A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook page as a note. It's kind of really great, so much so that I feel I had to share it with the public world. So here:
Parking Lot Search Algorithm
I have spent a fair amount of time this semester thinking about the optimization of search algorithms, as well as a fair amount of time traveling to and from campus. As I frequently get insufficient sleep, I find myself rushing to class and have to minimize the amount of time spent searching for a parking spot and, ultimately, getting there on time.
Located north of science 4 are a number of parallel arrays of object "parking spot", which contains a boolean value "empty". The search is completed once I reach an object in the array with empty = true. Due to hardware limitations, performing the array search too quickly can cause the user to crash, so it is better to optimize which arrays are searched by performing car.searchsafe() and not car.searchunsafe(). car.searchunsafe() has improved best case running time but has an edge case which can cause huge amounts of slowdown if a parking spot object contains a car object of type university police.
The arrays are contained within data servers called lots, with some lots being more proximal to my destination than others. This seems inefficient to me due to added time spent changing lots, but different lots appear to have different access privileges for users, which is likely the reason for this design. The complex nature of the search algorithm is due to the fact that many users perform it concurrently and my search completion time can increase depending on the number of users performing search and the number of completed searches, as these will change array values. Because of this, algorithm complexity can become even worse than O(n), though this is a rare occurrance. The trick is in knowing where in this unsorted array to begin the search - if many users are performing search in a lot (especially more proximal lots), I will assume that that lot has no or very few parking space objects with empty = true values and I will start my search at a more distal lot. This most frequently occurs during peak user hours of 11:00am-2:00pm.
In ethological animals models of food searching, animals will often search high-risk areas if the potential reward is high and necessary for survival. However, death is a binary quality and being late for class has levels of magnitude, so I will often only search high-risk/high-reward proximal lots when I am not already late. Travel time via bipedal movement will only decrease at a logarithmic rate with increasing linear time spent performing array searches. The competitive nature of the parking spot search algorithm increases amygdala activity in some users - I prefer a dove strategy when challenged by another user, as I do not have the money to replace slashed tires.
There are other extraneous factors to consider when performing an optimized search - Binghamton is renowned for being an undesirable location to spend extended time outside of buildings. The amount of time I will spend searching the more proximal arrays maintains an inverse relationship with the external temperature.
Uhm, I am a nerd and just spent 30 minutes writing this instead of finishing my data structures project :< bai
Shit! I missed a day. Or two. ... or 3. School's keeping me busy, 'kay? :( This and me being away from home at night has prevented me from updating as frequently as I should and for that, I apologize. Which reminds me, if any of you who sent me a PM are reading this and I haven't replied to anything to you've written me, I'm horribly sorry and I swear I will get back to you. Stuff just gets pushed back in the Inbox real quick and I end up forgetting about it. ><
So, the original category for today was "Favorite Protagonist", which I thought was a little silly because I distinctly remember answering that on, like, day 2 or something. With that in mind, I thought up a new category that could allow me to write about something I've been wanting to write about for a while now and that is the many hidden secrets of GTA.
Let's go back in time a bit, back to the olden days of Grand Theft Auto III. Most obvious of them all was the "hidden" sign behind a wall on the second island of Liberty City.
The Gateway Secret This was the first time I'd ever seen an easter egg in a game. My cousin had shown it to me when playing it in front of me and I lost my shit. I couldn't believe that a developer would put hidden messages in games like that and it started a fire in me that's yet to peter out. The dreaded Caravella-itis, where I need to find and collect EVERYTHING. Because of that sign and just how great it was when I saw it for the first time, I've since loved to find all the fun little secrets developers put in their work. And if there's one series that there's been more than it's share of secrets, it's GTA. Now, honestly, I could write up a delectably well-written blog entry about this stuff but it's 22h30, my girlfriend is in bed and I'm exhausted from being up so early. So instead, I'll run down a list of all of my favorite secrets, and even myths, that I've encountered in GTA. Maybe you'll know of them, maybe not. Either way, it'll be a fun trip down memory lane for one of us!
Dick Building
How convenient that all those guests would be there at that particular moment... every night. Dude, I was, like, 14 when I played Vice City. This was hilarious back then. ... still kinda is, honestly. Lights on a building shaped like a penis is a relic of a time gone by, I tells you.
Cement Shoed Victims
LOOK AT THOSE POLYGONAL FAT MAN NIPPLES This was a pretty great one, since it was rumored to be completely false for a while. He was said to be located somewhere near where the biker bar was, but for as much as I tried finding him, I never did. Fucking impossible is what it was. That is, until the day that I actually found him. Oh, how did I ever flip. All that searching was finally validated.
... and then I went back to just seeing how badly I could flip my car over off the steps near the hospital on the third island.
Bigfoot Myth
When GTA: San Andreas came out, I got pretty heavy into this one forum community that I honestly can't remember the name of. They were just dudes finding glitches and such and through there, I found the rumor of Bigfoot actually appearing in the game. What you needed to do was head to the woods on the second island when the weather was foggy and look through a sniper scope in the distant forest. He would, apparently, eventually appear. Hours spent just searching and searching, only to have it be debunked by Rockstar, saying that there was no such thing in the game.
A bummer, but a testament to just how fucking insane that game was. That urban legends were appearing and spreading like wildfire... that's pretty special-- something no game has yet to replicate.
Plane Crash
Another urban legend that quickly spread across the forums, although this one turned out to be true! In extremely rare cases, a Dodo plane would just fall out of the sky near the player and explode. Nothing else. I thought that was pretty silly until it happened one single time in the 150+ hours I dished into that game. Fun stuff, especially when you tell your friends about with no evidence to prove it or replicate it!
Heaven
If you flew through the ceiling, there was a warp point in the black nether that would warp you to the outside skybox in which all the other buildings were located.
This was probably GTA: San Andreas' biggest glitch/secret. Inside the first gym near Grove Street is a hole in the ceiling in which you can fly through using a jetpack. When doing so, you access an area of the sky that's above the actual ceiling when in the normal game world. See, what Rockstar did was create all of the building interiors and set them in a normally-inaccessible area of the sky. When a player would walk through the entry point in the game world, it would warp them to the appropriate building in the sky. Since everything was closed off, players wouldn't know they weren't actually in the middle of nowhere. There were no streets or anything up there, but every interior had a set location across the vast map. Restaurants, gyms, cutscene backgrounds... all of them were up there somewhere, but the biggest area of them all was...
That's right, Liberty City. There was one mission in the game that had you travel back there to kill some dude or something, but you returned back to SA as the mission ended. If you managed to get there, (Flying the jetpack for that long was tricky. If not done properly, you'd fall into a secondary skybox that was filled with water.) you could walk around in a small section of it too, which was neat. Hot coffee ain't got nothing on this secret, if you ask me.
Jimmy Hoffa
Probably the most widespread urban legend of them all is the Vice City-based location of Jimmy Hoffa's dead body. The game wasn't particularly the best with handling camera clipping, so driving a boat under the bridges in Vice City would cause the camera to clip through the supports and effectively let you see through them. It was told that if you did it on the northwestern most bridge (That connects Prawn Island and... whatever the fuck the second, bigger island was called), Jimmy Hoffa's body would be incased in the concrete inside it. Clever, but completely false-- on that bridge and every other in the game.
Happy Easter!
This is just depressing me. Why isn't there cool shit like this in games anymore? Oh, self-awareness. There was an accessible helipad on the second Vice City island that, if you jumped off at the right angle, would lead you to a hidden room with a nice, big chocolate easter egg.
Now, there are many other secrets in the series, from easter eggs to funny signs, but all of them pale in comparison to the biggest one of them all.
The Ghost Town
This was fucking huge. The opening cinematic to GTA III (which details your main character robbing a bank and escaping) was in-engine and "recorded" in a little town set far off into the nether northwest of the third island. There were two ways of seeing it, one of which is the excruciatingly frustrating way of actually getting there.
The Ghost Town doesn't actually have any solid ground (that I can remember, at least) and is the size of... about a single city block. There's nothing particularly special about it other than it being a floating part of the city that shouldn't really exist, yet is there for people to discover anyways. If you could manage to fly the Dodo, it was an incredibly satisfying reward that I'm glad Rockstar left in.
Oh, and the second way of seeing it was climbing up the mountain on the third island and using a sniper rifle to peek through the mountain and zoom in on the city that would render-in when zoomed out to the max.
Hi! I'm here to DESTROY ALL OF YOU. There are very few antagonists in gaming that pose as much of a threat as the Reapers do. Can you honestly name another group of villains that methodically extinct entire species when they become the dominant race in the galaxy? Shit no, you can't!
And they're not just my favorite baddies because of the insanely ridiculous threat they pose, either. They're my favorite because of just how awesome the story behind the Protheans and the Reapers are. I picked them because how great the end of Mass Effect 1 is. I picked them because Sovereign was the shit. The simple idea of them is genius and mysterious, a combination of some incredibly inventive thinking and some amazing sci-fi artwork and design. The end of 1 and the final cutscene in 2 gets me ancy-in-the-pantsy at what to expect out of Mass Effect 3, almost entirely because I want to know how you stop a force as destructive as the Reapers.
My serious face. I was thinking pretty hard about this one, since I wasn't sure if I should go by best cinematics (In which case, Blizzard would of won. Duh.) or by best "this-halts-gameplay-to-progress-the-story" type of cutscene. I chose the latter, considering the title made more sense to me that way. Once that was settled, I had an even longer internal conflict about which should win-- Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age II?
Mass Effect 2 has the genius addition of the Interrupt system but Dragon Age II's dialogue wheel and writing is so much better... And after much thought, I ended up giving it to DAII thanks to me realizing just how great of a character Hawke is. At least, my Hawke.
Though the category is about cutscenes, the interactive dialogue sequences and the interludes between Varric and the Chantry Seeker easily take it for me. Mass Effect 1 and 2 has some incredible scenes in it that I still remember as vividly as when playing through it, but the framed narrative in Dragon Age II, as well as all the regular conversation stuff, is so perfectly executed that I can't help but side with it. You can check Day 15 (link below) for my complete thoughts on Dragon Age II and why I love the narrative in it so much. There are more "cutscene"-like games that I could of given this to but any opportunity for me to praise the game's narrative paces and devices is one I will take.
I really should update these during the day when I have plenty of free time as opposed to waiting at the very last moment :( Fuckin' late again, how embarrassing.
I guess now is a good time as ever to talk about Dragon Age II, huh?
I'm 30 hours into the game and I'm in the last act, probably a mission or two away from completely finishing it. I'll keep away from spoiler business and some of the end-game stuff since I haven't beaten DA2 yet, but also because remotely hinting at what the game's end has in store would be incredibly dickish of me. Instead, I'll just go over what I absolutely adore about it and what absolutely bugs the shit out of me. Luckily, the latter is comprised of only a few minor issues, of which are hardly anything to put a dent DAII's resilient armor.
If I stare at you long enough, maybe a plot will develop After playing through both games in the series now, I'm still unsure if Bioware has a greater sense of direction that they want to move Dragon Age in. Mass Effect, of which DA2 has taken heavy influence from, established in the very first game an immediate threat. Despite sharing different antagonists in each separate title of the franchise, said threat persists throughout the entire series. It made each game feel unique in it's own right while still belonging to the same universe, one you began to deeply care about when you know who the greater enemy was. Dragon Age, however, lacks this. The first game immediately set up the Darkspawn as the enemy and the Blight as the bigger threat, but this has all but been abandoned in the second title. In fact, I'm pretty sure I can count Darkspawn encounters in Dragon Age II in one hand. Literally. I understand the caveat of the Blight only happens every thousand years of whatever it is, but if that is the case, then I feel like some more forward-thinking plan should of been put into place. Dragon Age II doesn't have an actual antagonist until the last few hours of the game and that makes absolutely no sense to me. The vast majority of the story lacks any driving direction what-so-ever in terms of plot development. For a game that relies on fiction so heavily, this is nothing short of a major oversight.
The other problem I have with the game is the ... well, it lacks scope. The first game had an absolutely massive world that could be explored and had a variety of major cities and towns that you could visit, each one more different than the last. I felt like it was a defining characteristic of the game and it baffles me that they took the complete opposite direction in Dragon Age II. You're now in an area called the Free Marches, which consists of the incredibly large city of Kirkwall and it's surrounding areas which... is two mountains and a beach area. Oh, and a few dungeons that you will have the pleasure of re-visiting over and over because the game recycles dungeon environments like a motherfucker. There's no Orzammar, no dalish elf village (well, there's a camp but it's so barren that calling it so is a little generous), no gigantic winter-grounded churches that hide a high dragon boss fight... there's literally -nothing- to explore anymore. Everything is triggered by quests-- even the secret bosses. The High Dragon, Hybris, Xebenkeck, Varterral... none of these are found by simply exploring and that's a huge bummer. I can completely understand why the need to make a more focused game is important to something that relies on narrative so heavily but I find it upsetting that this would be the way they'd go about it. The upside is that the more focused region allows them to seriously center the story of the game on the conflicts they present and that's where the game shines most, but there was a sense of adventure that accompanied the first game that is completely lacking in Dragon Age II-- and that's an honest shame.
Even the menus look gorgeous. The layout, the type, the colors... just perfect. Luckily, the game more than makes up for it's flaws by giving you some of the best story-telling, writing, voice acting, characters, art, lore, combat, quests and interaction. Sound familiar? ... Yeah, didn't think so, considering Dragon Age: Origins lacked all of those. While I greatly appreciate what Origins did, I had absolutely no interest what-so-ever in anything it had to peddle to me. I hated all of the characters and the story had me completely uninterested. The quests were just as much of a bore, the combat was laughably poor (on consoles, I'm unfortunately incapable of playing it on my current computer) and the entire game reeked of a generic tone and style that, as an artist, drove me insane. Nothing stood out. Nothing had an image. Origins embodies generic to a point that I never want to see it again.
I don't know if they hired a new art staff or if they just felt more inspired but whoever was in charge of the art direction for Dragon Age II, I salute you and would give anything to have an apprenticeship under you. The design of the characters, the loading screens, the concept art, the symbols for the different factions, the architecture... it's all so inspired and creatively distinct. I can't think of another game like it and that's so much more than I could ever say than it's predecessor. I absolutely adore every bit of visual prowess DA2 has to offer and I hope they stick with it because, like they wanted, Dragon Age II now has a defining style. And it's one that I love from top to bottom.
The combat is also something I hope they stick with. As stated above, I didn't play Origins on my PC and didn't with DA2 either, so my experience is strictly from the PS3 version's standpoint. On the PS3, the combat in Origins was complete ass. Managing tactics was absolutely impossible thanks to the inability to queue up commands and the radial menus in which I tried to do so were poorly designed and beyond complex. Rings upon layers upon sub-sections upon rings... fucking... gross. Just gross. Controlling all of that stuff in real-time was also a pain-in-the-ass. I really wish I could of played the first one on PC, as I think I'd of enjoyed it a lot more. Thankfully, DA2 made some substantial improvements with combat that makes the first game essentially obsolete. You now have full direct control over both movement and your main attack, making it play much more like a hack-and-slash. Skills don't have casting times, they just cast instantly and managing your various skills is now perfectly doable thanks to the radial menu pausing during combat and the ability to queue commands for your entire party in said menu. There are no misses or dodges, everything happens in real time and you can avoid any attack by simply moving-- something the game takes advantage of in many instances. It's a much more engaging experience that I sincerely hope they keep and tinker a bit in the next game to make it even more enjoyable.
But what's kept me coming back for 30 hours? The narrative. I don't want to say anything specific because I want everyone to enjoy this, in the fullest, by themselves but I'll say this: I think I may like Dragon Age II's main lore more than Mass Effect's. To those who know me personally, you know how fucking huge that is. While the story lacks any form of serious direction for it's first... well... 15 hours, I was glued to the screen thanks to incredibly sharp dialogue and voice acting that accompanies the absolutely fascinating fiction Bioware's crafted for the game. The history of the world, city and characters have so much more breath and imagination to them than anything the first game ever had. There's conflict in the characters in DA2 that's unlike anything else I've played and it makes me fear the end of the game. I don't want it to end. I want to know what happens to Kirkwall and Hawke, even long after the game's events have finished.
Oh fuck, and I haven't even mentioned how fucking great it is to have a main character that's voiced. Female Hawke is so brilliant. Completely on par, if not better, than female Shepard.
I can't wait to finish it tomorrow just as much as I fear doing so. Dragon Age II has it's fair share of problems but it makes up for it in so many other areas that calling it a disappointment or anything similarly negative is just out-right nuts. DA2 is an absolutely brilliant game and if you're still hesitant on playing it, forget your worries and ignore the elitist fans. You're missing out on one of the best modern RPGs by doing so.
Ack! Sorry! This is what Mad Men does to man. ... well, that and watching Louis C.K.'s stand-up with my girlfriend.
Nothing special for this one. I absolutely love Dragon Age II's art style, so I've had this wallpaper up for about... well, since the game came out, I guess. The loading screens, the architecture, the character design and the graphical design of the emblems and symbols in the world... I'm unsure what others think of the style since the overall impression I'm getting from fans of the series is that they're whiny bitches and hate the game. All I know is that it's given an actual face to the game, one that the first and it's expansion were very sorely lacking.
That said, it's not to say I don't have my problems with the game but that's definitely for another blog. I'll write-up something once I finish the game.
Apologies for the day-late update. D: Turns out that going to pick up my lady companion from work, go to the grocery store, come back, watch a documentary and then play GTA with my friend online takes up far more time than I thought it would because before I knew it, it was like, 2 AM.
But with that said, we march on with today's update! :D
Dude, back then, these graphics were the shit. If you've ever visited the wiki page for THPS 2, you'd probably have guessed that this might of been a contender for the category. ... Granted, you wouldn't really need to guess all that much considering I put the cover art right there in the banner-- but that's besides the point. The point I'm trying to make is that I might of played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, as well as the first and other subsequent sequels, a lot. And by a lot, I mean to exhaustion.
The Tony Hawk series is probably the biggest landmark of my childhood. It got me into playing videogames to completion, into getting a lot better at games (say what you will, but some of the challenges in that series are fucked) and into a lot of music that I normally wouldn't of been exposed to. It also got me into skateboarding, which had a pretty serious influence on me and more-than-helped craft the person I am today. The way I dress, the way I act, the way I don't do sports other than skateboarding and snowboarding... It sounds silly but... I owe a lot to the sport and even more-so to the game.
I could of picked either 1, 3 or THUG since I've played all of those to death as well, but I picked 2 because that... that was it, man. Everything I wrote above, this is the game that made it all click. I don't remember when I got the game or how I got it-- it's like a dream, where all I can remember is being into it far after it began. Sitting in front of that shitty Mitsubishi TV we had the PS1 hooked up to and beating the living shit out the game. Goals, cash, stats... everything. It was like a mission to me and I loved every god-damned second of it.
I also, unfortunately, own a copy of it on GBC. It is not good. At all. And the bummer in all this? THPS2 has some terrific outtakes and behind-the-scenes videos that you unlock by finding all the gaps and ... well, beating the game to absolute completion. There's some seriously funny stuff in there (like seeing the Neversoft dudes bail on skateboards) but the most heart-wrenching ones to watch are those with scenes of them making the game. It's them just having a fucking blast with making it. You can tell that those dudes had a love for the sport that was unmatched by anyone else on the face of the earth and it's that energy that made the series so fucking incredible. From the first one all the way to Underground, Neversoft embodied the sport in digital form in every possible facet, from the dangers and risks to the spirit and attitude. Watching that footage makes you realize that type of development is a relic of a time gone by but, man, I guarantee you that if you get a couple of those guys together again and have them work on an indie-sized project, you'd get the same amount of creativity and expression that the series has when it started.
... ugh. Seriously harshing my groove over here. If you've never played the THPS series, find a copy of 1 or 2 on the PS1 and see what a game with heart and enthusiasm for it's subject is. You owe it to yourself if you like games.
And the winner for the longest title is... yeah, Devil Summoner 2. Actually, the first game's title might beat it in length of characters.
Err, whatever the case, DS2 is a fantastic game that a lot of you might not have actually picked up on your radar, what with the Persona series gaining a rapid amount of traction since 3. And that, friends, is a gosh-darned shame it just so happens that Devil Summoner 2 is one of the best action RPGs available right now.
The game is set in early-century Japan and has a look and feel that's completely unique from anything else you'll play on the PS2. The music, the design of the world, characters and menus are all period-perfect and the gameplay is loads of fun. The combat is completely real-time and features an excellent balance of gunplay, swordplay and magic/summoning-- all happening at a pace that keeps things both managable and exciting. The story is great, the dialogue is well-written and the story's paced in a way that I sincerely wished more RPGs would mimic. There's an incredible amount of side-quests to take on, too, so fans from the older-school of the genre will definitely be able to find something to like in this one, though the game's distinctly unique setting and gameplay will without a doubt leave both old and new players room to grow fond.
It can't be too expensive at this point and last I checked, my local EB still had a few copies. I'm sure you can find it if you give it a look. If you've got a functioning PS2 and you're looking for some seriously excellent questing, I highly suggest you check out Devil Summoner 2. It shouldn't be missed if you're a fan of both SMT and RPGs in general. Plus, you'll get an awesome plushie of Jack Frost in a Raidou outfit. :D
So, here's an actual blog, which is really just a few paragraphs I wanted to donate to stuff. I went to go see The Adjustment Bureau just about 3 hours ago with my girlfriend (and ended up really liking it, despite being marred by a slightly silly ending) and it turns out that Nintendo set up a booth there to demo the 3DS. Eager to see the tech in my hands for the first time, we both checked it out and... well, it's neat.
Like this, except in 3D ... until I move my head an inch to the left I'll be upfront and say that I'm honestly amazed that the 3D actually works as advertised, and that it looks surprisingly convincing. I got to fiddle around with one of their AR games and Street Fighter IV 3D, or whatever they're calling it. The immediate thing that I noticed is that as soon as you move it a little bit off-axis of your direct line of vision, the 3D effect completely goes away and you're left with a confusing screen that looks like it's doubling on itself. While I understand the limitations of the technology, I was rather disappointed that it was that sensitive. I was essentially forced to play with the system on the demo stand or clasping it firmly to make sure I wasn't messing up my view. While this probably wouldn't be an issue while playing at home or something, I play my DSi and PSP on the bus and metro to and from school, both of which rattle and shake enough to toss me around in the dinky little seats that the city refuse to spend more budget money on. If I'm holding a system that absolutely requires me to have a dead-on line of sight for the 3D effect to work, but will not do so where I need it to, then I have absolutely no reason to spend $250 on it. In fact, at that point, I'm just spending money on the same system with an analog stick and a widescreen upper monitor. I've done some pretty awful purchasing decisions in my life, but that would probably top the list. And that's not to mention that SSFIV ran at half the framerate in 3D. It sounds like a silly thing to complain about but believe me, it makes all the difference when playing it for real.
And yeah, I get that it's more powerful under the hood but that's not why I want to play games on the go. That it's on par on terms of the Wii is irrelevant to me. That's not what I'm looking for when I'm playing games away from home. I want something to distract me and pass time, not for something to fuckin' amaze me wherever I am because that gets old-- fast. Right, PSP? ... wait, no, DJMAX 3, I swear I didn't mean it that way.
It only does about 25% of my game library While I tend to play on my PS3 and 360 a fair amount, the game time spent on the PS3 far outweighs that spent on Microsoft's platform. It's not at all an "I like Sony better lololol" reason or anything, it's just simply the same reason most others will pick the 360-- all my friends are PS3 owners. Seems to me that the US is generally dominated by the Xbox 360, while over here you'll find that Sony users kind of outweigh Xbox users. Couldn't tell you why, though the sole exception to that rule are dirty redneck Quebecers. But the day I count them into any kind of equation is the day I throw myself off the overpass that's a block away from here.
I've got more trophies than achievements, I have more friends on my PSN list and I have more purchases on the PSN store, so I invariably end up playing most of my games on Sony's console. Unless the 360 version proves to be substantially better, I'll end up playing third-party games on my PS3, though my 360 is there when I need it for platform exclusives. I just fear turning it on any time I play a game since I always get the impression it's only moments away from blowing up. That thing sounds like an airplane turbine, I tell you.
That said, I love them both equally. The only upside to the PS3 is that it doesn't threaten to throw an E74 error at me every time I put a disc in.
So... uhh... yeah. I took a break. Sorry. Things got very very busy on my end and with the impending threat of Mid-terms, I needed to pull back for a bit and focus on both schoolwork and some personal problems I had brewing. BUT! Those are now taken care of and I'm on Reading Week, so I can get back into this and finish the second part of the last blog and get back on track with this stuff! :D
BANG BANG I am honestly a little weirded out by picking a Call of Duty game for anything in this blog but when I started going into heavy thinking for what game consists of the best gameplay currently available, I couldn't get Black Ops out of my head. The thing is that I was also torn with considering Yakuza 3, so I ended up giving the deal to both games. I've already explained why I think Yakuza 3 is so much fun to play, so I'll gladly carry on and explain why Black Ops is just about the best first-person experience currently available on any platform.
... Actually, it really doesn't take all that much explaining. If you've ever played a Call of Duty game (which I'm sure you have if you've breathed air at some point in your lifetime) then you probably more than understand why this series is so god-damned popular. The snappiness of the controls, the preciseness of the aiming, the speed of the running, the animation of weapon reloading, the intensity of online matches, the customization, the wager matches, the inane variety of game modes, the campaign, the killstreaks, the perks, the equipment, the map design, the nazi zombie mode, the killcam....
... fuck this, I'm going to play some Domination on the new maps. The reason why Call of Duty is so popular? It's because it's a highlight of excellent gameplay design. Everything works just so fucking well together. The combination of everything I wrote above makes for an experience unmatched by any other shooter or multiplayer game. Seeing those hitmarkers pop up when shooting a dude is now a staple in every modern FPS but somehow... somehow, it just feels like home when you're doing it on Nuketown in a TDM match.
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