UnhappyCanadian

@flstyle: Thanks for the info. I missed the SFxT finals and had no idea they were hype, I will definitely check them out.

@meganeagain said:

I meant to address this. The AE finals did not bother me as much because, while Infiltration won convincingly, he was using Akuma. I find Akuma much more entertaining to watch than Morrigan, so I still found some solace in that match.

Thanks for all the opinions. I understand the viewpoint that a few of you have stated about it simply being a circumstantial situation in an attempt to get better and more intellectual writing in games, I just hope people do not avoid this experience based on that complaint. It is truly an enjoyable game

Taking one path often means missing out on another.

This idea haunts me and every decision I have ever made. Seemingly miniscule decisions can have a significant impact on your future. I have made several friends by being uncharacteristically forward that I would have never met otherwise, and it makes me worried about how many incredible friends I may have missed out on by taking the passive road.

This concept always comes into light when I get into a relationship. I met my current girlfriend in my Computer Science class, and by being more outgoing than I regularly am, I was able to get her number on day one. This ended up being a very significant moment, because during that week she was forced to switch out of my class and I would have never gotten to speak to her again. We would have been little more than fleeting memories in each other’s minds.

Moments like this always make me think of past experiences. How many other times has a situation like this come up, with myself allowing it to pass? How many incredible experiences have I missed out on simply by keeping to myself? How many lives could I have changed? How many psychological issues could I have overcome? How many true loves have I let fall to the wayside?

I realize it is a popular opinion in today’s society that we should always be looking forward, but I cannot help but to analyze the decisions I have made and simply think “what if?”

During my freshman year I had an incident that involved having hot chicks as the background on your laptop. I used to cycle through various sexy images of Mila Kunis, Melanie Iglesias, and other incredible women that make my dick wiggle.

So a few weeks into my first year of college I visited my girlfriend at UVA. She was a relatively understanding girl, but thanks to better judgment I decided to change my background. Since TnA are the two greatest things in this world, before I left my background was a less-than-moderately dressed Kate Upton; I replaced it with a picture of a gorgeous meadow with trees and daisies and a sign that said “I’m Gay” in the background. Or it might as well have. In retrospect, I went a little overboard.

I was visiting for the weekend, and when Saturday rolled around I was playing around on my laptop while she was getting ready so we could go to the football game. When she came out she said with intense urgency that we had to leave immediately and pulled me out of my chair. While I had switched my background, I had forgotten to change my screen-saver, which still cycled through most of the inappropriate pictures on my hard-drive. This would not be too bad, but all of my girlfriend’s suite-mates had their families visiting for the weekend. Honestly, everyone and their dog showed up, and to make it worse almost all of them were devout Christians.

When we got back I was greeted by one of the mothers with “your wallpapers are very…interesting”. It was a pretty bad first impression, and I’m fairly certain that they all thought I was a slut, a scumbag, or both.

In retrospect, they were not really wrong. That is what that signifies, and I have always thought that slutty wallpapers make guys look like douches that cannot get a girl on their own so they stare at one on their screen all day. I know it is not that pathetic, but it can easily be viewed that way.

To be honest, sexy wallpapers are probably never a good idea, and truthfully I really do not need another reminder to masturbate. I am already thinking about sex on a regular basis and I could really do without a picture on my screen reminding me to take my dick out every time I boot it up. I already waste enough of my time with that.

So Zero’s Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward blew my mind the other day.

I absolutely adored 999 after getting all the endings, and during my play-through of its sequel I thought I had the game completely figured out, until I had to choose a branching path. In case you are not informed, the game plays based off of a betray/ally option that is introduced at certain points during the game. You are paired up against another person, and the basic premise is that if both of you choose ally its good for everyone, but if one person chooses betray then the person who chose ally gets tanked.

When this option came up for the first time, I chose ally trusting that it would be the better option and that surely the other person would realize that this was the better option. Without delving into spoilers, they did not. I was absolutely furious and hated the character for the rest of that branch until I finally reached a point where it allowed me to go back and change my choice, which is another feature about the branching paths. Instead of playing through the parts you did before, you can just jump to the point of the choice and switch your decision.

I was ecstatic at this point. I usually do not take games so seriously, but this character had rubbed in my bad decision so hard that I could not wait to balance it out. It would not really be getting revenge because if both people choose betray nobody gains, but I was at least happy that they would not get the points.

But that was not what happened. The game switched the other character’s choice when I switched mine. I was absolutely stunned, as was the protagonist, who added another layer of surprise when he revealed that he remembered the events of the past path I took.

I was incredibly impressed. The game had even foreshadowed this event by having a book about Schrodinger’s cat in my first room. I had forgotten about it until this event, and the reference made complete sense after that. A great way to teach about an interesting philosophical experiment.

It just makes me wonder how other people will experience it. What if people went through a different first door? Would the book be there too? I checked the other rooms after solving the puzzle and didn’t see it anywhere, but that would make the reveal about the branching paths and alternate decisions mean much less.

Also, what would’ve happened if I had chose betray first? The game was making a hard case for it, so I assume some people would have. It was such a disempowering feeling having the taste of revenge taken away from me like it was, and it is sort of saddening knowing that some people may not experience it in the same way.

I suppose some of my questions will be answered as I continue to play. I commend this game to be able to impress me so quickly. I was just enjoying the ride thinking I had everything figured out and it toyed with my emotions pretty hard. I cannot wait to see what else the game has waiting for me.

With the announcement of new consoles at this E3 fast approaching I was thinking about what I would like next-generation controllers to look like. In actuality, I doubt they will change much. With the past console transition the Xbox controller only saw the change of removing the black and white buttons in favor of the bumper buttons (a fantastic decision by the way) and Sony’s dualshock is virtually identical, other than the addition of wireless functionality to each.

Honestly, I would not have much of a problem with that. Other than the absolute trash d-pad, I think the Xbox 360 controller is damn near perfect for games. Just fix the damn pad. The newer twistable d-pad is a little better, but I would still like to see a greater improvement on it by the time we get the next system.

My second opinion is not one I’m sure everyone will agree with, but I would like to have one or two buttons on the bottom of the controller. Not like the Z button on the N64; just a button placed near your ring fingers on the bottom. I realize it seems like the controllers are already riddled with buttons, but almost every single first and third-person controlled game requires the right stick to move around the camera during the entire experience, and the four face buttons provided are not very convenient when you have to pull your thumb off of the stick to use them. You already have multiple fingers holding up the controller, it would be nice to have the option to allow them to contribute to the gameplay as well. Even if you do not want to make it a primary button, just make an option where I can map any of the face buttons to it. That way people can ignore it if they want.

Other than those two issues, I love the 360 controller and would be completely fine with just having that again. Just leave motion control out of it. Both voice and motion controls have lost their novelty, and designers have not spent all these years evolving gameplay just to have it shit on by completely imprecise controls

@believer258: You're right, I just wanted to do my own blog post on it. Probably shouldn't have made it a thread

Far Cry 3 is a fantastic game, and is by far my favorite game from 2012 that had a big budget release. The gameplay flows very well and makes you want to explore every inch of beautiful island on which you are located. The skills that you gain as you level up only work to make already fun gameplay even more seamless; it feels like you are getting stronger while you play, without making you feel hindered during the outset of your journey.

The first half of Far Cry is an incredible compliment to this gameplay, but the ending is such a disappointment. I am going to be as vague about story points as possible, but if you still have not played Far Cry 3 and want absolutely nothing spoiled, I suggest you stop reading now.

So another great part about this journey is the villain you are introduced to at the beginning named Vaas. He is a very well rounded antagonist that sends chills down your spine every time you encounter him, and his voice actor does incredible work making the character believable. He is an amazing character that the game unfortunately decides to squander halfway through the game by replacing him with a random new drug lord that the game claimed was so much scarier than Vaas.

He wasn’t. At all. Not only was the new villain was boring and completely uninspired, but he had none of the fear factor that I was struck with every time I heard Vaas’ voice. It might have been cool if Vaas took over the new drug lord and you got to witness his rise to prominence as he became even stronger, but that did not happen. Instead you are stuck with a bland villain that might as well have just shown up to tell you to stop playing the game.

I've been rambling on for awhile so I guess I'll split this into 2 parts. The next part will be posted on Monday and will focus on the story elements and the protagonist rather than the villains.

With the recent news about GTA and another installment in the Red Dead series, I began to recall my experiences with the most previous games of both franchises. Unlike most people, these memories are not very fond. I had similar experiences in both GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, and it consisted of me forcing myself to trudge through both experiences. During the early hours of RDR I found the experience very tedious and not that enjoyable, despite the fact that I loved the western motif. I was going to stop playing until I noticed the review scores.

Normally I do not allow reviews to influence my opinion, but the Red Dead reviews were so overwhelmingly positive that I assumed that I must have missed something or that the game must have gotten better. So I made myself go back and continue the play-through. I continued through the annoyingly constant on-rails missions as well as the many mini-games like herding (one of the most aggravating mini-games ever, but the rest were decent enough) and pushed through until I finally beat the game and I still do not see the appeal. No matter how hard I tried I just could not convince myself it was an enjoyable game.

GTA was slightly different because I did have fun playing through the story, but it was still just sort of sub-par in my experience; this is why I was astounded when websites were throwing perfect scores at it left and right. I could not believe the amount of praise it was receiving, and I did not go back to the story. I still dabbled in the multiplayer and once in awhile would do whatever I wanted but I did not spend much more time in the game.

I do not see the appeal that other people apparently find in these titles. In all honesty I found L.A. Noire to be better than either of them. I am obviously in the severe minority, but while the worlds are very fleshed out I did not have fun during the time I spent in them. GTA is a cool sandbox to run around and wreak havoc in but to me it is not much different from how I spent my time in San Andreas. Similarly, RDR was alright if you went around and did whatever you want but the story was not enough to keep me interested at all.

tl;dr I do not love these games as much as everyone else.