Howdy folks. The past week has been littered with more Starcraft II leagues play with a ton of buddies. There seems to be a good amount of fatigue going around with all the talk about Starcraft II, but it's something that my buddies and I are still thoroughly enjoying. However, while playing some 3v3 matches, we noticed that there was a team in our division (yes, that would be Bronze) that were pulling off gangbusters of points while we were still playing our matches. This is where we truly realized how flawed the ranking system is, as all the players in the team were either Platinum or Diamond level in their 1v1 sets...but made sure to lose all the placement matches to drop into Copper or Bronze and sweep up wins for their fucking achievements. Blizzard, do us all a favor: add an ELO ranking system to each individual and stop fucktards from abusing your systems.
With that said...GAMES!!!
Was That With Four or Five "Uh"s?
Yeah, it's like that. Shank does exactly what I wanted it to do: offer up a beat-em-up game that plays for around three to four hours, gives me a bunch of weapons to kill people with, and busts out a level of difficulty that might make a person break a controller in their hands. While no controller-breaking happened over here, Shank definitely has a couple of moments where you'll bang your head against the wall and grit your teeth while trying to hold back profanity...almost like a coin-op Final Fight! That's on the highest difficulty setting, though. On Normal, the game play pretty straight-forward, getting dull and repetitive around the same point that all beat-em-ups get dull and repetitive. The beauty of the art by Jeff Agala is incredibly satisfying (and something that causes great jealousy in me), but the animation feels more like a Flash game that doesn't fully realize the fluidity of what Agala is drawing. Regardless, the only major problem I personally had with the game was that true analog controls with the shooting would've been nice, but it is instead restricted to an odd diagonal slant when looking up or down. Other than that, it's a fun little game for $15, even if it's short. I haven't played any multiplayer campaign yet, but since there are achievements for it and I want the S-rank, I'm sure I'll get to it sometime soon.
Marketing Success!
There are no sex shops in Still Creek. Sorry. When Dead Rising 2: Case Zero was announced, a lot of folks weren't happy about the idea of paying for what they felt would just be an elaborate demo of the full Dead Rising 2 release. When the $5.00 price point was announced, as well as details of what the game would entail, a lot of people changed their minds pretty quick. When people bought Dead Rising 2: Case Zero this week and realized "holy shit, it actually IS its own game", it has hopefully shut those people the fuck up. Needless to say, though, Case Zero has accomplished the goal that Capcom set out to do: have Case Zero out in time to get people excited about playing Dead Rising 2. It worked on me, and hopefully you guys have already picked it up. It's great to see new business models like this become a success, as this little game focuses on offering story setup for players as well as offering some pretty deep gameplay features. Moreover, I would rather pay my $5.00 to the company for a digital download that allows me to carry over progress to the full game than give my $5.00 to Gamestop for a pre-order "beta" that doesn't do me any good when the actual game comes out. If anything, Case Zero is far more rewarding in far more ways. Therefore, I say "congratulations" to Capcom, and hopefully, everyone else looking to offer this same form of downloadable gaming will learn a lot from this stellar first example (Red Faction Armageddon, I'm looking at you!). For more about the game, I happened to write a review over here!
Telltale + Robert Zemeckis = Happy!
P-P-P-P-PLEEEEASE, TELLTALE!!! With details coming out about Telltale's upcoming adventures with the Back To The Future franchise, it puts a giddy smile on my face that we can all...at some point...witness the greatness of Marty McFly and Doc Brown having some great romps through timelines and expanding on the universe of Back To The Future. At the same time, it makes me think of this: if Back To The Future is a hit, does that mean Telltale might be able to coax someone into the Roger Rabbit franchise? Zemeckis has already said that a new movie is in the works for the "other" waskly wabbit, and given that the original NES game was already an adventure game in its own odd way, it would seem like a natural fit. Moreover, the great level of humor that the Telltale guys possess in their writing teams makes me confident that Roger Rabbit would be a solid fit for them. What do you guys think? Should Roger Rabbit be given the spotlight he deserves and find a place to stay with Telltale? ________________________________________
That's about it. As an off-hand note, I FINALLY got my own Xbox Live account. Therefore, if you were already on my friend's list and you are asking "who the fuck is BigBearinIt", you now know that it is me!
For anyone who has been participating in the onslaught of carnage that is Monday Night Combat since its release, there is a strong chance that you walk away from your console after many matches feeling like an abused spouse. You absolutely hate Monday Night Combat because it yells at you, treats you like shit, and fucks you over in ways that you didn't know you could be fucked over...but when it's good, MAN...it's fucking GOOD!
I just wanted a hug! Everybody loves donuts! Recently, I S-ranked Monday Night Combat, and there was a sudden swell of relief. I said to myself, "Josh, you never have to play this game again if you don't want to. You don't have to be beaten and bruised anymore. You can save that for Starcraft II now." I then questioned why I was talking to myself for once and replied "...but dood, Monday Night Combat is a good game, and I want to play more of it." This begins my downward spiral into pure unadulterated flogged-by-boards-with-nails-embedded Hell. Why do I love a game so much that obviously has SOOOOO many fucking problems in it? Do I like the abuse? Is Monday Night Combat made from poppies or something, and I just need one more hit? While my measly rank 36 isn't much to scream home about, it does mean I've played enough of the game to know what the problems are...and know why I have to sit out on this game for days at a time.
The biggest problem with the game is this: it's balanced with the idea of "six player coordinated and communicating teams" in mind. That is not how the game is played, and in turn, it breaks the fuck out of the game. You'll get three Supports on the opposite team that block off the same corners every time, preventing your escape because your teammates refuse to work AS A TEAM. It's astonishing to me when I play a game like Halo 3, where team objective matches have people ACTUALLY DOING THE OBJECTIVES...and yet something like Monday Night Combat is thoroughly incapable of getting a crowd of people that know how to play as a team. The imbalance of the game is actually because it's TOO balanced.
Of course you've got juice! You never left your base for it! There is also the matter of the arenas, or particularly how the arenas seem to be each be geared to the same shit happening every time. Every time Steel Peel shows up, I veto that fucker. Why? You'll find each team has at least three people that roll Sniper so they can sit at their fucking base and snipe through a small area directly to your spawn point. I fucking LOATHE spawn camping, as it is seriously one of the single worst practices in gaming. A coordinated team would be able to squash that sniper easily with a pair of assassins. However, that's very rarely the case. There's also LazeRazor arena, which typically finds three Support guys rolling over to a base and setting up Firebases on each of the exits...then overhealing those turrets through a wall with their heal guns. Two people, say an Assault and Gunner with grenade launchers, could take a Firebase down pretty easily. Sadly, there's not many people that want to team up on a death-dealing turret. Instead, they'd rather jump pad up and try to kill the guy healing it rather than kill the turret, then the guy. Those same Support guys can then throw Air Strikes the entire time on the turrets, allowing their bots to run in and dominate the other team's Moneyball. The worst of it is that the map also allows for a team to look directly into the other teams spawn point, a section that is gated off. There is no way for the pinned team to make a comeback whatsoever. All of these maps have glaring weaknesses and vulnerabilities for both teams, and these weaknesses are incredibly easy to exploit, leading less to a "match" and more to "rage".
Uber has listed a number of known problems, whether they be glitches or exploits or bugs or whatever, on their forums. My question is this: was Monday Night Combat complete upon release and we're just now seeing the problems, or did they jump at the opportunity to be this unique multiplayer game on XBL that could also get the publicity that gets put behind Summer of Arcade games? Sure, there is a small team of doods working on the game, and I commend those fine folks for bringing a game like this to the consoles. Unfortunately, it has gone from feeling completely fucking awesome...to completely fucking rushed out the door to meet a release date and not thoroughly tested before it launched.
It's with this that I bid you ado, Monday Night Combat, until another day. Once Uber has put out a good handful of updates to turn you into a more solid game, we will meet again. May you all go forth and learn to build turrets...and play other classes...and maybe work as a team.
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Howdy folks. It's gonna be a concise and focused blog this week. It will also probably be a rage-filled blog this week. A lot of that is probably due to the fact that I hate the on-ramp to I-35 at the "Baylor Food Court", which is essentially ten restaurants smack dab in one area. It's the exit right before the exit I use to go to work, and sadly, I go to work an hour earlier than my scheduled time...which puts me at this one particular exit at 5:00pm. Rush hour. Fucking lovely. Now that school is back in session, it also means that I get to deal with that small section of the highway going 15 MILES A FUCKING HOUR! Seriously, WHO the FUCK goes 15 MPH on the goddamn highway at any point? What's the point of some rich Baylor kiddie driving his fucking Porsche if he's going up on the on-ramp AT 15 MILES A FUCKING HOUR? *ugh* I'd take the backroads, but the backroads go through the ghetto. I'd rather die in a car crash than get shot.
With that said...GAMES!!!
Deathspank Can Suck My Deathdick
Funny...that's the same look I had playing most of this fucking game! Plain and simple, I had high hopes going into Deathspank that I would enjoy the game. While many have criticized it for being not-so-funny without reading tons of text and generally grindy, I thought to myself "I have little issue with grindy hack 'n' slash games". I spent forever on Champions of Norrath and World of Warcraft that I know a grind pretty damn well. Unfortunately, no one ever conveyed to me that Deathspank is pretty much eight hours long of the WORST part of grinding. Sure, the mechanics of the game - like swinging a sword and moving around - work just fine. The art style is pretty interesting to take in, and the areas have a good amount of variation from each other that you can tell the differences of where you are currently located. Nonetheless, it's the actual part of playing the game that pisses me off tremendously.
You know those parts in RPG games...the ones where someone tells you "hey, go get these" and you do it, bring it back, and they say "cool, now go get these"...and you do it...and they make you go get something else...then tell you to talk to someone on the other side of the world that you have to run to through shit you can't fight like ghosts in a haunted forest...and then they tell you they have no clue what the fuck is going on so you go all the way back to the guy who sent you there in the first place only for him to tell you to go fetch something else that is completely insignificant? Welcome to Deathspank, because between that happening pretty much every single time you talk to someone, an overarching story that really isn't that funny and is kind of pointless, and killing shitloads of enemies by smashing on one button over and over while literally selling every other piece of gear that you collect because you can have the game auto-equip the best armor you pick up...
I mean it wholeheartedly when I say that Deathspank is all of the worst parts of RPG games thrown into a $15 package with 200 easy achievement points. It's a fucking joke. I rarely feel like I've wasted my money on an Arcade game, but I wish I could get a goddamn refund here. Why would anyone create a generally unfunny game with a weak story and a grindfest of the worst grinding possible? People, do NOT buy this game. It's not worth it. The first hour is charming and interesting, but it quickly turns into a complete worthless endeavor, something that you will never redeem your soul from. I'm sure that some will say they found it to be charming and it's not that bad of a game, and you are partially correct. It's not broken. It's just not designed well from the standpoint of an RPG...or an action game...or a hack 'n' slash...unless you enjoy fucking off with no purpose for eight hours. __________________________________________
That's it. There you go, folks. Next week, I should have the skinny on Shank (because you know me - I'm always a week behind on video games...at LEAST a week behind), and hopefully, I can start keeping these blogs a little more focused and small in size.
Howdy folks. It's been a long two weeks, as my work schedule has been all kinds of moved around and prevented me from playing many games. It did allow me to have my first real "I can go out on the weekends and do stuff" moment in the last four years or so, which was super nice. My high school reunion went amazingly, and it's odd how all the shit-talking and grudges in high school go away with alcohol. The whole thing was pretty damn great, and it's something that I'd definitely do again in five or ten years. I also got to see The Expendables last weekend, and let me tell you: that movie is something else. Flaws and all, that movie is everything I could've hoped for. If you haven't seen it yet, you should do so...multiple times. This week is Piranha 3D, which I won't get to see until Monday...but I'm expecting greatness.
Get Rid of The Tomb Raider Franchise!
Luckily, none of the pages were stuck together. Don't get me wrong - Legend and Anniversary were pretty alright games, but as it stands, the Tomb Raider franchise of third-person shooters with puzzles and platforming have become completely stale. Sure, the first two games may have been worthwhile, but after that, there's just too much negativity attached to the name. Now that Eidos is under the Square Enix house, change focus over to this new style of game that has been shown in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Hands down, I think Lara: GoL is one of the best games to hit this year, and it shows a deft new direction for a flailing franchise that demands to be played and seen.
The thing that makes Lara's latest adventure so great is that it's exciting! While the puzzles aren't going to take a massive stretch of thinking to solve, they are puzzles that give you a good sense of accomplishment after you've completed them. The level designs are really well done, and even more impressive, the multi-tiered designs allow you to see previous areas of the level you may have explored below you. The game does a really good job of never making you feel like you are out of the level until you see the "Level Complete" pop up at the end. The combat borrows a bit from dual analog shooters by using the right trigger button shoot while the right analog stick aims. Mixing all of this stuff together, however, gets you all giddy with joy when you are blazing through the levels. It's that pacing of immediacy that makes Lara Croft feel right.
Unfortunately, my time with the game has only been single player, as I have not dropped into the co-op stuff just quite yet. I wanted to get through the single player game to see just how different it is when playing in co-op. Since there is no Xbox Live co-op just quite yet, I'll probably be checking out the local co-op on the game at some point over the next week, and I'll hit a final impression of the game in next week's blog. Needless to say, though, the game is really damn good...and personally, it's worth more than the $15 asking price. So please, Square Enix...drop that fucking Tomb Raider franchise and give us more of this first.
How To Define "Balance" In Monday Night Combat
Don't leave home without your LazeRazor! I've heard a lot of bitching and complaining about how Monday Night Combat leans to one side more than the other when it comes to classes. Support is OP because of heal guns and firebases, Snipers are OP because of the map designs allowing base camping from your own base, Gunners are OP because Slam slows down and they shoot shitloads of bullets...the list goes on and on. As I played some MNC this past week, a light bulb clicked in my head: the game IS balanced, but the balance is broken because no one plays as a fucking team. The matches I played in were with complete strangers, and I tried to get them to work together. Of course, I was greeted back with comments that are to be expected from a crowd that uses pot leaf titles on their Modern Warfare 2 profiles (in other words, being told "shut up you fucking fuck" or the equivalent of). Nonetheless, we were losing, and it was all because the other team...who also wasn't playing like a team very much...were picking classes that would go against singular players. Essentially, I'm just trying to say that the reason people are bitching about classes is because you aren't playing the game the way it was intended - as a team-based objective game with some strategy and tactical involvement - and it has led to many classes looking OP because one player against another player can be a frustrating fight.
For my final thoughts on the game, I will say that it is not the game's fault that the community playing it are a bunch of uncoordinated fucktards. Mind you, there are the intelligent few who will work as a team and literally wreck the opposition. However, without any form of honest teamwork showing up on XBL, I fear that this gem of a game will get lost in the fold by the time the end of the year rolls around. It's a sad thing to say, but it's also an easily understandable truth. Here's to hoping the community gets better, but once I've got my achievements off the game, I'm just going to take a prolonged break from it.
Now That School Is Back In Session...
...it makes me miss the Summer of Arcade. This year was pretty excellent, although the price points were the same for all the games. While I only picked up Limbo, Monday Night Combat, and Lara Croft, I'm sure I'll pick up the other two at some point...or at least Hydro Thunder Hurricane. I've heard nothing good about Castlevania HD, and frankly, it's not the game I want it to be. In comparison to last year, I think the lineup has been really solid. It has me wondering what next year will hold, as well as makes me realize all the Arcade games coming later in the year (Shank, Comic Jumper, A World of Keflings, etc) that I need to get when they get released.
Hey, this means I'm getting 400 points back! AWESOME! Oh, shit...it also just made me realize that I have 800 points just sitting on my fucking account that some customer could use. YIKES! Need to do something with those. Maybe I'll pick up the Dragon Age DLC that's on sale this week. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll just end up buying the DLC and forget about it as I play Starcraft II, right? ____________________________________________________________________________
That's it for this week, folks. If you haven't picked up any of the Summer of Arcade games yet, then I'd suggest at least picking up Limbo, Monday Night Combat, and Lara Croft. They are seriously worth the money attached to them, and you'll get multiple playthroughs with no problem.
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Howdy folks. I'm feeling pretty old today, as I'm about seven hours away from my 10-year high school reunion. At the ripe young age of 28, there are a lot of things that have made me feel old over the years: KoRn's "Blind" and Marilyn Manson's "Rock is Dead" playing on network TV commercials, knowing that I remember the day The Shawshank Redemption was released in theatres, and of course, there's that fact that folks that I went to high school with are husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, etc. It's an odd feeling to know that you are actually an adult. Well, I'm as much of an adult as I care to be anyways. lol Nonetheless, looking forward to tonight. With that said, VIDJA GAMES!!!
Red Rovering...
Coming out of left field like a pee-wee player with a bad bladder, Monday Night Combat is something that Xbox Live needs on its service - a team-oriented game that will allow those who aren't playing Team Fortress 2 on PC something to sink their teeth into. Unfortunately, both the fact that it's team-oriented and on Xbox Live play against it, as Xbox Live is little more than a cesspool infested with little kids and immature adults that rarely care about anything more than themselves and their own achievements/accomplishments/etc. It's this solid fact that breaks the game in some ways, and it's a goddamn shame. When the game is on and your team is making headway, Monday Night Combat is a fucking blast! Inversely, it can be the most infuriating thing ever as you yell into your microphone over and over again "BUILD SOME FUCKING TURRETS, YOU NUMBNUT FUCKSTAINS" to be greeted with laughter and "I'm not wasting my money on that stupid shit". It becomes blatantly obvious in many matches that most people either don't understand the concept of the game or just flat-out don't care. I'm assuming that will all change within the coming weeks, as the dumbasses should be weeded out by then.
Talk about a dirty fucking combo of classes!!! Don't get me wrong: Monday Night Combat is pretty much a TF2 clone (with a bit of DotA mixed in), all the way down to a heal gun that fires a steady stream of health and its art style. You might as well replace the game's classes with TF2's classes. At the same time, all the controls feel intuitive and rarely hamper your performance. Your face buttons are used to activate your special abilities, and each class focuses heavily on very different skill sets in order to balance a team out for offensive and defensive strategies. For instance, Gunners (which is my class of choice at this point) carry around a big ass gatling gun and use skills like Slam, which causes you to belly-flop onto the ground for an AoE stun effect plus some damage. He can also use Deploy, which turns him into a stationary turret with more health regen and (I want to say but not sure) higher accuracy, or he can use a Grapple move that can increase in power. On the other spectrum, the Assassin is far more nimble and features abilities such as a Dash, a Smoke Bomb for disappearing quickly, and a Cloak that increases in power and capability. During a match, you'll gain money for just about anything, and that money is used to upgrade your character's skills, but you can also build turrets at your Moneyball (the team objective point) for defensive measures, and call out additional robots to go attack the other team's Moneyball.
In the end, there are a few small things here and there which feel like they need tweaking, such as spawn-camping capabilities at main bases which turn matches into stalemates far too easily (I'm looking at you, Steel Peel Arena) and general class tweaks (how does a Sniper's SMG have better range than an Assault's AR?). The Engineer...err...Support class definitely seems to have an upper-hand on quite a few of the maps, and very few people seem to be playing the Tank class at the moment. Really, the only game-breaking thing is simply the fact that it's a team-based game that demands teamwork from an audience like Xbox Live. Funny enough, I had more luck finding competent players in the Xbox Live Blitz mode (which is very much a tower-defense-style game). With that said, Monday Night Combat definitely like it's worth the $15 price tag, as both the Blitz and Crossfire modes feel like more than enough to keep you coming back for more...so long as Uber gives the game the support it deserves.
Fresh out of the store, sittin' in the 'Stang...thinking about how much of my life I will be wasting away on this one little game Howdy folks. Starcraft II - it's a game. Coincidentally, the only two kinds of PC gamers that aren't excited about its release are those who never played it or those who never really enjoyed it. I fell deftly into that latter category. Starcraft just wasn't my thing, and maybe it's because I had my head so far up Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2's ass that I couldn't be bothered with it. Needless to say, years passed and the RTS genre began to change from being based heavily on "base-building" and more on "unit-building". In the last five years alone, I think I've spent more time with Company of Heroes and Dawn of War II than I have with most other RTS games at any point. Suffice it to say...after securing my copy yesterday...I've caught the Starcraft II bug.
I call this a bug because there's always the chance that I'll lose interest after a while. The two main problems with any RTS is that you'll either find your matches becoming the same predictable paradigms or matches will become incredibly lengthy and you'll just get sick of building for two hours to meet defeat over one "paper-rock-scissors" moment. For the short time that I perused the original Starcraft back during its launch, I remember thinking that the game just didn't suit to how I like to play RTS games. Sure, playing stuff like RA2 or even Age of Empires could rely on build order as well, but there was a lot more going on in those for me that I really enjoyed. The world, the units, the play styles - there just wasn't much that I liked about Starcraft. Despite my reservations about the game, there's no denying it's a good game. It's remained popular for over ten years for a reason, right?
When I first sat down with Starcraft II, the voice in my head kept yelling "dood, it's just Starcraft all over again". Here's the funny thing: that voice is totally fucking right. The difference is that this is ten years later, after the RTS genre has gone through a few different eras in gameplay mechanics. I've played games that are based on build orders, rushes, turtles, and all the standard strats. There have been many rounds played in games that focus little on building structures and more on units fortifying map positions, using unit counters against each other, etc. We've seen ten years of crazy shit in the RTS genre - and it's all in Starcraft II. As a matter of fact, without the last ten years of RTS games, I don't think I would have nearly the appreciation that I do for Starcraft II at the moment. It's incredibly versatile from a gameplay standpoint, as each of the factions in the game represents one of those kinds of eras.
Terran - your classic buildings and structures, C&C-style RTS faction with elements of AoE
Zerg - very unit-based ala Company of Heroes and Dawn of War II
I know, I know - without Starcraft, those paradigms wouldn't really exist the way they do. We owe it to Starcraft for leading the way to see these themes and gameplay styles explored in other RTS games over the last ten years or so. At the same time, the question does have to be begged: has Starcraft II been influenced much by the students?
If this is what you see, then you know it's me. Hell no. It's still Starcraft, so what does it honestly need to learn? Yes, Blizzard has worked hard on this Battle.net initiative, and so far, I feel like it's paying off for them. The service is smooth and multi-featured. People can bitch and complain about how there's no LAN play or offline mode, and I can say "tough titty". Cry in a fucking corner all you like about it, but it's time people learned that we're in the 21st century. These archaic ideas of play don't exist in the world of gaming anymore. As less and less games become split-screen capable on consoles, the PC audience will see less and less games with LAN play. People will also bitch about little things like Facebook connectivity with your friends, Real ID setups, DRM, etc. Again, these are things that are part of the times, and you just have to suck it up and deal with it.
I know that throughout this blog, I've said next to nothing about the actual game of Starcraft II. There's not really anything for me to say about it aside from this: I didn't care much for the original because I wasn't in the right place for it to appeal to me...but Starcraft II is a different story. I've bought my copy, I'm online, and I'm loving it. The addiction is taking hold, and I've already joked around with my friends and family that I'm going to disappear from the real world like I did with World of Warcraft. I'm sure I'll come back out for sun once in a while, but suffice it to say, I'm interested in more than just playing matches. I want to do tournaments, invitationals, and everything that entails the general life of a Starcraft player. I'm that hooked to it.
We'll see how I feel in a few weeks. Until then, I'm going to be working on my 6-pool Zerg rushes, my Hydralisk streamrolls, my build orders, and everything possible to get better at the game.
Piece.
P.S. - Shoemaker, I'm gunning for you!!! 9 Comments
Howdy folks! Usually, these blogs are written around 10pm Central Standard Time because that's when free time is available to write them. Today, however, is a special day. I'm opening at work as Universal Pictures was kind enough to send ten passes to a premiere screening for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to my workplace, so I'll be perusing that flick tonight. I'm more than positive that I'll have a review up for that fucker over at Screened.com, as I've yet to write a movie review over there yet. If you're curious, I'd say look for that sometime tonight or tomorrow. In other news, I saw Inception...twice. I'm going a third time next week. I'm going to see it in theatres every week until it's out of theatres. I liked it that much. Great piece of cinema. Anyways, ON TO THE GAMES!!!
Coincidentally, I Went To Limbo...
The word of the year: atmosphere Brad Shoemaker, I don't know whether to curse you or love you, as the only thought that could come to mind during my entire playthrough of Limbo was "tactile". LOL Every jump, every crate, every movement...all I could hear was Brad saying "tactile". Let's get this out of the way: I stand firmly in the camp of "games are not art". I won't get into that debate, and I hope you won't either. Needless to say, Limbo is a neat little game. There's the stark nature of ambience and a lack of narrative that make that game exactly what it needs to be: an experience. It's a platformer with environmental puzzles, and throughout the playtime, memories started washing up from Out of This World and Heart of Darkness that warmed my heart a little bit. At the same time, it's been a while since a game really got a reaction out of me like Limbo. Every single death you experience is kind of gruesome, and it hits pretty well when it happens. You'll have plenty of "AHH" or "COME ON" moments with the game, but despite that, the playthrough is completely worth it. The only issue I have with the game: the pricing. I'm not going to say Limbo isn't worth $15, as the experience is unlike most things you see nowadays. However, this game could've easily been $10 had it not been an incredibly indie studio pushing the game out. The only reason that I bring up the pricing is because I also played The Signal, which is three times the size of Limbo and half the price. Other than that, I'd say "play Limbo". I'll also say that Limbo makes the most convincing argument I've yet seen about "games being art". We'll save that for another time, however.
Coincidentally, I Followed The Signal...
Walking in the night, he saw possessed cars and he JIZZED...IN...HIS PANTS! I loved Alan Wake, so knowing that I had a free token for the first DLC was killing me. I needed more of that game's narrative, and luckily, Remedy delivers big with The Signal. I'm putting up a spoiler warning right now, as I don't know whether I'll accidentally spoil anything or not...so you've been warned. The Signal starts up right after the base game's ending. Alan is still trapped in "The Dark Place" and he's trying to find a way out. Thomas Zane tells him early on to follow the signal, and Alan doesn't necessarily understand what the hell he's talking about. Here's where one small issue comes up for me: the signal...is LITERALLY...the GPS on a Verizon-branded phone. That's right - the narrative of this story is driven by Verizon. Mind...fucking...blown! Either way, you'll work your way through a dark version of Bright Falls, retracing some steps in familiar areas from the base game. This DLC plays with the gameplay mechanics a little bit, as you won't be able to get ammo and such unless you use your flashlight on words that are popping up all around the world. This plays hardcore into the DLC in general, even going so far as to having you wade through a mindfield of words that will spawn up tons of enemies and such. Needless to say, it's interesting how they play with the dynamic of light. The Signal is also generally tougher than anything you'll find in the base game, throwing hordes of enemies at you and really pushing an idea of "survival horror" at you. The ending sets up for more DLC very nicely, and it's got me craving the next piece...like now. Overall, the experience was great, the narrative was driving, and it retains enough of what made Alan Wake such a great game to be good DLC. For $7, it's more than a worthwhile purchase, and if you bought the game new, then you are getting it for free...which makes The Signal a pretty fantastic reward for directly supporting the developers.
Knocked The Fuggout
Also...this game is FUCKING VICIOUS! I finished the career mode on Undisputed 2010 yesterday, and while I still hold by my original impressions from Uninteresting $#!% #6, I generally like the game more now. While delving into the other gameplay modes has taken a backseat to all these other things to play, the gameplay mechanics in place for 2010 really show off a stronger game in terms of pure gameplay. I found myself finally getting into the timing of sways, counters, and trying to perfect my game more than I ever did with 2009. I still feel like more could've been done to make the career mode feel a bit organic rather than forced. Eventually, you get to the point where you've heard every single dialogue option for the post-match interviews, and it becomes droning. I wish I could've skipped them, but to no avail, I had to listen to Joe Rogen jabber on. Kudos to THQ and Yuke's, however, for allowing a massive list of preset names that really offer a nice personal touch to the game. It was great hearing my own name being spoken during match commentary, and it's something that far more people could learn from in the sports and fighting genres. Overall, though, my concrete impressions are this: UFC Undisputed 2010 is a flawed game, but not nearly as flawed as 2009. It's worth a buy if you are a hardcore UFC fan, and even if you want a game that offers a robust amount of complexity in its mechanics. However, it's still got some hurdles to leap before being truly outstanding. ______________________________________________________________________
That's it for this week. We have Starcraft II up at work now as of last night, so I'll be checking that out steadily over the course of the week. As someone who never got into Starcraft and has issues with the way that Blizzard has made RTS games ever since Warcraft II, I'm going into SC2 with a mixture of enthusiasm in possibly loving the game and resentment as I know it's Starcraft all over again. Here's to hoping I really enjoy the shit out of that game, but I have my doubts.
Until next time, piece.
P.S. - getting SOOOOOO close to breaking 60k gamerscore now!!! Really wish that Blockbuster would have a copy of Singularity in at some point!
P.P.S - Remind me to never write before 6:00pm again. LOL
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Howdy folks. I'm sick. Been hacking my damn lungs up for the past two or three days with a cold, which is really driving me nuts. It makes smoking a hell of a lot more of a chore, I'll tell you that much. Nonetheless, it's kind of put my gaming pace at "dead stop". However, there are those moments where you feel like you just need to get some shit off your chest, and this is definitely one of those moments.
Disputing the Undisputed
Here's what I like about UFC Undisputed 2010: they took all of the complicated controls from last year's offering, toned it down just a smidge, and lessened the chances of flash KOs. For anyone who remembers my original thoughts on Undisputed 2009, the flash KOs turned me off from that game because they frequently popped up from the middle of nowhere without any explanation as to WHY they were happening. It seems THQ really took that to heart and made this a GAME...like it's supposed to be.
The first volume of Cowboy Ninja Viking, at a cool $18, is a MUCH more worthwhile buy than UFC 2010 in my eyes. Unfortunately, that's about as far as it goes at the moment. The gameplay side of things is just fine, don't get me wrong. It's just that...well...I've got a bug up my ass about some shit in there. For instance, WHY do I have to go through 3-5 minutes worth of menus in career mode for "training" and "sparring" just to build up attribute points, then go through 2-3 minutes worth of loading times to get to my match-up...and then my match-up only lasts a minute before I'm back to this 8-10 minute bullshit again? It's the part about 2009 that was annoying as shit, and they didn't do anything to change that! Even then, trying to maintain your stats on your fighter in the career mode is a chore, and there is eventually so much filling up your calendar which makes it harder to maintain. Sure, maybe this replicates the stress of being a UFC fighter...but that's not the reason I'm playing this fucking game. There's also the fact that any new fighter you create starts out at horrific stats, meaning that they can't even compete against the weakest of the UFC. Instead, you have to play through the career mode with each fighter to build up some form of stats. Now, maybe I'm just doing the CAF stuff incorrectly, but I really don't think I am. It's an insult to me, as a player, that I have to play through your tedious career mode each time to build up a character when I've already built up two of them.
That's the other thing: the career mode doesn't take very long, which is a blessing and a curse. I'm blessed that I don't have to play through more than maybe 7-8 hours of career mode to get a decent character...but I'm cursed if I want to get a GREAT character, as well as the fact that it's nothing but menus for 6 hours, then 1 hour of post-match interview bullshit and "story", then maybe 40 minutes - 1 hour of actual gameplay. If I'm going to have such a limited amount of gameplay, then WHY would I want overly complicated controls in order to do so?
I will say, however, that the counter system is pretty excellent, and moving between transitions has been GREATLY improved.
I'm looking forward to EA Sports MMA after listening to Brian and Jeff talk about it on the podcast, as it seems like something I'd be more interested in. For those who dig the UFC and liked 2009, you'll like 2010. However, I just don't really enjoy the game as much as I wish I could. I guess I'll just have to stick with using Bruce Banner on Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain! on my PS2.
I Am An Unabashed Fan of LEGO Games
The level that I REALLY want to design! I'm not going to fucking deny that! I've liked every single one of them so far. Okay, sure, maybe I've haven't really sat down for the same quality time with LEGO Batman as I did with LEGO Indiana Jones, and I still haven't played LEGO Rock Band. Nonetheless, I dig the games. There's something about them that harkens to my childhood, and so when I heard the words "LEGO" and "Harry Potter" mixed together, I thought "that's a natural fucking fit". Now, with a handful of time in on LEGO Harry Potter, I can say that it's yet another solid LEGO game. I haven't played around with the level creator at all, which I'm kind of excited to check out. As a fan of the movies and the books, though, this does exactly what I would want it to do: take the moments of Harry Potter that are memorable and twist them into that weird space of being either awkward or funny in the LEGO universe. I'm not going to say that the game is laugh-out-loud hysterical, but I've already had a fair amount of chuckles and I'm not even past the first year. I am relatively confused as to whether there is some kind of an over-world hub area where I can venture between the different years or not at any point. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to spending more time with that game, and I'll probably have some more in-depth stuff to say about it later.
Redcliffe, I Fucking Hate You
I rebought Dragon Age. I think I might've mentioned that somewhere at some point on the interwebs. If not - I rebought Dragon Age. I had heard there was an update that was released after the launch of Awakening, so it seemed like another chance needed to be given to Bioware, especially after how impressed I was with Mass Effect 2. Unfortunately, that update did NOT fix the Redcliffe glitch that hampered my original save game, so I have had to bid farewell to my original Dwarf Commoner Finlee and restarted the game with Dwarf Noble Finlee. It's interesting to see the way Dragon Age is playing out a second time around, as it feels like a totally different game in many ways for me. I'm not taking the Redcliffe direction right now (obviously) and instead went to some docks where I'm in a dream world or something. It's weird, but I'm enjoying it. It'd be great to one day play the PC version of the game to see the differences, but alas, the 360 version will have to do. ___________________________________________________________________________
That's gonna do it, folks. I've got to go pump more Dayquil down my throat and work through these 11 issues of Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire. Why haven't I read this book until now?!
Howdy folks. My willingness to blog has been kind of dead lately, but today I realized that a LOT of shit has gone down in the past week or so!!! Leaving that all just hanging would be rather asinine, wouldn't it? A week ago, I happened to hit up Game Crazy over in Hewitt, who were having their "going out of business liquidation sale". Basically, everything in the store was 50-60% off. Usually, those sales have a ton of bad games for dirt cheap, and there were some of those. For the most part, though, the Hewitt store rarely had customers...so they had a ton of games in stock for dirt cheap. Sadly, I missed the first day of the sale, so a lot of those games were already sold. However, I happened to walk in with $60 and walk out with Bayonetta ($30), Dark Void ($12), Fuel ($10), and a Mass Effect 2 strategy guide ($8). Not a bad deal at all...except for Fuel.
This past Friday, I cancelled my Xbox 360 Slim pre-order the other day, namely because I was sick of how Gamestop never seemed to have the fuckers in stock but Best Buy and Wal-Mart have not sold out once on them. Waiting three weeks due to the supposed "Microsoft is delaying shipments" excuse just wasn't cutting it anymore. As I was in the store cancelling that pre-order, however...the Xbox 360 Slim I had pre-ordered was rolled in on a cart by UPS. I didn't buy it. It's the fucking principle of it, ya know? Therefore, I'll wait until the hardware has had some time to evolve just a little more and get a little cheaper.
And now, GAMES!!!
I Finally Played Mass Effect 2
I wanna put my Normandy in her Mass Relay...but she's being a cockblock. The first game never caught my interest, namely because the shooting wasn't what it should've been, the frame rate issues drove me insane, the inventory menus were TOO MUCH and the ambience of the incredible music in the game had me dozing off all the time. Mass Effect 2 fixes ALL of this shit. ALL of it! The shooting is precise enough to feel like a fucking shooter, but it still has that "this is an RPG, not Gears" feel to it. There are NO inventory menus from what I can tell (maybe I'm playing it wrong?), and the frame rate is solid. Since I never got a complete playthrough on the first game, I was always afraid to walk into Mass Effect 2 because I thought I'd be lost. Guess what? If you haven't played the first one, you can jump right in on the second and get enough backstory on the previous game to fit you into this story. Mind you, I played enough of the first game to know who Wrex and Garrus and Ashley and Tali and Liara are. I'm simply saying that you don't have to feel as though you are being held back, as the second game's story is capable of being its own standalone thing with minor integrations to the previous game's story. All in all, the game is impressing the hell out of me. However, no matter how much Mass Effect 2 or even something like Red Dead Redemption have impressed me this year, I can easily say...
...Nothing Has Impressed Me More In 2010 Than Bayonetta!
I had played Bayonetta shortly after its initial release, and I was flabbergasted with the game. The combat was precise and smooth, the general feel of the game was tight, the frame rate was solid as fuck, and the general "this game is overly Japanese and we know it" vibe gave it an immense amount of charm. Having recently purchased it, I decided to jump in on the Hard difficulty for some achievement whoring. I found myself focusing less on achievement whoring and more on how goddamn awesome that game is! When my Game of the Year blog comes around later this year, I seriously doubt anything will take the top spot from Bayonetta. It has me incredibly excited for Vanquish, as that game looks like it is shaping up for something unique and fun.
I Digress - You Really Wanna Hear About Dark Void
There really IS some cool shit in this game. I know that it is. This Nolan North-voiced game deserves to be talked about. As a long-standing fan of Crimson Skies, and the fact that I bought this for $12, I was more than willing to give it a shot. Very quickly, I learned by the cover art of the game shares the same colors as Too Human in so many ways: Dark Void is a pretty cool game that gets brought down by a myriad of flaws...yet even with those flaws, it remains to be a good enough game to play through. There's the texture pop-ins, the control aesthetics when flying, the slight wonkiness of movement while you are on the ground, the repetitive nature of the surroundings in places, a slightly-off hit detection...so many things. However, despite all of those items being on the "bullet list of things a game needs to get done well", the game does offer a lot of charm - a world that you can tell the developers really adore (that Howard Hughes-era aviation feel). It also has decent enough ground action that you don't feel you are completely hampered in the experience, and the in-the-air stuff can be pretty cool once you get the hang of it. There's also a big overarching story that is kind of over-the-top and ridiculous, but in that awesome B-movie nature. All the voice acting is pretty damn good, especially Mr. North's role as whatever-the-dood's-name-was. Basically, if you can get the game at a budget price, it's definitely worth a look-see.
I Cannot Make A Header Big Enough That Says "Don't Ever Buy Fuel...Ever"
Fuel, on the other hand, isn't worth any amount of money. I had confidence that I was going to enjoy the game in SOME manner as the Codemasters name was on the front of a racing game with a four-letter title. Sadly, that game just has nothing at all that I could find compelling. There's a massive open world...filled with nothing but pretty grass and some desolate trees...some mountains...and yeah, you can find all these challenges to undertake, but everything you do in the game is generally just too contrived and the rewards of doing so don't really matter. Oh, some new cars that aren't much better than previous ones until MUCH later in the game? Awesome. The races have a giant series of arrows pointing over your head and the AI isn't really good enough to win even at the highest difficulty settings? Great. Getting to all of these Vista Points to see a huge pretty scene are dragged down by a lackluster draw distance? Perfect. Codies, you guys failed me on this one. You had a ton of potential, and you squandered it on nothing. If you get a chance to buy the game, don't do it...even for free. ________________________________________________________________________
With that said, my ending statement is simply this: since I cancelled my pre-order on an Xbox 360 Slim, I decided to give Dragon Age: Origins another damn chance. Hopefully, I don't get the Redcliffe glitch this time around and can thoroughly enjoy that game. If it does glitch again, you'll see a picture of a cracked, burnt, warped disc in my blog at some point.
*** During E3 2010, I began thinking about some of the things that are entering our medium of gaming to change the way we view, interact, and participate with video games. In a series of blogs outside of my regular ongoing Uninteresting $#!% blog, I want to take a look at some of these ideas from a philosophical, psychological, and theological perspective. Please feel free to participate in discussion. ***
Continuing my series of blogs in a post E3 2010 world, a prominent thing being displayed was the integration of 3D into the gaming space. When HD was being introduced almost five years ago as what would be the new mainstream for video games, many were in general agreement that it was the next natural evolution for our medium. We like pretty games, and in order for games to look prettier, we needed to put more pixels on a screen. However, looking at 3D, there is rarely a topic where opinions are so greatly divided. Therefore, let's explore this brave new world that is being pushed into our favorite hobby.
Is It Just A Fad?
THIS...is a fad. 3D does not share the same traits. Why would it be? 3D is a concept that has been around for ages, and as we are humans by nature, we always want bigger and better for our entertainment experiences. 3D is quite honestly the next logical step beyond HD. We know we can make images clearer and prettier, but how can we get people to really feel like they are part of the experience? With movies and potentially TV, this stuff is a slight bit different than video games. You aren't talking about an interactive experience where many things can happen like glitches and bugs. Movies are preset images that move along, so the stereoscopy makes some form of sense with that.
Many say 3D is a fad, but it's not. It's here to stay, and instead of constantly putting studios and publishers down for pushing this initiative because we think "it looks bad" or "it's not well done", we should instead be offering feedback as to WHAT looks bad and WHAT isn't well done. That feedback is crucial to offering a better experience in future products. Completely dismissing this technology is denying the very thing that keeps humans going: curiosity. This is an exciting time to be in the technological side of entertainment, so why should we boo it when we could help to shape it? I'm sure a lot of people said the same thing when televisions were first coming around: "I don't need to see what I can already hear on the radio". We don't HAVE to see something popping out of the screen when we already see it on the screen. However, there is NOTHING wrong with offering another layer, a new experience. However, this brings up the next point...
Make 3D Optional and Glasses-Free
At least modern stereoscopy glasses don't make us look THIS stupid. Despite the best efforts of all the greatest minds working on stereoscopy technology, there are just some people that 3D does not work for. Whether they have eye problems or get sick from the motions they are seeing while it is in 3D (hell, any myriad of problems), companies HAVE to make 3D optional! While it's almost assured that 3D capabilities will be an optional affair for the next year or two, that could always change at any time. Companies could say "we're only making them in 3D versions" in order to push the tech as well as push the hardware needed to get those 3D capabilities. Rushing customers to get into the tech is not the way to go, and I can personally only hope that any publisher worth their meddle would realize this.
The other issue is those doofy fucking glasses. Get rid of them! I don't want to wear them, you don't want to wear them, no one does. When I look at the 3DS, I can't help but think of how perfect Nintendo is getting this: a slider that allows you to customize the depth and amount of 3D (going all the way down to a 2D screen), as well as a glasses-free experience. Sure, the screen on the 3DS basically forces you to hold it at a certain place to get the 3D effect without going black and such, but they are also still very early in that tech. Who knows what can happen between now and the time they release it? Why aren't ALL of the 3DTVs taking this same exact route? Offer people a menu option on the TV that adjusts the level of stereoscopy to make sure they are comfortable in viewing their experiences, as well as offer a glasses-free experience. THAT is where you will grab people.
Cost of Entry
If you're paying $2400 for a 3DTV, you should NOT have to wear stupid glasses. We can suffice it to say that going into the HD era was not a cheap endeavor, especially if you were a gamer. Aside from the $1000+ TV do get our 720 and/or 1080p on, we also needed the video game hardware. That was another $400+, bringing the basic total a minimum of $1400+. That's not including games, batteries for the controllers, and eventually the Blu-Ray player...unless you were buying a PS3 instead of a 360. Folks, we're talking about something that could've potentially sucked about $2000 out of your pocket...easily.
With 3D, one question is "what's the cost of entry going to be"? From the Nintendo Entertainment System to the PlayStation 2, we didn't have to upgrade our TVs that often unless they just broke and we needed a new one. Within the span of five years, we're at a point where we have to upgrade from an HDTV to a 3DTV. What kind of price tag does that carry? Well, a Samsung runs you about $2400 right now. However, we're not having to buy new hardware. The 360 is still the 360, and the PS3 is still the PS3. Therefore, what we're really looking at is just buying that new TV. Unfortunately, you will still have to wear those glasses, which seems stupid. Why am I spending $2400+ on a TV and yet I'll have to wear these extra peripherals in order to see it the way you want me to see it? That makes it seem more like a vanity thing of "hey, my TV does 3D" than an entertainment revolution. Given that the technology is getting better and better with every day/week/month, we can expect that price to be down in plenty of time for a better penetration rate in most households, as well as TVs that will eventually do away with the need for glasses.
Don't Rush The Tech
Digital photography is making the leap as well, but will this suffice? Digital frames could do a glasses-free type of system, just like a 3DS screen, right? Too many companies want to jump on the bandwagon and push out a game with 3D capabilities. If the movie industry has taught us anything within the last week, it's that a rush job on post-production 3D can really destroy a movie (more than M. Night Shyamalan already could - yes, that's a dig at The Last Airbender). Gaming CANNOT do that. We're in an industry that (again) deals with bugs, glitches, frame rates, and so many anomalies that one small thing can equal one big problem. Also, we can't have this stuff forced down our throats. There was a time when people didn't have surround sound systems everywhere. That was a very limited thing. I remember when these things called compact discs were coming around, and it wasn't cheap to get one of these newfangled CD player things. However, time progressed. The music industry didn't push that tech onto people. They allowed it to naturally evolve, and it did.
In a consumer's world, corporations want to push the newest thing into as many homes as possible to get that all important penetration rate. It's about time we slowed the fuck down and just allowed this tech to take its necessary falls in order to get to its maximum capabilities. I will find a package far more endearing and worthwhile if I know that the tech behind it has had time put into it. Take a movie like Up and put it against Avatar. James Cameron spent years upon years building that tech, and the experience (at least for me) felt very natural with very little eye strain. Meanwhile, Up was the opposite, making my eyes freak out every five minutes or so to get readjusted. Take the time to really work this tech out, and you'll find a much larger group of people willing to believe in it. _____________________________________________________________________
In short, I'd like to say that the bickering and arguing about whether we do or do not like 3D is not going to make it go away. Moreover, why would we want it to go away? If we make it go away, we are merely stunting the advancement of technology for a more immersed experience. I beg and plead, stop the bitching. Rather than bitch about it, offer constructive criticism to the companies who are implementing this technology. Funny enough, they'll usually listen if a mass amount of people show that they care enough to help make a better product. Also, as long as it stays optional, you personally have nothing to worry about. You may not like 3D, but you aren't being FORCED into 3D except at the theatres. While that is quite the bummer, the theatres need something to draw people in. They believe 3D is that thing.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any of your own comments, you know where to put them.
*P.S. - As this is an ongoing series, I figured I'd offer a heads-up on the next entry in this series: why I think free-for-all and team deathmatch are killing the capabilities of multiplayer. Look for that one sometime next weekend. 76 Comments
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