It's been two weeks since my last blog post. That is pure coincidence, I have no special blogging schedule or anything, I just feel like writing this.
So what gaming related things have I done in those short weeks? One word:
I played and beat Trenched. And guess what? I really liked it. Yeah, shocker, I know. But there's something about this game that stands out from the other Double Fine games. When you play a Double Fine game, you expect humor, and that's pretty much it. The gameplay might range from standard to shit, but in the end the writing is all that matters. Trenched is different. While the humor you expect from a Double Fine game is there, it's backed by really fun and satisfying gameplay, which is kinda why I liked it as much as I do. Killing enemies are super satisfying and experimenting with different weapons are also really fun. Some complaints that I had with it include the repeated dialog that is said mid-battle and the fact that you can't skip cut scenes. The UI could be better, too, but it doesn't take long to get used to so it's not that much of a problem. Other than that stuff it's tons of fun. I haven't played the multiplayer yet (I'm planning on playing some tonight) but I bet that's way more fun than playing alone. Also, as someone who loved playing Psychonauts when I was younger, it's no surprise that I think that this is the best thing ever. YES! I also played the first level of 007: Agent Under Fire multiple times at a friend's house. He had to get to the second level to do some dumb PS2 hack, so I voluntarily did the first level for him. The controls in that game are very fucked up compared to today's standards. And though I was able to get through the level, I still did not feel used to the controls. It felt extremely broken. Which kind of raises a question for me: If I went back and played some of the older shooters like I liked (like Timesplitters and Unreal Tournament) would those games feel broken as well? TELL ME I'M PRETTY! I SAID TELL ME I'M PRETTY!Last but not least, we have WipEout HD. I've been holding my weekly WipEout game night called WipEout Wednesdays, and so far I have to say it's a success. Therefore it pains me to say that there will not be a WipEout Wednesday on July 20th. During that time I'm going need to get ready to go out of town, so I'll be busy. But not to worry! WipEout Wednesdays will return next week. Thanks to everyone who have been showing up and making those nights a blast. (Want more info on WipEout Wednesdays? Go here!) That ship is doing anything but Wiping Out. That's about it gaming wise for me. I'm headed to New York for a wedding on Thursday, and I have no idea who's getting married! Woo! Until next time, stay awesome, Giant Bomb folks.
Hey dudes! I don't know if you know this, but it's summer! That leaves room for more free time, more free time leads to more game playing, more game playing leads to blog posts like this! I've been meaning to a write this for a while but I'm just now getting around to it, the only downside for me is that I have a headache going on so writing this will be so much fun! Here's what games I've been playing and shit I've been up to.
WipEout in High Definitions!
Thanks to Sony's super awesome Welcome Back program, I picked up WipEout HD. Hey guess what? It's totally awesome! I'm actually shocked at how much I'm enjoying it, it's probably the most fun I've had with a game in a while. It has a great look to it and winning events are super satisfying. I even had a little game night on Friday, and though it wasn't as great of a success as I had hoped, I still had some fun. Thanks to everyone that came! (Diamond, VinceNotVance, Sparklykiss, Alaska_Gamer, and InfiniteGeass.)
Some users on Giant Bomb suggested that I do WipEout Wednesdays. Would anyone be interested in that? Not much people came on Friday, but if more people participated on Wednesday I wouldn't have a problem with it! Let me know whatcha think!
Super Stardust HD
YO THAT GAME IS FUCKING HARD
Uncharted 3 Multiplayer Beta
I only played a few matches, but it seems extremely fun so far. I'll probably play a little more after this. I don't really need to explain why it's so good. It's Uncharted. Unless you're some dumb counter-culture hipster who fucking hates Uncharted, it's great.
How To Get Girls....
...is an Xbox Live indie game. Yeah, it's one of those games. I played it just so you didn't have to. It's fucking terrible. Also, I filmed myself playing it. Check it out. My apologies in advance for the less-than-ideal audio quality.
At some point I wonder why games like this exist. Video games are supposed to be fun, guys, I really doubt there are that many people who play games 24/7 and don't interact with people on a regular basis. Even if there are those people, why would they play something like this? It's stupid, unnecessary, and just downright sad that people develop shit like that.
In Other News, Braces Suck
I never really minded my braces all that much until now. Now I have to put magically rubber bands on em, and now most of the time I either have headaches or my teeth feel extremely weird. Either way, it's not very fun.
Welp, that's all I'm gonna write about for one night. Until next time, Ryan
13 Comments
...but maybe with just with off-topic stuff. I can't stand to talk about video games with anyone anymore. They're just fuckin' games, man! They're either good or bad, and everyone has their opinions. Maaaaaaaaayyyyynnnnn. Would any of you people care if I return to Giant Bomb regularly? Just curious.
Hey, Giant Bomb. Whoa, I can't believe I just typed those words into my computer. And while I'm not believing that, I can't believe I'm writing this blog as well, considering the fact that I honestly couldn't give a damn about the community here for the past few months. And folks, I'm here to say...that probably won't change! (pauses for applause) If anyone who likes me is still out and about on this little website here, and know me from the past, I guess you're reading this right now. Give yourselves a hand! No, seriously. Do it. It'll make my transition into the second paragraph a hell of a lot easier.
So, what have I been up to? Oh, how kind of you for asking. I think I've been doing a lot, and that do not include video games in any way. Yeah, I'm being serious. The last time I played a video game was about two weeks ago, I was playing Bulletstorm. And I'm not even very far into it, I think I'm in the second act, so there you go. That's how much I play video games now-a-days. Though, my friend has a birthday party tomorrow, so I'll probably play something there. I've been active in pretty much all other forms of entertainment except for video games. It's mostly been movies, and I have a "project" that I'm gonna do about movies that's forthcoming, so look out for that if you follow me anywhere else. (LIKE TWITTER!) I've been watching a bit of TV here and there as well, I watched all of Firefly which I enjoyed immensely and I've been dipping my feet into shows like Castle and Psych.
Besides filmed entertainment, I've been listening to music, as always! Oh, and guess what? I've been listening to stuff besides Foo Fighters and Weezer. YEAH I KNOW RIGHT!? I don't want to talk about any of these albums in depth because I don't think I would know what the hell I'm talking about, but here's a quick visual montage on what I've been listening to lately:
Passion Pit - Manners Arcade Fire - The Suburbs Radiohead - OK Computer I can't tell you which one of those albums I enjoy listening to the most as they all get in my head.
...I do want to say this about Foo Fighters, their new album, Wasting Light, is coming out soon and I can't wait for it!!
Now, other then that stuff, I've actually been...oh what do you call it? Oh yeah..."social." Yeah, making new friends and stuff, kinda nice. You probably don't know this about me but I'm extremely shy when it comes to people, and I'm still kinda that way, but I'm not as awkwardly silent as I once was. I dunno. Maybe I'm paranoid or something. (I may be paranoid, but no android.)
Anyway, that's my life in a nutshell, now that I'm done with this I'll have to work on the thousands of assignments that are due soon, yeah, thanks school! I hope that this blog actually gets read by someone, or else this'd be a huge waste of time!
16 Comments
Not pictured: The Treasury My initial thoughts when I finished Fable 3 were "how do you ship a game like this?" An RPG that doesn't seem to warn you at all when you're about to do the mission that leads to the end of the fucking game, an RPG that doesn't tell you to save up tons of money even though it's necessary for later in the game, an RPG that has bad time management. And yes, those are huge issues in the game. And depending on your luck, your game could get fucked because of that ending.
But...ignore those problems, or rather, ignore the last half of the game. The first half - or what felt like the first half - was still very fun to me. Sure, the map is kind of bad, and all the locations don't feel connected, and the bread crumb trail breaks a ton, and the frame rate can get terrible...but ignore that. I know it sounds dumb, but it seems like I can list tons of problems with Fable 3, yet I still enjoyed it. It's probably not as good as Fable 2, but I thought it was good for what it was. The quests are fun and the combat is simple and easy, the writing is great and hilarious, and some of the moral choices are actually pretty cool. It's just good at being Fable, and that's why I like it. That's all I need.
5 Comments
Starkiller be mad, yo. I am a Star Wars nerd. I have been one since I was a kid. At this point, I'd pretty much play any Star Wars game that'll come out. The reason why I found the first Force Unleashed interesting was the bridge between the prequels and the original trilogy. Unfortunately, while it was a good idea, I found the first game straight up broken. It had weird frame rate issues, it was buggy as all hell, and it ramped up in difficulty pretty fast, enough for me to say, " 'ight, fuck this game." Fortunately enough, Force Unleashed 2 is a better game, but it is still flawed.
For example, I found myself doing the same moves over and over again, and the game felt repetitive because of that. Maybe that's the reason why I can't decide if the game's length is really an issue. It's pretty short, but I guess it's kind of a good thing considering it's redundancy. Another complaint I have is that the voice actor for Starkiller reminded me of Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon, and when you're making an action game, that's a problem. Other problems like the frame rate dropping towards the end of the game and, much like the first, unnecessary platforming bog down the experience for me, but it's good that they at least put in less platforming and more of just killing dudes.
But there are many good things about Force Unleashed 2, like the presentation. I thought the cutscenes and story were well done and I found one of the endings (which I'll rap about later) to be pretty fucking kick ass. The gameplay seems more of a God Of War clone this time around, which is probably not a bad thing, there are more moves to pull off compared to the first but it's still pretty repetitive like I said earlier. It you ask me, the positives are equal with the negatives and it makes for a pretty solid, three star game.
WARNING - REST OF THE BLOG GOES INTO END GAME SPOILERS
First of all, the end boss fight is pretty dumb. It's long and boring, and at one point I felt cheated. Vader randomly destroys the platform I'm on while I'm killing the other enemies that are there, and the battle doesn't have very much checkpoints, in fact it only has one. But I felt like the ending paid it off...the evil ending at least. Like...FUCK! Didn't see that coming. I loved the "Oh hey, lemme stab you again, oh wait you thought it was someone else but I'M ANOTHER CLONE!" And I love how everyone dies. I just loved how fucked up it was. Now, the good ending is meh. How did she survive that anyway? I liked the evil ending far more, maybe I'm just a bad person.
END SPOILERS
Did you play The Force Unleashed 2? What'd you think about it? 4 Comments
DOWNLOAD FASTER!!! I cannot wait to play this shit. Oh my god. I'm so hyped. I feel like breaking into dance for something. I WANT TO PLAY THIS RIGHT NOW!!!! HURRY UP FUCKING DOWNLOAD!!! C'MON RED DEAD MOTHERFUCKER!!!!
...I'll probably post my thoughts on it later.
7 Comments
Only in Red Faction Guerrilla. When you think of online shooters, the first thing that would most likely come to your head would be games like Call of Duty or Halo. But for me, that's not what I think. And this isn't because I hate any of those franchises, it's because I think that this one game, maybe you've heard of it or maybe your read it on the blog title, Red Faction Guerrilla, is better than Halo or COD. Why? It's fun. I have had more fun playing Red Faction online that I have had with COD or Halo or any multiplayer game for that matter.
It's an easy game to pick up and play. The controls are pretty easy to get used to, much like other games. But I think where Red Faction stands out is the weapons and the amazingly satisfying environmental destruction. Tell me, where else can you kill someone by destroying a building above them? Or getting a jet pack that'll plow through your enemies, causing them to shoot several feet in the air? Red Faction Guerrilla is so fucking crazy and awesome and that's why I love it so. And because of it's craziness, it's still fun even if you lose, because you're witnessing all of this crazy shit happening at the same time. Isn't that what all online shooters are supposed to feel like? And hey, people are still playing it! Or, at least, the PS3 version. You can get it for pretty cheap now, and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a multiplayer game to play.
21 Comments
It's a weird feeling when you're mad about something that involves the internet. You realize that it's just a website and that you're taking it way too seriously, but at the same time you're still mad at whatever made you mad online. So right now I'm half mad, half "dude it's just a website CALM DOWN!"
Bottom Line - I don't want the Bombcast to be split, the whole thing seems like a draw in the get to get more subscribers. I know they need money and all, running a popular podcast needs a lot of bones, but at the same time it was free to begin with. I would've preferred Whiskey to supply another feature instead of changing an existing one. (They even said that they weren't going to change any of the existing features) I know that I will still be listening to 2 hours worth of Bombcast each week, but at the same time, I don't like the idea that they're from separate episodes, since I'd have to recall information about the previous week in order to remember what exactly is going on in the Bombcast. It's not a TV show, it's a podcast...about video games.
Log in to comment