Uninteresting $#!% #6

By jakob187 July 22, 2010 13 Comments

IN THIS BLOG: 

• UFC Undisputed 2010
• LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4
• Dragon Age: Origins

 
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.
 

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 

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?! 
 
Until next time, piece!

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