles. People who buy the used games do so because they are cheaper than the new ones. Kill the used market and the new market will suffer. Sony flirted with this for the PS3 and wised up. I have no doubt that Microsoft will do that same.

The only way to convince people to purchase a game that they can never get any money back from would be to halve the price, and even still if a game wasn't a AAA sequel it would suffer. Most gamers aren't collectors, so if their software suddenly loses all value after the first time it has been played than aren't going to buy any more.

Tis but a flesh wound

2012-01-24T16:27:00.000-06:00

I am aware that I have posted the European cover. It looks better.

Dead Island has the misfortune of existing in the same general space as Skyrim. It is not as big, but it is a free roaming, quest based, first person RPG, complete with somewhat awkward first person melee and a shortage of ammunition for projectile based combat. Replace all the monsters with zombies, the frozen north with sunny beaches and the fully clothed character models with bikini clad flesh eaters and Dead Island arrives.

It's really not a fair comparison, but Dead Island doesn't try very hard to do anything different or better than the 800 pound dhovakin in the room. I can tell that a lot of effort was put into hand to hand to head violence, but it still doesn't have the sickening crunch of Condemned or the refined feel of Breakdown or Zeno Clash. If anything asking me to aim while the camera bobs up and down increases the difficulty, but it still isn't much fun. I would still rather shoot things, so I took the gun specialist. Of course she doesn't actually start with a gun; she can't even use one until level 10. So much for that idea.

What Dead Island nails is the atmosphere. I got tired of everything in Skyrim being in a state of decay and disrepair. A lot of would have been more interesting a thousand years ago. Dead Island features a catastrophe that has just happened. Everything looks normal, save for the pools of blood and half eaten torsos. This juxtaposition of the every day with the impossible works very well, making even random zombie encounters disturbing. Again, it is not the first game to do this, but it takes it self more seriously then Dead Rising, so this is about as close to World War Z, the game, as we are liable to get.

(until the movies comes out)

It is fun and I do want to play more. Dismembering zombies looks good, especially when you knock off both of their arms and they just keep coming. I should reach the arbitrary gun level tonight, so I can see if popping heads from across the room is better than lopping them from up close. I would imagine so. Less laundry to do that way.

...

Damn, why are all the American Psycho 'Hip to be Square' excerpts not embed-able?

Age old complaints

2012-01-23T16:10:00.000-06:00

Complaining about a ten year old game that is an admitted classic is probably a bit low. It actually feels a little skeevy to have complaints about Diablo 2 since it is my fault that I am playing when I am playing it, but the one real issue I have is (I assume) a design decision and not a hardware/software/game engine limitation. It is also not limited to old games and a few modern RPG's do it as well.

Saved games in Skyrim record you characters stats, abilities, inventory, quests, and most importantly his or her location in the world. Think that there is doom waiting behind a door? Save your game. If you die (and you will) very little progress is lost. In Diablo 2 when you save your game your location is not recorded, only your character. This means that every game starts out in the hub area for that act, and if you did not find the checkpoint in a new area prior to saving then everything you have done is lost. I found this out the hard way the first time and ended up slogging through a pretty large area a second time. Last night, knowing what little use saving really is, I quit playing about twenty minutes early just to make sure I didn't have to do anything over.

The only explanation I have is that Diablo 2 was designed primarily around battle.net. Only then does this make sense, because saving your location in an online world where death can be permanent defeats the entire purpose. But I am not playing on battle.net, nor will I ever, so this save system is an annoyance.

I would put money on this being how Diablo 3 is going to work as well, which does not excite me.

...

My remaining list from last year is shrinking quickly. With the completion of Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, the backlog is as follows:

Dead Island (just shipped today)
Assassin's Creed Revelations (shipped today as well)
Batman: Arkham City
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
Forza Motorsport 4
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Goldeneye Reloaded

That is actually looking manageable. I just pulled off the Halo re-issue because, well, fuck the flood.

Total disconnect

2012-01-22T22:55:00.000-06:00

Been a few days, time to catch.

My dance with the very old devil lasted all of one night. I have far too soft a spot for Ratchet and Clank anything to ignore a game in that series when it arrives in my mailbox, even when it is a spin off lie All 4 One. Thankfully I can report that even though it is certainly a mutiplayer focused games Insomniac went the extra and made sure that it was playing be a single person. The game works all by yourself, it just isn't a very good Ratchet and Clank game. Remember Deadlocked? Yeah, this is better than that, but not by much.

Everything feels scaled back to accommodate four simultaneous players. It does not look as good as A Crack in Time, the levels aren't as big and there are almost no puzzles to speak of. What is left are long, linear levels filled with combat and nothing else. There are more than enough weapons to keep this interesting, but they no longer level up with use. Instead you just dump bolts into them to buy upgrades. The leveling function worked in the previous games because it forced you to spend time with all the weapons, even the ones that are just not as cool as the rocket launcher and Mr. Zurkon. Now I can neglect the ice gun and still have it at full power when I need it.

Side note: Mr. Zurkon does not need bolts, his currency is pain.

Mr. Zurkon will fuck your shit up.

Even mediocre Ratchet and Clank is more fun than the lion's share of other games, so my complaints are pointless. I knocked it out in three days and it was fun from beginning to end. I will say that there were more laughs this time around; having Dr. Nefarious around the whole time will do that. Insomniac just needs to get around to the next full blown release while avoiding half-assed downloadable excursions like Quest for Booty.

...

Might as well take care of 'tomorrow's' post now since I have the time. Last night was filled with four and half hours of Street Fighting. The lobby was a bit full and not a one of us was playing very well. There were random ultras and wake up uppercuts and all sorts of hilarious, scrubby bullshit. At around 11:00 someone said the magic words 'HDR' and the lobby scattered. While I was re-downloading the game I tried to remember why I stopped playing it in the first place. It wasn't because I wasn't very good, that doesn't matter much when matches last all of twenty seconds each. Plus it only took me around half an hours to remember that HDR Dhalsim is actually cool and works as a rush down character.

After just a few matches, when the first person de-synched and was kicked out of the lobby, I remember. Yes, the netcode in HDR is still better than either AE or Marvel, but when it goes bad it goes really bad. The match doesn't just slow down, the two sides literally stop talking to one another. I had been fighting a very good boxer player all night, but in my last match for some reason I was dominated him. He was just walking forward into my throws. At the end we both ended up in the lobby long enough for him to ask why I stopped blocking. We had both won, at least from out own perspective. Just as I began to wonder if there had been some kind of temporal anomaly he was kicked out of the lobby.

That's why I stopped playing HDR. Oh well, it was fun (again) while it lasted.

The devil can wait a long, long time

2012-01-18T16:58:00.000-06:00

This time the Now Playing image does not lie.

Yes, thanks to a timely bit of charity, I have started playing Diablo 2 a mere ten years late. I have no idea if I will finish it, but it is very interesting to see where most modern action RPG tropes originated and how much even this masterpiece has been improved upon by its successor. My favorite game of this type is (and probably always will be) Titan Quest, and after only a few hours with Diablo 2 I can confirm that Titan Quest committed wholesale theft. So have all the other game like this, it's a simple idea: you kill things to get better items to killer bigger things. Diablo 2, unlike even Titan Quest and all other modern examples, gets this flow of new items just right. Weapons and armor are dropped and exactly the right pace: just often enough to keep me picking things up off the ground but no so often that the criminally small inventory feels like a limitation.

I am playing an assassin, and probably doing it wrong. Of the three skill trees I have chosen the easiest, passing over the one with martial arts stances and attack points for I just want to to hit things harder with my starting weapon. I don't like that I can only have two skills equipped at a time (I think...), but I only know two skills right now, and one of them is passive. Of course it is ugly, but its ugliness does not change the fact they the monsters at least are designed well. Over sized levels with nothing in them I could do without, and the way the game saves is stupid, but I really do need to keep in mind how old this game is. I was running an Electronics Boutique (before EB Games, even) when it came out. My store was had a significant PC following, so I rolled out hundreds of copies. My entire PC wall was nothing but Diablo 2, and by the end of the day it was nearly gone.

This was also back when they let employees do crazy things like open new product and take it home for testing. I did just that with Diablo 2, and I remember liking it, but I couldn't run it the way that it was meant to be run. Familiar story, yes? My neuroses are more deeply seeded than even I remember.

Is it still fun now? Of course, but it hurts my eyes and has been done better since. Where the hell is Torchlight 2, anyway?

The frame rate of life

2012-01-17T16:34:00.000-06:00

The Now Playing image lies. I would like to be playing Serious Sam 3, but my machine refuses to run it at an acceptable frame rate. The homogeneous nature of consoles has warped me to the point where I have a very hard time running anything on the PC with settings less than the maximum. I want to see it as it was meant to be seen, not endure the meager approximation that my hardware is actually capable of. It came to a breaking point last night with the deadly combination of inconsistent frame rate and near instant death situations. I was dying and it was not clear what killed me. I want to be serious, but my rig is not serious in the least, so I had to uninstall it.

What followed was a pathetic scene. In spite of a three game plan from GameFly I have nothing at home right now. I waffled back and forth at Blizzards digital store, wondering if now was finally the time to play Diablo 2. I worked my way chronologically backwards through the XBLA list, finding a few that I could play. Eventually i settled on a little Trackmania 2 and still did not enjoy myself.

Perhaps the constant flow of games has taken its toll.

Nah. I just need something better to play.

It never rounds the corner

2012-01-16T12:47:00.000-06:00

Who here like escort missions?

Wait, let me preface that: who here like escort missions in games not named Ico?

Put your hands down. No one likes escort missions. Amy is, at it core, an entire game based on an escort mission, so that is strike one. Note that it is not impossible for games containing bouts of NPC babysitting to be fun. Enslaved was excellent (and no one played it) because your charge could take care of herself in most circumstances. The titular Amy is very young, mute, probably autistic girl, so needless to say she can't do much for herself. The babysitting is literal.

But that is only one strike. Strike two are the archaic controls. Remember Silent Hill? If you go back to it now it will be much less fun than you remember. Struggling against tank controls is not fun, especially when it has been proven time and again that there are better ways to do it. The controls in Amy are actually worse due to the silly button combinations required for running and fighting. It's almost funny. Almost. That it only two strikes and I have certainly played games that have had three or more to their bad name. So what in Amy pushed me over the edge, forcing me to delete the demo after a single death?

A terrible game is playable if it has the decency to be easy. Fine, be awful, but don't make me work too hard to see all of your awfulness (side note, I just made bad games sounds like cheap hookers...). Amy is not only sports Siren level difficulty and directionlessness, it also spread out the checkpoints so far that each death sets you back quite a bit of work. On top of that it kills you for not knowing what to do even though it has made no effort to communicate what it wants from you. If I wanted that of abuse I would go back to playing Marvel.

So yes, Amy is just as bad as you have read. It is also precisely the wrong kind of bad. It is the kind of bad that you cannot make light of, that is immune to snarky remarks and biting commentary. It is critic proof because even the critics don't want to actually play it. I salute any of them that actually made it to the end. They are braver men than I, and I followed up Amy by discovering how lame playing a light gun game with no light gun is.

(It's really lame).

Idle threats

2012-01-15T19:57:00.000-06:00

In spite (or perhaps because of) all the negative press Amy has received I am about to go play the demo. While I am quite willing to waste my time, wasting my money is not as easy, so if I can avoid throwing 800 Microsoft fun-bucks out of the windows I will.

It really depends what kind of terrible it is. If it just uncontrollable and not fun, I will pass. But if it is bad and deserves to be lampooned, MST3K style, then at least some good could come of it.

Come to think of it, I contemplated records 'let's plays' in the past, but lack the equipment. Let's plays of terrible games are almost always more fun than good ones. There may be some investigation that needs to be done here. Of course editing the recording into something watchable would be a huge drag, and listening to your own voice is always uncomfortable...

Tiny epic

2012-01-13T16:24:00.000-06:00

For being only two or so years apart the difference between Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta is staggering. I have never really spent any time with a PSP. Chains of Olympus looked like a PSP game to me, an opinion born solely out of ignorance, but it did not bother me because it was the first time I got to play as Kratos in quite a while. Ghost of Sparta, though, damn, it actually looks good. Not handheld good, not even PS2 good, it hold up very, very well. Perhaps my intentional dismissal of handheld gaming has been a bit hasty. If Sony's new device really can put out visuals on par with the PS3, maybe it does deserve a second look.

My only real hesitation, besides finding $250 that no one will miss, is adding yet another platform to my already impossible queue and knowing that would probably never use it. Even though I show no love for the PSP, DS or 3DS, I am not fool enough to think that there aren't excellent titles out there that I am missing. On the contrary, I know they are out there, I just don't think that I would enjoy them as much on a relatively tiny screen. For example, Chains of Olympus has a section right at the end that boils down to 'mash O to alienate deceased daughter forever.' That's some heavy shit, and it worked on a very primal level, but I don't think I would have been as affected if the window into that world was framed by my own grubby hands.

So I get warmed over re-releases years after the fact. Sometimes they work very well, sometimes they are unplayable (that Silent Hill PSP game was shit). These two God of War games were gaping holes in my gaming resume, I am just glad that I will get to see them in a venue of my choosing.

And in this corner

2012-01-12T12:34:00.000-06:00

Not more than a few days ago I talked about how a well thought out, well written, respectably voice acted character can elevate a game from just playable to an enjoyable experience. When all the stars line up and a game that is good on its own is married with such a character, magical things can happen. For example (and these are limited to console specific characters because I enjoy being adversarial):

Before you say anything disparaging, yes, I know that Master Chief is not exactly brimming with personality, but he does manage to be the driving force behind the main series of Halo games. Take away and the games that are functionally the same just don't work as well. He is also about as close to the silent protagonist (think Gordon Freeman) that has been managed in a shooter not made by Valve.

This is more like it. For my money Marcus Fenix is a better character than Master Chief in just about every way. He is manly when he needs to be, quiet when the time is right, actually changes throughout the course of his series and deals with grief in a realistic manner. Again, Gears of War would work without him, but playing the whole game as Dom just isn't very appealing.

For the record, those two are all I can come up with for the XBox.

I have no idea if anyone is going to throw in with me on this one, but it is criminal that Nariko hasn't gotten a second game. This is probably because she was the best thing about Heavenly Sword, but come on, bad third person action games come out three times a month. I played two last year that were set in the god damn crusades, and no one can pony up the funds to give this lady a second shot?

The look on Drake's face sums up exactly how I feel about him. He's whiny, for one thing, but in a realistic manner. Maybe he changes in Uncharted 3, but for the first two games I just kept waiting for him to grow a pair. It also doesn't help that Nolan North is not exactly selective about his voice acting jobs. I understand that the guys has to work, but I swear every third game I play has him in it, which further dilutes Drake's identity.

I suppose I should get to my point instead of padding a post by gis'ing names. Even though I am terminally behind on my list of games that needs to be played I almost never jump back a hardware generation. The leap backwards, graphically anyway, is just too much. It takes an awfully big par of sandals to convince me to play prettied up versions of PSP games.

Now that is a tragic hero. Think about all of the awful things the Kratos has been through, either at the whims of the gods or by his own misguided hand, and it is easy to understand why he is so pissed off all the time. There is more too him than that, and right now in Chains of Olympus is it clear that his primary motivation (at this early in his history) is that he wants to forget. Kratos wants to forget that he is Kratos. Knowing how the whole saga ends (or how it should have ended, fuck Sony right in the ear if they don't let this poor guy die) does nothing to lessen his torment. He is an iconic character in a game that would have been just fine with paper cut out characters.

...

Mario doesn't count, so stop asking. Neither does Link, he has zero personality. Samus does, but every time I try to fins a picture of her that I can be viewed safely at work I need to close my browser.

Console possession

2012-01-10T14:26:00.000-06:00

I am not sure what to make of this:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-01-10-diablo-3-console-release-confirmed

On one hand, I am not a tried and true PC gamer, have not even played Diablo 2, I have a machine that will probably run Diablo 3, and I have the money with which to purchase the game if it does actually sneak out sometime this year.

On the other hand, holy shit would I much rather sit on my couch and play this on my TV. Heresy? Perhaps.

I also wonder if the console market will embrace the return of Blizzard, who has not put out a console title since Starcraft 64 in 2000. Time are different now, so instead of the low resolution, watered down cash grab that Starcraft 64 was a console Diablo 3 would look and play pretty close to its PC big brother. They could even charge you extra for access to battlenet, enable cross platform play, allow mouse and key board controls...

Yeah, none of that is going to happen. It should be noted that the game in question is a Diablo product, not Diablo 3, so there is no guarantee that it is not Diablo 1 and 2 as slightly higher resolution for XBLA. Which I would buy.

Sam Raimi had nothing to do with it

2012-01-09T16:54:00.000-06:00

I don't know why I respond to the current version of Spider-Man (at least the first two movies, never subjected myself to the third one), but I do. He almost regrets his responsibility, but sticks to it, regardless of personal cost. It's cliche, it's schtick, but it works, and Spider-Man: Edge of Time sticks to the established trope. It even highlights how 'special' Peter Parker by contrasting him with Spider-Man 2099, an arrogant, selfish, general douche bag of a super hero. None of this has anything to do with the game being fun or not, but it does help to turn a so so action into a pleasant weekend diversion.

If you just count the minutes than Edge of Time only took an hour longer to complete than Hard Reset. Edge of Time has the good sense to separate the campaign from all the nick knack generating challenge, and as much as I love me some achievement points I did not bother with a single one. There are probably six more hours of frustration there, if you want them, but they are best avoided. Hard Reset had a hoard mode that was added after the first set of mediocre reviews, so that doesn't count, either. The point is, as vehicles to pass the time between now and when I die they are of roughly the same chronological value. From a technical and graphical standpoint I would also place them as equals, understanding that if my PC was not slowly shuffling off this mortal coil Hard Reset would have run significantly better and that this late in the 360's life cycle there are enough existing game assets to make just about anything look pretty good.

But if you ask me which was more fun, the answer is simple. Edge of Time wins, hands down, and only because they took an existing character that I was familiar with and put him into an interesting situation. I do not read comic books, so I have no idea if this was new or simply cribbed from last years trades, but Parker running into an alternate future version of himself that took the phrase 'with great power comes great responsibility' as an excuse to accumulate more power was pretty cool. Creating a mutant amalgam of Doc Oc and Antivenom was also pretty cool (in concept, anyway). There was just enough cool to help me gloss over how the combat is just as mashy and loose as the last Spider-Man game, that the web swinging was just as terrible, and that the majority of the levels boiled down to 'kill this guy to get his key'.

There was at least one reference to Spider-Man, the musical. Bonus points there.

As corny as it sounds, Spider-Man (at least his version) is likable. The guy whose name I have already forgotten from Hard Target was not. Game play may be king, but having well written, well voice acted characters can absolve a multitude of sins.

...

I just looked up Raimi to make sure I spelled his name right, which led me to the prequel the The Wizard of Oz he is making, staring James Franco as the wizard. No sir, I don't like it.

My god, it's so big

2012-01-07T11:47:00.001-06:00

At four hours, forty eight minutes (yes, playfire's ability to track Steam activity along side everything else is pretty nice, I have have to forgive the site for being a spam factory) Hard Reset is not the shortest game I have ever played, but it is getting close. I tried to find more information about Flying Wild Hog, but all I can come up with is that they are leftovers from People Can Fly. This probably translates to whoever wasn't kept on when they became a subsidiary of Epic. This would also explain the re-heated feeling that the game provides. Hard Reset isn't yesterday's Chinese, it is the Chinese that has been hiding in the back of the fridge behind the bad beer, just on the friendly side of being inedible.

I will go to bat for it for one big reason: it was a first person shooter that has actual boss fights. Most modern shooters (read that as all the games copying Call of Duty) don't really have big, end of level bosses because it wouldn't be 'realistic.' Apparently regenerating health gets a pass but a giant nazi wielding two miniguns to too much.

Kiss my ass, political correctness

The science fiction setting gives Hard Reset a little more leeway, and we get a twenty foot colossus and eight legged construction robot with fricken laser beam eyes gone bad. These were good fights, finally coming close to the last boss of Serious Sam, the second encounter. Special note must be made regarding the end of the construction robot fight, as it was never made clear how big it was until you knock off enough legs and it starts falling towards you off of its tower perch. At first I looked up at it, simultaneously entranced by all the bits and pieces falling off of it and and repulsed but it happening at slide show frame rates. Then it got closer, and bigger, and a real life 'oh fuck' was blurted out when I turned tail and ran.

Perhaps it was good that Hard Reset ended right after this. There was no way it was going to top that.

I have no mouth, but I must scream

2012-01-06T15:57:00.001-06:00

I am actually going to play the spoils of the Steam holiday sale this year, I swear. Honestly, I should start with last years as I still have not bothered to download Cryostasis and Trine has gotten a sequel before I played the original, but that is not what I am in the mood for. Rage left me wanting more, faster and more difficult shooting, so Hard Reset will get its time under the microscope. The first thing that I have learned is that shoehorning a new video card into a swiftly aging rig is not a magic panacea for low frame rates. As soon as things start bouncing around the level the game starts to crawl, and there are an awful lot of things that you can send careening around. Just about everything is explosive, and those explosions can trigger other, larger ones. On more than one occasion enemies on the other end of the map killed themselves off by brushing against an explosive barrel that was leaning on a stack of god damn fire bombs.

At least the game is being consistent.

Hard Reset got a lot of flak for being itself: a modern(ish) take on Serious Sam. The only problem I have regarding this is that there is another modern take on Serious Sam that I also bought during the Steam sale: Serious Sam 3. Every moment spent with Hard Reset had me wondering why I wasn't playing the other game, and for one reason: Serious Sam may play functionally the same but it has the good sense to not take itself in the least bit seriously. Shooting a million guys running at your is absurd and should be portrayed as such. It should definitely not be interspersed with angsty cut scenes that are too noir even for Max Payne. For example:

And then they kill you, but it's funny,so it's okay.

Hard Reset has sections kind of like that, though I can't find any video of them, but the are played straight. You really are trying to save mankind from a limitless army of two legged robots with saws for noses, and the character you play drinks to silence all the voices in his head, voices of people whose personalities have been digitilized to save them from death, and the machines want these personalities to help with the next stage of their electronic evolution, and the bad guy is a good guy and the good guys are the bad guys...

AAAAAHHHH!

Suppressed Rage

2012-01-05T16:48:00.001-06:00

Well, there goes my idea of posting every day.

...

The end of Rage reminded me very much of the end of Crysis: a sudden change from an environment that was creative, if a bit worn out, to generic, shiny, corridor running. We have seen more than our share of post-apocalyptic wastelands in the last few years, but I will admit that Rage had the best looking one. They looked so good there were enough quests to send you through each one twice, ala Halo. (I guess I feel like game name dropping today) There were drippy, gooey parts where mutants had made nests out of hastily stolen human entrails. There were wrecked buildings tilted to impossible angles. And it all looked noticeably better than Fallout and on par with Gears of War 3. I don't understand why the abandoned it for a climax set in the levels that Bungie threw out with the breakfast banana rinds and used coffee grounds ten years ago.

Ok, time to stop talking about a game by talking about other, better games.

Rage was so hollow that when it was done all I thought was 'that's is?' Three discs, a terabyte of uncompressed data in the final build (according to Cliffy B, at least) and all they managed was around five different areas across less than twenty hours of gameplay. It wanted to be big and free roaming, but there is just not enough content there to make it work. What you end up with is a corridor shooter strung together by driving sections that are actually more entertaining than the shooting. Not a recipe for success, much less a reason to make a second game to use the engine it is trying to sell.

And yes, Chance, the shotgun was good, but not that good. The weapons were so pigeon holed as to what they were for killing that the combat became paint by the numbers. The shotgun was for killing mutants, the regular assault rifle was for killing unarmored raiders, the authority assault rifle was for killing the authority, the sniper rifle was mostly useless as the handgun did the same thing when combined with half a binoculars, I never used the crossbow or the glaive that looked like a refugee from Krull and the rocket launcher was for anything big. Perhaps I was spoiled by Resistance 3, but boring.

No, it wasn't cool then either.

...

I have seen just enough best of the year lists now to have my opinion of Bastion validated. It is a nice warm feeling that every once and a while my opinions line up with the rest of the gaming populace as opposed to being in stark opposition. Everyone liked Bastion, and for mostly the same reasons. Best of all it was a self contained experience. It tells a story from beginning to end, and while it's action may not keep up with Outland, the other downloadable heavyweight from last year, it never got in the way of anything either. An excellent game, regardless of delivery method.

More chunks please

2012-01-03T15:47:00.001-06:00

It may have been a mistake on Id's part to embed a semi-respectable racing game inside their visually vibrant but otherwise cliched shooter. With a little more variety in track design and vehicles this could be a damn fine arcade off-road racer, a few steps away from Dirt towards Sega Rally Championship. Yes, I know that game already exists, but Motorstorm Apocalypse is a terrible, terrible game. And I don't think it had rocket launchers on the cars, which is always an improvement. Let me blow the shit out of the guy in first place and I promise I wont get bored/frustrated with Forza so quickly.

I do not mean to say the that the actual shooting portion of Rage is bad, just that it is so paint by the numbers that it even self aware achievements for running through a level backwards are more groan inducing than anything else. It doesn't have the interesting arsenal that Resistance 3 has, instead ponying up a shotgun, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, a few machine guns, and a handgun instead. This is the same pile of weapons I have been using since *gasp* Doom, so I should expect nothing else. It doesn't (yet) have the epic sized levels or intense scripted events that Call of Duty and Battlefield have. The closest it has come so far is a giant monster whose weak points glowed.

Like I said a few days ago, this is an engine, nothing more, and as Chance pointed out Doom 4 may not actually every happen, so I don't know who is going to actually do something worthwhile with it. It is a shame, because in spite of the texture pop in that the Unreal engine has also yet to solve it looks really nice. Everything runs smooth, enemies gib when hit with grenades just like they should, and errant fire has at least some effect on the environment. If anything the game should be more gory. The way enemies animate when shot is crying out for the same morose attention to detail that Soldier of Fortune featured, not just gussied up rag doll physics that we have been seeing for years. I want a point blank shotgun blast to the chest to embed ribs in the nearest wall, not just send the poor bastard flying.

...

I have missed so many good titles from last years that it makes me feel ill. That's the problem with intentionally playing bad games and still trying to make time for the good ones: no one else plays the bad one so they arrive quickly. Oh well, the new Spider-man can't be that bad, can it?

Take that, fatty!

2012-01-01T10:59:00.001-06:00

I had forgotten what it was like to now have one game dominating my free time. Other games had been played in the interim, some very good, so not so much, but since November 11th all I had actually been playing was Skryim. I celebrated my renewed freedom last night with about four hours of Street Fighter. I didn't hate myself when I was done, which is certainly a success, but my PP and BP didn't move up much. I have run into quite a few people with B ranked character that have since dropped down to 4000 BP, just like my Blanka. I think actually having to pay for the expansion weeded out all of the people my bull shit worked on. Far to many people still mash crouch tech after cross up on wake up (allowing my random ultras to not look so random) but this 'technique's' time is limited.

One of my nemesis characters has always been Rufus. I don't play against very many of them and his dive kick, unlike the freshly nerfed Yun one, is actually difficult to anti-air with Blanka's crouching medium. Even terrible Rufus players gave a problem. Last night I had what can only be described as a Yoda moment. I have watched enough of Wong's Rufus to know that his wake up option (without meter to FADC) are actually pretty limited. This Rufus liked to wake-up EX messiah kick when he didn't have the extra bars to cancel out when I blocked it. The first time he did it I guessed right and blocked it.

Download complete.

I knew he was going to do it again. It was his go to panic move, like my stupid EX-up ball that I default to when I don't know what else to do. Sure, in knocks down in 2012, but it can still be safe jumped, and just blocked it leaves me wide open. Just one on a long list of things I need to stop doing. Anyway, I knew this guy was going to EX messiah, and I knew when he was going to do it. Bait. Block. Ultra.

For a moment the game was that simple. I boiled right down to knowing what my opponent was going to do before he even knew he was going to do it. And just when I was about to get smug I ran into a Ken who actually knew how to safe jump be and kicked my ass with jabs.

I hate this game. I love this game.

I've got something in my eye, that's all.

2011-12-31T18:22:00.001-06:00

Skyrim did indeed end two nights ago. I killed the last guy, took took ever the world, was a prince among dragons. I was the head of the thieves guild, leader of the companions, listener for the dark brotherhood, and the arch-mage at the mages academy (in spite of using a grand total of three spells). I had escaped from jail, stolen just about everything, committed murder in full daylight and walked away clean because I was the thane of almost everything hold. Thousands of men and women of every race and size had met death by my bows, some of them deserved it, many of them didn't and I just needed the coin. I had faked my way through bards college, released hideous deadra upon the world and hoarded their weapons the the chest of an unfurnished house.

For just eighty hours I lived in the world. It was a comfort to return to it after sojourns into other games. When it was finished, at least when the last main quest was done, I returned to my lair in Whiterun, dropped off the last load of weapons I did not need but not one could afford to buy from me, and I wandered around the town. I went back to the tree in the center of Whiterun that I help resurrect. It was still there, proof that for the right amount of coin even I could do good. The companions' hideout was still there, probably wondering why their leader never moved into his bedroom. It was home, but it was time to move on.

The last thing I did was sit down on the bench in front of my house at simply watch the people walk by. I had done right by all of them, saving the world by traveling into the afterlife to kill the eater of worlds and all, but I had also broken into most of their homes to relieved them of their gold to fund this venture. It became clear that just didn't want to turn the thing off, because I knew it would the last time for quite a while. Only Red Dead Revolved had made me feel this way before.

But, as the title of the blog makes clear, there is always something new to be played. Good or bad, every game deserves to have some look it over, perk under its hood and poke fun at its short comings. Goodbye Skyrim, you will be missed, until Tamriel demands more of money anyway.

...

A bit of follow up of my tooth related bitching from a few days, Yesterday was my first round of sedation dentistry. There is so much to be done that it will be easier to know me the fuck out and take care of it all at once.

I took three pills at 11:00 AM. At 11:40 AM I walked into the garage and then I woke up in my bed at 4:00 AM this morning. In my head there was nothing between these events, but in actuality I had been driven to dentist, had a crown and several cavities taken care of, been wheeled on in a chair, pissed myself at least once, crawled up the stairs, and then back to sleep. I don't recommend it, but it was still better than getting drilled for crown.

...

Thanks for link, Chance!

It's like a dragon water slide

2011-12-29T16:19:00.000-06:00

Skyrim is now in the final downhill run towards the main quests conclusion, though if everything else I have done is any indication there could still be ten plus hours of game play left. I was worried that doing the actual story last would lead to a lot of backtracking, but so far it has not. Each location has been new and just far enough away from places that I could quick travel to that some walking was still involved. Traveling oftentimes brings about shenanigans, like last night when I quick traveled to a meeting location only to find my two companions getting their asses kicked by a platoon or foresworn and a dragon. It was funny enough for me to hide in a bush and watch it all go down, coming out just in time to land the final hit on the dragon and swallow his soul.

On the down side I have stumbled across a deadric quest that would have been much better to find earlier. Part of the quest is killing one of each kind of elf (and orc, just for good measure), but it refuses to give me credit for the hundreds of things I have killed up to this point. I could probably swab off the used arrows in my quiver and take care of most of it. Instead I would have to revisit areas, searching for a high elf that I can kill without bringing an entire hold down on my head. After almost eighty hours I am comfortable walking away from a quest or two. It will give me something to do in the inevitable expansions.

...

A final bit of gaming injustice regarding Rayman Origins. Playfire tracks how rare your achievements are. Apparently finding all the hidden lum cages and defeating the hidden boss are exceptionally rare. Gaming world, gamers as a whole, I am ashamed of you. A pox on the community for not buying the shit out of this game.

...that was a little harsh, as I didn't actually purchase it myself. So shame on me, as well.

...

One last thing. Even though the Skyrim journal faded quickly it was a good idea, mostly because it was a theme to get me posting more regularly. December was an anemic month, both in post quality and content, and if this experiment is to be continued I need to do better. What I need to do (but do not 'resolve' to do, because resolutions are dumb) is write more reviews, regardless of how new or old the game I am playing is. Looking through my old archive from Saving Progress I wrote a few gems and more than a few stinkers, but I think that was the right format for me: five or six paragraphs, less about the mechanics and minutia of the game and more about how it made me feel and if it was any fun or not. Doing this will actually require losing some gaming time (or sleep), but I think it will be worth it.

And if they are terrible, tell me, I will go back to bitching about how expensive oral renovations are.

Now I'm all pissy and poor

2011-12-28T16:55:00.000-06:00

Oh my, what was that feeling? The feeling of getting significantly poorer for a non-game related reason? As amusing as eating a salad made up of $4500 in ground up bills sounds, trust me, it blows. At the very least I will be unconscious for the two procedures, but then I think about how much beer I could buy for that price, and how much more fun using that to render myself unconscious would be, and letting every rotten bit of tooth fall out of my face seems like viable option. Who needs teeth when you can drink your meals?

It's such a racket, too. A crown costs $1000. I could buy a pretty good TV for that. What am going to get for that $1000 instead? A bit of molded porcelain that no one will ever see and relief from constant, agonizing pain. And the worst part of it is that after all this money is spent and all of this nonsense is fixed there is precisely zero chance that I wont be in the same god damn chair in six more months with at least a cavity or two to repair. This financial embarrassment is the culmination of years of neglect, but had I actually been a good boy and been drilled every six months the net total would be about the same. Dentists are right up the with chiropractors.

It's bull shit, I tell you. Dentures would be preferable to this. I would be able to better floss between by teeth if I could remove them from my head to get a better angle at them. As it is now (and if I actually did it) it requires Cirque Du Soleil caliber contortions to take care of these things. Why can't we be like sharks and just let the things fall out, only to grow brand new ones behind them?

$4500. God damn. And I was thinking about buying a Vita.

And some new speakers.

And then rolling around in the rest, wallowing in my own crapulence.

Instead I get a monthly 'fuck you' bill to go along with all the rest.

Now I'm much too upset to talk about how shallow of an experience Rage is. See what going to/not going to the dentist gets you? Teeth suck.

Please, don't end

2011-12-27T13:46:00.000-06:00

It is with some trepidation that I started on the final missions of Skyrim. The main four guilds are done; thieves guild was by far the best and the mages college the least best. It was difficult to define when the thieves and dark brotherhood sections were over, as the game will keep generating missions for you after the scripted ones are done. According the achievements there is something left for me to accomplish with the thieves guild, but it requires do around thirty or so of the generic quests (which just means I will get to it later). The bards college quests are done, I sided with the storm cloaks and have kicked the empire out of large sections of the country. There are surely more deadric quests to be done, if I could find them. And still, after 70+ hours of play, I run across a cave I haven't explored every time I turn the damn thing on.

This is the greatest triumph of Skyrim over Oblivion. After a short time I stopped spelunking random caves in Oblivion because they were mostly the same. In Skyrim they are all different, and a good chunk of them have a quest to do inside. Even the ones that don't are still interesting enough to clear. Even though my character has pretty much stopped leveling, hasn't changed armor or weapons in months, and has no need for more gold, I still go through them, just because I want to see them. This is no longer stabbing mobs to acquire phat loot to stab more mobs, it is a quest for visual loot. I am doing things just because doing them is fun.

It doesn't hurt that I almost never die anymore. I just need to remember to not get so close to dragons; it doesn't matter how many hitpoints you have or how good your armor is when you fit neatly inside of the monster's mouth.

...

Rage is a strange thing. It certainly looks gorgeous, and the driving is surprisingly good, but it has no soul. It doesn't even try to tell a story or build sympathy for the main character. He does things with no motivation other than being told to do them. Literally, he wake up after a hundred or so years of cryo-storage, some weirdoes try to kill him, he is saved from a guy who desperately wants to start in the new Mad Max movie, and you then run errands for the guy. Incredibly violent errands, which is better, but still: you are his bitch for no good reason.

This is a game engine, nothing more. A tech demo to show more talented developers what can be done, and just enough to tide us over until Doom 4 comes out.

Actually, Serious Sam 3 should be what tides us over until Doom 4 comes out, I just keep hoping it shows up on the Steam sale.

Thumb blistering classic (and more terribleness)

2011-12-25T09:46:00.000-06:00

Rayman Origins got one more thing exactly right before it was done: the balls hard hidden final level. Collecting enough of the magic whats-its to actually get it was not that bad, but my god was it a punishing several areas to get through. There were no more things to collect, just a series of one hit death areas with forced scrolling. Oh, and everything kills you. Everything. Had this been a normal level I might have complained a bit, but I worked hard for this pain. I earned it, and I was going to get to the end regardless of how long it took.

That last level took me almost an hour and a half, but it was worth it. Not for the achievement (which I do enjoy, mind you), but because it was some of the purest platforming I have played in years, and it was not afraid o kick your ass at the same time it was begging you to keep going. None of the floaty, build your own level bullshit that Little Big Planet shat out, none of the over forgiving level design of New Super Mario Bros, just raw platforming goodness.

And the last boss? Genius.

This is an absolute gem, folks, please play it.

...

I am having a really hard time coming up with the worst game I played this year. Sanctum of Slime was bad because it wasted an excellent license and made several poor decisions. Bloodstone was bad, and it killed (more or less) a studio that I liked. But the worst?

Let's look at metacritic...

Fist of the North Start comes in at 59. Tron: Evolution is just slightly worse at a 58. Duke Nukem Forever pulled down a 49, though I really didn't think it was that bad, just a little embarrassing to play. Sanctum of Slime is a 45, so I was exactly right about that one. Let's see, Mindjack at a 43, now we are getting somewhere.

Oh my. Venetica is at the bottom with a 42, and if Playfire is to be believed, almost no one played it (side note, don't sign up for Playfire, it spams your entire friends list with invites). I don't remember it being that bad, but then again the human mind tends to block out traumatic memories, which puts playing Venetica in the same company as a botched root canal and breaking an arm. At least both of those left me with a good story to tell.

Worst of the year #2 (and odd, high pitched singing)

2011-12-22T14:06:00.001-06:00

Bloodstone makes the top three not just because it was a terrible game. It certainly was, leveraging the worst of two disparate genres into a nearly perfect storm of boring shooting and frustrating driving, but that is certainly not the limit of its offenses. It was also the swan song of a developer who had made very few mistakes up to that point, only be done in by two questionable releases in a row. Bizarre Creations has some excellent titles under it name, Geometry Wars and Project Gotham Racing chief among them, so I don't understand exactly what they were thinking with Blur and Bloodstone. Blur was necessarily bad, but it had the same feel as a licensed kart racer, something that the world would survive just fine without. I didn't get it, it wasn't fun, but I supposed with the right people with the appropriate amount of alcohol it could ruin friendships just as well as Mario Kart and that damned blue shell.

Bloodstone, though, was just bad. Perhaps someone at Bizarre Creations owed someone else a big favor and was coerced into creating it. Maybe they saw the racing market getting further cornered by Forza and decided to make a break for the door. Regardless, it is the last game on it resume, and certainly not the kind of thing that helps get ex-employees a new job.

And yes, I know that Bloodstone came out in 2010, but I got around to playing it earlier this year. It didn't age well.

...

Part of me is not happy about Rayman Origins pulling a Mega Man and having be revisit previous worlds in the end-game. It would be worse if the levels were not all new, but they have the same themes as last time, so as good as they look it is getting a little old. I think I am almost done now; my thumbs will be thankful for the rest, as levels are getting much more difficult as I go along. Simply surviving is not enough, you have to get from one end to the other and collect as many lums as you can and find the two hidden areas in order to have enough of the games currency to make sure everything in the next area is unlocked. I have not had to revisit any levels yet, as the old platforming skills came back pretty quickly, but I have a sinking feeling that I will find myself locked out of a few things because I have no interest in returning to old levels for speed runs. As good as the controls are, I barely survived them the first time around, now I am supposed to go back and do it again, only faster? No thanks.

Remember my comment about the music? Listen to this, all of it, and no cheating:

I am not sure if I love this or hate it. I find myself sinking into the relaxed groove of it, then can't help but wonder what the hell I am listening to.

I need a time machine right now

2011-12-21T08:23:00.001-06:00

Cleaning up; worst of the year 3

2011-12-20T16:47:00.004-06:00

Please note that the change of my Now Playing picture does not actually mean that I am done playing Skyrim. On the contrary, I am always playing Skyrim, every other day at least. At around sixty five hours I have just about wrapped up the dark brotherhood quest line (it was not nearly as good as its Oblivion counterpart) and am ready to move on the joining the Stormcloaks and taking a crack at the mages guild. By the time I get to the main quest I predict that I will be around level 50 and able to one shot giants. The fact that most enemies do not level with you does make returning to old areas and destroying things that once gave you trouble fun, but I hope that I this cake walk does not include the main quest.

Who am I kidding, I killed the final boss in Oblivion with two arrows, a record I am looking to beat this time around.

...

Rayman Origins is, to be blunt, brilliant. It looks like I am playing a high definition Saturday morning cartoon, controls better than any side scrolling platformer I have played in two console generations, hits all the major level tropes and does them better than Nintendo has done in years, throws in a few bits reminiscent of 'Spolosion Man for good measure (and to keep you honest because the are damn hard) and it is an absolute shame that it has yet to crack 500,000 in sales. I have no idea how much this cost Ubisoft to produce, but I have my doubts that a puny 500k will generate enough scratch to fund a second game.

The only complaint that I can come with is the sound which crosses the line between cure and ear puncturingly annoying just a little too often. But hey, it's French, so it makes sense that it mixes in a little annoyance to temper the awesomeness.

...

I will collect these into one post later, but game one of my worst of the year goes to Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime. There are quite a few things to complain about here, but I am going to focus on something that actually prevented me from finishing the game. Sanctum of Slime was designed as a four player cooperative game. This it and of itself is not a problem, as more and more games these days have the audacity to encourage the player to interact with actual people (not in person, thank goodness). Most games throw a bone to the lonely by rebalancing things for one person or making the AI that controls the human-less toons smart enough to get the job done. For example, Gear of War 3 did a reasonable job keep the computer controlled members of my squad out of my way during the action and close enough to raise me when I got careless and had my torso separated from the rest of my body. My experience was not lessened because I prefer to play games by myself.

Sanctum of Slime, through either ignorance or incompetence, does none of this. If you are unlucky enough to play by yourself no adjustments are made to either the number or difficulty of ghosts to bust. On top of that the companion AI is idiotic. They aren't just suicidal, they are completely oblivious to your needs as well. If and when they do notice that the actual player, the person who paid cash money for game, is in trouble they will walk in a straight line to help, usually getting killed in the process. Sanctum of Slime is worse than just a waste of a license. It is willfully awful it its own right, and has earned the number three spot in my worst of the year.

So lazy. So, so lazy.

2011-12-19T16:40:00.001-06:00

It's my own fault, but I am beginning to lose interest in my own blog. Topics are more difficult to come up with. Good ideas fall by the wayside because I lack the skill/patience/dedication to make them work. I haven't written an actual review in forever. It comes down to two things. First of all, when I have free time I want to play games, not talk about playing games (and work as of late has not afforded me the necessary slacking time to blog). Secondly, no one is making do it and there is no feedback (direct or implied) so I have little incentive to continue.

I am also extraordinarily lazy, and that certainly doesn't help things.

What I don't want is for the blog to mirror my relationship with Street Fighter, in which I am the abused spouse returning to the abuser time and again because this go around will be better, I'm sure. This is supposed to be a creative outlet, but I have lacked the creativity to make it more the a silent sounding bored for petty complaints and quirky one offs of questionable quality. There may not a solution, this may be the best I am capable of producing, but there is one last thing that compels me to return to this place.

As a person who enjoys playing and talking about games I am profoundly lonely. When I ran a game store I had a built in audience who appreciated what I liked and could dish it out just as well as I could give it. People would come to my place just because I knew what the hell I was talking about. Now, in the filthy 'professional' world, the subjects of note are football and golf and how to not get fat, none of which I care very much about. This blog (and to a much lesser extent, the PA forums) are the best replacement I can find, so I am hesitant to walk away from them despite my limited participation and readership. But when I look back at things I wrote and say out loud 'what the hell is his problem' before remembering that I am that guy I really wonder if it is worth the time.

...

Sometime over Christmas I will pick the worst of the worst for this year. As bad as X-Men Destiny was, it's not even in the running for the bottom three.

Letting go of an old friend

2011-12-16T16:11:00.001-06:00

Silicon Knights - the old friend who did one or two cool things and nothing since, but instead of trying to recapture that fleeting moment of greatness all he does is talk about the old times and be generally obnoxious and pathetic.

You first met Mr. Silicon Knights when he put out the very first Blood Omen, home to of the greatest villains/heroes in a game series that has yet to get a worthy finale (from any game company). The he will never admit it, you think that Kain's voice came first and his character came second, but that doesn't matter. Yes, Blood Omen was just a Zelda clone, right down to the annoying over world map and backtracking with newly gained weapons, but it was grimdark before it was fashionable to be grimdark. The series left Silicon Knights long enough to produce some stellar titles and a few terrible ones, including that whiny bitch Raziel, and it never came back. This was not the highlight of his career, but it was certainly an unexpected early success, the very thing that haughty beatniks point to when they says that they knew about before they were cool (and before they weren't cool again).

It took six years for Silicon Knights to put something out again. Sure, he said that he was working on something, that it was supposed to be on one piece of hardware and then there was a generational leap and they had to start over, but you never believed them. Then out of nowhere he drops Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube, of all things, and no one quite believes that he did it. Eternal Darkness would be in rare company regardless of quality, being a third part exclusive title on a Nintendo platform, but it being excellent from top to bottom brought up even more questions. 'You did this all by yourself?' you remember asking him over beers one night. He just smiled an nodded, noting that it was only going to get better from here. Almost immediately people began to scream for a sequel, something that he promised (and has been promising) for years and never got around to doing. Years later he admitted that he had caught lightning in a bottle and did not think he would be able to do it again.

Still on the Gamecube, he released a remake of Metal Gear Solid two years later. It was generally well received, but there was more than a little help from Konami; Kojima's spies were everywhere. It only took two years to do and it kept his name in the spotlight, so Silicon Knights did not complain. He took the money and poured it all into a game that he swore was going to be his masterpiece. This was a game, just like Eternal Darkness, that had it origins on older hardware. He swore that the next generation of hardware would finally have what it takes to bring his vision to life. So you waited, along with everyone else, for him to get this out of system to he could make the game that everyone actually wanted.

Four years latter Too Human came out. Silicon Knights put it out with all the hoopla it could muster, but the game itself just wasn't very good. It was clear that it was intended to be a loot heavy action RPG, but the combat itself wasn't very fun, and while parts of it looked very good other areas were so ugly that you wondered if bit from the previous versions were just literally dumped over to save time. The reception seemed to surprise Silicon Knights, and he spent far too much time refuting poor reviews and the poorer retail reception. 'You have no idea how good this is, just play it for a little longer' he would say. No one did. 'Don't you remember me, I did Eternal Darkness! If you buy this I will have the money to make another one of those!'

Still, no one did, and Silicon Knights never recovered.

You didn't see him for several years, and when you did here from him it was a short note reminding you of all the good times you had had it the past (with no mention of Too Human). It was kind of pathetic, really, but there was no way to help him. Silicon Knights had become almost delusional, to the point where he thought taking on an X-Men licensed project seemed like a good idea. 'It has a built in audience!' one of his last emails said, 'and I will put in all the cool shit that all the other cool RPG's have! There will be choices that affect the plot, choices about powers, you will be up to your ears to choices!'

The game came out and no one noticed, not that they should have. You played through it out of courtesy to an old friend, but even you could not sugar coat your reaction. It was terrible, and it was your job to tell him so. That may have been the last straw, and you doubt you will see Mr. Silicon Knights again. After your firm but harsh reaction he just walked away, head hung low. You could see that he knew it was terrible and was just hoping you didn't notice. It's for the best, you tell yourself, his time is past.

Still manly

2011-12-13T16:00:00.000-06:00

The simmering homosexual tension between Dom and Marcus has been the butt of many jokes and I freely admit to making more than a few myself. They are just so manly and close that it's hard to not imagine how well they know the ins and outs of each others armor. When the world is ending you get it where you can. After poking fun, though, I always admitted that I liked Marcus and Dom; they might not be the deepest of characters, but they are likable, and I have seen them go through some pretty terrible things. Dom finally finding his wife alive (more or less), then shooting her out of mercy was an unexpected emotional moment in what could have been a mindless shooter.

I knew that there was going to be something similar in Gears of War 3, but it still got me right here when Dom sacrifices himself to save the rest of the unit. And if that wasn't enough, for the first time in three games Marcus' eyes opened to a bit wider than a squint. He was no longer an emotionless hard ass bent on the destruction of another species. For a few moments he wild eyed with panic, willing to throw himself into a literal inferno to pull out the remains of his friend. It was amazingly well handled and frankly a devastating moment. It was also not the end of Marcus' torment, as his father turns to ask in his hands after saving the world/killing all the locust and lambent everywhere. When the game is finally finished Marcus walks past the cheering crowds of the (few) surviving humans, sheds his armor, and sits by himself on the beach, wondering what to do next. Yes, the world is saved, but now what?

Gears of War 3 is not the first game to use the annihilation of an entire species as a plot point. Killzone 3 did, but it chickened out at the very end and kept the bad guys alive. The ending of Gears sees all the locust everywhere being killed. It also manages to make them the victim, as Marcus' father was in contact with them years before their initial attack and was tasked with taking care of the lambent problem. He failed, the locust attacked out of desperation, then kidnapped him to keep working on his weapon. There is never an explanation as to why the locust queen was human, which I would have liked, nor do any humans show any remorse for destruction of all the locust. I suppose this in understandable, as even though the locust had to leave their tunnels they did not need to do so with such enthusiasm.

My off hand statement from last week, putting Gears ahead of Halo in the realm of exclusive shooters, stands. They are better single player games, which all I really care about.

...

The King of Fighters XIII experiment is on. When the connection is good it is almost as good as Street Fighter. When it is bad it is really, really bad. Matchmaking is broken, as the filters make no difference. I set things up to only allow invites from people with four bar connections and then went into arcade mode. The first invite I received was from some Alaskan bastard's basement over a cell phone connection. It was unplayable, so I have decided to avoid that completely and play only with people I know. The game itself feels like an odd mix of Street Fighter and Marvel. Spacing and footsies are important, though much more jump heavy and Street Fighter, and success can be had with simple hit confirms and short jump in combos. On the other hand there are also massive execution heavy combos that require all your meters, all your time to learn, and all the you fingers to do. I know I shouldn't worry about those, but damn if they don't look pretty.

The hideous list

2011-12-09T15:03:00.002-06:00

I cannot in good faith do a best of the year post, and not because it is only December 9th. There are far to many top tier games that I have yet to play this year. Batman comes to mind, as does Uncharted 3, and Rage, and Dead Island, and Assassins Creed. In short, there is a distinct possibility that I have not played the best that 2011 has to offer...

Lies, I am playing Skyrim right now, and will be for the foreseeable future, but the point stands. What I can do is look over the long and ugly list of what I did play this year and pick the three worst games. This will not be easy, as I play just about anything, but I think it will be a good exercise to look back over the wasted hours of this past year and pick out the worst of the worst. Perhaps I will be so embarrassed by my poor choices that my queue will be slimmer next year and I will take time to not be terrible at Street Fighter and pick up the new King of Fighters.

And I am going to stop drinking and work out regularly, too.

So here it is, in chronological order, the list of shame:

Castlevania: Legacy of Shadow
Fable III
Call of Duty Black Ops
Fallout: New Vegas
DJ Hero 2
Spider-Man: Dimensions
Hydrophobia
Enslaved
Fist of the North Star
Star Wars Force Unleashed II
007: Blood Stone
Hard Corps: Uprising
Splatterhouse
Saw 2
Tron: Evolution
Dead Space 2
Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll
You Don't Know Jack
Marvel vs Capcom 3
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime
ArcaniA - Gothic 4
Lego Star Wars III
Two Worlds II
Homefront
Outland
Dragon Age II
Killzone 3
Bulletstorm
Crysis 2
Mortal Kombat
Red Faction Armageddon
Child of Eden
Duke Nukem Forever
F.E.A.R. 3
Magic 2012
Mindjack
Venetica
Hunted: Demon's Forge
Portal 2
Ms. Splosion Man
Kill Team
L.A. Noire
Dungeon Siege III
Lego Pirates
Knights Contract
Infamous 2
El Shaddai
Rock of Ages
Shadows of the Damned
Street Fighter III: Online Edition
Alice: Madness Returns
No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise
Crimson Alliance
Call of Jurez: The Cartel
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
The First Templar
Transformers 3
Trackmania 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
DiRT 3
Catherine
Space Marine
Bastion
The Cursed Crusade
Battlefield 3
Bodycount
Otomedius X
Resistance 3
Renegade Ops
Lord of the Rings: War in the North
Gears of War 3
Skyrim

Good lord, that quite a list. Before the end of the year the new Rayman will make it in, and King of Fighters XIII will be purchased sometime this weekend (because I hate myself). Look at all those hours. Almost all of them have been played to some level of completion, with the exception of Gears of War 3 which I will finish tonight and Skyrim which will probably never end.

I am not sure to be proud or embarrassed.

Skyrim Journal #6

2011-12-08T16:55:00.000-06:00

Dragon encounters are becoming much more frequent, and I have become familiar enough with their tactics that only the most powerful give me any trouble, at least when they come at me one at a time. Just yesterday I spotted a green one in the distance sporadically diving at the group, probably roasting sheep and the shepherds for a meal. The green dragons are little more than bears with wings; a few unexpected shots from behind is all it takes to knock them out of the sky. I chased him for quite some time, waiting for him to get tired of torturing whatever it was chasing and settle in for a meal. When that didn't happen by arrogance finally overcame my patience and attacked it head on. The thing was so surprised by something not running away that it reared back from my first shot, made a hard right and crashed into a cliff that forgot was there.

The climb to finish the poor, stupid dragon off would have been bad enough, but he crashed directly into a blue dragons nest. Blue ones are must nastier than green, as their cold breath makes aiming a bow incredibly difficult. He actually put up a good fight in spite of the direct hit he took from his lesser cousin. I don't enjoy fighting dragons, but they seem to be attracted to me, and the treasure they leave behind, both monetary and soul based, makes them more than worth trouble.

This was not a dragon hunting trip, just a little side benefit to an errand I was running for the thieves guild in Riften. They recruited me almost as I arrived in town. It was not my reputation that they knew, I just looked the part and they were desperate for help. In was only after I joined their little band that I learned of their staunch no killing policy and that they had been slowly declining in power for many years. Still, they lacked the annoying machismo that the companions prided themselves on, so it was easier to deal with their little rules. To the contrary, emptying a house of all its valuables without murdering the inhabitants was quite a challenge. They certainly made it more difficult on themselves than they needed to.

Riften itself was corrupt to the very core, and it had nothing to do with the thieves guild that made its home in her sewers. The entire city was run by one family; even the jarl answered to them, so it was no surprise when I was sent on missions directly for the ruling house. One of my favorites was a the rather underhanded task of poisoning a competing ale producer's wares. Not enough to kill anyone, mind you, but more than enough to make everyone who consumed it terribly uncomfortable. I found the results much funnier than I should have and must remember the exact kind and dose of poison that I was told to use. It could definitely come in handy.

Shortly after receiving the blessing of the family that actually ran Riften and the guild I was made aware of the true plight of the thieves: their leader had been murdered by one of their own, and on top of that the deadric goddess Nocturne, who supplied every thief with their luck, had turned her back on them. No one bothered to explain why, they just tasked the newest thief in their midst with figuring out how to fix it. I should have seen the setup coming, it was as clear and painful as the poisoned arrow that nearly killed me a few days later. Of course there was a double cross coming, the new leader of the guild had killed the old, framed another, and over the passing years had emptied the uncrackable vault of all it held.

And he was,of course, the one who had angered Nocturne.

I don't know why I fall into these things, as it is almost the exact same series of events that I was pulled into with the companions, only that time I ended up as a werewolf, and now my soul supposedly belongs to Nocturne after I die. The jokes on her, I will be called to the hunting grounds, if you believe in that sort of thing, before she can get her hands on me. Either way, I don't plan on dying any time soon, so they both have a long wait ahead of them.

After being indoctrinated into another secret organization we tracked down the old leader of the thieves. He was trying to land one last job and then disappear, a job that took him deep underground into a fulmer breeding ground. The first few didn't put up a fight, but the deeper we went the more powerful they became, eventually slinging spells equal to those I had seen above ground. When we finally killed the traitor and retrieved what he stole from Nocturne we were farther underground than I had ever been. With his dying gasp he set off a trap that began to flood the chamber, killing all the fulmer below and threatening to drown us as well. As the water rose it snuffed the torches first, hiding possible exists behind foam and darkness. I will admit to panicking when the cave filled to the top in spite of my mask allowing me to breath under water. I don't remember who or what I killed to get it, but it was certainly worth it.

The weight of the water broke down a cave wall and we were sucked out into an underground river as quickly as it filled. I was told that I needed to return what was a stolen, a skeleton key that can open any lock, to Nocturne if the thieves guild was to get its luck back. It sounds like a children's story to me, though I have seen more than my share of things that I cannot explain since arriving in Skyrim. I will most likely return it, but that does not mean I will not use it for a few things before accomplishing the task. There is very little any of them or their gods can do to me at this point. At the risk of my arrogance once again surpassing my abilities, there is very little that they could do to me if the tried.

A break from the excitement (with more excitement)

2011-12-06T15:57:00.000-06:00

One third of the way through December and I ma finally playing one of this years big(er) games that I have missed: Gears of War 3. There is not much to be said; it is more of the same, tough it lacks the overbearing machismo that the first 2 brought to the table. According to Cliffy B it is because they have had a different writer each time, but I like to think that Haze set to bar so high for amusing grunts and shouts that they didn't bother trying to top it. It also might have something to do with the entire goddamn world being destroyed and the remaining humans huddling together on a salvaged aircraft carrier. The impending doom or your species can be a bit of a downer, I suppose.

After the first few levels I was worried that the new lambents were all I was going to get to kill. They blow up real nice, but their frenzied style just isn't as much fun to fight as the locust. During the second act, when the refugee locust ambushed me from an outpost that once been occupied by humans, complete with their gutteral chuckling and bad aim, it made me very happy. When the boomers showed up with a new weapon, screaming 'DIG' instead of 'BOOM' it made me even happier. And when their snipers started one shotting me from across the map I remembered that Gears was not all fun and games, it was a brutal experience that will punish simple mistakes with quick and grotesque death. I had forgotten how much I missed it.

The locust are being portrayed in an almost sympathetic manner, as at the end of the second game Fenix flooded their entire world. They are in the same boat as the humans, now, cast offs wandering the world that they helped destroy, plagued by the lambent. I supposed that there will be more explanation to come, as Fenix's father is *gasp* alive and the bulk of the game will be spent getting to wherever he is, but I do not think it is necessary. They seem to be trying to create the same kind of dense sub-narrative that Halo has, but the difference is Halo needed it and Gears tells you everything you need to know through what you do, not what you are told.

...

I have done so much in Skyrim and there is still so much to do. The companions missions are done and I am working on the thieves guild, though going through the bards college side quests also took a fair amount of time. I need to come up with another journal entry, but Leven has been just going through the motions lately. He keeps stealing everything that isn't nailed down but he has nothing to spend it on. His abilities have stagnated, with bow and sneak in the high nineties, and since he doesn't do much else new levels will be few and far between. Even his armor stopped changing; I have been using the same bow for around twenty hours of game play. I suppose that is the danger of a game with this large of a scope: sometime things just stop happening.

It might help if I did something from the main quest once in a while, but fuck that.

Apologies

2011-12-04T19:56:00.000-06:00

I feel like I should apologize for not delivering on my Skyrim idea. I really want to point something 'in character' after everything time I play, but sometimes nothing happens. It is so easy to start walking in one direction and literally looses several hours to random caves. That's one excuse, and another is how tremendously shitty things have been at work recently. For example:

Customer: I have this problem!

Me: not sure how to fix it, let me get back to you.

Person who should know: not sure how to fix that, but I am not going to show any urgency in helping. In fact, I am going to blow it off.

Me: Fuck you. Now I don't get to sleep because I cannot turn off my brain when I am worried about something.

Skyirm (and War in the North, for that matter) have been escapes even more so than usual. They have been places to hide, if for only a few hours. It has been a long weekend of wasted time, company christmas party and all, and I do not think I have the energy to do much of anything tonight. I should play Skyrim, or start Gears of War 3, or *shudder* that awful X-Men RPG is ready to go as well. Instead I am going to sit here and watch NEC, hoping that everything is magically better when I go to work tomorrow.

It wont be.

A job is a job

2011-11-29T16:36:00.000-06:00

So, there are other games out there right now besides Skyrim, it's just that none of them are as good.

For example, I am trying to take every other day off and keep working on the backlog, as November has tripled its size. I am usually successful, but then people start talking about how awesome King of Fighter XIII is and I begin to break out in a sweat. I have to work, I have to eat, I have other family related obligations, how in the world am I going to pick up another fighting game to be bad at? It may or may not happen; I played a little of XII and the netcode was ass, though there have been many assurances that this one is better. At only $50 it is tempting...

I am also trying to work by way through Lord of the Rings: War in the North and am happy to say that it is nowhere near as bad as some of the reviews will lead you to believe. It is just a loot dropping hack and slash game very much in the vein of Dark Alliance (but from the wrong perspective. Isometric for life, yo!) Enemies to grow in power at roughly the rate your equipment does, and the special moves are rather plain, but it plays the Lord of the Rings fan service card rather well for not being attached to a movie. I enjoyed wandering around Lothlorien talking to members of the fellowship before they started out, and Bilbo sitting alone on a bench, writing everything down so he doesn't forget them as he swiftly ages, was just a little touching. (I could have down without the Legolas cameo, but what are you going to do).

The voices were off and the a few of the faces were terrible, but I get what they were trying to do. They couldn't inject new characters into the Lord of the Rings story proper, so they created another conflict in the same general area. It works, and it just engaging enough to keep me from thinking about just how many times I have mashed the X button over the last few hours. Reminds me of the short time I attempted to play Marvel, hiyo!

Of course it is not as good as Skyrim, and it does indeed occupy some of the same mental space, to the point that I started worrying my armor degrading while I was fighting a dragon last night, but it is not a bad distraction. Skyrim is almost a job. A good job, to be sure, one that includes thieving and murder and intrigue and dragons, but a job none the less. So many people what my attention that I tend to pick a direction and wonder off, spelunking and looting until I can relax again.

Skyrim Journal #5

2011-11-27T13:28:00.001-06:00

I am beginning to wonder if my activities in Skyrim are attracting the exact wrong kind of intention. It is bad enough that a Dark Brotherhood assassin somehow managed to find me in the middle of nowhere. He must have been an initiate, as I could smell him coming before I could hear him, and when he finally made his move he found two flaming arrows in his chest. The assassin was not the part that bothered be; the contract in his pocket was much more troublesome. From what I understand, once a contract has been paid for the Dark Brotherhood does not fail, so I can look forward to a parade of assassins, each slightly more skilled than the last. Perhaps that wolf blood will come in handy after all.

The Dark Brotherhood I understand; someone has paid them to kill me. It's just a contract, any nothing personal as far as they are concerned. What I do not understand is why I have become a magnet for daedric princes looking to harass mortals for their personal amusement. On three separate occasions (that I know of) I have run afoul of their games. All three were awful experiences, one involving betrayal and murder, another betrayal, murder, and cannibalism, but the first is the tale I recount to you now, at least what little I remember of it.

Only a few days after escaping execution and finding a place to stay in Whiterun I was challenged to a drinking contest by a wisp of a man who was sitting alone in the bar. Elves are not exactly known for holding their liquor well, but I had seen bastard swords that weighed more than this nord, and I was a little short on gold, so I took up his challenge. After two glasses he yielded, offering up his staff as a reward if I could finish one more glass of the drink he had provided. I finished the drink and blacked out before I hit the floor. To this day I still have not pieced together everything that happened in the days that followed.

I awoke a full week later in a temple that I did not recognize. One of the attendants noticed that I had regained awareness and immediately ordered me to leave. My bewildered look kept her from drawing a weapon long enough to explain to me what she knew.

'You are in Markath. I found you three days ago fondling the statues with your, well, it was quite inappropriate and lewd. It took three of us casting spells that should have been fatal to subdue you.' It was quite clear that she did not like me.

On the way out of the door I asked her if I was alone. She explained that there was a terribly thin man in a similar condition, along with a goat that had seen better days. I knew who the man was, but the goat? I fled the city quickly, to the jeers of the city guard, the vendors in the market, and just about everyone else that I passed. Each one accused me of an act more heinous than the last. By the time I reached the gates all I wanted to do was find the man who started this, kill him, and then buy a mask so no one would know who I was.

It was a days journey from Markath back to Whiterun, and it took more than half of it for my head to clear. I ran afoul of a farmer, apparently the owner of the goat, who I only kept from calling the guard by bribing with a significant about of gold. Once he was calm enough to talk I explained that I had no memory of any of it and that I was looking for the man that I had been traveling with. The farmer had no information about him, but he did say that I was going on and on about a ring that I had purchased in Whiterun for my wife to be.

This was getting worse. I took my leave (and a few items from his house when he wasn't looking) and continued back to Whiterun. There was only one jewelry vendor there, so I knew where to start. She was also none to please to see me, saying that I owed her a significant amount of gold for the ring. I did not have the ring, and I lied about not having the gold, instead begging her for information about this woman who I was supposed to marry. She had not seen her, nor had she seen my drinking 'companion,' buy she did remember where I had said the wedding was to take place. She also wondered where the goat was and how I would live with myself.

'It becoming more difficult all the time.'

It took a bit of searching to find the cave where my wedding was supposed to take place. Bandits had taken up residence and picking them off one at a time was an excellent outlet for several days of frustration. This was not place for a wedding: it was dark, moldy, and on the verge of collapse. There were rooms here and there, and each was littered with empty wine bottles. In one there were bits and pieces of several men strewn across the walls and ceiling alongside claw marks that I recognized as my own. I was sick to my stomach with fear, but also had to admit that a drunken werewolf must have been a sight to see.

The empty bottles provided a path to follow, leading to some sort of portal in the center of the deepest rooms. It looked like a pool of water standing on its side, but I could peer through it and see a forest that looked more than a little like home. After putting an arrow through and pulling it back intact I closed my eyes and leaped through; looking for answers had supplanted personal safety. I had to know what happened, who this man was, and what the goat had to do with any of this.

There was indeed a forest on the other side, but it was not home. It was filled with spirits of all sizes, all content to go about their business and ignore the very embarrassed elf who was not intruding. I could hear the sounds of a party in the distance, so I followed them, honestly afraid of what I was going to find out. Over a rise I found the party, or rather, what should have been a party. There was a tremendously long table with beings of all races seated at it. The sounds of a great celebration were all around, but none of them were moving. Each was frozen mid-motion; some eating, some drinking, at least a few involved in much more lascivious activities. At the head, and the only one who reacted to my presence, was the man who started it all.

'Welcome!' he bellowed. He appeared at my side without moving from his seat. 'What a time we had! That week with you was one of the best time I have had with a mortal. Your lack of morals and willing to try just about anything was quite refreshing. Truly, you have earned this.'

He handed me a staff, which I took without looking.

'I can see you have many questions, none of which I will answer. You see, I must return to my party. Know that you spent a wonderful, awful weak with the daedric prince Sanguine, and that you have lived to tell the tale. Or not tell it.'

He waved his hand and new portal appeared. I could see the cave I had started in through it, but hesitated before going through.

'Please, I must know. The goat?'

Sanguine turned and pointed at the table. In the center stood a goat with a wedding ring in its ear, looking terribly pleased with itself.

I bought that mask I was talking about and have worn it ever since.

Time to breath

2011-11-25T15:39:00.000-06:00

Time to play catch up. There are several things that I have been meaning to talk about that have been continually put off by either being busy at work, not being around, or (most of all) Skyrim. Working the Friday after Thanksgiving in a non-retail establishment is actually not so bad. It's been relatively quiet today, so I should have just enough slacking time to collect my thoughts.

Resistance 3 was mentioned briefly last week. It was very good when I started it, and it only got better as the game went on. Yes, there has been a glut of upper tier shooters this year, all of which have come out in the fourth quarter, but Resistance 3 is the first one that has effectively sealed the deal with an excellent (read: not a quick time) ending. First, the bad: Warhammer was a very good shooter that no one played which decided to end you the player mashing X instead of doing what had been fun for the rest of the game. Battlefield 3 has exactly the same kind of ending. I have not played the new Modern Warfare yet, but I bet 1000 quatloos right now that it pulls the same shit. Resistance 3 has the common sense to let the player finish things off in the same genre of game that got them there: shooting things.

It would have been very easy for Insomniac to take the easy way out and have the player pushing buttons in a prompted manner as a giant terraformer falls out of the sky onto a tower that had open a portal to somewhere else in the galaxy. What they did instead was genius. You fall through the floor, loose all but one of your weapons, and get tangled in cables hanging from part of the ship (think the end of Return of the Jedi without all the whining). As you hang there the chimera, lacking common sense to the very end, start pouring out and shooting at you. It honestly surprised me when I realized that this was not a cut scene and that I actually had to aim at these bastards while swinging from a cable. After the first wave you fall further and are swung upside down, and you still are responsible for keeping yourself alive. It was the most exciting final two minutes of a game that I have played through in years, and just because Insomniac had the courage to actually let me play the last two minutes.

(Chance, if you are reading this, you should feel guilty about not playing this)

...

Last Sunday I had a chance to sample Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. The actual playing lasted only a few minutes, as what few words of the difficult foreign language I had picked up the first time around had been forgotten, replaced with random super jumps and missed inputs. We all gave up around the same time and just ran through the new characters supers. Marvel and I have come to a firm agreement: I love to watch the game, I love to watch people who are very good at it play the game, but under no circumstances should I attempt the game myself.

...

Skyrim would easily devour all of my time if I let it, so for the last week or so I have tried very hard to play it and another game simultaneously. This worked with Resistance 3 because it was worth playing, but how would it hold up with a shitty game? White Knight Chronicles 2 made it all of an hour. It did not help that I spent literally that entire hour in menus, leveling up characters because the game expected me to archive me save file from the first game and gave me generic level 35 characters because I didn't. Once I was done with that and got into the game itself I remembered comparing the first game to torture, turned it off and sent it packing. Part of what can make a bad gamer tolerable is the surprising way a game can mange to be bad. When I know exactly what is coming the fearful anticipation of forthcoming terribleness is just too much to bare. I don't fell bad that I turned it off, I just wish that simply turning the game on hadn't generated a trophy so it would be easier to forget.

Skyrim Journal #4

2011-11-22T16:56:00.000-06:00

The old man, the leader of the companions, had the same reservations about the the blood I now carried, but not for the same reasons. He was concerned about the long term affects on his soul, where he would spend his afterlife. My biggest worry was getting stabbed in the back be werewolf hating extremists, though the the likelihood of that happening was reduced significantly after I killed most of them. He pulled me into his quarters to chastise me for what he called over zealous revenge. In the same breath, however, he told me the story of how the companions were cursed in this way.

Several hundred years ago they made a deal with a coven of witches. Those in power at the time thought it would be easy to remove the curse later, so they took what they thought would be a short term power boon to complete the witch's task. After it was done the witches betrayed them and they could not find a way to undo the curse. As the years went by more and more of the companions came to accept it as a gift and use it accordingly, but the current leader thought it went against what it truly meant to be a nord. Being an elf I cared little for the second part of his plight, but the betrayal of the witches was not imagined. I had come to enjoy their company in spite of myself, so when he asked me to seek out these witches and kill one I accepted.

Killing one of them was not really an option. It was a long, cold walk, so by the time I got there anything living in their cave was going to be the victim of my frustrations. The old man had spoken of the witches in a way that had me more than a little worried. Had they been smart enough to all come at me simultaneously there might have a problem, but each was sequestered away in her own little section of the cave. I have no idea what each of them were doing, honestly I didn't look hard enough to find out, instead killing them from behind with several well placed arrows. They may have been ancient, but they bled like anything other living thing, and died just the same.

The old man had specifically requested one of their heads to use in the ritual to remove his curse. If I knew then what I know now I would have harvested several, but at the time even placing one in my pack was difficult enough. The smell was incredible and it never seemed to stop bleeding. I killed a pilgrim I ran across on the way back just so I had more clothing to wrap it in. By the time I got back I could not wait to be rid of the thing, but it was not to be. In my absence the remnants of the Silver Hand attacked. There was only one casualty, and it was the one person who cared about the what was to happen to him after he died.

I did not want to be moved, and I certainly did not enjoy this feeling of loss. He had given me a task, and I had completed it, but my shield brothers were too incompetent to keep him safe while I was gone. This was their fault, not mine. I stood as far from them as I could during the funeral, and afterward when the remaining members of the circle retreaded to their cave I made a move to the now empty guild house, intent on emptying their coffers and taking my leave. The blacksmith pulled me aside and asked that I retrieve something from the now dead leader's quarters. He had hidden the final piece of an ancient weapon in his quarters and I was to retrieve it. Only fitting, seeing as I had been all over Skyrim looking for the damn things.

It was not difficult to open the locked cabinet that contained the final piece. Besides that I found several nice sized gems, a bit of gold, and finally his journal. With no one around I was free to read through it. He though highly of me in spite knowing nothing of who I was or what my motivations were. It was his intent to pass the position of leader of the companions down to me upon his death, but he had not planned on dying for a long time. Out of respect I put back his gems and gold, instead emptying the quarters of those responsible for his death. If they couldn't do as much as protect an old man then they certainly did not deserve any of the wealth he had helped them accumulate.

I was half way out of the door when they stopped me. No, they did not know that my pack contained most of their gold, but they did want my input on what to do next. I was of the opinion that the old man was right, that the blood of the wolf was a curse, and I told them so. Surprisingly I was not alone; at least two other took my side, and even those who would never give the ability up admitted that it was his right to seek a cure and that it was a pity they he did not find one before he died.

There was silence for quite some time, as no one, including myself, knew what to do to properly honor our leaders death. Finally the blacksmith entered the cave, carrying an ax much to large for any normal sized man or elf to properly wield. He said that it was the reforged Wuthgard, heated it the fires of out leaders funeral pyre. With this weapon we would be able to unlock the very place that souls moved from this life to the next, and it was to be my job to carry it there. I believed none of this, but had I refused this 'honor' I would have been cut down right there. I accepted it, noting that I could not possible use it in battle, and placed it in my pack right next to the witches head.

The journey north to the nord's holy burial ground was a long one. How these people live here in the winter is a mystery to me. I am swaddled like a babe under layer upon layer of skins and they trapse about in little more than chain mail armor and a smile. Thankfully they are much too troubled to harass me, and my opinion of them was low enough that I would not have taken it gracefully. The cave itself was guarded my a statue over twice my height. This ax was clearly meant for it, and I was told that only it would open the way inside, so I placed the ax in its hands. I was happy to be rid of the thing, and it did indeed open a hidden door behind us.

As we made out way deeper into the cave one by one the companions deserted me. They made excuses of honor or shame, but I saw only fear. We were assaulted by the ghosts of companions past, there to test us and make sure only the worthy made it to the central altar. Only one companion made it there at my side, the woman whose wolf form shed the blood that turned me, and even she did not make it without injury. By the time we arrived at the central alter my quiver was dangerously low and she was moving at about half speed. Much more of this and we would both not survive.

The alter itself was little more than an over sized brazier, though how it continued to burn with no one to attend it I could not understand. Behind it stood the shadow of our leader, looking as he did in his youth. Death had suited him well, and he knew that I was there with what he needed to save him from his curse, even now. He instructed me to place the witch's head in the flames, and as soon as I did so it erupted into a bright green flame. The ghost faded quickly, replaced by a new specter, a giant red wolf that attacked us as soon it noticed we were there. It was a difficult battle but we prevailed, and in retrospect I do wonder why physical arrows did anything to a ghost in the first place. I survived, and that is all that matters.

When the old man returned he thanked us for out efforts and asked if I had brought anything to cure myself. He told me that if I had brought another head that he would be able to cure me as well. I want to believe that his original instructions to kill only one came from ignorance, not malice, but I did not hide my disgust with him very well. His words of parting were that I was indeed to be the new leader of the companions, a statement echoed by the only companion to make it to the end of this at my side.

I wanted nothing to do with these people any longer. Each was more self serving than the last, right down to the one I actually though had my best interests in mind. I did not tell them this, instead accepting the appointment with the condition that I be allowed plenty of time to pursue my own interests. Then I left them, wondering if they would ever figure out who it was that left with all their gold.

Choices, choices

2011-11-18T16:16:00.000-06:00

The Resistance games have always had a very specific visual malaise: depressing with just a hint of silly alien design. Okay, more than a hint, the grunt chimeras make very little sense physically. Thankfully that does not detract from how much fun it is to kill them. Resistance 3 feels like an intentional homage to older shooters, even more so than the previous two games. Weapons are not limited by the physical space it would take to carry them. Almost all of them have their uses, thought they to tend to break down into up close, medium range, and blog up big shit categories. Regenerating health is also gone. I really hope that I am not the only person who sat behind cover during the first boss battle waiting for my health to come back, then getting very confused (and dead) when it didn't.

It also just plain lifts entire levels from other games. Without going to far down the same tangent Yahtzee did is his review, yes, Nibelheim from Half Life 2 is present in its entirety, right down to the overtly religious nut jobs who run the place. I don't mind it too much, but a nod to Valve in the form of an easter egg here or there would not have been a bad idea. Not everyone has played Half Life 2, so they might not know that this had all been done before.

Better.

With a gravity gun.

Playing Resistance 3 is difficult. Every moment spent with it instead of wandering from cave to save in Skyrim feels like wasted time. Big, important things are constantly happening there, some of which I cause and some of them I see from the sidelines, but just walking through towns is an event. There will be a full journal update either tonight or tomorrow, but picking out a few things to talk about is not going to be easy.

It's not just playing Resistance that's hard right now, doing anything with my spare time that does not involve Skyrim feels like a chore. The second night I sat down in my comfortable chair and did not move for three hours. Nary a beer or snack was retrieved and I was quite sad when it was time to go to bed.

Skyrim Journal #3

2011-11-15T16:52:00.000-06:00

It was certainly not the same dragon that inadvertently saved my head. Not only did it not look the same, but thanks to the 'new blood' I have in my veins, I could smell it before I saw it and knew it was a distinct beast. Familiarity did nothing to temper my fear. Seeing an animal that large flying with such fine control, then belching fire down on screams nords is more than enough to warrant fleeing for ones life.

I didn't, though, and not because I had any feelings of obligation toward the brutish guards that fought by my side or the jarl who had petitioned me to go along. I had to know if it could be killed. I had to know if it bled, if it hurt, and how much hurting in could take. The battle began with around twenty men, each and every one fighting for his life. The dragon circled the remains of a guard tower, snatching up straggling guards with its claws and flinging them into the surrounding fields. Those were the lucky ones, as being burnt to a crisp was much more unpleasant, judging from the screams.

The rocks torn from the tower provided adequate over and fired arrow after arrow at the dragon. Fewer than half found their make, and even less punctured his skin. One lucky shot lodged right below his eye and I saw him wince in pain. It was a momentary victory; it had given away my position. The dragon landed and circled around me, trying to get a clear shot on the one who had actually injured in. From above a mage began to rain down spelling. They had about the same effect as my arrows, but distracted the dragon enough for me to find a new place to hide.

It took well over fifteen minutes and several scores of arrows, but the dragon fell. Of the twenty men only six were left, and two of those may never wield a sword again. Once the dragon stopped moving I approached, curious and greedy, looking for spoils that it might have ingested. At my first touch the dragon burst into flames, the smoke swirling around me. It was the same sound I encountered two days earlier coming from the wall I could not read. The images returned, and this time I could understand. This was not just a word, it was power, and for some reason, it was mine.

After the last fires died down the soldiers slowly approached. 'Dragon born,' one said, 'you should try a shout.'

Shout? That was what he called it. Though I still did not understand the power, it was more than a shout. I turned to the wreckage of the guard tower and said the new word. Nothing happened. Disappointed and angry, I yelled it as loud as I could. There was a tremendous gust of wind, pushing everything in front of me back and dousing much of the remaining fire.

Even the guard captain took a step back. This would prove useful indeed.

Getting biblical

2011-11-15T16:36:00.000-06:00

I really did mean to start Resistance 3 yesterday. This was before the mandatory gig of updates and fifteen minute install broke my will and I loped back to Skrim like a ADHD puppy. I didn't have enough time to get anything done, I just wanted to wander through hills and try to kill a giant (it worked, they lose track of sneaky thieves rather easily).

The kind of freedom offered in Skyrim can sometimes be counterproductive. With so much to do and so many way to do them a player can become overwhelmed. Thankfully Skyrim organizes your quests just well enough to keep things moving and the side quests are more than the usual fluff used by other titles to flesh out play time. Everything if permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Yes, I could walk through town and kill almost everyone, but that would break so many quests that it would be counterproductive. It is tempting to empty of town of things to do and then turn into a werewolf and eat my way from one end of town to the other, but that will have to wait until after the main quest is done.

Resistance 3 will be started tonight, for sure this time, though I will not promise to be thinking about playing something else the whole time.

An impossible pace

2011-11-14T14:58:00.000-06:00

This Skyrim journal will be difficult to keep up at this pace. There is so much to talk about, so much of what happens is forgotten by the next day. Leven, my elf, is already turning out differently than I planned, and I am okay with that. He was to be an evil, vengeful elf, but the attitude of the the companions has softened him a bit. Yes, he regrets accepting the werewolf curse, but it was his choice, and I think even he will come around about that eventually.

Or he may kill them all. It really depends on how powerful he becomes.

The backlog knows no mercy, so I will be taking a day off of Skryim to play Resistance 3. I really hope it is short.

Skyrim Journal #2

2011-11-14T14:54:00.000-06:00

This guild, the companions they call themselves, are a very strange group. They have the same odd obsession with honor and dying well, but just below the surface they are just as vile and deviant and anyone else. They hide things from each other and plot against their fellow companions while toasting their accomplishments with ale. One would think that I had fallen in with the dark brotherhood.

After running several simple errands for them that I used as explanations for the spoils I returned with I was summoned to one of the inner circle's quarters. He said that I was ready for my test and that one of their number would accompany me. There had been reports that a fragment of a weapon had been found that was important to their history and it was to be hour job to retrieve it. Seemed a bit pointless to men since there weren't planning on selling it for something useful, but the companion standing behind me with one of the largest swords I had ever seen made it clear that this missions was not an option.

We encountered the same undead monsters that plagued me while retrieving the golden claw for the merchant in Riverwood, but my companion guide/guard dispatched them with hideous efficiency. I scarcely had time to pull an arrow from my pack before they lay in pieces on the floor, and the way he danced in and out of my firing lanes made taking shots more difficult than in should have been. On one occasion I glanced an arrow off of his back. A steady glare was my only punishment, though I was very sure that it did not happen again.

Apart from that he was very tolerant of treasure hunting. I opening every burial pot they we found, picked through the pockets of every corpse, opened every casket and retrieved all the gold I could find. He chuckled, then walked on, content to kill things and let the most important part, the looting, for his dunmer charge. It was a strange team, but it worked, right up to the point where I locked myself in a room and he had to find a way to get me out.

He was not angry, just annoyed at the diversion. He had been searching the room for only a few moments when seven or eight heavily armored nords appeared from nowhere, each one with a sword that appeared to my eyes to be made of silver.

'We have found you, at last,' the first one said as they circled the companion. My guide still did not seem frightened and there was nothing I could do but watch, still penned in a trap that I had set off in my haste. Before the attackers could land a single blow their victim sheathed his sword, closed his eyes, and began to howl. He's gone made, I thought, until the room was bathed in light and he began to change. In a flash the man was gone, replaced by a werewolf twice his size. The monsters dispatched his attackers with ease, tearing them to pieces, before finally turning his gaze on me. I expected it to tear the bars from the wall before killed me as well, but instead he spoke.

'Wait here.'

Had I not been terrified I would have made a pithy remark, something like 'where am I supposed to go,' but I quickly nodded. He dropped to all fours and ran around a corner, there was flash, and the gate I was stuck behind begin to rise. I crawled underneath before it was all the way up and had already started to run when he called me from behind.

'Stop. You are in no danger. And tell no one of this, you are not yet supposed to know.'

We eventually found what we were looking for, but not once did I take my eyes off of him. I had never seen a werewolf before, and I certainly did not want to see one again.

...

Upon returning to the companion camp the finished my indoctrination with more than a little drinking and song. I found it enjoyable in spite of myself; it was the first time I felt like I truly belonged since fleeing my homeland, and even then it was more an attitude of tolerance then acceptance. These people didn't care that I was a wood elf, it was irrelevant. All that mattered was that I could kill a man before he knew I was there and had no moral hangups about doing so.

This complacent attitude lasted less than a day. After being sent out to kill another batch of werewolf hunters I was told to wait behind their guild hall in a cave beneath their forge. As if this was not enough, the entrance was hidden and spent most of the evening leaning against a rock wall freezing my ass off. Without warning it opening behind me and I was dragged in. I would have attacked had there not been another werewolf there along with a human companion. It was not the same one as before, a bit slighter in build, vaguely feminine, but just as frightening. My discomfort was obvious.

'Steel yourself, elf, I have an proposition. You show great promise, but to fully join our ranks the blood of the beast must run in your veins.'

I must admit that I was very curious, but not what I would call excited. To their credit they let me leave to think about it. I left town as quickly as I could and raided another bandit cave to clear my head. A few close calls later I realized that this would be just another tool, another weapon to use. I had been offered a chance to become more powerful, the intentions of those who offered it were not important. What was important was what I intended to do with it.

The next night I returned and completed their ritual. From what I am told it was a difficult transformation. I do not remember much, bits of piece and running through the forest at impossible speeds. They finally caught up to me over an hour later, calmed me down, and I returned to my normal form. The regret was immediate. What good is this weapon if I cannot control it? What had these people who I had just began to trust done? It was certain that they were much to powerful to take direct revenge, but this is indeed a curse and I must find a way to have it undone.

...

There is also the matter of meeting, fighting, and killing a dragon. It was the first, technically second, dragon seen in the lands in many lifetimes and I put in the final blow. I understand what happened next even less that the werewolf curse I was talked into, but I will say that at least this power I can point at someone.

Skyrim Journal #1

2011-11-12T13:11:00.003-06:00

I did not ask for this, but someone will pay.

The boarder to Skyrim is not clearly marked, and I had been wandering the cold woods for weeks, so I had no idea there was any danger beyond packs of wolves and the occasional bear. I was, admittedly, on the run from other dunmer who did not share my opinions on work and how much anyone owns anything. Why should I, who has nothing, think twice about taking food and money from those who have everything and are not smart enough to take the time to enjoy it? The choice was to either stand, fight, and most likely die or run and not stop running. I ran, ill prepared, hungry, frightened and injured, I ran.

I remember warnings from my childhood about the cold of Skyrim, how it was as much of an enemy as anything with teeth and claws, but I did not believe them. That first night, huddled beneath the skirt of a pine tree, unable to even build a fire to keep myself warm, I gave up. I surrendered myself to be eaten by the next animal that approached. Nothing came, the stench of cowardice was enough to fend them off, I told myself, but I knew I was just lucky. A wood elf, a dunmer, unable to fend for himself in a forest? For the very first time I was disgusted with myself, second guessing my thieving ways.

Out of the corner of my eye I say a rabbit, nosing at the few bits of food I had thought to bring along. It was innocent, only doing what was natural to it, and it enraged me. How dare this thing take what belongs to me! I wheeled my bow around and notched an arrow, pulled the string back, the stopped just long enough to appreciate the irony of the situation. I was this rabbit, stealing bits from people who should not have noticed, fleeing when they did.

I killed it anyway.

From that day forward I lived a feral existence, stealing from nature what I needed to survive. Long dormant skills with the bow bubbled up, and I was lighter and quieter on my feet that I have ever been. I had stumbled upon a group of pale men, nords I believed, that were speaking in hushed tones in spite of no one being within ear shot. Their gold and weapons did not interest me, but their clothing did, so I waited. I watched. So focused was I on the kill that I was caught in the same ambush that so surprised my prey, knocked out from behind by the pommel of a sword, and thrown in the back of a wagon with the rest of them.

When I awoke my bow was gone and my hands bound. The men were talking to each other, still in hushed tones, and did not notice right away that I was watching and listening. Finally the largest of them turned and I recognized him from the camp: I was going to kill him first. There was bravery in his words, but also fear, as he slowly explained where they were being taken. He spoke of rebellions and leaders and the tyranny of the empire, none of which I understood. I was not so resigned to me death, and while I was not innocent, I knew that this was not meant for me.

This large nord never stopped talking. It was actually a relief when the cart stopped and we were herded out into a well defended courtyard. There were guards posted in every tower, along every wall, and more in the buildings with arrows trained on us. A bit much for seven men and an elf. The leader of their group noticed that I was not on their official list of beheadings for the day, and I had the faintest glimmer of hope that they would simply let me go. But no. 'Just a dunmer,' he said, 'kill him anway.'

I could not believe that these men simply stood in line waiting to be killed in this way. They bragged on about honor, which is meaningless after your head has been separated from your shoulders. One did finally try to make a run for it was was brought down quickly by arrows, but at least he died on his feet. These other fools did nothing. I went over escape possibilities in my head as I watched the first man die. A bit anti-climactic, actually. The axe came down and he stopped moving, nothing more. The bastards called for me next. I was in a panic. There was nothing I could do and was going to die cowering on my knees. A distraction, something to turn them from me for just a few moments would be all I would need. I could disappear back into the forest, head back to my own lands.

There was noise that I am afraid I cannot describe. Something like a werewolf, but much larger, and it was coming from the sky. Then there was fire. Then there was screaming, panic, and the smell of flesh burning. I looked up from the block and caught the glimpse of wings through the smoke before the walls came down.

Once more I ran. Tied, burned, terrified, I ran.

The imperial commander came upon me and feigned authority. 'Come with me, prisoner,' he yelled. I laughed, and he might have killed me if the there was not another explosion behind him. Then the talkative nord appeared and asked me to follow. At least he might let me out of my chains. We retreated to the basement of the castle and he did indeed free me, just in time to kill a few soldiers who followed us in. As one died he muttered something about a dragon and I finally put together the bit and pieces of what I saw. A dragon. I thought they were long since gone, but the sounds of the castle above being destroyed said otherwise.

I was with this nord for quite some time, all the while my impression of him deteriorating. He never stopped talking, spinning tales about people and places that I have never heard of. He also wasn't very bright; it took him hours to finally give me, a dunmer, his bow. Watching him fire it had been torture, and when we made our escape from the castle I did not give it back to him. He suggested that I see his sister in the next town, Riverwood he called it, and I took my leave of him by ducking into the next cave I could find. The silence was wonderful, broken by a cadre of bandits that had also taken up residence. I killed them, one by one, until the quiet returned.

Their food tasted terrible, but it was better than starving.

...

Eventually I did make it to Riverrun, weighed down by the weapons and armor I had stolen from the bandits who no longer needed them. It was late, but there was one shop still open. The nords inside were arguing about something, a golden claw that had been stolen, and they did not notice me at first. After they composed themselves I was greeted warmly, something I was not expecting. 'Nice to see anther wood elf,' the man said, 'make sure you stop by a few doors down, another of your kind has been living here for quite some time.' After unloading my wares, with no questions asked or course, I asked about the golden claw they were fighting about. The man promptly launched into a long tale of finding the claw and it bringing him luck, then having it stolen two night ago by thieves whose hideout was on the other side of the lake.

'You look like you can handle yourself, do think you could look into getting it back?' The woman beside him, his sister, clucked her tongue at him.

'Bringing strangers into your problems. Just like you.'

I was interested enough to get more details, and also did not want to be in town to meet this other wood elf, so I accepted his proposition, planning to keep the claw for myself once I obtained it. The woman led me to the edge of town and bid me good luck. If these bandits were anything like the ones I had faced previously in the cave, loud, drunk and with little skill, this would not be a problem.

...

The first few sets of guards I ran into were exactly what I expected. They panicked as the first arrow came out of the shadows, yelling into the darkness, then crying in pain as the second and third arrows pierced them. As I got deeper into the complex and the walls changed from man made brick to much older cave formations they got a little better, but still not as fearsome as a few wolves or a single angry bear. It took a giant spider falling from the ceiling, blinding me from across the cave with precise shots of venom, to finally break my hubris. The spider could see into my dark corners and did not succumb to pain as a man would, so it was only by attrition that it finally fell. I was standing over it, catching my breath and harvesting its venom, when someone called to me from the shadows. It another nord, a thief from the looks of him, that had been captured by this spider. He was strung up in a doorway, already packaged as a meal. He begged me to cut him down, offered me money and assistance if I would do so, but it was not until I asked him about the golden claw that he gave me a good reason to actually save him from his plight.

This thief said that he had indeed stolen the claw, that he had it right now, and that it was actually a key to greater riches further down in the cave. I did not believe him, but I did need to cut him down to proceed, and I should not have been surprised when he ran off as soon as he hit the ground. I put an arrow in his back and he still did not fall, forcing me to chase him, annoyed at my terrible aim. He finally turned to face me and was rewarded was several more arrows in the chest, all of which missed the golden claw he had in his sack but were rendered dull and un-usable by his armor. I should have slit his throat before cutting him down.

I was curious about this treasure he mentioned, so against my better judgement I ventured deeper into the caves. There I met undead creatures much tougher than any of the live nords I had faced so far. They swung giant two handed swords in arcs so wide that they could block the entire hall way, forcing me to retreat. At least they couldn't move very fast, but a hit or two still found their mark on me and I was forced to dip into my small supply of healing potions. Wonderful things, I have no idea how they work, but I will steal every last one of them I can.

The cave turned into catacombs, filled with more of the same monsters, until it opened up into a cavern whose ceiling was so high that I could scarcely see its limits. In the center was a single stone coffin, undoubtedly belonging to someone quite important, surrounded by a wall covered in words that I could not read. As I approached I heard a noise, not with my ears but somehow in my mind. It was the same sound the dragon had made as it by chance rescued me, a screaming roar, but this time I could make out what sounded like words. The characters on the wall began to shimmer, and for a just a moment, I could read them. I knew what they meant, there was great power there just out of reach, but before I could make any sense of it the coffin behind me fell open. It was indeed an important man, judging from the weapon he still held in his dead hands, and it was only by luck that I manged to defeat him.

It was a nice axe. Pity I cannot wield it. The shop owner asked many questions about it when I returned with the claw, and I answered none of them. I am only returning the claw to him so I can steal it back later. I predict his sorrow will be delicious.

...

Much more has happened that I cannot fit into this journal. I now have a house that used to belong to some kind of alchemic witch. She doesn't need it anymore, and it will provide a nice base of operations. I eventually made my way to Whiterun where I have found myself involved in both the fighters guild and city politics. It should be interesting to see if I can get them to kill each other before I get bored and do it for them. They have some very nice things that would like much nicer in my possession.

I did not ask for any of this. This land and its people, some one will pay. They all will pay.

Processing...

2011-11-12T09:19:00.000-06:00

So much happened in Skyrim last night and I barely moved the plot along. Every cave I ran across needed to be explored, and each was filled to the brim with bandits that needed killing and chests that needed emptying. Once I got to the first town the first shop I stopped in had a quest for me. I thought it was a fetch quests; it took almost an hour. The game plays almost identically to Oblivion at this point, so it really did feel like coming back home after an extended absence. This may be greedy, but the only wish I have is that the game looked better. I understand that consoles were most likely not the lead development platforms, but Skyrim bonces back and forth between beautiful vistas to hideous textures on items close up that my poor dunmer is going to get whiplash. Battlefield 3 has proved that a high end PC game can be translated at around 90% when slimmed down for television viewing. Skyrim is falling significantly short of that mark.

The journal of Leven, the dirty dunmer thief will be coming later, I just need to decide what is important and what is not. Most of all, and this sounds really nerdy (because it is) I need to decide what his motivation to be a bastard is. Wood elves make good thieves, but they do not strike me as murderers. What pushed him over the edge?

Being saved by a dragon while his head is literally on the chopping block is a good start.

The excitement is terrible

2011-11-10T23:30:00.000-06:00

I haven't been this excited for a game release in a long time. I don't buy many games any more, the last two being Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs Capcom 3, neither of which went very well. This once is different. Skyrim is bought and paid for already. It is sitting in the back room of my local Gamestop just waiting to be picked up. If I wasn't so old and fragile I would be at the midnight opening. Tomorrow morning will just have to suffice. My cynical internal monologue has been almost completely silenced; the chances of this being terrible are almost non-existent. Though I did enjoy Oblivion a great deal in its ludite console form. The not so current fad is to hate it and its leveling system, then mod it to death until it is no longer the game that was intended. I don't remember it being a problem. It would have dominated my playing time even if there was something to play of the 360 at the time (there wasn't).

There are so many stories from my time with Oblivion, many of which I have already told here. Some of them were scripted, but the best ones were just organic things that happened because I screwed up or was messing around. I inadvertently let an assassination target escape once (I could have killed here, but instead I charmed her dog and forced it to attack her. It was hilarious, but it couldn't finish the job). She fled into a nearby cave, right into the teeth of another side quest involving warring faction of trolls. They killed her, completing my job, then I had to kill them to get something off of her body. None of this was intentional, but it made the world much more believable.

My gaming habits are a bit different now, so Skyrim will not get weeks of uninterrupted time. The backlog is already looming large, with Resistance 3 and White Knight Chronicles 2 in the mail, and many other excellent games that I have not had a chance to look at yet. This is an impossible time of year for a compulsive gamer, one that I never quite recover from, making the next that much worse.

Imagine if the new rumored Xbox actually does come out next year. I'll be well and truly fucked.

Mama, I'm comin' home

2011-11-09T16:44:00.001-06:00

With only two evenings to fill before Skyrim comes out I was content to have nothing sitting on the desktop queue next to my 360. This was before another disastrous evening of Street Fighting, so I ended up spending money on to get a game to keep me from playing that. Sounds backwards, but still a better option than not playing anything. Of the two remaining titles that needed to be transformed from demos into actual achievement generating games I chose Renegade Ops. It is difficult to go wrong with a twin stick shooter, especially when it features some RPG-lite leveling and looks as good as Renegade Ops does. I happily drove around and blew things up for the rest of the evening and looking forward to finishing it up this evening. Twin stick shooters are the equivalent of comfort food to me: always appealing, even when I need to overlook flaws of all severities to enjoy them.

We all have genres that we fall back on when nothing else is fun and one that we can take just a little of before throwing our hands up in frustration. I can play about one racing game a quarter and it matters not if it is realistic (Forza) or arcade (Dirt), but I have an irrational aversion to any Need for Speed games. I never play them and I am not entirely sure why, because I know that they are (usually) pretty good. First person shooters are played almost reflexively, but stealth games are more easily avoided, especially when stealth is the only option. Watching me play Metal Gear must be a trip, as Snake might as well be replaced with Commando era Schwarzenegger. I went through a digital board game kick when XBLA first took off, playing far much more Uno online then is healthy. I quit when someone accused me of cheating.

At uno. Online.

Twin stick shooters are a little different. I play them because I am always looking for a successor to Shadowgrounds (which really isn't fair, because Shadowgrounds was not a true twin stick shooter, it was mouse and keyboard). I have never found its equal among modern games, though a few have come close. Geometry Wars was a sense of endless pride and frustration as the top score on my friends list changed hands. Zombie Apocalypse (the first one, not the terrible sequel) introduced some much needed environmental interaction to things. Feeding zombies into a giant snow thrower never got old. So far Renegade Ops is pretty far up there. It combines the score multiplier ADHD of Zombie Apocalypse and Geometry Wars with the larger environments of Shadowgrounds. The vehicles can be a bit squirrely at high speed and I don't like time limits on side missions, but these are small complaints.

I should complain about the price, but it was bought and paid for before I realized it was a bit high.

...

Two days. I have not been this excited for a game in a long time. Here's hoping it lives up to hype, and that I can make good on my threat to turn it into an ongoing narrative.

Please, stop the cleavage

2011-11-07T16:24:00.000-06:00

I could not bring myself to play any more Otomedius Excellent last night. It is just not good enough of a game to justify its level of depravity. It's not even that deprave, it's just that boring of a shooter. Instead I watched the mediocre stream of the tail end of Canada Cup. All of the singles had passed, leaving only the international 5v5 event. All of the biggest names were involved anyway, character locked into single elimination matches againt a person chosen from the other team specifically to fight them. Not just character counter picking, but player counter picking. Someone (it might have been Justin Wong) called it Pokemon Street Fighter, and that is a very good way to describe it. I missed the beginning and end, so I did not see team USA get beaten by the back up Japanese team after beating the primary one, but I did see an incredibly rare, wonderful thing:

a tournament level Blanka player.

Riceta's Blanka is so lame that it would be difficult to watch if I didn't find it so fascinating. There were very few extended, link heavy combos, though he could certainly perform them if the opportunity presented itself. Instead he harassed people, staying just out of range until an errant button was pressed, then getting a hit or two, usually ending in a hard knock down with electricity. There was some pressure on the opponents wake up, but more often than not he retreated back to a save distance. Riceta literally trolled his way through most of the Korean team. The stream chat cringed as I leaned in to my 480p stream (not going to spend the 8.95 until there is a really good reason, sorry), soaking up every shenanigan, watching as player after player forgot that you can focus attack the ex-rainbow roll and catching a cross up ball to the face.

It was glorious.

Eventually he ran into someone who actually knew the match (I think it was Infiltration) and the glorious run came to an end. These matches highlighted both Blanka's strengths and weaknesses. If you don't know how to deal with his bull shit you are in serious trouble, but if you do, then even the best Blankas in the biz have a hard time coming up with a win.

Bonus video below. Riceta doesn't win, but he takes a game from Daigo, so it's an (im)moral victory none the less.

What is the age of consent in Japan, anyway?

2011-11-06T09:49:00.001-06:00

I am quite sure that playing Otomedies Excellent puts me on a list that I do not want to be on. The kind of list that keeps you from getting jobs where you interact with children or need a security clearance beyond 'random guy off of the street.' It certainly does have that skeevy, only in Japan look and feel to it, but so few shmups make it state side that it has to be played. The pervy coating doesn't really make any sense; this is a Gradius game, right down to the music, enemies, and level design. Weapons are still gained by destroying red enemies and collecting the power ups they leave behind. There is more variety now, with different weapon cards collected as the game progresses that be fitted to the different ships, though if you get a better version of the same weapon you are using you can't actually equip without starting completely over. If the game were longer this would be an issue, but with only eight levels that can be pushed through (with unlimited continues, mind you) in under an hour, starting over isn't that big of a deal.

After I had pushed through the game once, though, I understood the nonsequiter of giant boobed girls in ships: as a shmup it is rather plain. It doesn't have the same depth as Ikaruga or the more recent Deathsmiles, both of which contain incredibly deep score mechanics that you don't even discover until you can make it through a whole level without dying. Otomedius Excellent is such a throwback that without the tarting up it would be unremarkable at best, just plain boring at worst. Of course it is obnoxiously hard, as it should be, but it is not a creative obnoxiousness. Bosses that take up the whole screen will simply corner you, crushing your ship against the immovable edge of your TV. Most bosses have only one or two attacks that repeat over and over, and some of the later one I am convinced there is no way to avoid.

Gah, who buys this stuff?

I don't understand the target audience, thought the collectors edition including a two sided pillowcase gives me a pretty good clue, but I am clearly not it. Don't get me wrong, I love being terrible at the few shmups that manage to make it out here. I just don't like feeling so dirty playing them.

I'm mad as hell...

2011-11-04T13:42:00.001-05:00

It was probably not a good idea to play Bodycount immediately after Battlefield 3. All of my complaints regarding Battlefield 3 can be boiled down to nitpicking or indictments of the genre as a whole. It was a pretty good shooter single player shooter whose primary reason for existing I will never actually experience. Even without that part of the game in my knowledge I feel comfortable saying that it was certainly not a waste of time to play.

It was probably not a good idea to play Bodycount at all.

The opening segments of Bodycount were confusing and poorly voiced acted, so I skipped them. Something about people being recruited into an anti-terrorist force known as 'The Network,' but they may have been virtually controlling soldier avatars, hell if I know, I pressed A to get things over with. My agent from 'The Network' was then dropped into a reasonable looking war torn city somewhere in Africa with nothing but a checkpoint to guide him. I walked around a corner and was killed by someone who I thought was on my side. Respawned and died again. It took around five deaths (in the first level!) to figure out that the two warring factions conveniently portrayed by guys in different colored suits wanted to kill each other and you for having the audacity to show up and ask ask them to stop killing each other.

Once I stopped getting shot in the back and started getting shot in the front I realized that who was shooting me where was not actually the problem. In every modern first person shooter that I have ever played ever there is button that you use to look down the sites of your weapon. This slows down your movement and zooms in the view to better facilitate popping heads. In Bodycount is still zooms in the view but instead of slowing down your movement it stops you entirely. Moving the right stick then has you lean to the left or right. At first blush this is not a terrible idea; it allows you to use cover without having to lock yourself to the wall you are hiding behind. But then you realizing that standing still while aiming is never a good idea, and then you die. Again.

Playing a budget shooter after a big one is just not a good idea, though I have read that Battlefield 3 was less popular online one week after its release than Modern Warfare 2. Now that's a kick in the balls.

...

Like a moth to a flame I have returned to Street Fighter. There is a strict time limit placed on how long I can play in a given evening, mostly because buying the game for a third time would be ludicrous. I want to learn a new character, find someone who I can be slightly proficient with. Guile and Dee Jay are an option, but I think I have settled on Dhalsim. After an hour of playing ranked a few nights ago I won twice, learning very quickly that I did not know what to do with Dhalsim if and when he gets knocked down. Blanka with meter has a get our of jail free card in the form of EX upball (unless being safe jumped, something that I still cannot recognize) but what can Dhalsim do?

I put this question out into the world, and the response I got back was 'don't get knocked down.'

From several people. They were quite serious. I have chosen poorly.

Call of Battlefield

2011-11-02T12:44:00.000-05:00

If you were to strip all the branding from Battlefield 3, everything game, on the box, on the disc, or in the manual, it would be virtually indistinguishable from Call of Duty to the casual and not so casual observer. Gritty modern day psuedo squad based shooter, check. Story told as flashbacks of person who may or may not be the good guy who is being interrogated, check. Levels from the point of few of soldiers' from varying nationalities, some of whom die in gruesome ways regardless of what the player does, check. Nuclear explosions in densely populated areas, enemies who aim for no one but the player character even when his squad mates are sitting right out on the open, vehicle based levels to break up the shooting, and at least one section thrown in just for shock value, check.

Not as good as No Russian, but the idea is the same.

Here's the problem: Battlefield 3 (at least the part of it that I will be exposed to) is really good. It is pointless to complain about who it doesn't has a single original idea pressed into either of the discs it came on when what is here is enjoyable. Yes, I annoyed when some smarmy bastard shoots me from across the map, killing me before I even knew he was there, but this has been a problem since shooters took a step or two in the general direction of 'realism' and may never be fixed. It's also very obvious when there are enemies that I am supposed to kill instead of hiding behind cover and letting the rest of my squad kill them, as they will sit there outside of cover for minutes at a time waiting to get shot. This leads to more hilarity than anger, something that Battlefield 3 has very little of. The Bad Company games were just as good as shooters, but were more enjoyable because there were not so intent on being grim-dark the entire time.

That games from competing companies come out so similar should not be a surprise. This is what sells. If you want to make money you just need to sell what sells. I can see the developers walking into Castle EA with head full of ideas, things that they want to do to stand apart from CoDBLOPS (that is my favorite acronym ever), then walking out with their tails between their legs after being beaten with rolled up papers labeled 'profitability' and 'Activision is bigger than we are now, we need to do exactly what they are doing.'

What I am hoping for is big cross over in the next few years. Battlefield vs Call of Duty! I never thought I would live the see Street Fighter vs Tekken (and from the looks of it and its gem system, I may have been right to hope for that), which proves that if there is money to made nothing is impossible.

Damned from the start

2011-10-31T17:00:00.000-05:00

Usually losing all of your health is the main reason your character dies in an action game. It can be from taking to much physical damage, falling into a bottomless pit or stumbling into a seemingly shallow pool of water that still drowns you, almost all death can be attributed to your hitpoints hitting zero. While health (or constitution, to coin a D&D phrase) is present in The Cursed Crusade, it is not the characters health that matters. Armor breaks off in specific places, an idea that I really liked, and any further hits in that same area reduce your health. Still, I paid much more attention to the health of my weapons that anything else, because once those are gone it was over.

The idea of weapon strength is not necessarily a bad one, assuming that it is at least based in reality. A good sword should last more than a few swings, and even the best swords in Cursed Crusade would break after only a few minutes of use. The games does allow you to walk around with a veritable arsenal: a two handed weapon, a ranged weapon, two one handed weapons and a shield, so you are never short of one to use, but the animation for actually pulling one of the back up blades out and using it can be interrupted by enemy attacks, attacks that you can no longer parry because your damn blade has sheered off at the hilt. You can't run away effectively because there isn't a button to disengage from combat, so you slowly back pedal, waving a glorified pen knife and the bad guys and begging them to let you take three seconds to change swords.

Combat looks like it should be a deep, rewarding experience, at least that is what the pages and pages of unlockable combos would like you to believe. In truth you find the one string for each weapon that you can pull off consistently and use it over and over. Once more, I have been spoiled by Bayonetta; third person action combat without a wide variety attacks that are actually useful is no longer forgivable. She might actually fit in this game, as the templar and his spaniard spend a great deal of time jumping back and forth between the real world and the cursed version of the same level. Picture Soul Reaver's dual world idea, but take out all the puzzles that made use of the mechanic and replace them with pointless collectibles that can only be acquired while in the hell side. Now remember that Soul Reaver hasn't aged all that well, and you have Cursed Crusade.

It's bad, but not funny bad, just depressing bad. It takes itself so seriously that it is very difficult to not hold it accountable for its glaring faults. A little whimsy would have gone a long way, though I suppose finding whimsy in the crusades is not exactly the easiest thing. Genocide is rarely amusing.

Except it Warhammer. Then it is called 'level 1.'

You really need my help

2011-10-28T13:54:00.000-05:00

Every Wednesday, regardless of what else I am playing, I swing through the new release section of Xbox Live Marketplace. Usually this ends up with more games placed in the backlog, but this time something caught my eye that I had to play the demo of as soon as the download would allow. Right between a re-release (re-re-release?) of Daytona USA and Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone was The War of the Worlds. A bit late for a licensed title based on that abysmal Tom Cruise project, I thought, which was enough incentive for me to read the rest of the description.

'Based on the original H. G. Wells story.' Ah, an excellent start.

'Side scrolling platformer.' What? Based on War of the Worlds?

'Featuring Patrick Stewart as the narrator' Oh Christ, someone click the download button while I go get a clean pair of pants.

At just shy of 2 gig is took a bit, but later that evening I was ready to sink my teeth into what I hoped would be a spiritual successor to Limbo. Thank goodness that I took the time to sample the demo before forking over my hard earned Microsoft points, because the only two things they got right were hiring the right person to do the narration and how the game looks. As soon as actually have to move the character and make him jump on to things nothing could save it. Remember how Out of this World played? What you told the character to do and what he actually did were usually quite different. It was forgivable then because we didn't know any better, but for a modern platformer to make such basic a mistake as forcing the character jump a second time if the jump button is held down a fraction of a second too long is right out. Leaping from platform to platform should not be the equivalent of a one frame link in Street Fighter.

I have said it before, but who tested this game? Five minutes in and a play tester with any brains at all would submit the following bug report: Jumping is ass. Fix it now. I hereby offer my services to any game company, big or little, to play your games for you and tell you what sucks. This is no joke (well, not a very good one). As an outside agent with no agenda beyond helping people not make idiotic mistakes it would be much easier for me to say 'this part of your game sucks' then some pimply faced intern worried about keeping his minimum wage job. The War of the Worlds is a great looking game; moody, interestingly lit, sparsely detailed in the exact same way that made Limbo so compelling. Patrick Stewart's Star Trek royalties check must have been late, but his misfortune is our boon. If only the game weren't terrible, I would play it.

They should have just re-skinned Outland.

...

Yes, I am playing The Cursed Crusade. Yes, it is the second crusade themed game that I have played recently. No, crossing over into hell themed versions of the level to look for crucifixes with beating hearts does not make any sense. Yes, it is an Atlus game, so that renders all previous questions and concerns moot.

Placed in the wrong company

2011-10-25T22:04:00.000-05:00

There are occasional gaps in the availability of disc based console titles. Not because my queue is empty, just because I play games faster than they can me shipped to me. Another, secondary, backlog is always there, thankfully, to prevent me from have to put effort into what I do in my free time: XBLA (and to a much less extent Sony Marketplace. When is Journey coming out, anyway?) If an arcade release grabs my attention I will buy it on the spot and play it through, if for no other reason than to play something at the same time everyone else is playing it. Other titles will sit on my hard drive for months at a time waiting for a sale. This fate befell Bastion, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet and Renegade Ops, three games that deserve my time just as much as anything else I play but had the misfortune of arriving at just the wrong time.

Bastion was first on the list, so Bastion is what I have been playing for the last two days, and it is easily one of the best games I have played this year, regardless of genre or delivery method. It was initially left behind because I subconsciously placed in the same company as Braid, a game I found so pretentious that it took me nearly six months to give it the time of day, and then it was only with a walk through. Braid walked through a part with its collar up, drinking Zima's and talking about books no one has read and bands no one has heard of. It was a hipster game and to this day I think very little of it. I lumped Bastion in with that based only on how it looked and the off name of its developer and I was completely wrong to do so.

Everyone who cares about Bastion has already played it, so I am not going to go into the boring details of how it plays and what its few shortcomings are. Suffice to say that the last weapon found is so much better than all the previous ones that you feel dirty for having used them, and I can't imagine new game plus being anything but a bazooka fest. None of that matters, though, because Bastion hits emotional notes that my cold, cold gamer heart has not heard since Flower, another simple, downloadable title I fell in love with. The sparcity of the environments fits perfectly with how little you know of the story. The world is gone, save precarious paths and an old guy with a cool voice that talks about everything you do. The narrator tells you exactly what you need to know and nothing more, just as the ground rises to meet your feet when you are going in the right direction. Eventually there are a few more characters and your world grows, rebuilt by the sweat of your brow (side note: more freedom with the world building would have been excellent, see Dark Cloud 2 as an example).

At the end you are faced with two choices: reset the entire world to a time before the calamity that killed everyone and everything or escape from the city with the few companions you have saved. What sounds like a simple choice is made more difficult by the narrator; nothing sounds easy when said with his level of gravitas. He could ask me if I wanted fries with that and I would question why I was on this Earth in the first place. To decide I put my self in the protagonists shoes: was his life better now than it was before the calamity? Honestly, it was just as shitty, and his current heroics where known only to a few people. I chose the reset, giving up the fortune and glory for the lives of everyone who would never know to appreciate what I had done. I saved them, and even I wouldn't remember doing it.

This arcade game told a better story in two and half nights of play that any full priced game I have played yet this year. I should have played it sooner, but at least I played it, and if you haven't you need to fix this as soon as possible. Games like Bastion remind me why I play anything, and the distance between them just serves to remind how special they really are.

Anti-badassness

2011-10-24T19:52:00.000-05:00

Once again I have returned form the wilds of Kentucky, this time having got at least a little bit of gaming done. Catherine is one of the only game that I have ever played that actually got easier when moderately intoxicated. There were still three or four levels after the final (bizarre) twist, levels that would have been much more frustrating without that pleasant warm feeling brought on by one too many stouts. Once it was done and all my suspicions proved correct I was relieved, but also still very confused. Katherine was a succubus, Catherine never was pregnant and took Vincent back. According to the achievements the exact opposite ending is possible: Vincent ends up with Katherine and Catherine leaves him. How this drastically different ending can be brought out by a series of yes or no questions is a mystery, as the puzzle levels were good enough to do once but not good enough to do again, so I will have to rely on the internets to see the other endings.

...

Space Marine is a perfect weekend game: you can knock it out in two days, it is fun from beginning to end and you never, ever stop feeling like a bad ass. I know very little of Warhammer 40,000, though every time there is a thread dedicated to its art I will admire every page. Every unit, every soldier, ever weapon from the puniest pea shooter to the gigantic titan that you use to shoot down a space elevator look amazing and are intimidating as shit. Ultramarines are all impossible tall, dwarfing the standard soldiers who do their very best to keep up. The orks lake the same technology by apparently breed like rabbits, as they never show up less than fifty at a time. And just when you get tired of shooting green skins in the head this guy shows up:

That's Nemeroth. I don't if he is canon or not, but just look at the guy. The skulls on his back were his breakfast. His goal is to curry favor with the old dark, god and look even meaner. He succeeds, and I could not wait to fight him.

Final level, I killed all his minions, and my ultramarine knocks him off the space elevator. Ok, mid-air combat, I can deal with that. Nope, quick time event.

Whoops.

Nothing kills feeling like a bad ass like having to press X to not die. This is an incredible blunder in an otherwise excellent game. I wanted to fight Nemeroth in a city leveling, obnoxiously destructive battle, not mash B until the credits rolled. Did anyone actually play the end that played the rest of the game?

...

I bought Super Street Fighter IV on the way home again. This has moved past idiocy to beaten wife syndrome. It only hurts me because it loves me, right?

Fooled me twice

2011-10-20T16:48:00.000-05:00

Oh my, was I wrong about Catherine being almost over.

The plan was to knock off the last fifteen minutes so I could start something else. The plan was that all of the puzzle sections were done, I had abandoned evil blonde Catherine and that Katherine would take me back with open arms. Vincent woke up, Katherine showed up on his door step and Catherine was there. Cue a lot of yelling, Vincent being useless and then a goddamned knife fight. Evil blonde Catherine is dead and the other two get sucked into the nightmare world for what I then thought was the last level. It was a very Ico like setup, and Katherine did just fine keeping up.

Then Vincent woke up again, Katherine showed up again and promptly dumped his ass.

Cue both me and Vincent wondering what the hell just happened.

I cannot explain the next half hour of cut scenes. Vincent doubts his sanity, his friends doubt his sanity, the hot waitress at the bar (who I think was once a dude) doubt his sanity. Eventually Vincent realizes that the only other person who ever say Catherine was the bar tender, who he intimidates into accidentally revealing himself as being some sort of ancient god that goes around breaking up couples who aren't getting married to keep the species going. Again, what? Vincent makes a deal to end the nightmares for everyone, everyone gets nice and drunk and now I think I am on the last level.

Normally I don't enjoy final act shenanigans, but this time it was very well done. I still don't know what ending I am going to get, but it really doesn't matter anymore. The ride itself has been enjoyable. It makes me wonder what came first, the story of a hapless thirty year old loser getting sucked into a metaphysical plot to further the species by weeding out the non-breeders, or the perfectly good block pushing puzzle game? We may never know, but I would not doubt that some recreational drug use was involved.

So no different than any other Atlus game.

This is easy?!

2011-10-19T10:52:00.000-05:00

It only took three chapters to realize that playing Catherine on medium was not a good idea. I used up all my retries on one level, though all having no retires does is force you out to the main menu to reload your last save. It is worse than losing progress, it wastes your time. Dropping it back to easy ensured that I have plenty of retries, but I swear the puzzles didn't get any easier. There was a very interesting difficulty curve, with new blocks introduced each level, and the penultimate level throwing them all at you simultaneously. It made for some frantic puzzling, but the difficulty was always in doing things fast enough, not doing things smart enough.

That changed dramatically in what I assume was the last puzzle level. They got much, much shorter and the block variety dwindled down to almost nothing. Gone were the endless cliffs of ice blocks, spike blocks, explosive blocks and spring blocks. What was left were two or three very short, very difficult puzzles. I had to start each of these over more time than I can count, urged on because I could literally see the end of the level from the very beginning. It was a good change of pace, though I do hope that it is done now. I am left with more story segments that are making less and less sense. I had assumed that Catherine (the cute blonde one) was all in Vincent's head, but if that is the case then who kicked his ass in the bathroom after he dumped her? Are well dealing with Fight Club level dis-associative disorder?

After looking at the achievement list I know that she doesn't exist, so unless there is last minute reveal or another level I must have done the non-puzzle part of the game completely wrong. I just don't know what else I could have done; you talk to people and answer texts. The only options are what you say in the texts, and even that is just choosing between several canned responses. Apparently I am as bad at fostering and maintaining virtual relationships as I am real ones.

...browsing the internet counts as leaving the house, right?

C'mon c'mon listen to the money talk

2011-10-18T15:08:00.000-05:00

Sunday evening was filled entirely with the crappy Seasons Beatings stream (no offense to Spooky, it's not his fault that the venue had internet access from ten years ago). I see the same people commentating in every stream; Ultra David was there, so was James Chen, and Skisonic and Yipes, and of course Spooky was there wondering what the government was going to seize from him this time. Ultra David was talking about going to the Canada Cup and Ski was going to some other tournament. What do these guys, players included, do for money? Does being sponsored actually pay enough to live on, or do they just comp you your hotel rooms and you end up living off of Taco Bell and chicken wings (which would explain Marn)?

I am showing my age by asking this, but are the big guys actually making a living with this? I know that Justin Wong works for Sony either as his main gig or on the side, but how does Spooky hold down a job? Maybe I'm just jealous, both of their skill and their ability to just drop everything and fly across the country to play in a tournament that they might not win any money in. I work every day to pay for, among other things, my three hours of gaming every night. It takes a full time job to support this, at least if you include the house that I do it in and the food I eat while doing it. I cannot imagine being able to trapse from city to city and play Street Fighter.

Mostly because I am terrible. Hiyooo.

...

Catherine is one of the strangest games I have played in a long time. On side there are the trademark Atlus relationship building mini-games that I didn't enjoy in Persona IV but am able to stomach now because they are not integral to the actual game. On the other is a very strange puzzle game that feels like a slimmed down Devil Dice populated by a guy in his boxers and homicidal sheep. Individually the parts are a bit anemic; there really aren't that many choices to make when dealing with your drunken friends and the shoving blocks around to climb a tower gets old almost as fast as it gets insanely difficult. Alternating between the two, just like jumping back and forth between Deus Ex and Dirt 3, makes them much easier to enjoy. I want to get the end of the tower to watch Vincent sweat as he tries to hide his sexy imaginary girlfriend from his sexy, pregnant bitchy one, and then I want to get the most out of Vincent's uncomfortable situations to move on to the next kind of block I get to push around.

It works, somehow. Atlus fills their games with a deep black magic that smooths over almost all flaws, leaving games that feel very niche, almost haughty, and you can't help but feel a bit arrogant for enjoying them.

And no, that black magic is not Vaseline.

A new start

2011-10-16T10:56:00.000-05:00

It has been a difficult weekend. Anyone trying to get to his blog yesterday would have found it missing. Indeed, it had actually been deleted, and by my own hand. As tempting as it is to go into the sordid details, I will not, as they are both embarrassing and inappropriate to share on a blog about playing relatively old, shitty games. Suffice to say I have learned that breakaway cords on heavy controllers are a good thing and that CDs bend quite a bit before they shatter after having been warmed in a console for a few hours. I have also slipped into an even more cynical view of any one persons importance in this vast digital jungle, but that will pass. Thankfully Blogger has an 'un-delete' function, lest this little corner of meaninglessness fall victim to the same bits of repressed rage that victimized several of my other possessions.

What has come out of this is my decision to keep this blog a little more focused; a little less bitchy and little more analytic. Ok, a lot less bitchy. I was complaining about the littlest things in Deus Ex without offering up any ideas on how to improve them. That places me dangerously close to Comic Book Guy, and I have neither the vitriol nor the girth to pull that off.

It would be tempting to write off the ending(s) of Deus Ex as a way to give everyone their cake and let them eat it to. After blowing up the last boss, a computer set up right of Minority Report complete with humans processor tied into it, you are presented with a room containing three button (with a fourth button down the hall that lets you kill everyone in the building, including yourself. This is the 'fuck you' button. Guess which one I chose?) Each button plays a different ending for you, and as long as you talked to the right people in the last level you can choose any one, regardless of how you played the game prior to that. This is lazy writing, and I will reference InFamous 2 again as a game that actually got the morality scale correct. In Deus Ex I had been siding with the pro-augmentation agenda the entire game, so I should not have been allowed to turn my back on them at the eleventh hour. I also find that the deciding the fate of the world literally with the push of the button to be terribly anticlimactic.

So there's the bitching, but here's an idea to make it better. First off, implement the morality scale from Fable or InFamous, but don't tell the player. Keep it hidden and use to determine the player's options at the end of the game. The climax should be the culmination of what the player has done previously, and last second twists really don't work very well (just ask M. Night Shyamalan). Secondly, the boss battle against the giant computer was actually pretty good, why not use that to determine the ending? The path to victory that I could see during the battle was to kill the humans being used by the computer to shut it down. I happily did so, as I had been filling things with bullets for the entire game. There should have been more ways to do it, say rescue the humans or hack into it to take control or walk away from the entire situation and let all the victims of the augmentation scrambler stay zombies. This would have been real choice, and it would have meant more than just pushing a button to see an ending, then loading up the last save and pushing the next one to see a different ending.

...

There is a great deal of excitement surrounding Dark Souls and I feel bad that I cannot share it. My experience with Demons' Souls was so awful, so much the antithesis of fun that I cannot being myself to give the series a second try. I read about people having deep experiences it in, about their grim satisfaction when finally surpassing an enemy that had killed them a dozen times before, and while I will never debate with someone why or why not that should enjoy something (anyone who looks at my playlist knows that opinions are simply not to be trusted) I do need to ask: can't this be done without killing the player every five minutes? From Software has given up on creating a difficulty curve, opting instead for a difficulty straight vertical line that they use to beat the player about the head and neck. Gamers who use this to build their own narratives are better men and women than I, and I almost envy their ability to do so. I cannot stand being killed for the sake of being killed; victory on a pile of your own corpses is not victory at all, it is moving forward by attrition.

The whole idea of difficulty for the sake difficulty feels very antiquated to me. It hearkens back to to when full price games were only a few hours long and their length had to be padded. The easiest way to do so is to make progressing balls hard. That just isn't necessary anymore. I submit that games like Dark Souls would actually be better with an actual difficulty slop instead of cliff. Teach the player how to play the game without killing them (example: Bayonetta) and they will come for more. Save the true bull shit difficulty level for a subsequent play through.

And no, I haven't played it so yes, my opinion holds little value. I said I was going to temper the bitching, no remove it entirely.

Secret secrets

2011-10-12T16:38:00.000-05:00

While trolling the SRK forums (at work) I found a universal defensive option select that I had never heard of. Blanka does not have many option selects of use, and the one that is (jab X electricity or slide on teleport) I cannot do because I gave up on piano-ing anything a long, long time ago. This one, though, seems so simple and so good that it can't possibly work.

LK + LP + MK + MP, back dash after a few frames.

LK + LP counters an incoming throw, MK + MP starts up a focus attack that is then back dashed out of. It really seems to simple to be true until you realize that it cannot be mashed. The timing needs to be perfect lest you FADC into nothing or, worse yet, whiff a throw and get punished. Still, an interesting idea that I will try. Blanka has a pretty good back dash and you can only whip out EX up-ball so many time before it just gets blocked and punished. At least in the upcoming patch EX up-ball knocks down.

On that note, I wish I could do stuff like the first combo on display here:

Two one frame links in a row. Online.

...

I may need to break from Dirt 3 and finish off Deus Ex tonight. It has to be right at the end; I just talked the megalomanical main bad guy into feeling sorry for turning every augmented person on the planet (except for me) into raving lunatics. I feel bad killing them, but I have been turning my nose up at non-lethal combat the entire game, why start now. The bastards charge me while begging me not to shoot them. Of course I do, because I do not want to die, and they don't even have the courtesy to drop some ammo or even reward me with XP. It doesn't have the epic feel that the end of the firs Deus Ex had, at least not yet, but Adam Jensen does finally feel like a bad ass. I can stroll right into enemy fire, kill people with precisely placed head shots, then saunter back into cover to regain what little health I have lost. Using every augmentation point I got making myself bigger and tougher was the right call; I can't imagine playing this game 100% stealthy, not when there are a few forced encounters with giant mechs.

There probably is a way to pussy foot around them and turn them off from behind, but why bother when I have a shoulder mounted laser cannon.

It wants to be real, but not real enough

2011-10-11T16:24:00.001-05:00

After another evening my time with Dirt 3 is rapidly coming to an end. It has run out of new things to show me, instead showing me the same things with slightly faster vehicles, and taking a days break between sessions will not cure that. I also noticed last night vehicles in in specific classes all handle the same. Yes, the big trucks feel different than the buggies which feel different than the rally cars, but within each group they are identical with the exception of top speed. I am undoubtedly spoiled by the like of Forza, the game the proved to me that rear wheel drive cars are dumb (I have floored it coming out of the corning, now why is my back end ahead of my front end). Dirt 3 is not a simulator, but I think that an all wheel drive monster should be more difficult to control than the puny cars you start with, especially when the top speed and been jumped up by a few dozen miles an hour.

I really want to finish the last season before diving in Catherine, but I will also need to finish Deus Ex. Catherine is unique enough that it refuses to share mind space with anything else, even residents of completely separate genres.

Back in topic, Dirt 3 is certainly the best looking of its series, both in the actual courses and the presentation, but it is missing some of the little touches that I really liked about the first game. During loading screens of the first Dirt (and keep in mind this was before you could install games to the hard drive) meaningless but interesting stats on you progress were displayed. I can't explain why, but it was nice to know that I had drifted a total of eighteen miles and had spent thirty minutes with the car on its roof. Dirt 2 and 3 have tried to put you in the shoes of a fledgling racer coming up through the ranks, which would be more fun if there was more to do than race, and I miss the more 'gamey' aspects. Someday someone will make a racing RPG (and I don't think B-Spec in Gran Turismo counts, that series is old, tired, and needs to be laid to rest), complete with skills to level up, relationships within the team to build....

Wait, that would be lame. 'I am a level 23 drifter, bring it on!' Yeah, never mind. I'll go back to going fast while sideways.

I am of two minds

2011-10-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

I just had a few panicked moments of 'oh shit, it logged me out and I cleared my cookies, what the hell was my password?!'

Anyway.

It has been quite a while since I have had reason to split my effort between two games for any length of time, not including my constant love/hate relationship with Street Fighter. For almost two weeks now I have been alternating days, jumping back and forth between Deus Ex and Dirt 3. Dirt 3 has barely been discussed, mostly because I do not have much to say about it, good or bad. There are a ton of tracks, and they do repeat, but they very rarely repeat on the same day. My age addled short term memory is finally soft enough that I am able to enjoy a track again a few days later, thus I have gotten much further into Dirt 3 than either of the first two. There are still large chunks of the game that I will never touch, such as the 'championship' sections that are really just all the previous level strung together in a row, but I will make it through all four seasons before sending it on its way.

These daily breaks also make Deus Ex's failing much more forgivable. The only thing left that I find annoying is the shortage of ammo, even for the starting pistol (which I have pimped out to Halo pistol standards. We're talking combat evolved pistol here). I was almost out when until I back tracked through a section of the city that I previously emptied out and found the streets littered with discarded hand guns. It may have been my doing, it may have been a scripted even, or it may be a welcome bug. Don't care, I have bullets again.

It would seem that the game was listening to me complain about the moral choices being much to blase, as it threw out at me last night without the benefit of a dialogue choice to remind me that yes, what I am doing right now will have impact on what will happen later. After being shot down my pilot, the one person who has not been a dick to me yet, tells me to leave her and make a break for the exit. Jensen helpfully says that if he does, she will die, so I at least know that I should do something. There were a lot of dudes, far more than I had fought at once before and in greater variety. Snipers took pot shots from the roof tops, generic baddies hit behind explosive barrels, two heavy machine gunners flanked from either side and a big ass mech was dropped in via helicopter.

Thank goodness I had been hoarding heavy machine gun bullets and typhoon ammo. It also didn't hurt that my armor was completely leveled up so I could be reckless. After a few tries I saved her, she thanked me and flew off. I have no idea how important this will be, but the more organic nature of the choice I had to make was infinitely more effective then a dialogue wheel with 'kill the bad guys' or 'run away like a bitch' options. It still isn't a perfect game, but it has taken a step in the right direction.

Seriously, it's been all week?

2011-10-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

Damn, time flies when you are not having fun.

I am being much to harsh. Deus Ex has improved a great deal. There was a definite turning point where I went from tin man to man of steel and it had nothing to do with any augmentations. Honestly, for the way I am playing, they have had very little effect on what I have been able to do. No, it was a series of gun enhancements that I found/purchased, all of which went towards the beginning hand gun. What I have now instead of a pea shooter is a silenced, laser sighted, impossible long clip having dealer of death. I am able to shoot people in the head from across the room and no one notices. Screw stealth from close up, I just kill everyone before walking into to room. Add this to a fully powered up typhoon attack and even the bosses die in two or three salvos. I may have broken the combat part of the game. Serves it right for making me sneak around for the first several hours.

Since I actually own Deus Ex I have been platooning my time with a rental just to keep the queue moving. This week it has been Dirt 3 (which I also got for free with the purchase of my new video card, but if I am going to play a racing game on my PC it is going to be Trackmania 2). It is just as polished and arcadey at the medium difficulty as the previous games. This time I have even managed to get the hang of gymkhana, getting silvers instead of skipping them entirely. I doubt I will 'finish' it, instead playing it until I begin to fail races over and over. I have never liked a racing game enough to spend time practicing or learning a track. Project Gotham 2 came the closest, but that may have been because there was nothing else to play back then.

...

That was an incredibly boring paragraph. Time for some self analysis. Wait, I'm sober, that won't work. Time for, what then? Reassessment? This is a blog that no one reads, does it matter if the quality of my recorded internal dialogue has slipped? Yes, as a matter of fact it does. I can't use 'but I am waiting for Skyrim' as en excuse for everything, much less half assed entries after three days of absence to what is supposed to be a daily exercise. The point to this is supposed to be an ongoing discussion of what I am playing and it has degenerated to 'this is good' or 'this sucks' without any details or justification.

Stream of consciousness time. Why am I disappointed in Deus Ex? Because all of the moral choices fall flat or aren't moral choices at all. Should I talk this guy out of killing himself with the click of the button or assist in his suicide? Should I harass a senile old lady or leave her alone? Should I waste my precious ammo on street urchins or save it for people who are actually trying to kill me? There is about as much of a moral choice here as in a GTA game: sure, I can do terrible things, but there is no benefit to doing them. Being good is also the most efficient way to play the game. There is probably some kind of Shyamalan twist coming, but it will not effect the way the game plays, only the ending that I see, and I will be able to turn my moral compass on a dime if I want to.

Even Infamous 2 got this part right, forcing to me lay down in the uncomfortable bed of evil I had made for myself.

...

That was better. Not great, but better. Maybe if I wasn't doing this as 12:30 AM...

Frank N. Furter knows what's best

2011-10-03T16:07:00.001-05:00

My antici-

-pation for Skyrim is reaching unhealthy levels. It is all that I really want to play and it is more than a month away. Everything else is just filler to pass the hours. If it sucks, by god I will quit gaming forever.

...no I won't.

It occurred to me last night that my writing has lost what little focus it ever had. Originally I was going to review most of the games I played, but that fell by the wayside as my gaming habits changed from current and good to old and shitty. I may write up something for Deus Ex, and it won't be pleasant, but I need to finish it first. What I need is a dose of something new, something to write towards instead of just at. So here's the deal, and yes, it does sound an awful lot like fan fiction. I grew rather attached to my character in Oblivion. He was an awful, awful man who did as he pleased, stole from just about everyone and murdered defenseless widows just to have a place to stash his loot. By the time the Shivering Isles expansion came out I had been through an Xbox or two and my save was corrupted. The idea of starting over was so repulsive that I never played the expansion, and this was after I had actually paid money for it.

The plan is to dedicate a paragraph or two a day to my new characters adventures in Skyrim. It has been a long, long time since I have tried my hand at fiction, but even I get tried of doing nothing but bitch, so it should be a good exercise. Skyrim posts will be in some other, more period font, so if you want to avoid them (and you probably should) feel free.

I have from now until 11-11 to come up with a name for my new thief/assassin. Oblivion's was Garret of Thief fame; this time I will need to be more creative.

...

Transformers 3 was criminally short. From beginning to end the single player was less than four hours, including the few spots where I managed to die over and over again. I really liked what was here, but I needed about twice as much of it. More weapons, larger areas, more Megatron. I'd be pissed, but it looks like another War for Cybertron is in the works, and I have a soft spot for High Moon, so all is forgiven. For now.

In the future nothing is fair

2011-10-02T11:21:00.001-05:00

For the first hour of Deus Ex last night I was more annoyed than anything else. Performance issues (entirely traceable to the lack of ram in my rig) didn't help, but what was really pissing me off was being forced to play a stealth game when that was not what I was in the mood for. It took another half hour of skulking through air ducts to get to where I wanted to go in the police station, and when I got to the computer I was looking for I didn't have the correct code and my hacking level was too low to force my way in. So I sneaked my way back out and turned to other side missions. Surprise! More sneaking!

It's not that I have anything against stealth in games. I played Thief 3 and enjoyed stacking the shanked corpses of guards in the courtyard as a warning to everyone else. Oblivion was over one hundred hours of jumping from shadow to shadow and I am planning on playing Skyrim exactly the same way. The whole point of Deus Ex is choice, but only one choice is really effective in the early stages of the game. I made it through the second sneaking side mission thanks to liberal quick save abuse, got the extra aug point I needed to finish the last one, then went right back and killed every single person I had to avoid the first time. Leaving the scene filled with corpses was much more satisfying than no one knowing I was there. I have guns, I have put all my points into being better with them, let me use them!

All of the drama comes from knowing that the boss fights are bull shit and trying to be prepared for them. It finally paid off last night when the first guy showed up: I ran directly at him an used my newly acquired typhoon attack (I spun in a circle filling the air/ground/everywhere with explosions). It didn't kill him the first time, but after a second volley he was done. 'That was it?' I thought. Then I realized that if I didn't have that attack, if I had been attempting a no kill run and was loaded for bear with stun guns and tranquilizer darts and PETA pamphlets, then I would have had no chance. There were no turrets to hack or dialogue options to talk him into killing himself out of guilt. It was just a big metal dude with unlimited ammo in a room with just enough cover to keep you from dying right away.

There is only one way to play this game: cheat.

It's opposite day!

2011-10-01T19:46:00.000-05:00

I have two games to talk about: one that I should be paying (not Trackmania , actually) but am not and one that I am playing but really shouldn't be bothering with. Confused yet?

Movie licensed games are almost always terrible. The reasons are many: incredibly strict release windows, overbearing property owners, developers chosen not for their ability but for being the cheapest and easiest to bully. The results are almost always the same and look a lot like Tron, which I played earlier this year. Every once in a while a good one sneaks out and unfortunately no one notices. Remember High Moon Studios? With Darkwatch, The Bourne Conspiracy and Transformers: War for Cybertron to their name I have come to expect solid is relatively quirky games out of them. In truth, I did not know that they did Transformer 3, the game of the movie that had everything worth seeing revealed in the trailers, when I added it to my list. I am relieved that they did, as the game is much better than it should be.

War for Cybertron was a very good third person shooter first and then about the Transformers second. Transformers 3 is actually saddled with a movie this time so it is forced to be more character centered, but they change often enough and play differently enough that it still works. Having not seen the movies I do not know why Bumblebee doesn't speak English or what happened to Megatron or why Soundwave looks like an Escalade with sweet rims and a tricked out sound system (but that last one at last makes sense). But I do know that there are giant robots shooting one another, they have the correct people doing the voices that matter, and it is fun with very little effort on my part. It's not good, but it's fun.

And now for something completely different. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is, of course, a very good game. It looks good, making fine use of my new card and proving the PC's still are where high end graphics live. It plays well, but it does not necessarily play the way that I want to play it. This is the first PC shooter that I have played in years, so just getting my head around mouse and keyboard controls again took quite a while. Once I remembered how to shoot people in the head while circle strafing it got better, but I still could not play the character that I wanted to play. Spoilers are a difficult thing to avoid, so I know ahead of time that the boss encounters favor fire power over stealth or eloquence, so from the very beginning I wanted to play a guy with big guns and a bad attitude. Regardless of personal skill and perc allocation, frontal assaults just don't work. I wanted to kick down doors and shoot people, not crawl through heating ducts and strangle them from behind.

My last save has my characters cowering in an office, waiting for the guards to pass because I cannot kill them fast enough when an alarm is raised. This is not the game I want to play, it the game I am being allowed to play. Is the gaming scale of quality sliding and subjective? Of course it is, but when you slap the name 'Deus Ex' on a box it means something.

Or maybe it doesn't.

Being 'good' and being 'fun' aren't always synonymous. I will continue to play both, and Human Revolution will improve once I get better guns and some body armor, but for out of the box enjoyment the movie licensed cash in is somehow coming out ahead.

Drive on the wall, you say?

2011-09-29T16:19:00.000-05:00

I never made it as far as Deus Ex last night (and GameFly just shipped Dirt 3 because they are incredible assholes). Once the card was installed and the necessary modifications made to the internals of my case it was time for Trackmania 2. Once I got over not getting preposterous performance from a mid-range card and turned the settings down from very nice to nice it was as good as I remembered it. Trackmania is not really a racing game; it's all about time trials. All that matters is getting from one end of the track to the other as fast as possible, to the point that if there are other cars on the track there is no collision detection between them. This can be hilarious and somewhat difficult to get your head around, especially in multiplayer, but it sets Trackmania apart from all the other racing games out there.

Incredible user made tracks certainly don't hurt either. After a few hours of mucking about on the including tracks I jumped online. There was an over crowded Giant Bomb server that annoyed me into leaving after a few minutes. I had much more luck with international servers: they had more interesting tracking and will much less crowded. It was amazing how quickly the new tracks downloaded. My pipe is indeed fat, but downloading a large custom track in the same time it takes to load one of the included one is something that I do not understand.

I suppose I should take one step further back and explain exactly how Trackania plays, as it never seems to get the attention that it deserves. Think of the best arcade style racing game you have ever played. If you say anything other than San Francisco Rush 2049 then you never owned a Dreamcast (and get off my damn lawn). It is an arcade racer, complete with 360 degree power slides and jumps that last for days. It also plays surprisingly well with a keyboard, has a dedicated and talented fan base and oozes the same kind of polish that makes most people look past how stupidly hard the actual racing in Wipeout is. Leader boards are a big part of the game but they are implemented in such a way that they become a treat instead of a chore. Racing on the included tracks counts as practice; you need to choose to make a record attempt, and when you do there are no restarts. Plus these attempts are limited to once every five minutes. Trackmania has eliminated the grind by eliminating the grind. It just doesn't let you get bored.

There was a console release for Trackmania, on the Wii of all places, so I have no idea if it was any good. At $25 to $30 online you really can't go wrong. It's a great arcade racer that can be as engrossing as the best sims out there if you want it to.

An experiment

2011-09-28T16:27:00.001-05:00

Rock climbing is just about to become 'a thing' for me, as I was at the indoor climbing gym yesterday and am planning on going again in two weeks. As usual I managed to hurt myself in several places, including turning my ankle (again) with such force that I was lightheaded for quite a while afterward. A good portion of the evening was spent on the rock wall tread mill. It is exactly what is sounds like: an instrument of inquisition level torture. Being too tired at the end of the night to even have a drink or three I got home at a reasonable time. I hurt, but I as relaxed an oddly focused, so it occurred to me that playing Street Fighter would be a good idea.

Only after dropping the first nine out of ten did it dawn on my that my fingers weren't exactly in working order. Here's the funny part: normally sucking that much in a row would have me furious, but I was still relaxed. My PP dropped below 1000 for the first time since coming back after my most recent psuedo-retirement and I did not care. It could that I was too fatigued to work myself up into a childish rage. I prefer to think that I was in some sort of zen state obtained by throwing myself at vertical surfaces and trying to climb them for two hours.

It was Honda night. Not for me, hell no, but I fought four of them. Only one was any good (and he used to play Blanka, so he knew exactly how to beat me. Good games RX). The other fell for all sorts of stuff they shouldn't have, may favorite being throwing out full screen fierce torpedoes and wondering why they kept eating river runs. I even pulled off a crouching fierce into super and a jab ball into super, both on purpose and exactly when I wanted them. Perhaps there is something to this whole physical activity thing.

I will need to drink tonight to be sure. Drink while installing my new video card and finally playing Trackmania 2. And Deus Ex. And Dirt 3. I may not sleep.

I'm not dead!

2011-09-26T22:31:00.001-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, I am not still lost in the wilderness of rural Kentucky. Nor have I given up on this blog, not have I stopped playing games altogether. The time normally wasted at work by posting has been taken up by *gasp* work. A terrible thing, to be sure. I do find it interesting, on a personal level at least, that when a choice must be made to play more games or talk about the games that have already been played I will always chose to former. This is probably why I have never made it very long writing reviews for anyone and that rambling on a blog suits me better. No one complains when I miss a few days or that I am playing terrible games that are months old. Someone has to play them, right?

Since walking away from No More Heroes I have found piece in three wonderfully average games in a row. I talked about Call of Juarez: The Cartel briefly last week, and everything bad that I said about it holds true. It is just a shooter that is suffering from the same 'me too' mechanic as ever other shooter that isn't Call of Duty or Battlefield. The idea that all three of the main characters are out to get each other would have been more interesting if it actually affected game play. If I had played with actual people it might have, but I never even bothered to see if anyone else was playing it. It's a shame, there aren't enough western games, and the previous two Call of Juarez games were reasonable shooters that benefited from a sparsely used setting. Moving the third game to modern day Mexico was its first and biggest mistake.

At least at the end I got to betray my partners and murder them in cold blood. If I could have shot them earlier I would have. I can take bad AI, but constant, repeated catch phrases is not something I can forgive.

Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is video game cotton candy. You know it is bad for you and there is no way to not look like as ass eating it, but damn if it isn't enjoyable while it lasts. There is more variety here than the first game; a few different suits to try out and more weapons that you can actually use are dropped. The game is shorter, though, designed to be played through multiple times with the same characters that you slowly build up. The ending of normal mode screams 'the good guy died, come back on a harder difficulty level to see what really happens!' I have neither the time nor the patience to wade through it again, but I must admit that it pulled off the single player portion of an intended four player experience better than much bigger budget titles (I'm looking at your, Lost Planet 2).

Finally in the week and half recap there is the guiltiest pleasure: The First Templar. This one is a below average action RPG, a genre that by my own admission has a much more difficult time dealing with shittiness than others. The selection of moves was rather small, new weapons and armor are hidden a little too well in levels and don't actually affect anything, it has the stick of launch title all over it, and I still liked it. Why? At least partly because of the setting. You are a templar who by the time the game is done has been betrayed by his brethren, hunted by the inquisition, declared heretics by the church proper and had a price put on your head by the king of France. What's your response?

'I must finish my quest to find the holy grail. That will make everything better. And I will kill as many french persons as I possibly can along the way.'

It's ridiculous to an almost Python degree and played just well enough to hold my interest.

...

After much deliberation a new graphics card has been ordered for my aging computer. An actual release window being announced for Diablo 3 certainly didn't help. Along with the new card will come free copies of Dirt 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, both games that gave been languishing on the list since they came out. Playing them without adding to my gigantic meaningless gamerscore will be difficult, but who am I to not take advantage of good, free games.

FML

2011-09-20T20:32:00.000-05:00

I am in a hotel with a television so old that I cannot change the input. There are jacks on the front of the TV that I cannot use because the remote does not have the correct button and the option to change it is not available from the menus.

And I have no beer.

And there is nothing on TV.

And I am in (no offense to anyone who lives there) in rural Kentucky.

And I am online via a shitty cell phone modem that drops randomly.

Conscientious objection

2011-09-17T16:57:00.000-05:00

I am almost ashamed at how easy it was to quit No More Heroes. Surely, it is better than nine out of ten other shitty games that I play, what made this one simpler to walk away from? That's easy: the bad guy started bringing guns to my knife fight. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on; I was was getting hit from across the room and there was no one around. When I finally realized that those bastards were taking pot shots at me I was already dead. On the second retry I found out that as soon as you block the attacks coming from the guy in front of you the two you didn't see shoot you the back. On the third try I got past the first group only to be assaulted by a second. Dying not being the best of times, I went into the menu to lower the difficulty setting, only I could't.

There were no further tries.

This is not an indictment of the game, only of my tolerance for terribleness in certain genres. Third person hand to hand action just does not do as well when done poorly as say, first person shooting. I have played terrible shooters (and am playing one right now, Call of Juarez: The Cartel is terrible) that still manage to be fun but the most basic mechanic of shooting fools in the head never stops being amusing. It is difficult to screw this up. Punching people in the face or cutting them up with swords is equally enjoyable, but much easier to make a mess of. I suppose the lesson here is that if you are going to make a shitty game, make an FPS, but then again no one will but it, because there are new FPS's every week.

...

I dug out my old VHS copies of Star Wars earlier this week (correction: the were returned to me by the person who I forgot I lent them to months and months ago). It took almost as long to find my VCR and I only watched a small piece of Empire. The actually picture quality was terrible: washed out, poorly tracked (and if you don't what tracking is on a VCR....), and worst of all pan and scan. But it was Star Wars; pure, unadulterated Star Wars, unsullied by added effects and brazenly blasphemous plot changes.

The entire collection of six movies was recently released on blu-ray. The original versions of episodes 4, 5 and 6 are not included. I hate Lucas so much I can taste it.

It hates me

2011-09-15T16:49:00.000-05:00

And now a tale of sadness, heartbreak, and $25 down the tubes.

I was a big fan of the previous Trachmanias. They always felt like a console game stuck on the PC, but they were so much fun that I could get past driving with the arrow keys in cars that clip through one another. It's not about bumping the other guys off the road, it's just getting from here to there as quickly as possible. Oh, and the tracks are completely bonkers, it has very easy tools to make your own, and a community that creates them by the thousands. Trackmania 2 sneaking out without me noticing was an abomination, and at the low, low price of $25 dollars it was purchased and downloaded before my work at home day was complete.

Remember those video card problems I was talking about a few weeks ago? After gutting and rearranging my case I decided that the problem was with the case fans, not the card, so I just ran with the side off and the card's fan cranked up via riva tuner. The benchmarks for Trackmania ran wonderfully; an acceptable 30 or so FPS at very nice settings. At 5:01, finally end of my day, all my remote connections were turned off and it was time to play. I made it through the first part of the first track before everything stopped. Then there was screen tearing. Then there were the random colored dots all over the screen that I know signify a card that has gone to shit. A forced restart later and the machine wont even boot correctly. I had to go into safe mode, uninstall the drivers, then boot back into normal mode. Even then the screen is barely legible and Windows 7 in all its wisdom keeps trying to put the drivers back.

SOL. A game finally comes out that I desperately want to play and I can't because it is on the 'console' that I have been neglecting. This needs to be remedied sooner than later, as Serious Sam 3 lands next month.

At least I had No More Heroes to play... What was that about it being an allegory for real life, with moments of goodness separated by hours, days, weeks, and years of bull shit? I think I am going to play Street Fighter tonight. Someone is going to get their face bitten off.

A revalation

2011-09-14T15:39:00.002-05:00

Why am I playing shitty console games when this is out:

What the hell am I doing with my time.

Just not quite bad enough

2011-09-14T15:24:00.002-05:00

It was with great trepidation that I started up No More Heroes: the PS3 port of a Wii game that at the very least doesn't require me to wave around a piece of plastic with a glowing ball on the end. All the flailing has been replaced by analog stick gesticulations, which I am not sure is actually better. The tutorial did little to make me feel better: all the combat boiled down to was mash mash mash, jam the right stick up or down (or left or right). 'It's gets an evening,' I told myself. Then the first boss kicked my ass because I failed to see that just a little bit of thought was required. Eventually I beat him and things were looking up.

When the world opened up and I was allowed to roam a bit on Mr. Touchdown's ridiculous bike things got bad again. The entire experience was at best clunky and at worst broken. Boring mini games followed by boring assassination missions that lacked any of the charm or wit of the first boss strung together by the worst controlling vehicle this side of the first Just Cause. Just as I was about to shut it off for the second time it was time to fight another boss. This guy looks a lot like Revolver Ocelot, complete with fully automatic hand guns that never run out of bullets. It was another good fight, and this time it left me with just enough money to unlock the next ranked fight.

Until I bought a new weapon and trained my stats up a bit. Back to the grind.

I realize that I am years behind the curve to complain about No More Heroes, but my complete aversion to motion controls means that I though I would never actually play it. Now that I am I must say that I didn't miss much. The game is a series of excellent boss encounters so padded out by total bull shit that you end up nearly quitting between each one. For some reason I find it much easier to walk away from PS3 games than XB360 (there is no good reason, don't ask) and I am tempted to throw in the towel here. I have stopped playing much better games, why should this be any different. The problem is that the light at the end of the tunnel is just a bit too close for me to ignore. If I can just get through this tedium something awesome will happen.

Sounds a bit like life, actually. No More Heroes: an allegory of modern, daily life.

...

Worked from home today and actually worked from home. This little bit of slacking is all I could manage. I had allusions of a Street Fighting lunch and a nice lazy afternoon. Nope, didn't even stop to eat lunch at all and am still working. Damn the remote workplace.

Simple is not always better

2011-09-12T16:41:00.000-05:00

There are a few bits of early praise for Crimson Alliance that must be rescinded. First and foremost, the pricing is not as revolutionary as fair as I thought. I was wrong about being able to purchase the characters that you didn't buy in the first place by paying the low, low price of the difference between what you paid and what the whole thing costs. Nope, if you spent 800 points on just the warrior as I did and you want to play as one of the other two classes it's 800 points apiece or 1200 for the other two. Again, once I finish the game I am never going to touch it again, but this little bit of disservice makes the future ignoring just a little bit easier.

Secondly, all the streamlining that makes it so simple to jump right in and start to kill beasties leaves out something that I didn't even know I enjoyed: agonizing over tiny pieces of equipment. Weapons, armor and shield are the extent of the upgrades available, and they are pretty cut and dried about what is better. There also isn't much of it, so even if I wanted to focus on sword moves to the detriment of my shield bash I can't, there just isn't enough loot around to do so. The characters don't actually level up in any way, they just gain health via pickups and better things to wear/wield. This lack of progression is a drag as it prevents me from developing any attachment to the character. Even Torchlight, a game so light on plot that it could have been called 'Click on things until they die,' had enough variety the make by bruiser just a little different than all the other bruisers out there. Crimson Alliance has gotten a little too simple. If I wanted to play Gauntlet I would wake up my PS3 and play Gauntlet 2.

Most damning of all (at least if you are as lazy as me): the mid-level check points don't actually do anything. Sure, if you die they start you over, but they do not actually allow you to return to a level if you quit before finishing it. They are not check points, just resurrection points. This would have been nice to know before shutting down for the evening last night.

It's over. Or is it?

2011-09-11T14:56:00.000-05:00

I just made the mistake of watching some Dead Island videos. Now I really want to play it. Really want to play it. All in due time.

...

Madness Returns had the common sense to end the end last night, and it brought out something for the grand finale that had missing from every previous level: a boss battle. At the end of the first level the March Hare and the Door Mouse come together into a voltron style giant tea pot robot that looked like it was going to be a good fight. Instead of actually having to beat it the game decides to drop something on its head and end the level for you. Level after that didn't even bother to try to put a cap on three to four hours of drudgery; the areas just ended and you moved on to the next one. By the time I actually made it to Alice's train of consequences I fully expected the credits to roll over some moderately creepy music and to call it a night.

The train jumped back and forth between Wonderland and the real world so quickly that it became difficult to discern what was happening where. There was plot twist in the previous chapter that was actually delivered upon (it's not often that child abuse is used for dramatic affect in a game, but it certainly makes you want to kill a guy), and finally there was a boss fight. Even though it was just a different take on the final boss from Super Smash Brothers, at least it offered some closure.

But that was all in Wonderland. What of the real villain, the one who raped Alice's sister, burned down their house, killed her family, then spent years and years brainwashing Alice into forgetting? She pushed his ass in from of a train. It wasn't the frail, wide eyed Alice who was a prisoner of the terrible real world who did it, though. The Alice that finally had her revenge was the confident, murderous Alice who only came out in Wonderland. She snuck out just long enough to get the job done, which really makes me wonder if any of it actually happened.

The thought of Alice only getting justice in her mind is much to depressing. For once I will be happy with the traditional 'bad guy gets what he deserves' ending and keep my mouth shut.

But I don't want to go among mad people

2011-09-09T23:57:00.001-05:00

My favorite part of the original Alice how the game looked, not how the game played. It felt like a natural move for Alice to go a bit further off the deep end, slipping from 'odd' to borderline 'Hellraiser.' It also arrived at the beginning of my thankfully short lived figure collecting period. I own all of the above with the exception of the Jabberwock, a piece that I have never even seen in person. They all now live in a box in the spidery, unfinished portion of the basement, waiting for a place to be displayed or to be sold at a rummage sale for beer money, whichever comes first.

Madness Returns decreases in quality by the hour, but I keep playing because I want to see what happens next. I just don't want to play what happens next, because I know it will be he same as the last five things I have done. Alice's rotating dresses have proved to be more encouragement to keep playing than anything else, and seeing her re-committed with a shaved head and wild eyes was something that I will not soon forget.

Those eyes.

We're all mad here. You're mad. I'm mad.

...mad that this isn't a better game.

Pay the man!

2011-09-08T16:18:00.000-05:00

I played Crimson Alliance for all of 30 seconds before I shut it off. I loved it and did not want to waste another second on the demo, though I do not know when I will get the chance to change my trial install into a fully functioning, achievement generating, loot hoarding one. The way Microsoft has priced this is absolute genius. The game is free, for the most part. You can play every character for absolutely nothing, you just don't get new equipment and most of the levels are missing. How is this different than a demo? You can purchase just one of the three characters for a discounted price. This is perfect for people like me who run through a game once and never touch it again. I can play the free version long enough to figure out which character I want to use, then drop 800 points on him instead of 1200 points on the whole deal. Now if the characters were 400 points apiece instead of 800 it would be perfect, but they are running a business, and all they really want is your money. Any enjoyment the consumer derives is a simple side affect of the man getting paid.

It is an excellent precedent and I hope more downloadable games use it.

...

I am only on the third chapter and it is already clear that Madness Returns to just too long. Each area could be cut in half and it would be much better for it. There is nothing wrong with fetch quests and jumping puzzles, I just don't want to do the same ones three times in a row before getting to something new. Back in college (when I used to be smart) it was very plainly stated that in music you can get away with doing the exact same thing four times in a row before anyone notices and it gets boring. Current pop dreck abuses this, but more often than not a song will operate in fours. (note: I may be full of shit here. This was a long time ago and a lot of drinking was going on at the time). Truth of lies, my point is that new or at least slightly varied versions on tasks must be introduced much more often in a game to maintain interest. I don't care how pretty a level is, when I have been in it for several hours with no variation I want to do something else.

No wonder Alice is crazy.

The Tetris gods frown upon you

2011-09-07T18:52:00.001-05:00

Not through my looking glass, you don't

2011-09-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

Meant to type this up yesterday, but I... I have no excuse.

Over the weekend a friend of mine bribed with with spicy wings and stout beer to emerge from my cave and go over to his house. Once I was sufficiently lubricated the ulterior motives came out.

'You played American McGee's Alice on the PC, didn't you?'

'Yes, but it was years ago, and I don't think that I ever finished it.'

'I'm stuck in the PS3 port, can you help?'

That bastard.

American McGee's Alice is quite different from modern platformers. First and foremost it was designed to be played with a mouse and keyboard. Enemies, especially flying ones, move too quickly to be efficiently targeted using a pair of thumb sticks and no auto-aim. I yearned for my WASD, but mouse and keyboard support is not something that is often built into console-centric games, much less ports of ten year old titles. Jumping was painful as there was no double jump. It's sounds like a small thing, but not having a double jump makes every single leap an all or nothing endevour. Once you leave the ground you better damn well be sure there is something to land on.

In general, Alice has no forgiveness, no give. When compared to modern games with there air leaping, frequent checkpoints and in general watered down difficulty it feels like a dinosaur. What saves it from being unplayable is the one thing that PC games got right and consoles only recently have implemented: the quick save. Made a hard jump? Save. Killed a few guys? Save. Need another beer? Save. The game could be as hard as it was because you only had to get past each difficult section once. This can lead to out of the blue difficulty spikes, but a a whole is an excellent feature that every game should have.

I did eventually get past the area my friend was stuck on. He had never played the original, much less any other games of its ilk and time period, so he was unfamiliar with tried and true 'inch forward until you can shoot the bad guys but their AI hasn't seen you yet' technique. To him it was magic, to me it was just about every game ever that was built on Quake 3. Alice had not aged well; it did not look as good as I remembered and wrestling with ported controls was not a good time. At least this was just a side benefit of owning Madness Returns, which had coincidentally just arrived in my mail box as well.

From the very beginning Madness Returns does its best to make penance for its predecessor's issues. Alice still does not have a double jump; she has a triple jump and can float between each air hop. Jumping is still not easy (mostly invisible platforms will do that) but it does not feel like a leap of faith every single time. Likewise the combat has been slimmed down a bit, with ranged combat that is much slower with a larger margin for error. It certainly looks good, though I prefer the color drained London areas that fall between the uber-saturated Wonderland levels. It's a modern game, and playing the original mere days before drove home just how far things have come, both on the design and technical sides.

Except...

Remember the quick save? It has made its way into more and more console games. Just not this one. I don't need it to cheat this time around, inching forward and recording my progress. I just want to be able to stop playing when I want to stop playing, not when the next half hour spaced checkpoint decides to roll around. It's a small complaint, but in a game that modernizes a diamond in the rough from ten years ago to miss something that the first one got right is just not acceptable.

The least subtle game in the world

2011-09-05T15:44:00.000-05:00

Suda 51 is not known for making subtle games, so I was not expecting Shadows of the Damned to take its time making a point or to mince words in any way. From the very beginning it is a foul mouthed, disgusting romp through several genres worth of stereo types that breaks the fifth wall like it is going out of style. There is a line (yes, even I have limits) that once crossed cannot be returned from. It's also an easy one to miss: the line between a gritty stylistic choice and simply being juvenile. And here it is:

As if the line 'let's take this pole for a stroll' isn't bad enough, this scene and the two more afterwards are actually not easy. This leads to hearing Garcia Fucking Hotspur scream 'LOOK AT MY BIG BONER!' for around twenty minutes. Once was already too much. Gritty, bloody, dark, cliched, misogynistic, I can take all that. But dick jokes? I was already not taking the game seriously, and this just cemented that decision.

Shadows of the Damned also plays a lot like Resident Evil 4. Adding an antiquated control method to middle school humor and my interest wanes even further. It's not a bad game; it's a solid B on the imaginary scale of quality, which I suppose fits quite well when the game spends an entire chapter making reference to Evil Dead 2. But every time I started to get over the crassness of it all the flaming skull who turns into guns screams something like 'Fill those cracks with a shot from your hot boner! You heard me!' I'm no prude, and I was certainly not offended, but groaning at attempted humor is not a good compliment for shooting monsters in the head while fighting with tank controls.

The long weekend means I have already finished Shadows of the Damned. Unlike other Suda 51 games (Killer 7) it will soon be forgotten. Not even walking across the ass cheeks of a giant hallucination of Garcia's girlfriend who has been killed a dozen times and also happens to be the mistress of the lord of hell can save it from future obscurity.

It was a big ass. I look forward to forgetting it.

That's how I roll

2011-09-02T16:03:00.000-05:00

So lazy about posting this week. I have no excuse; work has been busy and I have not wanted to sacrifice gaming time for bitching about gaming time. This leaves me with a few days to catch up on and very little will to do so because it is Friday afternoon and all I want right now is to curl up in my dark basement with a darker beer.

El Shaddai ended much as it began: looking pretty but making very little sense. It's a shame, because a cursory search for the apocryphal Book of Enoch reveals that the actual story is pretty cool. Enoch was indeed a human that had to deal with seven fallen angels, and his actions at least staved off the great flood for a few hundred years. El Shaddai was so busy being artsy that it missed the opportunity to tell an exciting story that almost nobody would have heard before. The Bible is filled with wonderful, violent, disturbing stories that have yet to be tapped for movie/game material. The book of Judges would make at absolutely epic movie. There is murder, sex, giant battle scenes, everything a growing boy needs. Why no one has put a few million dollars down on even one of the stories I do no understand. It's not like God is a big stickler for copyright laws.

Different to the point of being obtuse for no other reason than to seem more complicated than it really is describes El Shaddai pretty well. It's not quite a hipster game, because it was not actually unpleasant to be around, but it is certainly trying far to hard to be important. 'Look at me! I'm not just another action game! I'm full of vague religious symbolism and shirtless men!' If I am going to head down that swishy road I will go all the way and watch 300. Taking a brief detour with the other team just seems like a waste of time.

...

I skipped Bastion and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, two excellent downloadable titles that deserve all the attention they have gotten, and have instead dropped by monies on Rock of Ages. Why? I was raised on this:

Rock of Ages feels like a game that Terry Gilliam would make. A giant, smiling boulder rolls down a hill, crushing anyone and everything in it path on the way to breaking down the gates to a castle. Hiding in the castle is a cartoon caricature of an important historical figure. You of course play as Sisyphus, fresh from the underworld, who takes out eons of frustration by squishing people with his giant ball. It is exceptionally silly, and for a game coming from the people who put out Zeno Clash, that is saying something.

Beyond the sight gags and sound affects, the game itself is okay at best. You roll a ball down a hill. Yes, there is an added bit of strategy with the purchase and placement of units to try to keep your opponent from knocking down your gates with his ball, but in reality you are still just rolling a ball down a hill. I found myself grinding though levels just to see the cut scenes between them which makes me question the soundness of my investment. I do not feel bad for throwing money in Ace Team's direction, I just wish they would get around to the open world Zeno Clash they promised years ago.

Visual ether

2011-08-31T07:48:00.000-05:00

For the second night in a row El Shaddai has managed to put me to sleep while playing. The first night it was assisted by a fine pint of stout, but last night it managed to knock out in spite of it being broken up by a half hour of Third Strike. Yes, the combat is a bit bland and the linear environments don't do much to keep me invested, but the sights and sounds are what make it the most difficult to stay awake. It's all so relaxing, like sitting on a beach with the waves slowly crashing, a warm but not too warm breeze, a large bottle of something to keep you company, and no people around to ruin the mood. Perhaps I am immune to the crazy that has been painstakingly infused into every frame, as I don't think being a sleep aid was on the the list of bullet points used to pitch El Shaddai to a publisher, but being visually eccentric is just not enough to keep me interested.

For a polar opposite example, compare El Shaddai to Bayonetta. I didn't fall all over Bayontetta; I hated the character but the enjoyed the game. It was visually strange almost to the point of El Shaddai but was exciting. Big things were happening all of the time. Last night I spent several minutes watching Enoch walk up stairs while cryptic single line quotes from heavenly beings tried to make things as confusing as possible. There is nothing wrong with making an 'artsy' game but you can't forget about the 'game' part of it. Video games have a more difficult time diverging from the main stream because they need to be entertaining on all levels to be successful. A movie with great acting but terrible cinematography is still watchable. Likewise one with terrible actors but incredible visuals can work (I have yet to see Avatar...). In a game most of the individual parts need to be working most of the time to hold the players interest.

El Shaddai's visuals are always excellent, if a bit on the relaxing side. They do give you some seriously fucked up dreams after they put you to sleep, so for all I know it was the whole point. It pains me to say that there isn't much worth playing here. Rhythm based single button combos against three different enemy types just do not cut it in the post Devil May Cry world. Though El Shaddai does throw in an incredibly out of place motor cycle level...

When it finally tries to go big it just doesn't work.

It's been dosed

2011-08-29T16:08:00.000-05:00

It is difficult to describe El Shaddai. On the surface it is a stripped down Devil May Cry or Bayonetta clone. This is not a surprise as some of the same people are responsible for it. Stare at the game for more than a few seconds and it becomes apparent that the combat is just not the point of the game, so it being a little anemic is understandable. El Shaddai is there to trip your balls, and it does so on a level that I have not seen since Killer 7. It is completely bizarre in both look and execution. The very first thing that happens is a boss battle that you cannot win. After dying you are told to mash buttons to resurrect yourself; doing so takes you right back to the home screen. Hitting start a second time bypasses the fight you could not win, but you are left wondering if this was a bug or if the game is just fucking with you.

It's the second option. And it never stops.

As much as I would like to give the game a pass on all other issues because it is fun to look at, I cannot. The combat is simple to a fault, but only when using one of the three available weapons. The other two just don't work, and getting caught with one of them led to death on more than one occasion. I am trying to follow the plot, which is a bizarre greatest hits complication of various religious texts, but most of it is given out in stilted one way cell phone conversations between God and the Devil (who are getting along fabulously, by the way). There are fallen angels, monsters, giant marshmallow looking things called nephilim that practice cannibalism out of boredom...

That's an in game shot. I am not making this up.

It's weird, but is it good? I have no idea. After a solid three hours last night I still have no idea what to think about it. It is helping cleanse the mental guilt left over from how I finished InFamous 2, which can only be a good thing.

But I don't want to sleep in that bed!

2011-08-28T09:51:00.001-05:00

First, a bit of proof, and an explanation for my lax posting schedule this past week.

Yes, that is my ass up there on a rock wall. That is also about three feet from where I got stuck on three separate attempts. I had a mental break that I could not get past which became much clearly later in the day. We moved on to a much easier but longer climb that started out almost like stairs but went completely vertical for the last twenty or so feet. I could get to the bottom of the vertical section just fine, but as soon as the good foot holds turned to tiny divots in the face of the rock I could not move on. I just did not trust my feet to hold and lost my nerve. Only when I was on the ground in a bar did the experienced person with me explain that this specific area for climbing is one of the most difficult in the country because of how smooth the rocks were. He may have been telling the truth, or he may have been trying to make me feel better. Either way, it worked.

And now back to my natural habitat.

On Friday night I managed to get just enough time in to finish InFamous 2. I had been playing as electric Palpatine since the very beginning because of the not so subtle push I got from finishing the first game that way. Cole never really ended up being truly evil. Sure, he would kill cops whenever possible, massacre protesters and had a strange urge to fry street performers on site, but he stayed loyal to his friends and kept the major goal of killing The Beast in mind. It what not until a series of twists in the last few hours that I became uncomfortable with my choices, and by then it was far to late to change what Cold has become.

Spoiler ahoy!

The first plot twist was the The Beast was actually a character in the first game (John, those I didn't remember who he was until they told me) that Cole killed. He put himself back together an atom at a time and them rampaged down the east coast destroying everything in his past. John arrives in New Orleans, er, New Marais and is promptly hit with a tactical nuclear missile. Never one to let little things bother him, John shrugs this off and appears to Cole human form to reveal his true mission. The plague that was killing people int he first game was going to spreading and had no cure. The only people who would survive were conduits and John had the ability to awaken them, killing anyone around who wasn't a conduit in the process. After an explosive demonstration Cole is left alone to figure out what the hell to do next.

Plot twist number two comes right before the final good/evil choice. Cole is finally able to power up the 'ray sphere inhibitor,' an item that he was told will stop The Beast and possibly cure the plague. Cole tries to use it, but as soon as power is applied it becomes clear that the device will kill all the conduits, not just John.

So the choice is this: use the RFI, which will kill Cole, the two other conduit chicks that he has been working with, and every other conduit everywhere but possibly eradicate the plague that will kill all the normal human or team up with The Beast to awaken conduits, save your own life and give the rest of humanity the middle finger. To make this even more difficult the Nix (the evil one) and Kuo (the good one) switch sides at the last minute.

I didn't want to do it, because it was actually a pretty horrible choice, but I stayed the evil course. The last few areas had Cole floating over The Beasts shoulder and killing everyone who got in the way. There were a few fights with Nix, who you had to kill, but the real gut punch was Zeke showing up with a big ass hand gun and a crushed look in his face. Zeke stuck by Cole no matter what he did (aside from the whole betraying him in the first game thing, but they got over that), but siding with the person who was going to bring about the end of the human species as a whole was a bit much. Zeke shoots Cole, which doesn't do much to slow him down, and then the game forces you to kill him. Press R1 to murder your best friend.

This was too much. I was not happy with what I had done. I was not happy with Cole becoming The Beast after John couldn't take the killing anymore. But this is just a game, right? I had a save right before the final choice, so I backed up time and tried to do the right thing. Only I couldn't: I had maxed out how evil Cole was. It was too late to change what I had turned Cole into. I suppose I could have wandered back out into an empty and dying world and help old ladies across the street until the morality meter swung the other way, but the point was clear. This is the bed you made, now you get to sleep in it.

Well done, Sucker Punch, you have made a bitter old man actually regret his actions in a game.

Look, I am doing new things!

2011-08-25T16:48:00.000-05:00

For a pathetic creature of habit such as myself, it has been an exciting two days.

A friend that I talk to every few months called me out of the blue to ask me to go rock climbing. Outside. On actual, vertical rocks. We're talking goddamn cliffs. Being gullible I said yes, and he then countered with wanting to go out this week to practice before risking life and limb on a thin rope and hard rubber shoes. So we did just that on Tuesday night. He brought the equipment and the experience, I brought a 145 pound frame with skinny arms and an over abundance of self confidence (arrogance, in other words). Surprise, surprise, it was a great time. We started out 'boulderng' in six foot walls with no belay ropes. It was good practice for finding your footing and moving sideways without burning out your arms. Plus if you fell the ground was padded enough that only your ego was bruised.

Just when I started to get tired it was time to move on to actual walls to climb. The first thing I did was look up, which was a mistake, because these things were roughly thirty feet to the tip. They were different colored runs for different skill levels. Being an arrogant ass I attempted one a few steps up from the easiest and failed at the same point several times. There was a mental block that I could not get past, or maybe it was just a giant block I could not figure out how to get over, either way, it was not happening. Back on the ground we moved down to an actually beginners track and I tried again, this time mapping out hand and foot placements on the ground before throwing myself at the wall. It worked, and after a few tense moments and slips I found myself touching the ceiling. After a bit of congratulations it was time to get down, only I didn't know how. This last, most important step was left out of my instruction.

Since I am not typing this from either that precarious perch or from the friendly confines of a hospital it is clear that I made it down. The real test comes on Saturday when it is time to test my freshly minted (and rather dull) skills against actual rocks.

Step two in my week of being out of the box was Street Fighter 3. I played Third Strike all of two or three times in the arcade and then again a few times when it was released as part of a Capcom compilation on the oXbox. Much like rock climbing, this shit is hard, unforgiving, difficult to find good instruction in, and any given attempt can end quite quickly if the proper precautions are not taken. Third strike won't kill you if you have the harness on wrong, but Ken of Chun Li will make incredibly short work of you health if you let them hit confirm a crouching medium kick into supers that I swear hit on the very first frame. It was very difficult to find a character that I felt comfortable with. Having a default street fighting position of down back I had to try Q, and he was large and difficult. Ryu felt like Ryu, only all rush down and no zoning. I have the most fun (but not the most success) with Hugo, mostly because seeing him throw himself ass first into people is now my favorite thing in the whole world.

The game will be played from time to time, but it is years and years too late to actually play the game 'seriously.' At the end of the night I left the friendly confines on player matches with people I knew and jumped into ranked. Matches were difficult to find, and when I did find them I was dominated by Kens who all knew how to parry and used the exact same combos. Screw that. If I wanted that kind of abuse I would play AE.

I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs

2011-08-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

First of all, hooray 500 posts.

My desktop has been suffering from periodic and unexplained lock ups for a few weeks. I started with the easy (and free) fixes, trying to at least narrow down the problem. When the thing locked up while watching a video on You Tube and the sound kept right on going it became pretty clear that the issue was with my slightly aged video card. A driver update later the problem was still there, so last night I opened up the case after the thing managed to lock up on the screen saver, of all places. I was greeted by a plume of super heated air coming from, you guessed it, the video card. The fan appeared to be running, but it clearly was not doing its job. It was hot. Speed Fan had it at over 160F. It's a miracle it was working at all.

I wish I were capable of purchasing a cheap card just to get by, but even though I'm not playing anything on it now there is always the outside chance that I might. Plus, at some point in time Guild Wars 2 is going to come out and I will sequester myself from the world from an as yet undetermined amount of time. It's been so long that I have no idea what is good and what is not so I asked the PA forums for help. They have pointed me towards Radeom HD 6870, which clocks in at $189.99 (with a $30 rebate!), along with a free copy of the new Deus Ex. I am tempted, but can I really justify it when the box is used primarily for indy Steam titles and Zuma?

Of course I can. Why? Because maybe, just maybe, it will run Cryostatis, a game I bought over a year ago and have yet to actually install.

Not that I ever have time for the third gaming console that actually matters. After InFamous 2 is El Shaddai, and after that is Shadow of the Damned, plus Street Fighter 3: Third Strikes comes out tomorrow.

Speaking of Street Fighter, a few of the changes for Super Street Fighter IV: AE apology edition have been reveled. Shoddy translation aside, it looks like a point black fierce or EX Blanka ball will knock down. In the corner it will allow juggles.

Quality whiplash

2011-08-22T15:48:00.001-05:00

The difference is quality between Knight's Contract and InFamous 2 is staggering. It there was such a thing as quality whiplash I would be suffering from it, though suffering is hardly the correct term for it. It is better to say that I am wallowing in InFamous 2, rolling around in all that it has to offer, getting positively filthy with its wonderful juices.

Now I'm hungry and I want to electrocute mans.

From the very beginning InFamous 2 is executed more cleanly that nine out of ten other third person action games. I have a bad habit of deleting all of my old saves. It hearkens back to the days of memory cards and CD based media where would I delete my save right after finishing a game just to force myself to trade it in towards the next one. Hard drives and game rentals have alleviated this need, but the habit remains. InFamous 2 would like very much to start you off in somewhat the same direction you finished the first game in, but instead of looking for an old save it looks at the trophies earned. Genius. It does, however, guarantee that everyone initial play through is going to be in the same alignment as the first the game. Again, this doesn't bother me, the evil powers are much more fun to use. Mass heal? Fuck that. Jumping off the tallest place I can find and crushing protesters to bits is where it's at.

The only complaints that I have heard have been about the story being a little anemic. I disagree that this is actually a problem. The story that it has is just enough to keep things moving and provide some sort of motivation, though being an electric powered monster with a pale skin, protruding veins and a bad attitude is more than enough for me. About the only thing here that I don't agree with is the inclusion of user created levels in the main game. It smacks of Little Big Planet, but the difference here is that I can avoid them entirely and am no worse off for it. They are an actual bonus, not a cheap way to get the player base to make your game for you.

...

I suppose I did promise (two days ago) to air out one last complaint regarding Knight's Contract. In retrospect, though, complaining about story decisions in a game so rife with game play issues is just piling on.

Not that I am above that.

From the very beginning of the game Heinrich's reason for going along with with (who he killed to begin with and cursed him with immortality) was that he wanted to die. His immortality is again and again referred to as a bad thing. He even attempts to get out of his contract and betray the good witch just for the chance of cashing it all in. The good guys triumph, or course. Flash forward to modern times and Gretchen is sitting at a modern day restaurant looking at a flaming ball of evil floating in the sky (that only she can see). Up walks Heinrich, this time in a suit that is at least two sizes too small, still alive.

So the whole 'main character is immortal and wants to die' thing, the heart of the whole story. That thing? Yeah, never mind, that was bullshit to.

Someone out there likes me

2011-08-19T20:14:00.001-05:00

Have you ever gone through a domain name change? How about an email server change? Maybe both at the same time? I am only tangentially involved and it is still hell. The guys doing most of the actually work so fried at this point they are leaving scorch marks on the floor as they numbly scuffle to and from the refrigerator, quickly depleting the supply of Mt. Dew. The few things that I am of in charge of work, which means I get to have a nice quiet evening with Infamous 2.

...

The final few boss fights of Knight's Contract actually improved. The fights become more fair and interesting, requiring strategy instead of blind luck. What got worse were the quick time events that finished them off: instead of giving some health back you just started the fight over, and at least one took over five minutes to complete. On one occasion I had my laptop sitting open next to me with the appropriate button presses highlighted and I still screwed it up. I didn't throw anything, but only I was to fatigued by the repetition to bother.

By the end of the game I was slumped sideways on my couch, playing with all the enthusiasm of a person preparing for a colonoscopy. After about three or four tries against the last section of the last boss I was desperate for it to be over. I will admit the the fight itself again wasn't bad: the final witch was too powerful for normal attacks and too mobile for most magic attacks. You had to pin her down with a weaker spell and they nail her with a damaging one before she could escape. This was not a very big window. Not content with simply being difficult, the game adds on a time limit in the form of a giant meteor hurtling towards you.

Not quite, but you get the idea.

There's one more wrinkle: when you finally land an attack the damage it does varies greatly. The first time I used one it did several bars worth, the next time it barely scratched her. At this point there is only one explanation: I (the player) and being directly and intentionally fucked with. I of course didn't like this, but I had to finish the game. I had put up with it for this long, there was no way I was quitting now.

On the last try of the evening something wonderful happened. Something happened that proved that there are indeed benevolent beings that look over nerds in dark basements. It was nothing short of a gaming miracle: I threw out a random attack that killed the final boss in one hit. This in not an exaggeration. I was both elated and disgusted, but at least it is over now.

I will complain about the stupid ending tomorrow.

Monsters from the id

2011-08-17T16:36:00.001-05:00

Knight's Contract is slowly draining the life from me. I fell asleep on my new love seat (yes, I no longer sit on the cold basement floor when I game, my ass is much happier) not because I was tired. No, I fell asleep because I the idea of spending another hour grinding through an area that exists for the soul purpose of padding play time was too much and my subconscious revolted.

'You have been left in charge for too long,' it said as it wrenched control of my body from my waking mind, 'time for you to take a little nap.'

When I woke up Knight's Contract had been packed up and shipped off and my Blanka was now up to a B+ rating.

Or not.

I will finish the game, but I truly dread what what kind of bull shit will be thrown at me by the last guy.

It's not chocolate and peanut butter

2011-08-16T16:17:00.000-05:00

There was another boss battle in Knight's Contract last night with almost all of the same problems as the last one. In fact, add attacks that can hit you through stone walls to the list of awfulness. It has gotten to the point where I am going to look up all the quick time events ahead of time to make sure that only have to beat each one once.

But I don't want to talk about that today. I want to talk about this:

Keep in mind that I am still a little gun shy from both MvC3 and Mortal Kombat being failed investments of both time and money, but the more I see of this game the less I am excited for it. The inclusion of simple supers and combos that rely on quick tagging screams MvC, but the focus on juggling looks a bit more like Tekken Tag. It is neither Street Fighter or Tekken, which I suppose is the point, but the weird in between area just does not sit well with me. There is no way for me to tell how the game feels from a four minute video, but I am definitely feeling more cautious then gung ho about the game. That and watching Ken and Ryu play ping ping using Kazuya's body and fireballs looked absolutely retarded.

Perhaps easy, consistent supers and the magic series combos from MvC were added to let other things be more complicated, like team building and maximizing tiny opening for insane damage. Touch of death combos were a big part of why I stopped playing MvC3, first of all because I could no do them and secondly even if I could I do not think that wailing on a lifeless body for fifteen seconds makes for exciting fisticuffs. Street Fighter, regardless of version, is rarely this one sided, action wise. Playing defensively is a viable option (for some characters) and playing cautiously is usually rewarded. Yes, this makes the game slower, but it also allows for more mind games versus seeing one opening and doing a billion damage from it.

All bitching aside, I will undoubtedly still buy it. I bought MK, and this has to be better than that.

(Still not going to buy UMvC3, though)

A catalog of atrocities

2011-08-15T16:32:00.001-05:00

It is now time to document the atrocities of the worst boss fight I have even been subjected to. This includes final bosses of SNK fighters (I'm looking at you, Geese Howard).

Knight's Contract had not been a difficult game of to this point. Correction: the only difficulties were caused by the map not telling you where to go and a lot of the hallways look the same, but killing things had not been too much of a chore. Previous bosses had been challenging, but not had actually killed me before I figured out what I needed to do. Then along comes a giant flaming witch that fires rockets out of her costume. She actually looks pretty cool and long as you can get past her being three times as tall as you are. It all goes to shit very quickly.

The battle takes place of a suspended platform with no edges. When the witch is on the platform she takes up quite a bit of the available space. She also has an attack that creates an 'X' of burning areas that corner you, followed by a spear attack that will knock either you or Rachel (the good witch) right off the side, ending the fight.
The flaming sections created have their own problem: if Rachel happens to step on one she cannot get off it it, instead sitting there burning to death until the flaming area goes away. If you happen to call her towards you she will walk right into the fire, killing herself.
After a few attacks the fire witch will jump off of the platform and fire area affect rockets at you. The rockets are enough to either kill you in one hit or knock you off of the platform, and their blast radius is large enough that missiles that hit off screen can still hit you.
Last but not least, the fight ends with a quick time event. This would not be all that bad, but if you fail (and I did) the game give the fire witch over half her health back and you have to fight her again. If she kills you? Back to the beginning of the fight.

This awful combination required 33 retries to get past. And the worst part? I am going to tell you exactly how to fix every one of these, and not one solution requires giving Rachel any sort of virtual survival instinct (because good AI is clearly past these guys).

Put edges on the damn platform so you can't be knocked off of it. The enemy here is the giant evil witch, not gravity. You should never have to fight gravity, because gravity always wins.
Allow Rachel to move if she is on fire. Stop, drop and roll, bitch.
Zoom the camera back as the missiles are fired so you can actually see where there are going to hit.
Don't force me to re-fight he boss if I fail the QTE. Better yet, just don't include them.

Look at that, four easy solutions that somehow made it passed people whose job it is to make games. Sometimes I wish play testing wasn't a pointless, underpaying, torturous job because I would be damn good at it.

Assuming that the developers actually listen to play testers. Which they don't.

I can see clearly now

2011-08-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

I am actually just a little worried about Knight's Contract. It has received universally negative reviews, which is nothing new for games that I play, but featured prominently in most of them is my oldest and most tenacious foe: a camera that does its best to obscure whatever it is you are trying to do. I can handle a lot of terribleness; bad graphics, atrocious voice acting, repetitive level design, UI's that intentionally obfuscate even the simplest of tasks. I can look right past ideas that have been whole sale stolen from better games, even if that better game happens to be the last game that I played. I can wrestle with un-intuitively laid out and un-remappable controls as years of playing have made each individual finger able act with a mind of its own when required (until arthritis sets in, at which point I may just chop them off).

But a bad camera? The camera is literally the players portal into whatever world the developers, artists and programmers have created. If it is shit than it doesn't matter if the game itself is the greatest thing since Jimmy John's sub delivery because you can't see what the hell is going in. Imagine watching a movie where every scene has a character whose face is partially cropped off the edge of the frame. It would never make it out into the theater because no one would put up with it, yet games continue to be released that get this wrong. I know that it is isn't easy, but it is also so important that I have to think that it is taught on one of the first days of 'I want to make games school.' (Right after 'how to live on Doritos for months at a time,' 'controlling acne on the cheap,' and 'how to make rent after Activision buys the start up you work for and fires everyone)

I kid, there is no cheap way to control acne.

You would think that a guy who spends most of his time curled up on the bottom of the gaming barrel wouldn't have many standards left, but even I have my pet peeves. So Knight's Contract has been officially put on notice before I have even installed it.

...

Had a wonder hate mail exchange in Street Fighter last night. It was late and I was playing poorly (so nothing new yet) and I ran into a Ryu taunted a lot and did random things. He beat me fair and square with something that I did not know you could do: cancel Ryu's taunt into a DP (though in retrospect it should have been obvious). So he sends me a message:

'sukker'

Now, I can't pick on his playing because he beat me. There are no cheap tactics, only things that you don't know the appropriate counter for. So I decided to pick on his spelling.

'I can take your taunts, but poor spelling? GTFO.'

'suk a dik, bitch'

'I think I know what you are saying, but could you try it again with a dictionary? Assuming you can read well enough to use one.'

Much to my disappointment, he stopped replying. Probably past his bed time.

Doo, D'oh, Depp!

2011-08-12T16:29:00.001-05:00

I have spent most of the afternoon trying to teach myself Crystal Reports XI. All I have to work with is a rather complicated report written by someone who very clearly knew what he or she was doing for a very specific database and my task is to take this report that works for one database and make it work for another. It took me half a day and I now know exactly what I don't know, which is actually a pretty big step, but I also have no idea how to learn and fix what I know that I don't know. At the very least the report is just a series of SQL select statements running in the background, which I understand, but I can't find the damn things to edit them.

Now I need to drink and drink heavily, something that I currently do not have the necessary liquids to do.

...

Lego games are uniquely dependent on the personalities of the characters they are lampooning. This works very well for games with multiple larger than life characters like Star Wars, Batman and Indiana Jones. Pirates, though, only has a few notable characters; the rest are generic pirates or soldiers (or undersea mer-men). A great deal of care was taken to make Jack look, act and sound like Jack, and it shows, but what defining characteristics does Will Turner have? Or Gibbs? Even Barbosa, as awesome as he is, is little more than a swarthier that average pirate. Blackbeard was even more disappointing. In the movies they served as foils for the main character (which is why you could get rid of almost all of them for the fourth and it was no worse for the wear) but in the game whenever Jack isn't on the screen you are left wondering who these people are and why you are controlling them.

Once again, I am reading far to much into a Lego game, but forcing me to nit pick on such a deep (or Depp) level really should be taken as a compliment. It is as fun to watch as it is to play, probably works quite well in co-op, has an incredible amount of bonuses and other bits of junk to find, and has left behind the unfortunate additions of the last game. It also looks really good, and not just for a Lego game. Finally Telltale has realized they have a little more technical headroom than they used to and done something with it. The game isn't going to win any awards, but it is not offensive to behold.

It all fits together

2011-08-10T16:39:00.000-05:00

Someone spent a great deal of time making sure that Lego Jack Sparrow had the same ridiculous run that real life Jack Sparrow does. This poor individual now has nightmares about Johnny Depp mincing about in a pirate costume; every time he closes his eyes all he can see the man flailing about in an impossible manner. His loss is my gain, because the animation is goddamn hilarious. After hours of the same Lego action I have been through at least a half dozen times I was still not tired of it. Jumping on a barrel and crushing fools to death certainly helped. These games are infectious; Lego Star Wars 3 took it one step too far, reaching into genres that it had no reason to intrude upon. This is certainly a welcome reversal, and even at this early stage I am comfortable calling this my favorite since Lego Batman.

Also, as strange as it sounds to compliment the voice acting in a game with no actual spoken dialogue, the person they got to mimic Jacks screams and grunts has it down perfectly. For all I know Depp actually did it, seeing as his soul officially belongs to Disney now. He has an island to pay for, you know.

...

Mortal Kombat has been officially unloaded and I am a better man for it. While there is nothing wrong with the game in concept, actually playing it with other people proved to be much to much work. It did indeed have the same look and feel of the MK games of my youth, and it boasts one of the better single player sections of a fighting game (the latter Virtua Fighters still take the cake), but when it came time to return from my self imposed fighting game hiatus I did not long for a game featuring a block button and stilted animations, and I certainly had no interest in spending more money to add more characters when I was only passable with one. It did last longer that Marvel vs Capcom 3 did, and it did not bring about the same depths of anger and self loathing, but I only have the stamina to be bad at one fighting game at a time.

Speaking of bad, playing random and getting Viper is just not fair for a charge character player. Viper is the antithesis of down back. The best I could pull off was a super jump burning kick, and all that did was heat up the air above the person I was supposed to hit.

Even in block land

2011-08-09T16:34:00.001-05:00

I will enjoy beating Lego Orlando Bloom to death almost as much as I enjoyed murdering Lego Jar Jar over and over. Reviews of this Lego game put it below the last Star Wars entry because it was missing the obnoxious base building/RTS segments that I hated. Good new for me.

Also, I never thought I would find a Lego Haters image. It turns out that the internet is pretty big and there are quite a few crazy ass people out there.

But if you look on the inside...

2011-08-08T20:06:00.000-05:00

As unoffensive and safe the action in Dungeon Siege 3 was, it did manage something that very few games even attempt. Action games have, as of late, taken to one upping one another with their levels of senseless and wanton violence. This is not just in the actual parts you play, but in player driven story developments as well. Your choices range from kill the guy now with your gun or kill him now with your sword or maybe let him go and kill him later. Not since, well, KotoR 2, have I seen a game where honest to goodness mercy is encouraged.

While it would have been nice to have moral choices implemented through game play, simply having the option to show mercy and compassion to enemies is almost unheard of. Dungeon Siege 3's story is surprisingly dense, full of betrayal and lies, genocide and political intrigue. At the core of it all is an archon whose father was murdered by the legion (and guess who the player is a decedent of). She is never portrayed as evil, but she definitely does evil things. She becomes consumed by an ancient power that she called on in a moment of weakness and never recovers. Along comes your character (I chose the gun wielding hottie) who has the option to change the legion for the better and not kill the bad guy when given a chance.

I played through this as fair but firm. If you crossed me I killed you from across the room with a well placed rifle shot. But if you have even one redeeming feature you get a second chance. Perhaps I am reading far to much into what really is an average action game that has been watered down for the console audience almost beyond being recognizable, but Dungeon Siege 3 has soul.

The Obsidian curse has struck again. They should have done the writing and let someone else make the game.

Black Isle, we miss you

2011-08-07T11:55:00.000-05:00

Obsidian Entertainment does have a bit of a checkered history, putting out sequels to excellent (and sometimes not so excellent) games of dubious quality, usually through no fault of their own. They come from excellent stock, led by refugees of Black Isle, but they have have not had a modern break out hit, and am I worried that they may never get to. First up under the Obsidian name was Knights of the Old Republic 2, a game 'ruined' by a short development cycle and rampant interference from Lucas (or so the rumors go). Played it, actually enjoyed it more than the first KotoR, probably because I set out from the start with the idea of being the biggest bastard possible. I made it through the entire game with only one light side force point; who knew that being nice to your droids counted.

Neverwinter Nights 2, and to be more specific the first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, is the best work Obsidian has done. In is an excellent RPG in the same vein as Baldurs Gate but without out all the baggage that 2nd edition D&D had with it. Don't get me wrong, if I am going to side down with a cadre of nerds and a bag of dice I prefer 2nd edition, but for a game all the streamlining of 3rd really made sense. Mask of the Betrayer had an incredible story, surpassing the main game by leaps and bounds. I cannot help but notice that this is the only game of their list developed exclusively for the PC. It was a different time, and there was enough money to be made from one market then. It seems unlikely that they will get this opportunity again, as only Blizzard has the clout and loyalty needed to pull off PC only development (though I will put serious money on some version Diablo 3 making it to a television near your).

The less said about Alpha Protocol, the better. And while Fallout: New Vegas was a very good game, Obsidian didn't break the mold that Bethesda left behind for them. It was the same game, just in a different place.

And now we come to Dungeon Siege 3, a game so stripped down for the console audience that you can see its bones right through its recycled chain mail armor. It's not bad, it's just simple. I know that the first Dungeon Siege by Gas Powered Games was in fact designed to be a simper alternative to Diablo, but with a grand total of nine powers, four characters and around ten passive buffs it feels like I am playing My First Action RPG. I can hit a button and it tells me exactly where I need to go for the next quest, complete with the flashing path the Fable did first. The game is nothing but appetizers, and I am getting pretty hungry for a god damned steak.

Some days I wonder why I left PC gaming. Then an orange package from GameFly arrives in the mail and I remember that you can't rent PC games and that my rig is about $500 from being relevant.