I only knew about Fatal Frame from videos of people freaking out at it online, but that’s about it. I had no context to what the story was about or anything. Just some dudes on webcam, losing their shit. I don’t really like horror games, but it’s fun to watch people be scared at them. One afternoon, I turned on my PS3 and went to the Playstation Store to see what was there.

They were selling the original Fatal Frame as a Playstation Classics thing. I became curious, not only because I was familiar with it, but because I’ve been looking for games to play with my girlfriend, and what’s a better game to experience with a significant other than a horror game?

(...probably Rayman: Origins, but we already played it.)

Anyway, we're about an hour into the game, right around where you find diaries about a girl in a white kimono. And although we're pretty early in the game (at least I’m assuming that we are), I have a few thoughts on it so far.

One thing that I didn't expect going in, but totally should have expected, was the god awful voice acting. I mean, just listen to these these audio logs. It’s basically on the same level as Bioshock Infinite. Not really. It’s pretty bad, laughably so, and you can say the same things about some of the writing in the game, too.

But the thing is, at it’s core, the game is fucking terrifying. The best moments in Fatal Frame come from the build up of the music when you’re about to run into a ghost. And when you do, fighting them is a horrific experience, mostly because you always think that L1 is going to bring up the camera view, similar to how a first person shooter would control. But no, that’s mapped to the circle button, and by the time I remember that, the ghost has only gotten closer to me.

In the camera mode, you’re basically shooting the ghost to make them go away. They lunge at you out of nowhere while you’re trying to do that, which is the scariest part of the whole game. But the satisfaction you get when you finally defeat a ghost is remarkable. It makes the stressful process of fighting it totally worthwhile. I’m pretty sure I exclaimed “Yes!” in every instance that I defeated one.

Now I know why people play horror games.

Fatal Frame is great so far. Yes, the controls are clunky, and yes, the voice acting is really bad. But not only does the game do everything else right, but to me, these faults add to the charm of the game. The bad voice acting is comic relief and the clunky controls successfully adds tension to the game. If the game had “modern” controls, I don’t think it would be nearly as frightening. I can’t wait to see what the game has in store from here.

Other Stuff

I've also been playing Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny lately on my Vita because it was free on Playstation Plus.

I did this one move and all this girl's clothes came off. Like I hit her and then poof! Vanished! The only things left on was her underwear.

I understand that fighting games typically sexualize characters literally all the time, and I'm talking about the same series where Ivy is a thing, and that I such be used to that by now.

But come on, this is just ridiculous.

...

The game’s really fun regardless, though. I like Soul Calibur so it’s nice to get a pretty good portable version of it.

That regular price for that game is forty dollars, though.

$40.

That’s insane.

----------------------------

I've also been playing Guacamelee! on my Vita as well. It’s really addicting and very fun to play. Totally recommend it for people who want a PSN game to play. Go read MooseyMcMan’s blog for the specifics on that, because he summed up my thoughts on it really well.

----------------------------

Anyway, that’s all from me for now.

My eyes are killing me, so I'm gonna go lay down.

The discussion in this thread may go into spoiler territory. You've been warned.

Bioshock Infinite is the Inception of video games.

On the latest Bombcast, Brad alluded that the game reminded him of that movie (4/2/13 - 8:50). I heard that long before I had even purchased the game, but now that I've completed it, I completely agree with that sentiment.

(EDIT: Welp, turns out Brad was referring to a different movie, titled Primer. Either way, my opinion still stands. Thanks to @elwoodan for the correction!)

Whether you think the comparison undersells or oversells Bioshock Infinite is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the quality or plot of either of the two stories. Both projects had massive budgets to work with, and they have been successful at being thought provoking to their audiences. It just so happened that the audience has been massive.

Inception was a cool thing. It was a movie that everyone absolutely had to see because everyone was talking about the ending and coming up with their own theories about the story. It's basically the same with Bioshock Infinite, if not a bit more complex.

It drove me crazy when I saw people I follow on Twitter finish the game and freak out over the ending when I haven't played it yet. This encouraged me to buy it and play it over the course of two days. I played it on PS3, because I play most of my games on a Playstation console nowadays, and really enjoyed it. I know that the PC version is, graphically speaking, the best version of the game, but that isn't an option for me. But according to the Digital Foundry, the game runs smoother on PS3 than on 360. That's the Dave Lang touch, I guess.

Regardless of what blurry mess the console version of the game is compared to the PC version, I still found the world of Colombia completely stunning. It's one of the few games where I stopped playing just to admire the art style. The number of art assets and animations that they did made me think, "this game just looks expensive." In the grand scheme of things, I feel like the low-resolution graphics don't really matter that much. I still felt what the game wanted me to feel by the end of it, so the game accomplished its goal.

There are so many things that Infinite gets right. The extremely believable characters, incredible world, great plot, it all feels so well done and every part of the game feels handled with care. Ken Levine can go write literature if he really wanted to, but the fact that he wrote an incredible interactive story is just as great. Warner Bros. gave Christopher Nolan money to do whatever he wanted to do since those Batman movies were successful, and Inception came out of it. It's a similar deal with 2K and Levine, or so it seems. But I guess that isn't the point.

Seeing people on message boards pick apart the story has been a lot of fun. I find it a lot more interesting than any of the Inception discussions, mostly because it's more than "is Cobb dreaming/in reality." There are so many constants and variables to keep track of in Infinite and more than one way to interpret different plot points that allow many theories to exist. It's so impressive that a video game can spark all of these in-depth discussions, and I wish it would happen more often than it does.

It just makes me happy that at least someone is willing to fund this huge, AAA-budget title that has a lot more meaning than "hey, go shoot this guy in the head and level up and stuff." And the fact that everyone is talking about it makes me equally as happy. I hope the sales of the game are enough to prove that you don't need multiplayer and a generic premise to sell a big budget game.

Owning a PS3 and a Vita with Playstation Plus is both a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, I get access to tons of great games for free but because of that, it's hard to focus on just one game. I like playing games to completion, and getting new games every month decreases the chances of that happening. Despite this, I've decided to focus on two games to try to beat: Chrono Trigger and inFamous 2.

My favorite thing about playing Chrono Trigger on my Vita is that when you boot it up, it shows you the PSP heath warning screen, and then it shows you the Playstation One logo, for a game that originally came out on the SNES. BWWWRR

Chrono Trigger is pretty awesome. I'm seven hours in, and I can see why people call it the best video game of all time. The combat is satisfying, the story is interesting, and the music...just amazing. But regardless of how much I enjoy it, I feel really stupid playing it. Maybe this is just me being spoiled by modern game design, but in my experience with the game, it's been very easy to get lost. While the game hasn't been especially hard at all, I find myself taking a peek at a FAQ just to point me in the right direction, because the game isn't real clear on what you need to do when you finish a task. But is that just me? Or is that the entire point of the game in the first place? Regardless, I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I can't wait to see what's in store for my characters, whom I have named Raz, Chie, and Pizza, respectively (I kept Frog and Robo's default names because I couldn't think of anything else.)

I originally wanted to finish all of the Sly Cooper games before moving on to inFamous 2, but the temptation got the best of me. However, I'm glad I'm playing it. I haven't played the first inFamous since it came out, and inFamous 2 reminded me of everything that a liked about the first one, at the same improving upon a lot of things that was wrong with the first. Scaling buildings and shooting guys is so much fun, and I find myself just exploring the city most of the time. The story seems fine for far, it definitely hits what it's going for in terms of the comic book tone, but I don't really play it for that. This is the first time in a while that I can't stop playing a game for the game part of it, and the story itself kinda takes shotgun. I needed a break from playing 70 hour games with amazing stories and the inability to jump around like an insane person, I guess. Also, I'm playing as a good guy. While some of the evil actions are funny (like killing street performers), a lot of them seem like the dick option just for the sake of being a dick. I like helping the citizens, so I'm gonna stick to that.

Besides those two games, I've also been playing Wipeout 2048 and Lumines when I have some down time and don't feel like playing those other games. Those games are very fun when you need to kill time, and also very relaxing as well.

That's about it for now, thanks for reading. I'll be back with another update when I play some more games! In the meantime, I'll be updating Twitter and stuff.

It's been almost two weeks since I've updated here, and while there are other things I could be doing, I feel bad for not keeping up, time's been moving way too fast, especially with so much stuff happening. Also, I wanted my blog title to have an obvious LCD Soundsystem reference despite the fact that I'm listening to Weezer's Pinkerton while I'm writing this, so yeah, there's that. Games!

I updated my PS3 hard drive and recovered my stuff, finally. The new cradle from eBay did the trick, and luckily, with re-formatting, the hard drive works like a charm. I still have 200 GB left over, and I can't wait to mindlessly fill that up with Playstation Plus goodies in the future.

That being said...I've been playing my Vita about 90 percent of the time. During week-days, I typically don't get to touch my consoles, my afternoons normally consist of homework, reading stuff online, exercising, eating, hanging out with family, etc. I don't really find the time to play my PS3, and that's why the Vita is so convenient to me right now. I can play it on the couch downstairs (my PS3 and 360 are in my room), and I can also play it on the bus for half an hour before and after school. It's been a month since I got it and I seriously love this thing, though I find that I'm gonna need a bigger memory card to download some of the games that I want to play later, though...I'm not gonna go through with spending 100 bucks for 32 GB of memory right now. Don't get me wrong, 32 GB is fine for what I want to use that system for, but...it's 100 dollars. Come on.

That said, I have a lot of games on my Vita already! Now, you're probably squinting your eyes in confusion as to how I have games on my Vita, but I'm going to post a picture of my Vita home screen for proof.

Now, before you say "I can play most of those games elsewhere," again, the Vita has been so convenient and flexible to how my life is right now, so I actually prefer playing 3rd party games like Plants vs. Zombies and Retro City Rampage on my Vita. Both of which were free on Playstation Plus, which is great. I didn't expect to like Retro City Rampage with the mediocre scores it's been getting, and that I'm a little tired of every game going for the "retro" look, but RCR pulls it off so well, and I think it's pretty funny so far. Then again, I'm only a few missions in, so I'll see how it holds up. As for Plants vs. Zombies...it's Plants vs. Zombies. You can tilt the Vita to collect the sunlight, so it ends up being a lot easier. But it's still Plants vs. Zombies.

My girlfriend also bought me Lumines (along with a majority of the things I'm talking about, anyway) last week and it's pretty awesome. Once you start playing, it's easy to get hooked. Especially when I'm trying to beat people on my friends list. And the music on it is pretty great.

But out of all those games, the one I'm playing the most is Persona 4 Golden. I decided to take a break from Persona 3 Portable to play Golden, and holy shit. Persona 4 Golden is really good. They made a better, more polished game, with awesome additions. The new "social" situations are good so far, and the actual combat is just a lot more fun to play, and it all looks great. It's so good.

Not much else other than that, I have a lot of games that I need to get back to eventually, like Mass Effect 3 and Psychonauts. I have too many games...and I want more! I want to finish the Sly Cooper Collection and then get the new Sly Cooper, and get that new Bit.Trip Runner game when it comes out on Vita later this year. Yeah, games! On the Vita! But seriously, with developers saying stuff like this, it gives me a bit of hope that people will support that system more. It's a great piece of hardware, it just needs more games (and a price drop.)

Maybe E3...

(Check out this blog that I setup containing all the articles that I've written for school!)

Yeah, that's it. Thanks for reading!

Hello, Giant Bomb. It looks like we have made it to the other side. Giant Bomb got a face-lift and now it’s more prettier than ever. I would like to thank all of the designers behind the whole thing. All of you hard working guys are awesome, and you built a great looking site that has some awesome new features that make navigating and using the site a whole lot easier. It’s rough around the edges right now because it just launched, but over time it’ll be polished, and I imagine it’ll be even more amazing when everything’s 100 percent stable. I’m loving the look of the new site, as written content such as this is a lot easier to read and the video player has been much improved, and I applaud the crew for doing such a great job with it.

As far as gaming goes, I’ve been playing my PS3 and Vita a lot. A played a whole bunch of the Sly collection last weekend, finishing the first game and completing the first chapter in the second one on Saturday night. I have also been trucking along in Persona 3 Portable which is still pretty good, along with some other Vita games. But as I was playing games that night, I’ve been thinking about how much I play Playstation games right now, and how invested in the brand I find myself in. So, I decided to get Playstation Plus. I downloaded Wipeout 2048 for free on the Vita, along with the HD/Fury DLC, and I really like it. It’s not as good as Wipeout HD, and the load times aren’t so great, but I still have a lot of fun playing it in short bursts when I’m taking a break from Persona on the bus and whatnot. Totally worth it.

Now, Playstation Plus is awesome, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has a PS3. There’s so much great content that they’re giving away and it almost seems like a steal. But here’s the problem I ran into with Playstation Plus: I ran out of hard drive space on my PS3. I had to order a bigger hard drive, since the one I have now is the 80 gig that I got at launch. I got the new 320 GB hard drive yesterday, but here’s another problem: I cannot unscrew the old hard drive from it’s cradle. I was able to unscrew every other screw in the process - even the cradle attached to the new hard drive - but not this one. I used different sizes of screw drivers and it wouldn’t budge. And now it’s probably impossible to get them all out now since I‘ve messed with it so much, the tops of them are completely rounded. Awesome. I called Sony to see if I could get a replacement on them, and he told me to buy it on eBay. Great job, customer support. Now I have to wait until that shows up from eBay so I can finally re-format my hard drive and begin the recovery process. I don’t have a USB flash drive to back up my saves, so I have to re-download everything, and it’s a process that I just want get over with as soon as possible.

Because I’ve been playing so much on my Vita and PS3 lately, I find myself not being excited in the next generation of consoles. While I am interested in whatever Sony reveals on the 20th, I don’t see that making me want to go out and buy the thing. Granted, I’m not really someone who buys new hardware at launch, but at least back when the PS3 and 360 came out I had some desire to want the new thing. Maybe I’m wrong and it’ll set the world on fire and everyone will want one, but personally, I just got a Vita which I really like a lot, and I’m perfectly happy with the Playstation 3 being my main console, especially with Playstation Plus. All of the rumors that have been circulating don’t make the consoles out to be anything I would want out of a home console, either. Required voice recognition and motion controls? Touch screens? Thanks but no thanks. Give me a controller so I can hit the “play this fucking game right now” button and have it instantly load from my hard drive and I can play it anytime I want. That’s what I want out of the next generation. Oh wait, I’m getting that already. Admittedly, the idea of streaming PS3 games, making them backwards compatible, sounds great if it works, but that’s the coolest thing I’ve heard out of the rumors.

And apparently the Ouya is actually going to be a legitimate console that will be sold in actual stores, which honestly really surprises me. For the longest time I thought that all of those backers were running into a scam and the thing would never come out. But here we are. It’s coming out in the summer, before of all of the other huge console releases. I’m curious about the success of the device, since it is a lot cheaper than everything that’s out there, but I just don’t see it being a big deal. In a market where tablets and phones are the source of (mostly) casual gaming, and the hardcore audience is playing on Pcs and consoles, is there any room for the Ouya? I don’t really think so. And the developers behind it cannot be any more cocky. “There will be an Ouya 2 and an Ouya 3.” How about you get over yourselves, see how this thing does in the market, and then plan future iterations? It just all seems really silly.

I don’t what to think about the “future” of anything anymore. Sony has been having a rough time transitioning to the new hardware, closing down developers who really don’t deserve it (STUDIO LIVERPOOL) and doing no marketing what-so-ever on their first party games. It’s very frustrating to watch, but I hope they’re able to get their shit back together. There’s a reason why I’ve been playing Playstation stuff more than anything else lately, the company has some great potential, I just hope they haven’t completely killed it by the year is over.

In a completely unrelated note, I wrote an article for the school newspaper and it got published on Thursday. I can’t post it because the article is about one of the counselors at our school, and that would I don’t think the people who appreciate all of that information getting posted online. But it happened, and I’m glad it did. It’s been really fun working on that stuff, and I look forward to doing similar things like that in the future. Now, I have to write an article about sports, due next week. Words can’t describe how badly I just want to get that over with.

Anyway, that’s about all for me at the moment. I’ll be back again when I have made progress about my PS3 situation or when I feel like ranting about more stuff. Until next time!

Well, I turned 17 at last. Some of you reading this probably thought I was at least seventeen to begin with, so I guess is isn't that big of a deal. Regardless, I celebrated with a party full of video games and movies and such and I got a fair amount of stuff. A couple of gift cards from my friends, some CDs, and a very awesome Persona 3 and 4 poster from my girlfriend. The day after my birthday, however, my generous parents went out and got me a Vita despite the hesitation of me wanting it because of how price-y the device is. I got the Wifi model with an 8 GB memory card and Persona 4 Golden and, despite all of the negatives, I still find myself thoroughly enjoying the system. It's been almost a week since I got it, so I figured I might as write about how I feel about it so far. I'm going to preface my thoughts by saying this: I haven't actually owned a handheld since the GBA SP. So my standards for handhelds are pretty low.

The device itself is pretty slick. As with all new technology, it made me feel afraid to touch it. The screen looks great and games just look extremely gorgeous on it. The touch on the screen feels really responsive, though I don't really use it outside of the system menu. The buttons and joystick (especially) feel great, and overall I just think the device itself is made really well. I know a lot of people complained about the joystick in the PSP, and it does seem to be an improvement, at least from the precious little I used a PSP at relatives and friends' houses and such.

When you first boot up the Vita, it automatically takes you to an app called Welcome Park, a "game" that highlights all the Vita's features. I played it for about 15 minutes before I just got tired of it, and exited out. It just wasn't fun, and it was way more of a "hey, this thing has some cool shit in it" than anything else. No amount of trophies or whatever makes me want to play it again, and you can't delete it, which is kinda dumb. If you asked me, they should've just made you boot up Frobisher Says as their tutorial, but we can talk about that later.

I think the UI is alright. I like the idea of having apps on the handheld and all, but it gets annoying when you're trying to transfer things from the Vita to a PC or PS3 because then it just opens a separate app for the picture or video you want to transfer. It's a sure way to get the Vita cluttered with additional apps that it doesn't need running at once, but luckily exiting out of them isn't much of a hassle. The system menu music is pretty good, too, and I like the ability to view friends and all of your PSN trophies from the Vita. It's something I hope Sony strides for more in the future, more integrating with the PS3, being able to access things you already bought and being able to play them on the Vita. It's a philosophy that I thought they had already subscribed to, so I was extremely disappointed when I found that I couldn't play my PSN copy of Crash 3 on there for no good reason. But apparently you can do it in Europe! Why not in the US? That doesn't make sense to me.

I can probably talk about the technical stuff about the Vita all day; how Near is a great idea executed a little less than ideally and how the Content Manager doesn't really work half of the time, but I don't really want to. I got a Vita for the games, so let's talk about that.

I said I got the Vita with Persona 4 Golden. I have barely played any of it. Why? As soon as I got home I downloaded Persona 3 Portable onto it and started playing it, and at some point I made the decision to play that before I play Golden. Reason being, P3P got me hooked pretty fast, and playing two JRPGs at a time would be complete madness anyway. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to see what Golden has in store, from what I played the game looked fucking amazing on the Vita screen, but I also really, really want to see what P3P is all about.

Persona 3 Portable

And so far it's been awesome. I've been playing as the female character, because she gets all of the new social links, including all the social links with the guys on your team. I'll say it right now - Persona 3 Portable is the best version of this game. It includes the improvements made in Persona 4, and the female character's social links are far superior to the male character's. I actually find myself caring about the people I social link with, unlike in the original game where I felt like the social linking felt a bit short. The writing is generally a lot better, and perhaps a lot of that is because of everything they learned from three and wrote for four and then coming back to three. It just feels like it breeds more life into that world and I felt like that was something the original game needed.

The combat is also improved with the ability to control your squadmates. It makes grinding less of a hassle and makes the game generally more enjoyable overall. There are a lot of little things that they added as well, like the ability to work and such, that I think are nice additions. Overall, I think Persona 3 Portable is an incredible game with so much more content packed it there. And I'm only ten hours in.

Frobisher Says

Frobisher Says showed me that all of the features that the Vita had to offer can be extremely fun. It's a game that continues to make me laugh and impresses me with how will it uses the Vita, and I think it's the perfect game to show off what the Vita can do functionality wise. It uses the camera and the touch screens in cool ways, and I'll be more than happy to pay to get another mini-game pack.

So, those are the two games on the Vita that I feel like I can form a solid opinion on at the moment. Again, I have Persona 4 Golden but only played very little of it, and I downloaded Sound Shapes and played a few levels of it, and I really liked what I played there, too. I really hope Sony does more with the Vita, because I really like the system and I feel it could really benefit from a wider audience with more games and features.

Anyway, if I think up any other thoughts on the Vita, I'll be sure to voice my opinion somewhere on the internet.

Oh, and you all need to check out this Youtube channel. He's a Giant Bomb user named Aaox and he put a lot of work into making these Youtube videos. They're pretty great, I really think you should check them out. Here's his review of Torchlight 2 (but not really.)

Hello again, Giant Bomb blog readers. It seems like I try to update this thing monthly now, even though I've been meaning to write something for a little bit. Some stuff been happening outside of my life besides video games, and I kinda wanted to talk a little bit about that before talking about games. I turn 17 in a week from when I'm writing this (meaning my birthday is on the 26th). And that seems really crazy to me. I mean, 17 is kinda the golden age for me. I get to buy M rated games by myself and see R rated movies in a movie theater. I'm getting my "official" driver's licence in February, so hopefully I'll have a car by then to get a job, so I can earn money and buy stuff on my own, have enough money to go on dates regularly, help pay the bills and whatnot. Thinking about it now, in one sense, I'm kind of afraid to grow up. I kinda have the least productive life ever right now and I wish it would stay that way, but I know it can't. That's just not how life works. But I'm also really excited. Soon I can have my own source of income and have the potential to do more with my life. And that's awesome. Even if it does potentially kill my free time.

I also have to think about college, and that's another struggle in of itself, but I suppose I have more time to think about that stuff. Life after high school is a scary thing to think about, especially with me. No work experience with no outstanding extra curricular activity to put on my application, and my girlfriend is in a higher grade than I am so I won't be able to see her (in person) that often after this school year ends. We've been together for more than a year and thought of seeing her go already hurts.

I guess there's a silver lining to all of this, and it's that I found something productive that I really have grown to love, and that's writing. This school year my counselors have decided to put me in Journalism, and honestly that's a subject that I haven't really been interested since freshman year, I've kinda shifted towards trying out computer classes since then. But there's something about getting information from research and interviewing and organizing all these facts into one smart, well-written piece that I really love. Having the freedom to write about pretty much anything I want to write about, as long as it's well written, is awesome to me and it's something I want to keep doing while I'm still at high school. I don't know if I want to make that a career or anything, but it's just fun to do. And I guess I'm alright at it too, since my teacher recommended I write some articles for the school paper (which first year journalism students normally don't do) and whenever I hand something in, it's full of compliments.

I recently wrote a review for The Walking Dead for that class and I posted it on here not too long ago. Check it out if you want to read it. (Keep in mind that it's written with the context of the school paper in mind, so a lot of the facts about the game itself is generalized and doesn't go into much detail.)

Journalism class naturally led me to reading things that I wouldn't read otherwise. I actually starting paying attention to news and articles and the way they are written. And some things I learned are this: Patrick Klepek was a great choice to be in charge of news of Giant Bomb, Kotaku is, for the most part, full of garbage, and the quality work shown at Polygon is pretty much what games journalism should strive for. Those guys know their stuff and I'm so surprised at how well written it their articles are. (Though some of their articles sometimes seem pretentious.) Oh, and I've been looking at CNN on the side, mostly because we get quizzed on current events stuff in journalism. All the reading kinda makes me want a tablet, too, and I bet loading Giant Bomb videos would be much faster on that as opposed to this outdated laptop...but I guess that's a conversation for another time.

ANYWAY, that's enough ranting about my personal transitional period. On to GAMES!

Sly Cooper

I bought the Sly Cooper collection a few weeks back, and I've been playing some of it here and there. It is awesome. The platforming is really well done, and the setup for the villains are really charming, along with the character models for them. The only things that I don't like are the missions that play like mini-games, because the platforming is so fun that I really don't want to play the game for anything else but that. And they're a little clunky. Also the voices of your side-kicks are really annoying, but I guess I was able to put up with with Daxter in those Jak and Daxter games so I should be able to put up with these. But I'm only speaking for the first game in the series here, mind you, and I think I might be about half-way through. It's my first time playing through these games and I'm excited about what comes next.

Psychonauts

I've also been playing a little more Psychonauts. I just because the Napoleon level, and yeah, that game is still great. I wish the platforming and combat felt a little more tight, though. But other than that it's great. Still funny.

Arkham City

Finished Arkham City and played the Harley Quinn DLC. It's great game, everything about the way it plays is still very fun to me, though I don't care too much about the story at this point. I'm very interested to see where the series goes next, though. Still weird that those Cat Woman sequences were locked behind a season pass when it was released.

Mass Effect 3

I played a lot of Mass Effect 3 today. The conclusion I came to, about 11 hours in? It's okay. The mission where you cure the Genophage is great, and the game has some really great things about it that make me want to keep playing. But in some ways it also feels half-finished. Like the fact you cannot engage in full conversation with the majority of your squad in any given time. What the hell? The scene that made me stop playing was when my Shepard got with Liara. Again. See, my Shepard has been loyal and I've been with Liara for two damn games, and yet the "romantic" scene on the Citadel didn't address any past events or anything. It just seemed so generic and badly written, to a point where I kept saying to myself "Wait, that's it? That's all they wrote? Seriously? What? Why didn't they talk about....what?" So yeah. That was disappointing. But I guess I should save a full judgement for when I actually finish it.

Anyway, that's about all for games. I'm going to hit that "Post Blog" button after I proof read this and add pictures or whatever and then watch some more Giant Bomb content - they have been absolutely killing it with the Premium stuff this week. It's been awesome. Until next time guys, thanks a lot for reading.

Top Ten Favorite Games I Played In 2012

Look, I'm really bad at keeping up with games that come out throughout the year. I just don't have the money. So instead of making a list of games that came out this year, I thought I would make a list of games that I played over the course of the year that I thought were awesome. And though a couple of them came out this year, most of them didn't, so I hope you enjoy my completely irrelevant list.

	1. The Walking Dead If you told me a year ago that an adventure game based on a franchise that I didn't care too much about was going to become one of my favorite games, I would think you're insane. But there's no denying that The Walking Dead crafts a story full of characters that you grow to care about. This was the first time I actually cried at a game's conclusion, and anything that's able to move me like this deserves the praise, regardless of any frame rate issues or bugs that I came across along the way. I just wonder how Telltale could ever follow this up.
	2. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 I got my girlfriend into Giant Bomb's Endurance Run this past year, and watching it made me really want to play a Persona game. Having played Persona 3 before four, I came to really appreciate all the improvements and fixes they made in the sequel. The addicting JRPG gameplay matched an unforgettable, colorful cast of characters makes it such a joy to play, and an unforgettable experience overall. Those who disagree can go get bent.
	3. Batman: Arkham City They made a huge ass Arkham game. And if you liked Arkham Asylum, it'll be easy to get wrapped up in the word of Arkham City. The combat and stealth sections are just as good as you remember it. And after finishing the main story the other night, I can't wait to go back and explore the city and do a lot more of the side missions. Just like Arkham Asylum, Arkham City successfully captures the feeling of being Batman.
	4. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES It's interesting to play Persona 3 and look at Atlus' first attempt at making an accessible RPG with social components and Persona collecting and fusing and all the jazz. And even though Persona 4 undoubtedly improved everything about the gameplay, Persona 3 is still definitely worth experiencing despite it's few missteps. And Persona 3 taught me a life lesson: "Move ya body, make sure you don't hurt nobody." Thanks, Lotus Juice.
	5. Rayman: Origins The first time I played Rayman Origins, I was simply awestruck by how beautiful it looked and how well it controlled, and that feeling stayed with me as I finished it this year. It's a shame it's follow up is a WiiU exclusive, but if it comes to any other platforms, I'll be first in line to play it. What a fun game.
	6. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy I missed out on playing the original Jak and Daxter when it first came out on the PS2, and playing the PS3 re-release, I could see how some people would be bummed by how Jak 2 turned out. Jak and Daxter has such a cool, rich, and wonderful world that I was happy to explore. It's one of my favorite 3D platformers I played in a while, making me wish more games like this would be made again.
	7. Rock Band Blitz Let's just say I had an obsession with rhythm games at the start of this console cycle. I spent way too much money on Rock Band stuff than I really needed to, and thankfully Rock Band Blitz rewarded of me of having so many songs. But...it actually convinced me to buy more songs so I ended up spending more money on Rock Band stuff, even though I don't really play Rock Band Blitz as often now. Damn it, their plan worked. At least I found joy in a refreshing Rock Band experience, even if it was for a brief time.
	8. Super Meat Boy After watching Indie Game: The Movie, I was more than happy to see what Super Meat Boy was all about. I was met with an addicting platformer that only grew more challenging-and rewarding-the more I played. Everything about it is so weird and funny that you can't help but like it, and it frustrates me that I'm having trouble with later parts of the game. Someday I'll finally beat it...
	9. Costume Quest I got this on sale around Halloween time to hype myself up for it, and it worked. Not only that, but I found Costume Quest to be a fun, light RPG that had clever writing and humor throughout. The designs of the costumes were all hilarious and worth seeing, though I wish they would've done more with the idea and had some voice acting. But it's still a really fun game if you're in the Halloween mood.
	10. Incredible Crisis I found this in a pawn shop close to where I live, and once I came across it, it was almost an instant buy. Incredible Crisis is completely stupid an crazy in all the right ways, and it's worth seeing if you're able to get past the super frustrating gameplay. Seriously, it's really hard.

The Walking Dead

I bought The Walking Dead on disk a few weeks ago. As someone who cares about story in video games, and hearing all the praise it's been getting, I just needed to check it out. It completely blew away my expectations. Let me get all of the negative out of the way first: Some may argue that as a game, The Walking Dead is a pile of trash. And I could agree with that, to a certain extent. While the whole adventure game aspect of the Walking Dead is totally fine, the parts where they make you shoot zombies can be mediocre at best. The aiming ridicule that they give you feels way too lose and sensitive, and I never got the hang of it. Not to mention that the game has tons of frame rate drops constantly to a point where it looks like a PowerPoint presentation, which makes those shooting parts even more frustrating. And let's not forget about the technical issues that could happen in the game. While I never had my save just straight up ruined, the game did retcon one of my earlier choices in the next episode. (SPOILERS: In episode four, the game changed the choice I made with Kenny killing Duck. Which is for the better, I guess, since I realize that making him do that is horrible, but it still bugged me.)

All of that aside, The Walking Dead has become one of my favorite games. What it does for story telling in video games is important and I think developers need to take note of this if they ever aim to make a story driven game. Like David Cage. Look, I really appreciated what Heavy Rain tired to do and all, and I know that Telltale drew inspiration from that, but the story of Heavy Rain feels really stupid and pretentious compared to Walking Dead. The Walking Dead never had you take a shower or put on eye-liner on or anything stupid and useless like that. And The Walking Dead actually moved me. I felt like I actually cared about the characters and the game had me in tears by the end. Heavy Rain didn't do any of that for me. But I guess the fact that The Walking Dead is episodic benefits Telltale to make improvements and really nail down that parts that they want to get right.

So while the The Walking Dead isn't the best playing game by any means, the fact that it has some of the strongest writing that I've ever seen in a game completely makes up for that. And the fact that you can interact with the characters and they react upon how you play only brings even more life to these already well written characters. The fact that I was able to get so into the story and the fact that the ending emotionally impacted me in a way no other game could is why I fucking love the Walking Dead.

Persona 4

In between episodes of Walking Dead, I've been playing Persona 4. I'm at the last dungeon on the true ending path. Again, as a Giant Bomb user, I think Persona 4 is fucking awesome. But it seems like the last dungeon is a bit of a grind. I guess that the last boss is going to be pretty hard, so maybe that's for the best. I just can't wait to finish it so I could eventually go back and play it on New Game Plus. Unlike Persona 3, I feel really compelled to go back and see all the social links and stuff that I missed the first time around, mostly because the characters are so much more likable than the S.Links in 3. And I can't wait to see what Persona game they make next.

Arkham City

I've been going back to Arkham City after finishing Walking Dead and it seems like that game just gets crazier and crazier. Like the Ra's Al Ghul boss or the Mad Hatter side mission, all of that stuff seems completely crazy in the best possible way. In terms of the story missions, I just got done with the Mr. Freeze boss, which I thought was really well done. I did it without looking at any of the hints, and I thought it was really fun thinking of possible ways to damage his suit. But like I said earlier, the open world nature of Arkham City mixed with the fact that Batman's dying makes little sense, but at least they address the passage of time in certain scenes.

Other than those three games, I haven't really been playing anything else. For Christmas I got an iPod Classic which was much needed since none of my music could fit on my stupid old iPod Touch anymore. I don't even remember why I got that piece of shit in the first place. I guess I was just a stupid 12 year old. Also, I changed my Gamertag. It's still completely stupid, but stupid in a way that I like and can get behind. And if I like it, that's all that matters...right? At least it's just not embarrassing to me anymore like adolescentnerd. Bleh. Anyway, that's all for now, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your vacation, what's left of it, anyway.

Today is me and my girlfriend's one year anniversary. Along with getting me a Pixies' Doolittle shirt, she also got me this poster.

It's hard to tell from the image, but it is signed by Tim Schafer. (Bottom right, just above the Double Fine logo.) I can't tell what my favorite poster in my room is, this, or my OK Computer poster. But I guess, like my girlfriend, Psychonauts holds a special place in my heart.

Also, that Giant Bomb Beta is some crazy shit. The design looks really slick and I love how blogs look on profile pages. Can't wait for it to launch for realsies!