Sunday, September 30, 2007

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Halo 3

We just finished the campaign on legendary today and...well...I'm not sure what to think. I enjoyed the campaign, although there are sections that I really have no desire to play through again, even though there are achievements associated with doing so.

In a lot of ways it felt like playing through the original Halo C.E., except not as original or fresh. I understand making references to the previous games in the dialog, but the missions were just like the first game. Get in and grab something. Oh shit, the place is gonna blow! Get in, turn that off. Oh shit, run like hell! Get in and kill so and so. Oh shit, the flood is on our asses! Get out! Oh, and these guys are on our side now. No wait, no they're not! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

And is there any other way to blow something up than to make a ship reactor explode? Anybody ever hear of a bomb with a remote detonator?

I don't mean to hate on the game. It's a great game. I put it up as the second best in the series, with Halo 2 being on the bottom. I guess I have a more critical eye on it since it's THE game for the Xbox 360.

I'm also not a big fan of the interface. It's not very intuitive at all. Finding a certain menu item is like looking for Waldo half the time. I'm still not sure if you can play 4-player local co-op. The game says you can, but when we tried it it didn't let us.

The saved film feature is cool, until you realize that you can't take screenshots or videos while in game. You have to finish what you're doing, go into the theater, then watch your film. And if the really cool thing you did is at the end of an hour of footage, you are stuck "fast forwarding" to it. And it's not that fast. How about a feature that at least lets you put a marker where the cool shit is that you just did. I threw an awesome grenade into one of those floating sniper tower things, but I'll never be able to find it. I think I'll utilize the screenshot function more than the movie making.

I do love the way you can customize your character. And the achievements look pretty easy. Of course, we'll have to do another play through to find all the skulls and then again to play the meta game.

Meh.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Vacation: Day One

I'm on vacation this week. I'm sure you can guess why. Halo 3 is coming out tomorrow. I'll be waiting till Wednesday to get my copy in the mail. Liongames.com is sending it out today, so I should have it by then. Once I have it in hand, Alana and I will be tackling the campaign in co-op mode. It's gonna be teh awesome!

As for today, I had to do some work (yes, work) since they asked me to do 2 hours a day even on my vacation. I'll have to remember to thank them for that gift whenever I quit. After that I played a bunch of the Fantastic Four game, Rise of the Silver Surfer. It's just a smidgen above suck, which would probably equate to about a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.

I really should start my own grading scale. Suck would be 5 and anything above or below that would be above or below suck. I think I may be on to something here.

Anyway, the Halo 3 frenzy is being whipped into a...well...frenzy. The big party is going on in Seattle. Some of my friends (and an enemy) are attending. It's all getting to be a bit much. I'm as excited about the game as anyone, but I don't know how many podcasts and websites can say the same thing. It's an incredible game. Duh!

I actually turned to the Sony Defense Force site just for a change of pace. Whoever runs that site is an absolute genius. If it's real it's fascinating, and if it's fake it's brilliant.

I've also been entering every day to try to win The Ultimate Halo 3 Setup from X3F. I'm sure I won't win, but dammit I'm trying. It would be nice to win something bad ass like that. And shoving it in the losers faces would be even better! lol!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The King of Kong

Friend, listener, and all around great guy Africansk8er has written a review for the documentary The King of Kong. It's a great write up. I really want to see this flick.

Digg!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Reality TV For The...Win?

I'm running the risk of outing myself as a fag, but I don't care!

The wife and I started watching Beauty and the Geek last night and the new season of America's Next Top Model starts tonight and I'm so watching them this season.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Good Times With Stranglehold

I finished the single player story in Stranglehold last night. I played through on normal. The story is great! It felt like I was playing through a movie. The action is really freaking cool and everything is destructible. It's also extremely satisfying to use Precision Aim to hit a bad guy in the crotch, just like Penny Arcade said.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

FASA No More

Yesterday we found out that FASA Interactive has closed its doors. The developer behind such games as Crimson Skies and Shadowrun has ceased to exist. No big fanfare or hoopla. Just a post on their community forums. Seems a little sad and a little strange. I'm sure this happens more often then we know in the industry, but it almost feels the same as when a radio station goes off the air. There's little to no warnings (although the rumors were there), and then it's just gone. All the sudden your station is playing ranchero music and called The Sombrero.

This, of course, puts one more nail in the coffin of Shadowrun. I was holding out hope for some new maps or gametypes that would appear as DLC, but that won't happen now.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Tomb Raider

Funny thing is, I still want to play it.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Zero Punctuation

The guys at the Gamer Andy forums have been posting these videos by Yahtzee. This guy is a fucking genius. The Escapist is posting the videos now, but he has a few still on YouTube.



Zero Punctuation on The Escapist

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

The Darkness

I was really excited to dig into The Darkness this weekend. Little did I realize that lurking on that game disc was not a game, but an exercise in frustration.

I really don't think that this game was play tested at all during development. I think the designers put it together and knew exactly where to go and what to do, therefore they did not need anyone on the outside to test it for playability. That's the only way I can figure a game this flawed got out into stores.

Each level I went through was worse than the one before it. I wandered aimlessly through one area for no less than a half hour before I backtracked through a tunnel (and a loading screen) and found where I was really supposed to be. There are areas like that one that have no reason to even exist other than to frustrate and annoy.

Then there's the multiplayer, which isn't as bad as some of the reviews have let on. Being able to shapeshift is fun. Of course, if any of the weapons besides the dual pistols were at all usefull, the multiplayer would be even better. As it stands, you run around, pick up a weapon and it auto switches to that weapon, so you switch it back to the pistols. Rinse, repeat. Great design, Starbreeze!

A yin to the Darkness' yang, I really expected War Tech Senko Ronde to be really bad, but after playing it a while, I realized it is bad...so bad it's good!

When you start up this game, it tells you a story about a little girl that was never stopped crying. She cried 24/7 and eventually caused all sorts of bad stuff to happen to the world like famine and pissed off Japanese people with guns.

So, I guess they get tired of all her crying and decide (here comes the comedy) to shoot her into space. I'm not sure if this was decided by a committee or what, but that seems a little extreme. How about just give her a zoloft or something?

After that, you're thrust into one-on-one mech battles. The dialog between these people swings from making no sense to being absolutely hilarious! Honestly, you never get tired of hearing "Mew mew mew". I don't know what it means, but I like it!

The actual gameplay is fun once you get into it. You can change into huge things like swords and staplers. The funny thing is, you never find out what happened to the little girl. She's just out there in space crying her eyes out. Way to go, Japan!