Gears of War

 

Seemingly, I am one of the few people on the planet that hasn't been raving about the release of Modern Warfare 2 earlier this week. I am in an even smaller minority of people that pretty much 'haven't given two **** about it.

Now, you may think I am a few sandwiches short of a picnic for saying this but it's not the first game that I haven't 'got'. By that I mean that I haven't understood why certain titles are so hyped by the press and games alike. Don't get me wrong, I love video games, have done since I was a kid, but there are some 'classics' that have come along that have been very similar to the genre of games I've been playing at the time and yet I have failed to see the appeal.

So, I have compiled a very small (but concise) list of all the games that I have come across in my gaming life that I simply haven't understood why pretty much everyone would give their Granny's right arm to have a glimpse at. These are the games that I have given the highest accolade of…'meh'.

Final Fantasy VII

Even though the first Final Fantasy game in the series was released since 1990, it wasn't until the 7th instalment that people really sat up and took notice. For one, it was the first Final Fantasy to feature 3-D graphics and in doing so, put it streets ahead of it's ancestors. It also helped sell loads of Playstations as initially it was only available on that console. The soundtrack - epic and the gameplay was groundbreaking. Not for me though, I never could get my head around the appeal of FF VII as the whole world went mental for one guy with a massive sword and beating enemies in turn based combat.

On the face of things, it all looked great. At the time of release, I wasn't really into RPG's, having only played around with a few early adventure titles which had RPG elements. But even now, with my experience with World of Warcraft and its competitors…I still couldn't understand why FFVII had sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It's not just the seventh one though, I've NEVER been able to get into it and when I told people of this plight they looked at me as if I had two heads. 'Maybe it would be better on the PSP with slightly better graphics?' I told myself. Why did I ever think having it on a tiny screen would make it BETTER?! Madness, I tell thee.

Legend Of Zelda

Another confession here, folks. I don't, and never will like anything to do with the Legend of Zelda. From it's cutesy, flute wielding pansy protagonist (which as a matter of note, I never wanted to aspire to) to the endless searching through bush after bush after sodding bush for that illusive heart when I know I'm just going to lose them all trying to cross that gap which is just…too…far…away.

Once again, the whole catalogue of Zelda games were in the same vein of similar games that I loved in the adventure category, but I just couldn't get my head around that once again…the world went mental from what is basically the Nintendo version of the Final Fantasy Series but without the turn-based jiggery pokery that made me so mad so very, very often.

Metal Gear Solid

This is a different choice than the last two titles that I have mentioned so far. In those, I liked the elements and other games in the surrounding genres. However, I cannot stand stealth games (which is probably why Gears of War appeals to me so much) and never have. The reason for this is that I think I'm just too damn lazy to wait and hide for that illusive guard to forget that I was ever there after I went into the first level with all guns blazing. Don't get my wrong though, after all the hype got too much for me…I gave it another shot with my sensible trousers on and still got frustrated with Metal Gear Solid. They don't call it Solid for no reason, y'know.

And finally...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Ooooooh, either this is a complete surprise to you or has been blatantly obvious, but alas, probably one of the games that I am the most annoyed that I don't 'get'…is Modern Warfare 2. This is 'hype-not-getting' in it's purest form, folks.

Once again, I love First Person Shooters; if you look at my collection you will that it's clearly my favourite genre. Not only that, but I have loved a lot of the Call of Duty titles that have preceded MW2, but since they have split and formed Infinity Ward the Modern Warfare series has failed to spark my interest. Or maybe getting killed all the time over Xbox Live was the final nail in the coffin. I admit, I haven't played this game yet, but the advertising around it has failed to spark my interest to play it. The feel of the series since Call of Duty 2 has never appealed to me a much as the later games. In its first DAY of release it's manage to reign in over $910 million in the US and UK alone. Am I missing something here, or is there something wrong with me?

There we have it, I hope some of you understand why I haven't been able to get my head around what everyone else seems to be dribbling over around me and I wonder if you have felt the same at one point. Saying that, there are a load of there games and series' that have been brilliant. The Halo's, World of Warcraft and pretty much all the Street Fighter's I have loved, but as I have demonstrated, we all have different opinions and you can't hate on someone just because they haven't gone the same way as the general populace and followed the norm. Are they any games that I've missed out that you just simply haven't understood the mega-hype? Let the world know in the comment section below.

Maybe I haven't given these games enough time, should I sit down with all the above and really commit them to my subconscious and give into the mass peer-pressure. No. I have no inclination, as they failed to grab me at my first exposure to them, and therefore I am perfectly happy continuing to love the games that have.

*EDIT* I wish to make it known the readers of this particular blog is that my commentary is merely on games that I have played (or even owned) in the past that have, through various means, failed to grab my attention as much as other games in the series or genre. It is not a commentary on the subject of over-hyped games at all, it is merely trying to get some insight as to why I haven't 'got' the games that so many others have.

 

The video game industry is an ever-growing industry in this world. Probably no one in the past could've guessed that it would surpassed the movie industry in the amount of money each made. But there is a lot more underneath. Your average consumer will think that all that gaming consists of is big titles like “Halo” and “Call of Duty. But no, there is a lot more. In my mind, there are three categories that video games fall in: indie games that are free but you can donate to, indie games that you need to buy, and commercial games.

There are plenty of indie games that are available for free on the internet. But you also have the option to donate to the developer so you can help out the developer. A good example of an indie game you can donate to is Jason Rohrer's game “Passage”. “Passage” is a little 5 minute game. But in those 5 minutes, some amazing things happens. Basically, this game is about life. There are so many little symbols throughout the game that point towards a life-like situation. In this game, you control your character (and a wife, if you choose). If you choose to take along the wife, your points as you progress will double. But you won't be able to move in some areas. It is truly a risk and reward situation and shows how being married can be limiting. In the beginning, the right side of the screen is blurry, as in your future is not certain. But as you move through this maze of sorts, you progressively grow older. Once that happen, the right side clears up, but the left side gets blurry, as in you're forgetting your past. Towards the end, if you take the wife, she dies before you do. It is obvious that your old, decrepit, avatar has little time left. Even though the graphics are pixels, the player can tell that he is saddened by his loss.

Now a normal video game player might not think this is any special. But of course it is. There is no video game out in stores that are as moving as this game potentially is. Was I moved? Of course I was! Now here is the sad fact: Jason Rohrer has to work for Cambell's Soup to feed his family. And we pay $60 for a game at a store for the chance that it might be good... but we won't donate $5 to a developer that makes a product that deserves it.

This leads to the second category of games: indie games you have to pay for no matter what. With the growth in digital distribution services (such as Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and Playstation Store), there have been a bunch of indie developers making games for this platform. A good example of this is Jonathan Blow's game “Braid”. During the game's three year developmental period, Jonathan Blow put $200,000 of his own money to make this game happen. Most of the money went to hiring David Hellmen to do the artwork. Good thing that he did, because this game is basically art. Everything has a watercolor-esque look to it. But this game was the first indie game to appear on services such as this. “Braid” was immensely popular and many developers followed in their path. That is probably the most important part of “Braid” is that it proved that you don't need to be a big corporation with a big team to be a success.

Which has us move on to my third category: commercial games. These are the games that you go to basically any store and buy from the counter. These are the games you see a twelve-year boy cry to his mommy to get. The absolute prime example for these types of games is Bungie's cash cow “Halo 3”. This is the pinnacle of commercial games. Not because it is any good (because in my opinion it is not). But because it made so much money. According to Giant Bomb's Halo 3 page, “Halo 3 was released on September 25, 2007, and quickly became one of the Xbox 360's first system-sellers, making an astounding $300 million during the first week of its release and going on to eventually sell over 8 million copies.” What confuses me is that this game has diminished in quality compared to the games before it in the series. In fact, you can say that about a lot of commercial games. I feel that a lot of games are basically the same. They are all basically a macho man's dream, full of guns and gore.

So this leads to my classification of these categories. If I were to rank them based on which will be more relevant in the future, indie games you can donate to would be on top, followed by indie games for pay and then commercial games. Why do I say this? I say this because, a long time from now, I will remember the artistically relevant games that cost a very minimal amount that the many power-fantasy that people buy for too high of a price. Games today (like Halo 3 and Gears of War) are just mindless entertainment and are completely juvenile. Games like Daisuke Amaya's game “Cave Story” have proved that games don't need to have big budgets or huge teams developing the game to be a stellar title. It had a low budget and one person doing the whole game!

In conclusion, I prefer indie games because they aren't mindless and boring. Commercial video games are all turning into the same thing. Imagine if all the big movies from here on out were romantic comedies. Would anyone seriously enjoy that? I'm pretty sure no one would. This is why indie developers deserved your cash more than the big corporations of the world do.

Status update didn't seem to update straight away, not sure if it is ment to or not. Any who, just updated with something else and went to this page, and my status is still the same, we'll see if it will change or if I'll snap and post my status until it shows.

Listening to Endurance Run Part 95, don't really have to watch, it's some grinding but listening to the conversations about hotdogs, wii shooters, Dynasty Warriors and more is making it quite interesting. Little preview of the eventual review of Fuel in there aswell. Pre-loading episode 96 right now aswell.

The main reason I'm adding another entry to this blog is to say sorry for the stall in production on my guide for Golden Axe: Beast Rider. I started playing some Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on the side, except the side quickly became the main and pretty much pushed Golden Axe way out. I'm enjoying it too much to go back to Golden Axe so I think there will be a little pause until I get done with it. I spose it goes without saying that I highly recommend Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

Other than that, still boosting Gears, although thats slowed a bit aswell, finally got my last weapon achievement (The Hammer of Dawn one) so its just a couple of thousand kills needed now, which translates into quite a few more ten's of hours *sigh*, atleast im nearly there.

I

Yeah, I'm new. Yet, what better way to get involved in this great community by posting a blog entry. I hate blogs to tell you the truth, but tonight, I am reasonably bored. So here goes

I am a casual gamer who's more interested in a game's story than the actual graphics. That's one thing I hate about most games now-a-days. See, I am a writer-- always have been, and always will be. I am currently finishing up my English and Creative Writing BA, and that has allowed me to look at games very differently. I, too, want to make games when I graduate, but I want to write.

I don't want to rehash games that put you in the role of a space marine, and send you off to fight aliens. I will extend some amnesty to games like Doom though. Great graphics aren't going to save your game. I've played them, they are overly predictable-- hence rehash. Maybe I am not so casual. Maybe I am something a little different than your casual and hardcore. Maybe I care about the caliber of games because I see them more of an art form than something to simply stimulate, and flashy next-gen graphics are not the only thing that will stimulate your mind. For you gamers who don't care, and simply want to pick up a game to play and then put it back down, then more power to you.

I'd rather pick up a game like World of Warcraft, and enjoy it for it's deep story. So now you know what kind of gamer I am. Maybe I'm the overly elitist-sophisticated gamer.

II

So, I was supposed to start developing for my web/game studio's site, but I never got around to it. I ran into some issues with my PC. I was doing a Naxx-10 run last Thursday night, and it turned out that Ventrilo would launch, but wouldn't display the program. This was only after installing my Blackberry software. I attempted to uninstall that, but Ventrilo stil wouldn't launch. So I said, screw it, and reformatted the whole machine. Took me until this morning to get it all set up again. I spent the day reinstalling Apps, and got to the point where I wanted to fix the half opened Vista ports. Did that, restarted, and get BSOD'd so I had to reformat again. This time it's only taking me an hour to set up everything again.

That's after I opened my box to see what the hell was wrong with my front  USB port. They have never worked, but I wanted to see why. It appears the  that the guy who put my machine together after I did it (I guess he felt that the cords didn't have a sort of feng shui...). So I found out he put the front USB cord in an audio port, so I fixed that. Wha-la! Working front USB ports.

I feel overwhelmed with the amount of talking they do in Persona 4 though.

For your listening pleasure: http://www.imeem.com/people/s6fsMuB/music/tqoh5CPY/wale-roof-prodby-45-king/

Ok, so my 360 is broken. And the bad part is, its right when I start getting into it again. I only owned one game for my 360 when it broke(Farcry: Instincts Predator)
and I was getting tired of it. So now my bro has Gears of War for his 360, and I borrowed COD 4 and I have nothing to play it on. Yeah, I can go in my brother's room and play it, but I really miss the joy of sitting in my room, happily enjoying my 360. And as far as the DS goes, All I have is Pokemon Platinum and Shaun White: Snowboarding. Both of which Im getting very bored of. I want to get my hands on Prototype sooooooo bad, but I just don't have the money. I was thinking about trading in my DS lite for it, I thought it over. Would that really be a wise decision? I guess not. A system for a game? I don't think so. Plus with the anticipation of my pre-ordered copy of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, I couldn't sell my ds. Im a huge KH fan and Ive been waiting for a new KH game forever, and not a crappy card-based one haha. But I NEED Prototype. If anyone has it, could you tell me if it's good or some opinions. Please? Well, I guess im gonna go play COD 4. Seeya!

First!

This is my first blog on here. Well, there's actually a good bit to talk about. I guess I should start with.... MY 360 BROKE!!!!!! Im very angry about that. I was playing Farcry and It just made a weird noise and cut off. I turned it back on to find that I had the E74 Error! I requested a box and label from Microsoft to send it in, but that was like a week ago and the page said it would get to me in 4 days so, Im still waiting for that. Anyway, the good part is, Ive been playing the heck outta some Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Ive played it before, but didn't really get into it. So I picked it up about three days ago and figured, "Hey why not!?". So Ive already put over 8 hours of gameplay into it haha. Im already on chapter 4. I WILL beat it this time! Its amazing! So anyway, Ive also been playing a pretty good bit of GOW with my bro (His username is Chibiodgiek18 on here, look him up, he's cool) and Ive actually enjoyed it too. I've never really gotten into many shooters, they're just not my thing, But there's something different about Gears, It just feels...Right. Well, thats it I guess.

So yesterday I was just chilling with my friend Nathan at Taco Bell when I (spur of the moment) decided to go get the tattoo (A Triforce) I had been talking about getting all year! This was my first tattoo, but I wasn't really nervous, just excited. So we found this cool place in town and 45 minutes later I had a Triforce on my forearm (My friend also has one in the same place.) Now were bonded forever by ink and we can always show constant love for our favorite video game franchise!

Anyways back to GOW, I beat it this morning [Only on casual though] so now me and my brother are going back to try and beat it on Hardcore [and then maybe insane? haha I dunno]. Anyways overall it was a great game, albeit a tad too short. I will have to pick up number 2 on my next paycheck and play through it! Since we don't have Wi-fi and I don't feel like lugging my 360 and tv into the computer room, I haven't played any online yet. Hopefully I can go to my cousins tommorrow or something and play a little :]

Anyways, I'm going to get off for tonight, I worked a bunch today and I'm kind of tired haha. See ya-