Summer Long Back Blog Part 6: The I'm REALLY late Edition

Hi! It's been a while, two weeks to be exact. Listen, I've been busy, but I do have a good reason...sort of. I've been playing video games! A lot of them, I finished Persona 3 and Persona 4. I'm also on my way through Tales of Vesperia as well.

So here's the skinny, I'm going to write a Back Blog on Persona 3 and then I'll do a Persona 4 blog immediately after, believe me I can, I got a lot to say.


Persona 3 is probably the best RPG I've played in a long time. It has a beautiful blend of Dating Sim and Diablo dungeon crawling. For those who don't know, you play a nameless protagonist who comes to the city, while there, he ends up getting into crazy trouble. He finds out that there's a 25th hour that no one knows about called "The Dark Hour" and during that hour his school turns into a giant tower called "Tartarus" filled with monsters called "Shadows". Throughout the length of the game you spend the day conversing and developing Social Links with the various characters in your school and at night you traverse Tartarus.

Running through Tartarus proved to be a hooking experience, if you are into mindless dungeon crawling and you like Turn based RPGs this is definitely the game to pick up. The combat is challenging in ways that most Turn based RPGs aren't, through manipulating the weaknesses of your enemies you leave them immobile (Also known as a Knock Down). When you knock down all of the enemies you can do an "All out Attack", this just means your party attacks the fallen enemies and instant-kills them. The combat diverges away from the basics of attack enemies blindly while healing to stay alive and moves into a more methodical process, almost becoming more of a puzzle game of sorts.

The only problem with the combat is an odd one: You can only control your character during battle. The protagonist that you control is the only character you use in combat. The other party members are computer controlled, at first I thought the idea was completely stupid but it grew on me. The CPUs were relatively intelligent and knew what attacks to use and when to heal, for the bulk of the game things were looking good. That is, until I got to the final boss which completely flipped that idea on its ass. The final boss has this one attack, its a barrier that it puts on itself, when someone attacks the boss with that barrier on it reflects the attack back at them and essentially killing them. Now, it would seem the smart thing to do is just not attacking but here's the underlying problem, YOU CAN'T STOP YOUR STUPID BASTARD TEAM MATES FROM ATTACKING! By the time you get your chance to set them on stand by, if your unlucky like I was in the turn placement, they would have already attacked and killed themselves.

That final boss illuminated the problems with Persona 3's combat in that, when a boss throws out complex move sets that mess with the fact that you cannot control anyone but yourself, the battle turns into a game of, not fighting the boss exactly, but fighting with the your team mates while trying to work around your handicap. I was so happy with the combat until I came to that realization luckily the ending was all worth the trouble.

I wont go too far into spoiler territory but I just want to say that the guys at Atlus are the kings of playing with one's emotions. They do such a great job of creating such lovable characters and then working with that. The ending had so much heartwarming cheese that I couldn't help "Awwing" at. Seriously, I loved every single character in this game, so much so that I felt heartbroken that it was over. I want to be with these people more! I don't want it to be over! Why does it have to end?!?!?

Summer Long Back Blog Part 5: Welcome to Bullworth...

I'm not gonna lie, I jumped games many times this week, I've went from Persona 3 to Devil Survivor to Bully. I managed to get some good progress in Bully and Devil Survivor so I'll do a dual-game blog.

Bully


Bully is something else. When I first played it back in 06', I was pretty down on it. It felt dumb, it felt like a GTA game in a school setting, guns are replaced with sling shots, cars are replaced with bikes, at the time I didn't want a GTA re-skin, I just wanted GTA.

Obviously, I've grown up, gained new perspectives...and I still feel like its a GTA re-skin but the change in setting does so much for the game, I'm intrigued to see how Rockstar will interpret each mechanic from their GTA games to this new setting. Each little familiarity makes me think of GTA but its stylized with a very "Highjinxy" tone. Its like how those stupid animal-spy movies were kind of cool at first, you would watch the movie and think, "I wonder what a cat spy sector look like? What kind of weapons would they use?", or a parallel universe, we have these concepts of bizarro world and all that, its interesting to wonder how another world would do things, whether they would have different variations of the ways we do things or completely different concepts all together. Bully has a cool schoolyard tone to it that leaves a lot of room for variations on things we see in most GTA games, just with a light hearted feel.

The child-like atmosphere also seems to enhances a lot of the encounters I approach, when I hit some kid with a bat, for some reason, that's more shocking to me than shooting a person in GTA, maybe because it just hits close to home for me, I once knew a kid who is in court now for beating someone with a croquet mallet. But even despite that fact, certain acts of violence or innuendos to sex are so strong in this game because at first things are general lighter in tone. You know there's evil and good in the Bully world but it all feels very immature, then the game tackles certain provocative scenes with that light tone and seems to pull it off but in the back of my mind I can't help but to be disturb.

Another thing I want to talk about is the music, every piece feels...right, something about it, something I can't put my finger on, fits the world perfectly. It holds a childish yet malevolent tone, it almost perfectly parallels the world of Bully, ostensibly Bully is quite charming, childish, silly, but then you get deep into the game and notice that things are a lot darker than they appear.

Apart from a few game crashes here and there Bully has been a nice surprise to me, I'm about 50% through the game so hopefully I'll be done around tomorrow.

Devil Survivor


Devils Survivor, another addition to Atlus' Shin Megami Tensei series. In SMT: Devil Survivor you play a nameless protagonist who one day him and his group of friends have been given DS systems from their friend. Later, they are attacked by demons and find out that these DS systems are more than they appear, they give you and your friends ability to summon demons, which they need because the Tokyo area is under lock down due to "Unknown Reasons".

Devil Survivor has me feeling torn, I love it, but at the same time I feel like I should be down on it. Atlus is starting to feel predictable, a lot of Devil Survivor feels like the Persona games before hand, excluding the Social link system. You summon demons to battle and can fuse them, the characters feel similar, the art style of both Devil Survivor and Persona 3 n' 4 are the same, you play young sexy kids doing sexy things using magical demons to save the world. Its almost because of the fact that P4 was relatively successful Atlus is trying to stay to that formula. I want to see them move on back to Noctourne Territory, beyond Devil Summoner we haven't been getting much of that kind of Atlus game in a while.

That being said, I still like the game, dare I say, I like it more than Persona 3 or 4. I like Devil Survivor more on a conceptual level, the focus on the DS systems adds the unique spin Atlus is known for in their games but the way the DS mechanics are dealt with pull me into the game so well. To give you some background info, your in game DS emails you what events are going to occur in the future, IE) 50 people will die in the Ikebukuro area at 12 o' clock, its then your duty to try and prevent what ever will kill those 50 people. That part of the game alone is enough to keep me playing, there is so much mystery behind why and how these systems can tell the future and why demons are in Tokyo that I want to--no--need to continue playing to learn more.

Combat is simple and addictive, think Fire Emblem and add turn based combat to it. You're on an isometric grid and when you enter an encounter with an enemy it switches to the turn based combat screen. Here you can have up to two demons on each character in your party, meaning you have 3 to 4 demon users on the field and they have two allies each. This leaves a lot of room for strategy in terms of demon placement, what kind of demons you put on certain characters is important since it determines what skills the user gets and what monsters will protect them. Everything is easy to learn which in turn allows me to really get hands deep into the core mechanics, I've been grinding away trying to level up my demons to pick up new skills for my characters. Devil Survivor even does away of the random battle system and allows you to jump into a battle by your whim with a press of a button, really allows some easy access to grinding which equals an addictive game.

But yeah, that's been my week, its been pretty great managed to get a lot of gaming in.

Also, you might've noticed that I didn't keep my promise, I haven't updated the blog every day. To be honest, it as a dumb idea (I had a dumb idea, go figure), I can't keep up with that without burning myself out. I'm still planning on updating the blog each week with a new theme, just not every day, maybe in 2 day intervals.

This week I'll be doing straight up editorials, I got some topics on my mind and I want to put them on paper so be expecting that this week.

Top 5: Stupid Facts About Me That You Don't Care About

I'm a lazy shack of dog shit. Yes, I admit it, I'm a lazy fuck, which is why I'm going to do a list of things about me, we're moving into Facebook now people!

5- I'm and "Actor"

Ever since I was young I've always wanted to be in movies, on stage, or whatever. By the time highschool came around I decided to get serious about things and actually try it. It's been about two years now that I've been participating in my school's Drama programs and frankly, its contributed some of the most memorable experiences of my life. Through acting I've met a lot of people who I've learned to really care about, its changed me a lot. I'm a lot more outgoing than I used to be and I'm actually around a group of people who I like, in short: Theatre good.

4- I do a couple of video game podcasts


Apart from rambling about video games in written form I also ramble about video games with my mouth. Back in the day I did a podcast called "Bomb Should Have a Face" (BSHAF for short), it was a community podcast for a game website by the name of Giantbomb.com. We had a couple of semi-famous guests on the show, one episode we had former Gamespot writer and Giantbomb founder "Jeff Gerstmann" on. That was the past though, now you can find me on the "Minor Issues Podcast" (See Banner) and "The Broken Lampcast". The hosts of the show are semi regular Giantbomb.com users who decided to start their own podcasts, once I decided to stop doing Bomb Should Have a Face the hosts of the aforementioned two shows offered me spots on their podcasts. Its good fun, go listen! *Note, on the majority of these podcasts I go by the monicker Tokyochicken if you're wondering who I am.

3- I'm a former World of Warcraft "Addict"

Yup, one time I played WoW like it was crack. That shit was my lifeblood, I would play 8 hrs a day, every day. It was starting to become a problem for me; I would ditch friends for my online ones and ditch them when they wanted me to hang out, I would ignore school work, I was a mess. I had to quit, it was destroying me but the weird thing is, I didn't actually quit because I felt I needed to, I quit because I had gotten bored with the game. Once I started the whole hardcore raid scene I grew tired of being bossed around. One day, I missed a raid, and after that...I just never logged on. I didn't quit because I needed to or anything, I was just bored. Funny, eh? Went out with a whimper and not a bang.

2- I play guitar

I've been playing the guitar for a year and a half now. Since this point is stupid and boring I'll spare you too many details but just so this links to video games, I learned to play because of guitar hero. There you happy you monkeys?!?!?!

1- I collect toys


I collect A LOT of toys, much like the one you see above (I actually just purchased this guy a few days ago). This year I've spent up to $2000 on collectibles alone, yes I do have a problem. I like it though. Its really fun collecting these things, its like gaining a new piece of art to have lying around the house. I always liked toys because of the styles of certain figures but never decided to buy them; one day I decided to give in. Now I'm happier with my life!

Top 5: Atmosphere

Let's face it, atmosphere is important. A game can go a long way if the developers take time to build an intriguing, well thought out world. Today I'm going to list off the top 5 games I feel achieved a level of excellence when it comes to atmosphere . (Don't be too surprised to see Atlus appear a lot in this list).

5- Persona 3

One of the most notable qualities of Persona 3 was its presentation. Because of its unique character design, story, and music, Persona 3 had left a mark on every one's radar. If you had purchased the FES version of P3 you were given the treat of a new remixed music track that consisted of catchy J-pop /J-rap. In combat you would summon your inner persona with an "Evoker", which resembled a gun. Your avatar would aim the Evoker to his/her head and force their persona from out of the depths of their minds, this alone made a big impact on players for obvious reasons. P3 had an aesthetic appeal to it that kept people coming back for more.

4- Psychonauts

When Psychonauts came out on September 21st, 2005, it had reached a high level of critical acclaim but in turn had poor sales. The most intriguing aspect of this game was its great use of metaphor in terms of its level design. In Psychonauts you would travel into the minds of your fellow camp-mates. Each level was a completely new and surreal experience. The levels would vary depending on the person's personality; One character is a paranoid conspiracy theorist, so his level is filled with undercover agents pretending to be suburbanites, another character is a self proclaimed war hero, so his level is a military training ground, what Psychonauts lacked in gameplay prowess it made up in thematic elements, each level really felt different and fresh, no two levels were ever the same. The world's were so out there, and well designed that you truly felt compelled to go on just to see what else the game had in store for you.

3- Persona 4

What Persona 3 achieved in aesthetic design Persona 4 achieved in ambient design. Persona 4 did some great things when it came to contextualizing its gameplay. In P4 you play a nameless protagonist much like its predecessor, you're apart of a group of friends who decide to investigate on a missing persons case. You later find out that these people have been missing in an alternate dimension, how did they get there? Well, they went through their T.V s, isn't it obvious? Of course it is fucking deadbea--Ahem, excuse me. Inside these alternate dimensions characters are forced to face their true selves; their Persona, their other self. The game goes to great lengths to explore the concept of the other, fake halves of ourselves that we project onto the world and the real person deep down inside of us. P4 is extremely interesting in this sense, it tends to go into some dark, and even phlisophical territory.

2- Bioshock

Bioshock will forever be ingrained in my mind as the best example of developing strong atmosphere in a game (Apart from Half-Life 2). In Bioshock you travel through the underwater utopia "Rapture", broken down from its former self, now in ruin. Rapture is designed with one concept in mind: Environment telling a story. In Rapture you'll find audio files from the previous residents of the city, giving you a glimpse into its dark past. Each level of Rapture has an eerie feel to it, you can almost picture each room in its former glory but now all that is left is rubble. The guys at 2k did a great job in giving the player enough room for themselves to create their own image of the Rapture prior to this one, by doing this it adds a layer of mystery to itself, something that a lot of games don't necessarily try to do now a days.

1- The Metal Gear Solid Series

I still believe to this day that Hideo Kojima is a genius. He has this thing about him where he can write the most ludicrous, out of this world shit that I've ever heard of and he still finds a way to make me all fall for it. In Metal Gear Solid 2, Liquid Snake allegedly is still alive after his death in the first game, he's still alive because he is actually Revolver Ocelot's arm. Pretty god damn stupid sounding coming from my shitty writing, right? The scary thing is, when I heard this line in MGS2, I bought it. I didn't bat a fucking eye lash to what has just been said. I think this is a testament to how well Hideo can write a character and develop a world. He does it so well that he can make the most outlandish garbage sound...believable.

Top 5: Beating the Dead Horse *Bioshock Spoiler Warning*

Ever since the birth of the internet we've been given the ability to transfer information with our fellow man and in turn it has opened our eyes to a brave new world. Sadly; the harsh, cold, and stupid truth is that, as humans we love to beat a dead horse and thanks to the internet that fact is illuminated for the whole world to see. In this top 5 for today I'm going to list off all of the video game trends/memes that I believe should die.

5- Atlas is who?!

Bioshock Spoiler Warning by the way.

Yes we get it, big Bioshock twist, "Atlas is Fontaine!". It was funny then but after a while you get completely sick of hearing about it. I have to note that you don't hear it very often anymore but at the time of release it was a stupid device people used to make fun of others. What bothered me is how high and mighty people acted when they used this minor spoiler and then acted like jerks to people who got angry about it. Sure, it wasn't a big spoiler but just because one person is bothered by spoilers doesn't mean they're stupid in any respect. Some people just can't help but sit on their high horse about not caring. I say bullshit, these things do have the potential to ruin a player's experience in a game, if you end up losing all interest in something when you already expect it to happen then that's fine. I personally don't worry about spoilers, I like to enjoy the journey of the game, but I do understand how a minor spoiler can ruin a person's interest. There's no reason to act like a dick about that.

4- Aerith dies?!?!?


Yes, she's dead and she's not coming back.

3- 3rd Person "Stop and Pop" Gameplay

When Gears of War first came out the concept of "Stop and Pop" gameplay was only explored in one other game (Kill.Switch) but now its found in nearly every 3rd person shooter. Here's my problem, this mechanic was interesting when it was first done in Kill.Switch and then improved upon in Gears of War, but now its become over done and boring. I want us to be able to move on, go on a see new things, meet new people, but no we get this, we get the same trite with every other release .

2- Portal Memes



I once had someone say to me that, "The internet ruined Portal", I wouldn't go as far to say that memes ruined the game but it definitely hampered my enjoyment. I want to mention that I'm not really a puzzle game fan, actually I despise them, but I did want to give Portal a chance. After hearing "The cake is a lie" the umpteenth time I ended up growing sick of the damn game. I just want the memes to die out so I can stop thinking about them, I want to enjoy the game!

1- Mini Game Compilations



Since the Wii's launch mini game compilations have been topping the charts in sales, this bothers the fuck out of me, because of the "Casual Market" developers have been churning out iteration after iteration and making bank. I'm starting to fear the market saturation might lead to something bad occurring in the future. Its the same reason why I'm bothered by the overuse of "Stop and Pop" gameplay, everything is starting to feel boring, people don't want to innovate because they don't think innovation will sell. There is so much good that can come out of the Wii but as long as we continue to churn out the same old garbage we'll never see it.

Summer Long Back Block Part 4: It's Finally Over!

Its done, its over, Final Fantasy 7 has been completed. I'm surprised by how little time it took to finish the game, when I first played FF7 3 discs of content seemed like a hurdle I could never get over. It's an odd feeling actually finishing the game, I've spent over 8 grueling years battling with myself, trying to force myself to reach the end, but each time I ended up unsuccessful. Now, I've done it, its over and it feels...like I achieved nothing.

You know that feeling when something has become so over hyped that when it finally comes its extremely underwhelming? Yeah, that was the situation here with the ending of FF7. I've always wanted to finish this game. So much so that once I did, I ended up thinking to myself, "That's it?". It was just another game, and that's it. Not some life changing experience , no grand finale...Well in all honesty I didn't expect it to be life changing but with all this time leaving it undone, the ending feels like it falls short.

The last dungeon in FF7 bothered me, the foes you encounter tend to be a lot more difficult than what you're used to. Many enemies would use strong one-hit moves and overly powerful skills. Here's what bugs me about this, throughout the bulk of the game the enemies are fairly forgiving, you begin to understand how they all think but by the last dungeon they ramp it up two folds. My problem is that there isn't any gradual build up, they just spike up. I wasn't prepared. This last level was a shock to me, out of nowhere I was getting hit with attacks that have only been used against me in a boss battle. After my frustrations levels increased I nearly quit all together. I was ready to drop the game, I was done for good.

I think this is where, what destructoid writer Jim Sterling calls, "Final Dungeon Syndrome" comes from. Its when people drop a JRPG when they reach the final dungeon. I find that they end up becoming too overwhelmingly difficult , to the point where a player may be too uninspired to continue on with the game. I had to muster up a lot of persistence in me to continue playing FF7.

But yeah, bitching aside, the game was still time well spent. I'm glad I'm able to knock a game off the list.

Speaking of which, I realize I'm completely moving away from the games I put on my list. In retrospect the list thing was a bad idea in general, there's no way I'm going to dedicate my time to the same 10 or so games. My mind changes, you know?

Which also bring me to my next point, next week I'm going to be updating on two games, Persona 3 and SMT:Devil Survivor. Yeah I know, two games, I don't think I can do it either. We'll see next week.

In other news, I figured out what I want to do on the whole daily article thing. I'm going to do daily articles but there's going to be a twist. I'll be doing a certain theme each week. For example, the first week I'm planning to do are daily lists (Lists I know sorry, I wanted to start with something easy). So yeah, be expecting one of those...today.

Summer Long Back Blog Part 3: The Final Fantasy 7 Just Don't Stop!

Its been a slow week. I've ended up having to do real life stuff so the gaming has been hampered slightly this week. Good news is, I still made some good progress in Final Fantasy 7 and I have to say, I'm really starting to enjoy myself.

You know what I said about the materia system last week? Yeah, I take that back. I've learned that even though you can put apply role to any character you feel like, it doesn't mean that its the best idea. I knew this before but each character has stats that cater to a certain role. Turns out that's making all the difference for me. I set up Cloud as the main fighter and he tends to excel much more at that then as that, I just didn't think he'd be this effective.

I'm starting to get into this groove that I normally get into when I play JRPGS. Its the groove where I'm able to grind for hours on end. I've managed to hit the sweet spot and now I find myself grinding for 5-6 hours.

There's one thing that's bothering me about the game so far. I've picked up the two optional characters: Yuffie, and Vincent. Now, out of the fact that they are optional characters they don't really have any impact on the main story. They have sidequests but when its time for dialogue to go on with the main characters for the main story, those two characters tend to add nothing. Yuffie's dialogue consists of her talking about how she wants to find some materia. The weird thing is, Yuffie ends up saying that at inappropriate times, during a dramatic scene if you go talk to her most of the time she'll comment on being bored and wishing she could get her hands on some materia.

I'm grinding through it but I'm hoping to have it done by next week. After I'm going to finish Metal Gear Solid 3 and then Yakuza, so stay tuned!

Also, I'm planning on doing a new feature for this blog. I'm still not sure on what I want to do but I think its going to lean towards doing something on a daily basis. I've been reading this small blog (DownWriteFierce.com) and they do a daily feature and "One Paragraph Game Reviews". I think it might be fun to do something like that to help update this blog more often, as it stands all I'm doing is updating the blog weekly. Who knows, I'll update on that topic a little later into the week.

A Reaction to Racism

Alright, so there was this article written by Willie Jefferson on the Houston Chronicle's game blog (I didn't even know they had one) about how the writer thought that Left 4 Dead 2 was racist and insensitive. I felt really strong about his article and deicided to post a comment. And since I'm lazy and didn't want to write a blog post, I've decided to post my comment here also. Here is the link to said article by Willie Jeffereson for your reading pleasure.

Now before I say anything I'm going to mention that I'm a 16 year old Canadian Highschool student with little understanding of the Confederation as it stands so I will try to avoid it in my post.

That being said, I want to just make a comment on your disgust with the thought of playing a confederate officer and your statement on how setting a game in New Orleans is insensitive. First off, I think you're being somewhat closed minded towards video games. Its almost as if you're disgusted that a game is putting you in these certain settings or situations because it IS a video game. How come movies are able to deal with topics like racism and video games can't? I think this is the main problem that the game industry seems to be having in terms of being able to forward the medium. If we're all afraid to put an African American Zombie into a game, then how in the world will this medium ever be respected as an art form? I think its silly and ignorant to instantly think that a game isn't allowed to depict such imagery.

I understand why you would be reminded of Katrina by the Left 4 Dead 2 trailer. But honestly, do you REALLY think that was the intention, ostensibly the trailer seemed like a zombie game set in New Orleans. And even if themes regarding the tragedy that was Katrina were even explored in the Left 4 Dead 2(Which I doubt will be the case), don't you think the people at Valve are the right people for the job? I couldn't think of any other developer in the world that would treat the subject with the utmost respect and integrity. The people at valve have proven to be a great , intelligent group of people who make games. You seem to have a problem with these ideas being explored at all but if its handled with respect and care, why is it wrong that a video games moves into this kind of territory? The distraught you're filled with while playing a Confederate in Call of Juarez is proof that video games have the ability to really illicit emotions through gameplay.

I just think you're being too touchy and that you're reaching for ideas a little. I mean, why all of sudden is a game set in New Orleans so offensive to you. Why this? Why not talk about the Stereotypes and Archetypes that black, and even female, characters fall under in video games. Have you ever played any of the games in the Gears of War series? Augustus Cole is depicted as a football loving, loud mouthed African American. Or the African American character in House of the Dead:Overkill. Honestly, you can't get any more token than that. To me these characters are far more offensive than RE5 or L4D2 will ever be.

A lot of your criticisms are not unwarranted at all, a lot of them just seem...misplaced. The things that are bothering you are just a product of the current state the industry is in. We haven't dealt with difficult subjects in games yet and we all jump at the sight of anything that seems controversial, anything that isn't what we'd expect from our same-old Halo shooter. We're too afraid to go into new territory because of the potential backlash that we're likely to get if we do.

Frankly, I want us to be able to depict serious images and have serious stories in our games. We'll never get anywhere at this rate if we continue this way. I understand your feelings, but honestly if things are dealt with respect and are done right, then I don't think there should be a problem. But that's just my opinion.

Summer Long Back Blog Part 2: Spikey Haired Addition

Last week I mentioned that I probably would be changing up the list this time around and well, I did. I added Final Fantasy 7 and decided to play it this week. Only about 12 hours were spent on the game so this will probably be a short blog.

Final Fantasy 7 is...well, its Final Fantasy 7. That's almost all I can say. Its really hard to make any comments on a game that is so widely talked about and as old as FF7; nearly everything I have to say has already been said. That's really part of the problem I have with Final Fantasy 7. Its been talked about so much to the point where the game almost feels uninteresting to me. It doesn't excite me anymore, I'm bored of it. Every character and story point has been discussed so much that its reached this point where I, first off, know everything there is to know about the game, and I'm already so utterly sick of hearing about these characters that I don't want to see them.

That being said, I'm still finding the persistence in me to keep going. I'm even starting to enjoy the characters a lot more than I originally thought I was going to. The characters have a certain charm to them, a certain aesthetic appeal to them. Squaresoft really had a good vision of what an aesthetically pleasing character is supposed to be. Each character in the game has a certain feature that is memorable: Barret has a Gatling gun in place of his missing hand, Cloud has his iconic spikey hair and Buster Sword, Red XIII is...a talking lion thing. These characters are what people consistently reference when they talk about FF7 because of their amazing designs. I admit the graphics are extremely dated but the idea still stands as it is.

The last thing I want to comment on is the Materia System. I hate it. Since the game is so dated I wont go into full detail as to how the system works. You can probably check it out somewhere or I'm assuming you know how it works already...also I'm a lazy writer. The Materia System holds many similarities to Final Fantasy 8's Junction system, in that it allows you to apply any skill you choose to any character that you want. Sure, certain character's stats cater a certain set of skills but it still feels like it doesn't really make that much of a difference. I find it very easy to turn every character into a magic user and spam magic attacks. I tend finish fights with this method just as efficiently as putting characters into their proper roles would. Cloud doesn't need to be a front line melee fighter, I get the same affect from using magic with him, sometimes even a better affect. It begins to lose its challenge and it feels cheap after wards. I prefer Final Fantasy 9's combat system where it applies certain roles to characters, that way I actually am making some differences in my character choices. In FF7 my characters are just stock characters, I can make them what ever I want because their roles in the party are completely flexible. I REALLY don't like that.

Okay I guess that's it for now, like I mentioned its a short one, not much to say in regards of the game. I've found myself buying too many games as it is. I'm having a hard time catching up with my back log...I should stop doing that, maybe just a bit.

Summer Long Back Blog-Part 1 + Game Documentaries

Not my actual backlog but I wanted to put the image up just to say, holy fuck.

Finally part 1 of my summer long journey to finish of my back log of games has come to its beginning and a roaring one I might add. I finished Rogue Galaxy. It took a surprisingly short time. Its still about 40 hours long but I managed to clock in those 40 hours in 5 days.

Rogue Galaxy was okay. Its what you would expect from a jrpg, its really nothing new. If you've ever played any of the Dark Cloud games you kind of know what your getting into. The combat is simple hack n' slash with a few RPG elements. Combat is incredibly easy to learn and mastering it is hardly an achievement of any value. A lot of that could come from the fact that I ended up grinding my characters to the point where they were stronger then most foes that I encountered later on in the game. It didn't hurt that I managed to create a weapon that ended up being the strongest weapon in the game, I kind of made the experience less challenging for myself.

That reminds me though, the weapon creation system is great. To fill you in, at one point early in the game you meet a toad named toady (how creative!) and he offers his services to you. What does he do? If you make him eat two different weapons he'll mix them together by the means of indigestion, well not really indigestion but he spits a new weapon out after chewing the two together. Whatever, its hard to explain, all you need to know is, chew and spit and voila new weapon. This mechanic was preposterously addictive. Back in my World of Warcraft days I was a serious loot whore. I loved making new weapons and things of that nature in Rogue Galaxy. I ended up accidentally making one of the strongest weapons in the game, I figured this out after I checked a gamefaq on it.

The story is kind of "Meh", I mean its kind of what you would expect from a jrpg. The only really interesting thing is the story's similarities to Star Wars. You start off as a rag tag kid whose an orphan on a planet that's essentially a desert. You have a robot friend who has a pseudo-British accent and is very formal and all that. At one point in the story the words "I am your father" and "That's not possible!" are said in the game in a way that just sparks off memories of Star Wars. The one big gripe about the story I have is the ending and a big plot hole.

First off, the plot hole. During your adventures you meet an archaeologist in the game named Burton. You end up bumping into Burton a fair amount of times during your journey. During a sequence in the story he finds a tablet, its regarding a planet (Called Eden) that the group of protagonists are trying to reach to find an amazing treasure. On the tablet is a message about the planet. Burton reads the message and seems terrified. He says something around the lines of "Eden isn't actually a planet" and "I have to warn the group about this danger". What bothered me about this moment is that by the end of the game the developers completely ignore the scene I just mentioned. They never tell the player what the tablet said. Burton is even found on the planet Eden and he doesn't say a damn thing about what the "Danger" is. Its almost like something else was supposed to happen at this point in the story and the developers scrapped it. There was never any danger. The game ended after I explored through Eden and did what I had to. No danger or secret, that one scene is completely left ambiguous and unanswered.

I've played some bad boss battles in my time but ,my god, is the last boss of this game terrible. The battle is divided into about 10 different sequences. Now this part is fine with me, I likr long boss battles, but I also like checkpoints and saves. All of the fights are in succession of each other with no saves or stops or checkpoints. If you fail one of the fights its straight back to the start. What's worse is that the last fight is super frustrating and difficult. The last boss battle turns the gameplay into a completely different direction as well. It takes away most of the RPG elements the gameplay had and turned into a reflex based action game. Also the ending of the story is essentially a big "Fuck you" to the player. One of the characters in your party (named Kisala) goes off and leaves the group to become the queen of the planet Eden, the game ends the group of main characters going separate ways except the final 3 characters, your character, a character named Zegram, and the ship captain who is the man who adopted Kisala, go off to take back Kisala. The game ends with a screen of text saying that the party's mission to take Kisala back was "Their last mission as pirates". It ends with that piece of text. Literally that's it, no closure at all. An ending open for fanfic. Such bullshit.

For the most part the game was fun but a lot of the content at the end really ruined it for me but that's one game off the list nonetheless. I was thinking of changing up the list, I want to add more games to it. 20 hours of game seems to be an easy feat for me so I'm thinking I might be able to to more jrpgs. I'm thinking of doing Final Fantasy 7 but that's up in the air for now. I'll give an update on that later.

Jason Rohrer and his wife

On a totally unrelated topic I watched a German/French documentary today called "Into the night..." its a documentary series where two people in a related field have a conversation together for the span of a day. This time around they had well known indie game designer Jason Rohrer and game designer Chris Crawford who has become well known for his criticisms of the game industry.

This episode of "Into the night..." has an extremely pessimistic atmosphere to it. It wasn't a surprise to me after I read up on Chris Crawford a little more after I watched the documentary. They discussed a lot of interesting topics that you would assume to hear from indie game designers but what really had me thinking were their criticisms on current game design. I wont go into all of them but I do want to talk about one point Chris Crawford made specifically.

During a dinner with Jason he mentioned that he hated the "Techie" approach to game design. This is regarding how game designers like to, as Crawford referred to it as, "Fucking around with computers and when they discover something somewhat interesting they try to build a game around it". I'm paraphrasing but you get the point. Adam Sessler did a Soapbox a while back where he discussed the idea that video games, apart from being a technical media, that they are also a creative medium mentioning people who learn to code and think they can be game designers.

I know these people. I know these "Game Designers". This concept of the techie approach to games becomes all too apparent to me the more I grow old. People seem to think that if they are good at coding they can make games when that's far from it. Sure, coding is an essential part of creating a video game but you are also creating. You're not just fucking with numbers, you're creating a piece of work that can illicit emotion and share ideas. You're making a piece of art. When someone wants to be a film maker do they just learn how to work a camera and get straight to work? Fuck no. They go off and learn about other forms of art. Video games are a creative medium as I feel this techie approach is really a product of the mainstream perception of video games: Tits guns! Lawl Halo! I definitely disagree with a fair amount of the points these two games devs made in this documentary I can whole heartedly agree that the medium has some growing up to do.

Michael Douglas is Falling Down

I watched Joel Schumacher's "Falling Down" today and figured I'd do some kind of review for it.I've never ventured into the realm of movie reviews so please forgive me if this isn't what you normally would expect from one.

To give a quick synopsis of the movie it essentially goes like this, Michael Douglas is angry, Michael Douglas smash. Done deal. That's essentially the majority of what actually happens in the movie, the main character, Bill, is frustrated with life and he finally snaps and begins to take it out on the people of L.A. At the same time it's his daughter's birthday and he wants to make it to her in time to give her a present and at the same time he decides to leave a mess of destruction behind him.

While Bill is on his rampage. the movie does a good job of making him seem almost justified for his actions, well at the first half of the movie at least but I'll be getting to that a little later. There were times in the movie where I was almost rooting for him when he was off on his spree. He never seemed like he was trying to legitimately hurt innocent people he just wanted to fight stupid shit. My favorite example of this is when Bill went into L.A's local "Whammy Burger" and asked for breakfast, but they wont serve him because breakfast ended at 11:00 o' clock. It was 11:03. Quickly enough a gun is pulled out and food is then served.

Moments like this are what made me really feel good watching this movie. Self liberation, at first, seemed to be his motivating factor. There's something about the things he did that felt...right. Throughout the movie you even begin to root for Bill. Sure, he may be doing down right terrible shit, but hes taking a stand. Hes taking a stand in a world where its hard to do so. He's telling the world to fuck off because he needs to see his daughter on her birthday. In a world where we're put down by all the dumb rules that make no use in life but to annoy us and make our lives harder, seeing something like what Bill does in this movie go down is pretty great. Its like the whole "Stick it to the man" thing. Not exactly the same but on the same level.

I found it really interesting that every character besides the 3 leading roles were almost symbolic of this idea of the stupid bullshit we deal with in life. You have a homeless man with a selfish philosophy on life, who feels entitled to everything because he is homeless. You have a wife of a cop who is obsessed wit herself and is forcing her husband into retirement. Almost every extra character that is shown in this movie is just there to help add emphasis to this idea and ultimately lead the main character into madness even further. These characters almost justify every action of the main character. These characters are so unlikable that I could imagine myself taking some kind of action against them had they existed in real life.

Now around the second half of the film Bill starts to take an even deeper dive into insanity. At first his actions were reckless and wrong but they still had some control to them, they had some lawfulness. By the end of the movie he begins to terrorize his ex-wife to a point where it looks like its going to result in her death. This felt kind of odd for me. I liked this character but then his actions started to rub me the wrong way. After a while you start to understand him a little more and understand the tragedy that is his life. Because of his anger problems he had prior to his divorce with his wife he ended up pushing away his wife and kids. Getting fired from his job adds to the misery of this character, he ends up feeling cheated and alone. Bill has lost everything. The two things he cared about the most in life were taken away from him and ended up left with nothing but the same old stupid bullshit. He brought most of his misfortune on himself, but no one helped him in anyway, or cared. Its really sad in a way.

There was one scene that almost had me in tears, it was when Bill started watching old home videos of his family before the divorce. Everyone was happy and all that bullshit but then it cut to a video where he got in an argument with his wife. It really showed that darker side of Bill. Which in turn stopped the tears from coming. I felt conflicted again, the dark side pushed me away from the very likable parts of Bill.

Another scene that was really interesting was the final showdown between Bill and, to be retired cop, Martin Prendergast. These two characters are extremely similar in that they both have the same situation in terms of having to deal with people who treat them like shit. Martin goes through shit that is just as bad as Bill's but deals with it in a diferent way. He even has a line that essentially sums it up when he says that even though he has been treated like crap it doesn't give him the right to terrorize people. I really loved how these two really contrasted from eachother but held so much similarity in the end.

Yeah...Falling Down is a pretty cool film. I recommend it.

The Summer Long Back Blog

At the start of 2009 I promised myself that during the summer I would finally go back to a bunch of games in my back log. At the same time I also decided that I wanted to help improve my writing and work ethic, as you can see from the time stamps on my posts I'm really inconsistent when it comes to updating. After a lot of thinking I came up with an idea for a new feature I could write for this blog: The Summer Long Back Blog (See what I did there).

So here's how its going to go down, I have a list of the games I want to finish by the end of my summer vacation, which is the 31st of August. Every week I will update on my progress with the game I'm currently on, I'll be talking about my impressions of the game and things of that nature. I'll be writing an update every Sunday, today not including since I just started my first game 2 days ago (The game I'm currently playing is Rogue Galaxy).

Here is the list of the games I'm aiming to finish, all of these are in the order that I'm going to play them in:

1. Rogue Galaxy
2. Shadow of the Colossus
3. Metal Gear Solid 3
4. Yakuza
5. Kingdom Hearts
   
6. Kingdom Hearts 2
7. Final Fantasy 10

Hefty list I know, but I'll work at it. I'm not really planning on finishing all of them I just want to get to at least 3.

Alright so that's the quick update I'm going to go now I've got gaming to get to.

The will to game and how I lack it also, Prototype

I don't know what it is about me but I have a hard time actually starting up a game. I don't get it. There's a part of me that is just too lazy to bother popping in a game disc. I don't know, sometimes I think I have a hard time because I don't feel like investing the time into a game. Its starting to become a hassle for me. I mean, I still like games but the barrier of entry for the ones I do want to play are long.

I think it might be all the long JRPGS I have on my plate that seem to be the problem. I just hate the feeling of starting one and loading up the menu screen and starting a new game because every time I do I can't stop thinking of the other fucking Atlus game I got sitting on my counter and how I need to finish that one also. Because of this I've been trying to go the route of playing games that I can easily pick up with a quick start up. Which is why I Picked up Prototype.

Alright segue time! Prototype. It's pretty good. But it also frustrates me so much. This game is essentially an amalgamation of Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and Crackdown, which I'm sure you've heard before. At first this sounds like a good mix, the bad assness of the two games mixed in a pot to form a super bad ass...pot...or something. But then I come to remember the horrible memories I've repressed from my experience with Hulk: Ultimate Destruction: The game was frustrating as all hell. And surprise surprise, its the same deal with Prototype.

You are a fucking bad ass in this game...when you're not fighting anything. Okay, well that's not true, if you beat the shit out of a civilian or something to that degree, you're a bad ass but if anything with a gun or some kind of rocket dispensing cylinder (IE a stupid fucking rocket launcher) you're boned. I can't help but not understand why I can't stop some fuck in a tank when I can leap buildings and do elbow drops from the clouds. The game literally says "When fighting other military forces your own powers won't suffice, using military weapons will help." Uh...why? I CAN ASSUME ANY FORM I CHOOSE AND GROW TENTACLES. Its annoying. I understand that they don't want the game to be too easy but honestly, this is far more frustrating. Having all these cool abilities go to waste is stupid. There are other ways to add difficulty to the game. Just the idea that I have all these amazing powers and that they are pretty much useless makes me angry as hell.

The worse thing about this game is that it will force you to use tanks and things of that nature to move to certain areas in certain missions. Why? Because I need to escort some girl to her safe house. Seriously? I need a slow tank for this? I can leap buildings. Put the bitch in my hands and I will get her to the house in no fucking time. What, are you afraid I might drop her? I'll grow a tentacle and grab her or something, I don't fucking know.

I like this game a lot, but I also hate it. I know, its an odd conundrum I got going on here. Prototype is one of those games where I love a bulk of it but again, like Assassin's Creed, makes me angry with small annoyances. Frankly, I'm done with having patience for that shit, some people can look right past those kind of things but I'm am so done with having to hold a stress ball while I play my video game (I don't actually do that).

I hate Assassin's Creed, I hate Ubisoft

Okay, so maybe I don't hate the whole of Ubisoft but I do fucking hate the Assassin's Creed team.

"But Why?" you might ask, well a lot of this hate has arose out of the frustration I've had while playing through Assassin's Creed. This game makes me extremely angry, and here's why:

The game has a lot of opportunities to build an extremely interesting game but only scratches the surface.

I like being an Assassin. The parts of the game where you really become an assassin are where the game really shines. Trying to successfully assassinate someone while trying to avoid detections is done so well in this game. When I say trying to avoid detection I don't mean killing someone and hiding the body in the dark for no one to see it all quietly and such, I mean killing someone in broad daylight in a busy shop district and running through a series of obstacles leaving the scene of the crime. I always hated the slow pace of most stealth games; having to wait for a target to come to a safe distance from you to kill them, having to find a safe spot to hide the body. Fuck that, I want to take someone out in the thick of the madness and get out of the open streets undetected, you know, something that really gets my adrenaline running.

I feel like Assassin's Creed really does this well in the assassination missions. The real problem I have here is that these missions and the ones leading to the assassinations themselves are super repetitive. I realize saying this isn't an original critique to the game, but it's true. The first few assassinations you do are great and well designed, I wont question that. The problem is that they rehash the same mission EVERY SINGLE TIME. Nearly everything you do is the same; to the way the sequences in the missions play out, to the mission's objective themselves. You walk into a new town and talk to the dispatcher at the Bureau, he tells you that need more info on the target, you scout the area for missions and do them.

The Assassin's Creed team has this weird problem where they fall into routine, its like going to school or doing office work. You know, when you get so used to doing the same shit over and over that your work begins to look the same all across the board. Assassin's Creed feels like that to me. I've noticed the same problem with the Prince of Persia game that came out recently.

What pisses me off about this is that there seems to be so much potential in this IP; relatively interesting story with limitless potential for new worlds to explore, it has an interesting twist on the stealth genre, characters that are compelling (I fucking hate that word) enough to follow. but as it stands they're just scratching the surface of what they can be doing.

Another thing that keeps me frustrated is the game's ability to consistently keep the player annoyed. In combat people will throw you around. It doesn't really do any damage, it doesn't really effect you much at all. All it does is break up the flow of combat. It creates this overwhelming nagging feeling when in a fight. Also, why the fuck is there a need to have beggars and drunks who throw you around? It hardly makes things challenging. Its just another annoyance. This isn't creating difficulty for the player, its not challenging anyone, its just testing someone to see how tolerable they are to stupid bullshit. Its ridiculous, is this how they thought they were going to build a vibrant real world? How the fuck does this equate to a real world experience in any way?

I want to like this game a lot, something in AC compels me. I want to enjoy it but there is so much bullshit built up in this game that it really stops me from even remotely enjoying this game. I still can't understand for the life of me why people raved so much about Assassin's Creed. We shouldn't be supporting game design like this, we should encourage people to break out of these trends. And what makes it worse is that this game has a sequel, and I guarantee that no lessons we're learned, we're going to get the same old garbage and everyone is going to love it.

Fuck Ubisoft.

Games can help change lives...

Note: This is an old blog I wrote a long time ago but I figured I'd post it to help keep the updates going until I finally publish my stuff.

When I was younger life wasn't all that great. I lived in a horrible neighborhood after I was forced to move out of my nice one. See, when I was really young my parents went through a divorce. After that my mom had found a new boyfriend and I had to move away from my old home. When I thought things couldn't get worse, things did. My new "Dad" was a jerk and hated me. To top that off the kids in town weren't fond of me either, I was overweight so people liked to make fun of me for it. It made me want to go back to how things used to be, but my mom would never listen to anything I would say to her. She would always say "well things will be fine you'll see".

Things sucked and I felt weak. The world hated me,or so I thought at the time, and there was no way out of it. Until one day, I saw it, that beautiful case for Final Fantasy 7 sitting behind that glass at the store downtown. The game that enchanted me, when my eyes first laid on it. At the time I didn't know what Final Fantasy was, but there was something about that case that made me want it. Something about that simple figure standing tall and looking heroic made me want it. I had to beg my mom to get it for me but when she did it was the coolest moment of my life.The moment I had popped the disc in I knew that I would never put the controller down. I never knew how much this moment would change me forever.

I loved the game for one reason, Cloud:he just seemed so cool. At the time I wanted to be just like him. As odd as it sounds he represented the one thing I admired and wanted for myself. Confidence. Cloud could of been put into any kind of danger and he would defeat it without even cringing. At the time I saw him as the coolest character I've seen in a video game and I idolized him. Every time I was faced with another kid picking on me or pushing me around I'd stand tall.I always kept thinking what would Cloud do and that kept me going every time.

Soon, I had picked up my next addition of the series, Final Fantasy 9. This time I was in control of Zidane. At first I never thought much of him but soon he grew on me. From jumping off a castle with no fear in sight to preforming a staged fight in front of a theater of viewers Zidane had proved to being the coolest adventurer I had ever seen. He made me want to take more risks in life and live in a much more lively way.

Finally one day I had got my hands on a ps2 and Final Fantasy 10. This is when I got introduced to Tidus the one character that influenced the most of all. At first he seemed extremely whiny and that didn't make me like him much at first, but he soon grew on me. A real optimist he was, always looking on the bright side of things and being cheerful albeit to an annoying degree. But that's what I loved about this character Tidus could always have a cheery mood after something tough happened. I again found this fascinating and took this into heart with myself. I would always try to be optimistic about things. I would always persevere to achieve my goals and I would never let anyone get in my way. Although I did not always follow this philosophy I would always keep it mind.

When things would go to shit like my mom fighting with her boyfriend I would be able to stay strong instead of getting sad or afraid. I would simply go and escape in my world. In this world I got to be around these characters that I admired. These characters who seemed to never have a problem they couldn't face and take down. It made me feel strong again when I needed it. When things got worse with my mom and her boyfriend. At times they would blame me for all of their problems. It was like I had no where to turn. I always tried talking to my father about the problems but he would never listen. Things felt entirely hopeless for me. I felt like giving up on life. But I had remembered Cloud and Zidane. "The wouldn't give up they'd still keep fighting" I thought, although today I came to realized maybe Cloud wouldn't but at the time I didn't really know.

Even to this day I take those qualities in mind. I always try to be strong and confident when times are hard. I've been through hard times and I always tried to keep my chin up and a smile on. To this day I am much more confident and I don't let people push me around anymore thanks to these characters. Now,thankfully, my parents are actually back together which is nice and I'm still enjoying the Final Fantasies to this day. All in all these games in general have impacted my life on higher levels than I can explain. It helped me in hard times and ultimately turned my life around. I have always felt a strong connection with these characters and am glad that I had found FF7 when I did. If I didn't I don't think I'd ever be the person I am today.

Bits of Today

Since I'm trying to keep this blog updated as much as possible I've decided to start doing a series of small blogs summarizing things that are on my mind or just updating people on whats new. On that note lets get right into it!

• Planning on working on a blog feature for this summer. I have a lot of games in my back log and I was planning on going through all of those games over my vacation. I figure I can start a feature where I record my progress on my list. I fear this might become too much like a journal, but this is a blog so I guess all of this already is. Possible name for this feature: “Summer Long Back Blog”
  
• Finally coming close to finishing Chrono Trigger. I'm fighting the need to drop it and move to something else, the game is starting to loose it's grip on me.
  
• Thinking of recording vlogs along with my written work. It'll help me work in some experience with video editing and sometimes I'm too lazy to write but still just want to talk.
  
• Lastly, I'm a bit of a podcast whore this week, I guested on the "Broken Lamp Cast" (Link here), recorded my own podcast (Bomb Should Have a Face), and was mentioned on the “Negative Gamer Podcast” and the “Talkradar Podcast”. Go Go Narcissism!

Well that's me for today, I'll have something up mid week. Probably going to talk about the Game Industry and the recession. It's been quite of a topic this week with the whole 3d realms shutting down fiasco. Well that's all for now people, Stay Tuned.

It's been a while...

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog, the reason being: I’m lazy. I’ve always wanted to keep updates current but I can't seem to get off my ass and  actually write. Because of this I decided to give you guys a quick update on what I've been playing lately.

Chrono Trigger DS

I’m surprised I’ve gotten so deep into this game without succumbing to gamer A.D.D. It’s really interesting how fresh this game still feels after so many years. Most notably, the way the game plays with the choices you make. That entire court room scene blew me away, how all of the little choices you made at the faire reflected how you were judged in the court room. The things you did at the faire seemed very small and seemed to have little consequence to them. The game is tricky like that, you can’t actually manipulate the outcome of your choices the first time you are faced with them. The game makes you give it your truest decisions. 

What bothers me in a game like Fallout 3 is that the outcomes of the choices you are faced with are very obvious. One is an evil path, one is neutral, and the other is a good path. What I like about Chrono Trigger is that the choices I made are reflective of myself. The things I did at the faire were in a split seconds decision straight from my intuition and soon I felt the consequences. Because of these offhand choices I made, the game had shown me a little bit of who I am. I like that feeling, I’d rather have a moral choice be honest than the contrived bullshit I get out of Fallout 3.

In Fallout 3’s defense, its moral choice system is really made for character development so the outcomes have to be obvious to craft your character in how you want. I’m just not that interested in developing a character. I want true consequence from my decisions; in Chrono Trigger they offer me that: it shows me what I’m really like as a person.

Metal Gear Solid 2

I finally managed to come back to this game. The last time I played it I was pretty young and hadn’t paid any attention to the story. It was nice going back to this game since I've neglected to ever revisit it.

One thing I noticed while playing MGS2 is that, playing through this game really made me look at MGS4 in a different light. I almost like MGS2 more than MGS4. Its weird, when Kojima made MGS4 I was aware it was time to have all our questions answered, while I’m happy they were answered I almost feel soured because there were no questions asked. In a game like MGS2 you’re always in the dark, there is this high mist of mystery around you for the entire game until the climax. In MGS4 you were never in the dark because this was Solid Snake’s time to take control. You were in the know for most of the happenings and only getting answers to questions, never raising any. I seem to enjoy MGS more when I have the feeling that I’m being lied to by some higher power and that someone will stab me in the back eventually. I never had that fear or sense of confusion in MGS4.

I’ll probably write a longer blog about this somewhere down the line because there is just so much that I’m learning from going back into the MGS timeline.

Well that's been me, hopefully enough I'll be able to get to a much bigger blog about the Metal Gear series as a whole but until then I'll be seeing ya'. 

Hey Me! What Have I been Playin'?

What have you been playing me?

Left 4 Dead

I've had this game for a long time now but I've never really had a lot of extra time on my hands to actually give some attention to it. Luckily enough I managed to get some nice one-on-one time with this game and I have to say this game has some very notably awesome things to it.

I like this game. I don't love it. I really don't feel its as great as its been hyped up to be. Frankly, I see the good parts, but there's just something that isn't clicking with me. I mean, I really enjoy getting a good game with some good friends, once you get into it, this game starts to shine. The ability to live out your fantasy of defending yourself and your group from a horde of zombies is great. This game feels like its the perfect game for that guy who has planned out his/her zombie escape plan if so the time occurs. This game just has a very strong attention to detail for the very small things that really set the atmosphere.

The whole game seems like your playing in a zombie flick and the Left 4 Dead really tries to set players in the right mood. With things like the ending credits after every level that look like movie credits, and the very cliche situations your put into set off the right atmosphere. In a way I think it's ability to mimic really crappy B-movie, zombie flicks is awesome since its only a few of the games that I feel pull these moments off well apart from games like Dead Rising.

Although I enjoy the atmosphere of this game, something is still not clicking with me. I think its mainly the lack of maps on hand at the moment. Right now there's only a choice of 4 maps that aren't extremely long. The lack of more content kind of puts me off since I've seen most of what's meant to be seen and I just want a little more since I get sick of the same old stuff very easily. But beyond that this game does a lot right but the lack of content right now is keeping me away from loving it.

Machiavelli's Ascent

[Niccolo Machiavelli' a poet, philosopher, and has nothing to do with this game]

The whole XBLA Community games have a lot of crap in it, but once in a while a gem comes out, and this game is a very nice gem. 

Essentially you play a phallic-like object that is very reminiscent of a jelly fish. In this game you make you Penis Jelly Fish jump in the air and you need to hit small white orbs to keep your Jelly Fish moving upwards. The higher you get the more points you get after you fall to the ground.

This game sounds SUPER simple and it is but that's where the magic is. This is one of those games that grabs a simple mechanic and makes it addictive as hell. I found myself playing this for hours attempting to reach the highest height I can without noticing that and hour had passed. This game very much has a Geometry Wars effect on me where it hooks me into it's simple gameplay.

Yeah so...that's what I've been playing just a little update for you guys.

Hopefully enough I'll have something interesting to write up mid week but I'm still not sure what to write about.