I just finished spec ops. And I gotta say that the game didn't resonate with me. After reading some of the what the guys behind the game had to say about it, I think I know why. Spec ops is meant to make you feel like you made these horrible decisions because you had to, the point being "you could walk away, you had a choice". The scene to demonstrate this was the gate. You see, when I got to that part, I looked around for any options to allow me to do it the "hard way", to avoid using the mortar. But, there was no choice like this, so I did what the game asked of me. When you are trying to rescue Lugo and the civilians are nearby and Adams is prompting you to attack, the first thing I tried is to walk passed them. When that failed, I melee-ed the closest dude and they ran away. Every chance I had, I tried to make a choice that the game didn't want me to make and so I did what it wanted me to do to advance the plot.

Perhaps, this is the fault of games like Dark souls and walking dead.

Walking dead is a game that gives me choices or at minimum the illusion of choice. Do I shoot that guy who might become a zombie? do I take/steal such and such item. There are choices in the game, their consequences sometimes unclear. But, I have choices and when the game later rubs them in my face, I feel the appropriate emotions. I feel like a monster and feel the regret.

The Dark souls series on the other hand does it differently. Any character (as far as I am aware) can be killed. People who are essential for you success can be gone from the game (note: using their ghosts is an option but a costly one in my mind). So here, the player is fully to blame for all his choices. You walk into a new area and you see a big scary guy over in the distance. You decide; is he friendly? is he an enemy? do you approach and try attacking? do you try to snipe him? The moment you realized you killed a potential seller, or a blacksmith or missed out on some lore, I feel is exactly what Spec ops wants to do to you. You, the player, decided to act in violence where none was warranted and now you must face the consequences for you ignorance.

Both Walking dead and dark souls pull emotion from me. Other games like Mass effect and fallout: new vegas also had similar success. Somehow Spec ops failed spectacularly and I think its because the lack of choice was way too jarring. I have become aware of what choice is due to the above mentioned games and now I cannot go back. Every time characters talked about choice in spec ops where there was none, I felt detached from Walker and that was its failure.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy? did you feel the thing that I am talking about to?

P.S Remember Mgs3 when you face the Sorrow? THAT was when I felt the most shame. THAT is how you shame the player for the choices they made. When those headless guys came at me, signifying that part of the game where I decided to knife every guy in an area to "make it more of a challenge". I felt terrible for devaluing the lives of those soldiers. I remember thinking about how I "could" have just avoided them....MGS3 for best videogame ever (i am serious).

A couple of days ago, I found out I decided I should finally pull the trigger and play Earthbound and Link to the past (lately its the older games that pique my interest... rogue galaxy, bioshock, final fantasy tactics a2 and I can't wait until my copies of FF and Rogue galaxy become rare). Soon after, the news comes out that Earthbound is coming to wii-u and a new link to the past sequel is coming. This is great news because I will be ready for when the sequels come out. Earthbound doesn't have a sequel but I expect that there will be a buzz that will bring about a new game, if not when it appears in North America then when?

So, I am feeling pretty cool right now. I also intend on playing Mother 3, I have the translation patch as well. And after all this is done, I intend to get a windwaker disc and Windwaker on dolphin, no way I am using my wii. I am really enjoying this lull in cool games coming out.

At this rate Maybe I will finally play Bioshock infinite, skyward sword, xcom, and maybe nino kuni by this time next generation!

The first 10 min of Earthbound is pretty amazing.

So, I have been hunting for Rogue Galaxy in Ottawa for a while now. And I finally found a dude and it only cost me 10$!! Whoo, I played like an hour of it to see if everything is on the up and up, and I gotta say, after a full generation of hd graphics, this game runs beautifully on my ps3. And Gameplay definitely still holds up. I played a good deal of this game years ago and I didnt get to beat it. I planned on buying it when it was still easy to find but i forgot. Its amazing how great this looks.

I am a student and it turns out I can get pretty busy. In the times that I am not or am being lazy, I will watch tv shows or play games. Now, I want to say that I dont watch that much t.v., i have shows i like to watch and that is about it, but i can see cutting down. Similar things can be said about videogames, but here, I will get on to playing the new hotness or fawn over it for a bit here on GB. There are way to many games coming out, and i "feel" like the idea of videogames is what stops me from committing to something else.

Example: I will sit and have a great idea for a device or application, novel, website, or remember one that i miraculously did start brainstorming seriously beforehand. But as I sit there thinking about doing this thing, I will stop and just watch a show, boot up a game, or go read/watch something online.

Maybe i just can't have the alternative to be lazy. And I cant really blame Videogames or tv for this. I remember once reading on life hacker, or the like, that anytime you think u are too tired or busy to do something cool, and decide just to watch tv, do the opposite.

Like I said previously I cant blame Videogames for this and there is probably a very easy way to have both. When i was a kid, I saw people "grow" out of videogames, calling them immature. In my eyes, i thought that was stupid, how can you say that?? And i decided that i would always make sure to keep playing so i never "grew" out of it. But if i want to do other things, videogames which I enjoy doing may have to be stopped, if i want to grow in other areas. Even thinking about deleting all my steam games makes me feel uneasy, which is weird because I dont play them that often. And as I type this, I wonder if this truly is an addiction. I never thought it was, I have not played or thought about playing things for long stretches of time, on the other hand, I do often think about games due to videogame sites and podcasts.

Is my real problem Giantbomb? I mean really, looking back on this semester of school, I have not played that many games, but i have been to this site a million times over. As well as other sites and podcasts. Its funny because that feeling of uneasiness is back and much stronger when i think about stopping coming here. .....oh shit.

What the fuck do i do with this now???

So i showed this to my friends as a title screen to a videogame i plan to make. After a couple of iterations in Paint.net with my super amateur skills.

first looking like this.

to looking like this.

I feel like this image alone is a crazy achievement i probably could not reproduce if i needed to. Specifically the fire.

This is step one. Coming up with the pipe dream.

What do you people think of how it looks?

I will try to work with unity. Which unfortunately does not use sprites but i feel like i just need to do something.

So the games that are the reactions to WOW's success have come out this year, high profile and long developed, the games I am focusing on are Star wars, Secret World and (yes i know its not a WOW reaction) Guild wars 2.

Star wars: old republic:

Jeff told us of how this is a generic MMO but its story line, specifically one class in the sith side had a really good story(Can not remember what it was called). This interested me and was attractive but was not enough to have me drop the cash. Mainly because i just dont like MMO's, they are not a genre i am driven to play and complete. But with the news of this going Free to play, that is where this becomes way more attractive. Bc we know have a lot of cool story to go thru for the cheap price of Free. This has gone on my list, and i will go thru the motions to get the story of the one class that matters.

Secret world:

So another MMO that is a generic but has some special things. Instead of the story being the draw, here it is the way combat works( i remember some unique interesting variations to the normal way an mmo would work) and the weird puzzles/minigames. This becoming free to play really gets me into it, because i think of the MMO's that are out there now, this is probably the more uniquely interesting. On the list too, but after star wars.

Guild wars 2:

Now, Jeff didnt really like this game. To him it was a let down. But I never played Guild wars, in fact when i saw it on the shelf at walmart all those years ago, and some one told me it was kinda like a Rpg which i assumed meant turn based which meant i hated that unless it was pokemon. I dont come to the series with the same mind, to me a well made MMO that did a lot of smart things are reasons to give it a chance. I have heard other people talk about it, specifically Hollander Cooper on his new podcast radioradar. He made the game out to be way more interesting then Jeff did. Of course the guy has rose coloured glasses but he also has played a lot of the game, like really a lot.

So what i would like to see is people correct me, give me suggestions for which to play and why? You could convince me not to even try them. Is there another unique MMO i missed of note? Fantasy star? that one that they quick looked a little while ago with the little girl class?

  100% YES. i am more interested now then ever before. To me the iphone was an excuse to have a gaming system on me at all times. Sadly i am a little embarrassed to carry around a ds with a copy of spirit tracks. SO for this reason i was interested. As time flowed i came to not care about getting said mobile games but am now paying attention to whats happening in the mobile gaming world. For example, i hear that tom clancy's hawk looks amazing on the iphone!