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.