I go back to school on September 9th. I'm actually kind of excited because it's my last year of school. Also because almost all of my friends have moved away and are finished high school. I only actually hang out with two people in my own grade, the rest are all one or two years older then me. So as a result the majority of my buddies have moved on and are out on their own. I'm very excited to join them.
Most of the people in my town have grown up here, then get a trade at the college here, then work at the mine here for all of their adult lives. I think that's fine and all, but I can't imagine myself doing something like that for the rest of my life. I think I would love to own a store or a buisness of some kind. Of coarse that requires lots of money. Well regardless I'm excited to leave high school and get on with the rest of my life.
BACK TO VIDEO GAMES
I have alot of games I need to finish before I go back to school. So here's a list of what I'm gonna try to finish in 15 days:
Resident Evil 5: I'm going to try and get all the achievements in this sucker.
Shadow Complex: I just beat this today, but I still gotta get level 50!
The Maw: I still haven't beat this, I don't know why it's a great game. I'll do it before I go back to school though!
'Splosion Man: I bought this a little while ago but I haven't got around to playing it yet. I'll play it when I beat The Maw.
The Secret of Monkey Island: I'm at the part where you get the head of the navigator and I should really finish this game.
The Simpsons Game: I still kinda want to go back and collect some items in Springfield.
Battlefield: Bad Company: I'm pretty sure I'm really close to beating this one.
Dead Rising: This game seems to always be on my list of games I want to play. It has such great replay value.
TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled: Not the best game ever, but it must be beaten nonetheless!
Red Faction: Guerrilla: This is a fun game game and I would like to beat it.
The Lord of The Rings: Conquest: This is a shitty game but I want achievements.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: I heard lots of good things about this game and I really need to check it out.
Rocket Riot: I bought it when it game out but I haven't played it very much unfortunately.
Well I think that about does it. I've got some games to play so I better get to it.
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When I think of the popular games out nowadays my mind races towards games like Call of Duty and Mass Effect. Super realistic shooters and loads of dialog options. When I think of the games I and my friends played in the 90's I think of Zelda and Banjo Kazoozie. Lots of boss battles and collecting items. Where are the boss battles in Call of Duty? It seems to me that alot of the basic things that were in every game back in the day aren't really there anymore. Sure Zelda is still the same and there are alot of new releases that are "old school" in a way. Like Shadow Complex, it has save rooms! I can't even recall the last game I played that didn't autosave every 5 minutes.
What I'm trying to get at is the evolution of video games. Isn't it interesting how games have changed? We've gone from jumping over barrels to rescue a princess to jumping out of airplanes to eliminate terriost threats. We went from spending countless hours on games like Banjo Kazooie trying to find that last goddamn Jinjo to games like Call of Duty, staying up all night killing dudes from all over the world to unlock that last perk.
What do you guys think of the difference in video games nowadays compared to the games you grew up with? Do you guys miss all that "old school" stuff? For example nowadays some games don't even have a single boss battle, that's really crazy when you think about it.
PS. When I say boss battle I'm talking about a big health bar at the top of the screen, memorizing patterns, that sort of thing.
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I just learned that the Champions Online Open Beta is only for people who pre-order it. So I guess I'll wait until the game comes out and see if there is a free trial. It's actually only $60 for 6 months of game time. It's cool that those options are available for people who are already commited to it.
Well yesterday I bought Trine from Steam. Holy shit is that a rad game. It's really fun just how many ways you can solve the puzzles and traverse through each level. The visuals are absolutely fantastic. Just take a looks for yourself:
It's Beautiful right? I know. I'm not sure how far along I am into the game so far but when I'm done I will write up a review.
What else have I been playing? Well let's see on friday I played through The Simpsons Game. It's 18 levels long and I played through 15 of them in one sitting. I completely lost track of time. It was around 5:30pm when I began playing, when I finished it was 11pm. I kept telling myself "After this level I'll totally clean off my computer desk and then go watch a movie with a few friends or something." It's been a long time since that's happened to me. It feels really great even though my day was very unproductive.
It's pretty interesting because it's been a long time since I couldn't put a video game down. Most of the time nowadays I get bored of them. As you probably figured out I got bored of Resistance 2 for example. The Simpsons Game is great, it's so self aware and funny. Also you get to fight muthafucking Will Wright! Well it's more of a time trial thing, you don't actually fight him but he is there and he is funny. I don't wanna spoil too much but heres a clip from the game for your viewing pleasure:
The Simpsons is way better then Seth McFarlane shit like Family Guy. They canceled King of the Hill for the Cleveland Show. That makes me sick.
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Shadow Complex I like Castlevania and I like Epic Games so this seems totally rad.
Batman: Arkham Asylum This games looks pretty neat, I had no desire to play it untill I tried the demo. It looks at least worthy of a rental at least.
Champions Online I don't know why but I have the desire to play a brand new MMORPG when it's just starting up. I think maybe it's because there's still some mystery. For example if I was to start playing WoW again I would already know all the dungeons and items etc. But with this I am discovering all that stuff for the first time and so is everyone else. The open beta is in 4 days so I will give it a try then to make sure it's my thing before I rush out and buy it.
The Beatles: Rock Band The Beatles are one of the best bands on this fucking planet. I cannot wait to play all these songs. This might also get my dad to finally pick up a fake guitar, drumstick or microphone because he adores The Beatles.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 I recently read Civil War and it was very cool. So a game based on it seems sweet, besides I enjoyed the first MUA so why not.
Scribblenauts This looks like one of those ambitious Little Big Planet type games. I can't wait to check out this game and see what it's all about.
Halo 3: ODST It's Halo.
Alpha Protocol I like RPGS. I like shooters. I like Mass Effect. I like James Bond. I hope this game is awesome.
Brutal Legend To be honest I'm kinda picky when it comes to music especially Metal. My favorite Metal band is "Death" hands down. But I'll still enjoy it for the most part as long as it's not power metal, like Dragon Force singing about lame shit like elves... which just so happens to be in the soundtrack for this game :( I prefer something like 3 Inches of Blood... which is also in the soundtrack! :) I really don't know what to do with myself. I mean this game has such a cool idea but Jack Black isn't metal at all. While I was reading the soundtrack I found myself saying "Really? Ewwwww! What the fuck?!?" alot. However most of the time I was shouting "YES! I'm so glad that band is in there!" I geuss I'll have to wait and see if this game is for me.
Borderlands Sweet art style. Loads of guns. Leveling up. Great charm. Co-op. This game looks like it will be so fun and addicting. The fact I can play with my friends and we will all have crazy unique weapons that we can use to shoot each other with is epic. Borderlands lan parties are gonna be awesome.
Uncharted 2 I liked Uncharted 1 so why the fuck not. Although I think I might wait till this one is in the bargian bin.
Dragon Age I like Bioware, alot. Sure their games are really giltchy and have terrible save systems but I still love em.
Modern Warfare 2 Holy Fuck!
Assassin's Creed 2 Assassin's Creed 1 had such a bullshit cliffhanger heading. Now I NEED to know what happens to Desmond, and what those damn symbols mean.
Left 4 Dead 2 New Left 4 Dead campaigns = awesome. I don't give a shit if Valve gives them to me on a disk or as DLC or on a fucking cartridge. Seriously, anyone who complained about how they are making Left 4 Dead 2 so soon is a moron, bottomline. I mean opinions are great but in that case they are just plain wrong. Here are new surviors, new zombies, new weapons, new maps, what difference does it make if it's labeled Left 4 Dead 2?
The Saboteur This looks like some crazy world war 2 Okami shit. I'm down with that. I don't really know much about it, i prefer to keep myself in the dark when it comes to new and interesting titles. I am dying to find try it when it comes out though.
Well those are all the games coming out this year that I am remotely interested in. What have I been playing? A little bit of Deadrising and The Simpsons Game. The Simpsons Game is really funny by the way. If you like The Simpsons go out and buy it for like $10 at a Gamestop or something, you'll get some laughs out of it for sure. I bought Predator 1 & 2, Heat, 007 Gold Finger and 007 Dr. No yesterday for $5 each at Walmart. All classics that I haven't seen in awhile, so that's my next day or two already planned out. :) I think I'll post a list of games that a need to finish before the summer is over. So expect that sometime in the near future, right now I have to go cook myself some supper
The other day I purchased Battlefield: Bad Company for $20. I found a Platinum Hits version of it in a Walmart bargain bin. The first thing I noticed was that they changed the style of the Platinum Hits cases.
I must say that I prefer the new style much more then the old style. With the old style the box art was too small. I dunno why they felt the need to make it smaller and have gray all around it.
I like how the new style is pretty much the same as the normal 360 cases, just gray instead of white.
Ok, back to the point. I've been playing Bad Company and man is that game awesome. The story is pretty decent for an FPS. Where the game truely excels is the pacing and gunplay. It's just really fun to roll into a little outpost and fuck shit up. I always found myself having alot of options too. For example you always have the option to run in guns blazing with your AI squad mates or you can stay back and snipe dudes. There are just alot of ways the game keeps me coming back to it.
I also really like the fact that alot of the single player levels are also mutliplayer maps. The way the single player is structured is really neat. You start off in a corner/end of a huge map and you get objectives as you go along. For example you might have to take out 3 anit-aircraft guns or something. So now you have to decide if you want to take a boat across a river to take one out. Alternately you could hop in a jeep and drive across a bridge to a different gun and come back to the other one later and not even have to use a boat.
Maybe it's just me but I find having your own tactical choices really sucks you into the atmosphere of a game, even if they are pretty minor like those ones.
Now, what else have I been playing? Well I'm still enjoying The Secret of Monkey Island on Xbox Live, I'm 69% complete it. I bought Turtles in Time Re-shelled and that's pretty fun but they changed some stuff. It just doesn't make any sense to me why they would. If any of you remember in the orginal game you fight Shredder before you get sent back in time. You have to throw foot ninjas at the screen in order to damage him because he is hiding behind a machine. It's kinda hard to explain so here:
After you beat this boss battle Shredder sends you back in time with that machine. In Re-Shelled you just go through the sewer surfing level then as soon as you beat it Shredder just pops up and sends you back in time. They left out this whole level for no reason? I dunno maybe it wasn't in the arcade version I haven't played that in a long ass time. When this happened my first thought was "what the fuck? now the story makes even less sense".
Oh well, it's still a nice blast from the past. I grew up playing this game at my cousin's house and when I went on vacation. Allow me to tell a fond childhood story:
See I was born and still live in a pretty small mining town. It is located in the great white northern wilderness of Canada and there was only one road to get out of here when I went on summer vacation. There are two roads now :)
We would drive for 8 hours over a dirt road to catch a boat on the coast. We would always take the same boat because there was only the one. Anyway back to the point, they had a arcade on the boat. Well more like a tiny room with a few machines. They had 2 Street Fighter machines a bunch of pinball machines and a Turtles in Time Machine.
Now the rooms on this boat where so damn small. My family of 4 were all in this tiny room with 2 bunk beds. There was seriously just enough room for us to lie down and sleep, it didn't even have any windows. Not even a tiny porthole. The trip on that boat took 3 days by the way. I remember playing Links Awakening DX on my gameboy late in the night with one of those dumb worm lights. Oh thank god for backlight screens!
Since I couldn't sleep I would sneak out into the arcade each night to play Turtles in Time and Street Fighter. Then when I finally tired of the arcade I would sneak up onto the deck of the ship and watch the sun come up on the water.
I haven't been playing a whole lot of games lately. I've been busy building a massive deck in my backyard. It will be perfect for hosting barbaque parties. Besides that I got alot of other shit to do, put up some shelves in my bedroom and I really want to build a boat or something before summer is over. I'm really loking foward to playing Turtles in Time Re-Shelled tomorrow. Other than summer of arcade on xbox live, where are all the games? Ah well summers are always lacking when it comes to new games but in September I'm already looking foward to The Beatles Rock Band. Then in October and November theres Brutal Legend and Modern Warfare 2. I think Q4 of 2009 looks pretty good. I also played some Wii Sports Resort 2 player sword fighting and it feels great. Not much else to say about Wii Sports. If you own a Wii you should buy it.
I'm sorry this entry is super short. I just don't have very much to talk about at the moment. My good friend Kenny should be getting back from vacation really soon and I'm sure he'll have a bunch of games he got for cheap at gamestop for me to try so that should be fun.
#1 I hate leet speak. I don't feel I need to explain my distaste for such butchery of the english language. I just felt like saying that.
#2 What I've been playing. The Secret of Monkey Island special edition. I've also been playing Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on live arcade and hitting up Battlefield 1943.
The Secret of Monkey Island special edition: I've actually never played MonKey Island before this. I'm 68% done it and I must say I love it. Great sense of humor and the voice acting actually really adds to the jokes. This game actually really makes me wanna check out the new Monkey Island and Sam and Max games.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2: Let me just say I suck at fighting games. I like Smash Bros. because it's awesome crazy with all the Nintendo items and characters flying around. Now that craziness I am all for but when it comes to more traditonal fighting games I puke a little in my mouth. However I really came around when Street Fighter 4 came out. Something just clicked and I realized the appeal of fighting games. Back to the point, I've been playing MVC2 with a few friends and I love the whole 3 character chaos thing it's got going on. Captain America tagging in Zangeif is just plain epic.
Battlefield 1943: I like this game because it's so colorfull and vivid. I don't even care that I get sniped or bombed everytime I spawn, it's just fun to fuck around and drive a tank into a check point and take it over.
I'm still working on that Resistance 2 jazz and the single player mode is fun, I haven't tried the multi-player out yet though.
I'm writing this at 2:30am so when I wake up it will be Regatta Day! Beer tents for everybody! Regatta day is a day where everyone is free of their jobs and responsibilities. It is also a day where it's ok to be drunk all day. I plan on going camping which should be loads of fun. I don't expect I'll be playing any games till sunday since I'll spend saturday passed out in my bed.
Have a great weekend.
One last thing. Can someone tell me if it's really true that beer only comes in packs of 6 or 12 in America? No 24? No almighty two-four???
Ok, so I have been playing Resistance 2 and I must say i'm actually digging it. I am not very far in it yet, that is because I am also busy with Wii Sports Resort. More on that later. So back to Resistance 2, the 2nd level totaly sold me on that game. It Has a sweet ass Kraken boss. The enemy design is really great. It has alot of awesome weapons to boot. Even if it is missing alot of the charm from the first game. So anyways I'm working on Resistance 2 and I'll let you know about it as I go.
Kraken Boss
I also purchased Wii Sports yesterday. It's pretty tight, so far I really like the sword-play. It's not super simple and it's not really complicated ethier, it is just right. You can guard to the right or left, high and low. So you have to block your opponents swings and strike at them where they are not blocking. The difficulty curve is really good to as you increase in level you fight stronger dudes, I never found it was too hard or too easy. It was just right all the time. The only game I actually hate so far is wakeboarding, the camera just moves around way too much I dunno why it isn't just fixed behind your Mii the whole time. I'm going to fool around alot with it later and unlock all the games and write a review.
What else is new this week... well my brother bought Star Wars: Force Unleashed and I haven't played it yet but it looks neat. Also I quit my part time job. It was a pretty sweet job, I got it because my friends dad hired me and my friend. I worked for about 2 hours a night $14 an hour. I cleaned the floors of my local stores. I decided to quit because there is only 1 month left of summer before I return to school so I want to enjoy it to it's fullest. Also because I was gonna quit when school started anyway.
Summer is all about barbequing, relaxing in the sun, boating and of coarse drinking beer. So I'm gonna enjoy all that and some video games too. I'm gonna try and keep this weekly blog going and I'll let you guys know how my summer is going one week at a time.
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I geuss I'm gonna start up a blog again, I figure that now is a good time since its been a year since I started and stopped a blog. Maybe I can make it past 3 or 4 entries this time ;)
Im going to talk about my very first impression of Resistance 2. I actually really enjoyed the first one, playing it co-op with my brother when we first opened our PS3 was a real blast. I really enjoyed a few of the ways it was different from other shooters that ièm used to. Like how every weapon has an alternate fire and you could carry every weapon in the game at once instead of 2 like other FPS's. I also liked the health system. Most shooters I've played use either a normal health bar, when in hits zero you die and it doesn't recharge. Or they use the most common system, screen turns red when you get hit, take cover then it recharges, Call of Duty style.
Resistance uses a hybrid of these 2 styles. The health bar consists of 4 parts. For example if you get shot and take 1 and a half bars of damage then half a bar will recharge but the other full bar will not. In other words every full part you lose will not recharge but if you only lose a portion of a part it will recharge. So the game gives you some regeneration but not too much.
As I said before I was quite fond of the health system and being able to hold a bunch of weapons at a time. However for some dumbass reason they changed all this in Resistance 2. The health system works just like Call of Duty and you can only hold 2 weapons at once. They took out alot of the stuff that makes the first one stand out in my mind.
They also completely changed the way the story is told. They ditched the more original way of narration and cool cutscenes for a standard through the eyes of the hero style. It just seems to me that made it more like Call of Duty 4 so they could try and sell more copies. I love Call of Duty by the way, I'm just really sad that they decided to change Resistance 2 so much from the first one.
I know they needed to add new things, which they did. From what I gathered from the menus and my brief time played this game: the rank system in multiplayer is really improved, there are alot of customization options as well and the overall scope of the game is way more epic. All great improvements in my opinion.
I also tried the new co-op mode where you choose from 3 classes. It actually seemed really neat. I played it split screen with my brother and for some reason it looked like absolute trash for a PS3 game. The textures and graphics were PS2 quality. Not sure what is wrong here because in single player the game looks just fine.
Please note that these are really early impressions. I played the co-op for about 5 minutes and played through the first level of the single player campaign. I just wanted to express how disappointed i am that the changed some of my favorite things from the first game. However just because it's different doesn't mean it is bad at all. So far the single player mode seems plenty fun. Whenever I get the time I will finish Resistance 2 and maybe do a video or written review or another blog about it.
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