Dark Sector

Hey guys just thought I'd take a minute to tell you that I'm so fucking depressed and I'm gonna to fucking kill myself. My dying wish is that you listen to my emo as fuck music.  I hate myself.
 
http://www.myspace.com/hurtmegrantham
 
Just make it stop. Kill me somebody... just fucking kill me.

 "You don't like his stupid face?" 
"I don't like his stupid face! It's weird, flat, I don't know, something. I just don't like dude's face... You don't like dude's face, right?" 
"His face sucks." 
"His face totally sucks. You heard it here." 
- Ryan, Jeff, Josh, and Jeff again, Giant Bombcast, April 8, 2008

I've got a bunch of new games on my shelf, some new titles I've got high hopes for, some potentially entertaining games I've picked up on sale. Time to get an overview with a new round of play-to-the-first-blip action. 
 
First up: 
 
Game 1: Wolfenstein. Now that's an old school shooter intro. The premise of this game is, of course, totally ridiculous, but the action seems very satisfying. Can't wait to blast through this. Got my first achievement 18 minutes in for shooting three mysteriously floating enemies. 
  
Game 2: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Apparently, Ray McCall can take all the bullets in the world, but drop down three feet, and: "Failure! You are dead." This game has an unfamiliar cover system that takes a little getting used to. Quite stingy with the achievements, too. A few seconds past the 29-minute mark, I shot an enemy through a wall, and got the None Shall Hide achievement. Here's hoping the actual western part of the game is better than the civil war introduction.
 
Game 3: The Beatles: Rock Band. I just bought this today, on launch. Still added it to my backlog pile, had to get an achievement or two in for launch day. Feel a bit cheated now, though - it only took 1:40 to reach the end of the calibration adjustment and get my first 5G. Need to play a few songs before I move on.   
 
Edit: I couldn't stop playing The Beatles: Rock Band. It's amazing. Went for the Day Tripper achievement in my first go-around. Can't wait to play it with friends. 
 
Game 4: Dark Sector. Low expectations. Old game dressed up in Unreal Engine 3. The prologue, and with it, the first achievement, took about half an hour. Wonder what this game was like before they made it a Gears clone. Thank God I didn't pay a lot of money for this. The glaive looks like fun, though. If I ever totally run out of games, I might play this some more.
 
Game 5: Tomb Raider Underworld. That was weird. Prologue, 10 minutes. This seems pretty solid. I'm gonna have to play through both Legend and Underworld some day. Today is DiRT 2 day, though. 
 
OK, one more. 
 
Game 6: Batman: Arkham Asylum. Based on reviews, I feel I should set aside some time to do this right. It's too bright in my living room now, though. First achievement: Freeflow Combo 5. First fight after the intro.

Hello there y'all! I haven't done one of these so called blog posts recently but I haven't been doing much anyway to be honest with you. I haven't been playing many games and gaming really isn't the main priority of my life at the minute really but I don't mean that in a bad way, I just mean that I haven't had the time. The games that I have been playing the most are both Dark Sector and Wheelman though I did play some Gears of War 2 to see what the new experience system was like it seemed pretty good if you ask me.

Over a week ago, I picked up Dark Sector which is overall a solid but fairly drab game. It starts off well with good game mechanics and plenty of gore but the game runs out of tricks very quickly. While the game seems pretty short, I am on Chapter 7 out of 9 I believe but it feels like I have been playing it for ages. Considering I got it for £5.50, really not that big of a deal and it is a good enough game, just not a great one. The game is just super repetitive in a way that I don't like. The puzzles while aren't too hard, really kill the pace of the game also. Still, I hope to finish that soon because the achievements aren't too bad in it. The multiplayer seems fairly piss too, I hope to maybe get the "No 1. in a ranked match" achievements because they are 30G each but meh.

Another game that I picked up there on Friday was Wheelman. I have to say, this game is one of the most mixed reaction games I can remember, even when the demo first came out. There were several people who really liked the demo, me included and thought it could be a really good game while others hated it and couldn't stand it. Considering I liked the demo so much, I decided to get the game because there isn't much coming out anyway, the next new game is probably going to be The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena which isn't coming out until the end of April over here which is a tad shit to be honest. Overall, I still like Wheelman for what it is. It is a goofy, ridiculous driving game with plenty of action and laughs provided. Some people are bitching about things like the handling but I think it's fine, has moments of frustrating but that's just because I am not very good at driving games. The main complaint seems to be the on-foot sections which GameSpot described them as being "Painfully Bad." Yeah they aren't great but they are functional and they don't bother me too much though the lack of a jump button is silly. My main complaint with the game so far is actually the story, it is really bad, period. I don't know how far I am until the end but I am enjoying the game and I will see how well it turns out. I can see why people would hate the game but if you liked the demo, then check it out.

As said previously, there is nothing really coming out at the moment but this is for the best because I am meant to be studying and all that caper. I was a bit interested in Wanted: Weapons of Fate before but reviews claim it's about 3-4 hours long and that is feckin' ridiculous, no way I am paying full price for that. In the meantime though, I don't think I will play games too often though I will when Easter rolls around soon in the next few weeks. Until then, keep yourself safe.

As I mentioned, I will be posting all my blog posts on blogger so they can stay consistent across various sites.

Please head to: Games cost too damn much! read the post.

Thanks.

After not really playing anything while preparing for an exam for the first two weeks of the year, I decided to pop in Dark Sector, a game that I bought months ago, but never got around to playing. Even with the average reviews it received upon release, Dark Sector still interested me because I enjoy shooters that use the cover mechanic & the Glaive looked like a fun weapon to wield. When I read that it was refused classification in Australia because of the violence & brutality contained there-in, I thought it would all add up to an entertaining package.

I was mostly correct in that assumption. Dark Sector is not the best game you will ever play, and it has some real drawbacks, but it fits right into what I call "Fast Food Games". Games that you play & enjoy, but never really think about again. They are competent in what they do and as long as you don't have high expectations, you come away satisfied. I would put games like Army of Two and Lost Planet into that category.

Dark Sector has a generic plot which I really didn't follow. That could be entirely my fault as I was looking up the location of the weapon upgrades anytime there was a break in the action, but the gist of it is some Russian fool developed some infection that mutates humans and turns them into monsters. You play Hayden Tenno, a CIA agent sent to the Soviet Union to off another agent and kill the guy responsible for the virus. In the process of handling his mission,  the bad guys get the drop on Hayden and his right arm gets infected, granting him a bunch of sweet powers and that kick-ass Glaive thing that you throw like a Mach 3 Boomerang. That's plenty of story for me. It hits all the right notes, reason for revenge, plausible explanation for throwing some crazy enemies at you in combat and a progression of abilities which reward you for continuing to play.

The game looks pretty good. The enemy soldiers mostly wear biohazard suits, I guess so when you cut their heads off with the glaive that it isn't too realistic. The mutants look pretty freaky and change up the combat somewhat. They all come apart in a satisfying, bloody mess. Make no mistake, the game is very brutal. One of the best parts of the game is the "finishers" you can perform on stunned enemies. There are a variety of them, but they all result in removing limbs, breaking necks or stabbing things through the head. Very fun to pull off and watch. Unfortunately a good chunk of the game takes place in very dark environments. The glaive can cast a glow which puts a pool of light out in front of you, but it lasts for a limited time (but you seem to be able to turn it back on immediately) and when you trigger a finisher you can't see a thing. So why put so much effort into creating these cool animations if you can't see them?

There are a good variety of weapons: pistols, shotguns, rifles, grenades and you can use the glaive to disarm enemies, pulling their weapon to you. Unfortunately you can only use a picked up weapon for a limited amount of time. For some reason the infection makes you throw it away after a few seconds. I missed the reason in the story if one was given. The only guns you are allowed to keep must be bought from the black market. The real star of the show is the Glaive though. You dual wield it with a pistol so most of the game you'll find yourself throwing the glaive to stun (or kill) and then popping the enemy in the head if he's too far to run a finisher on. A few chapters in you get the "aftertouch" ability which allows you to trigger a sort of bullet time & control the blade in mid-flight. This allows you to guide the glaive right into your enemy and get an up close view of his body splitting in half. It reminded me of the arrow & cannonball sequences in Heavenly Sword. Your blade also gains the ability to absorb electricity, fire & ice which is used to solve environmental puzzles in addition to shuffling off your enemies' mortal coils. I really had fun with the combat. You get enough things to play with that you there is variety to it even if the enemies don't change much.

All in all, I'd say if you enjoy shooters, Dark Sector is worth a play. I wouldn't pay full price for it, but it is a decent rental or worthy of a bargain purchase. It's going for $18 new on Amazon right now.

Next up will be 24: The Game. I re-watched Season 6 last week in anticipation of the premiere of Season 7 this week so I am all hyped up for Jack Bauer. The game can't be too bad, right? Lots of good shows are coming back, 24, Lost & Battlestar Galactica are all back in the next week. 2009 is starting off well.

On a side note, I can't imagine how cold those poor people were on the jet that landed in the Hudson River today. It was 20 degrees farenheit with wind chills in the single digits in the big city today. That water would have shriveled my wedding tackle to the size of a pea. Thankfully everyone made it out safely.

Choose two games for me to get!

Dead Space
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Saints Row 2
Prince of Persia

It's pretty bad not knowing what to want for Christmas I know but still and the selection is pretty small anyway. I have most of the late 2008 releases but I have purposely left out some early 2008 releases that I knew weren't worth full price like Turok and Dark Sector and a few others. Keep yourself safe and happy holidays guys!

I hate Daylight savings. Christ. Who ever it was who one day decided: Gee I don't like how dark it is outside, tomorrow I'll just change my clock. What a jerk. And to our government who keeps putting in the trials even though we consistantly vote it down at referendums, Fuck you too. Representative of the people you over paid tards. Learn it, live it. I have a gut feeling that this time the thing might stick and we will get stuck with it. Double FUCK!

What insighted this potty mouth tirade? Well firstly sorry 'bout that, my bad. But a little earlier I was over come a little late with the biggest urge just to bring up my lunch. It kinda came out of nowhere to be honest. So I went to lay down a little in bed and feel alseep. Que 3-4 hours later I wake up its broad bloody daylight and 8 o'clock. Shit I am late for work. But I am never late for work. Holy Shit. 5 minutes later looking rather foolish having rushed around trying to find a work uniform on Saturday fucking night cause I think it is Sunday morning. Wait what day is it? Huh? What time? Really? Fuck!

Whatever.

So did actually make some progress. I beat Dark Sector which has a learning curve kind of like calmly walking down the street until you break out into a run and then crash into a brick wall right at the final boss. Very unreasonable. Over all though I am happy with my progress but not too stoked. I had hoped to beast more then 1 game this weekend so I have some catching up to do. Barring anymore disasters I am still quietly confident of achieving my goal.

c1337us.

2/12/08: Battlefield Bad Company
3/12/08: The Club
6/12/08: Dark Sector
In Progress: LittleBigPlanet, Left 4 Dead.