What a mess

My life is ridiculous as of now, but I promise to start writing in this soon. I promise. Substance too; go figure.

Seriously. Soon.

Obama craziness

So, Obama is the new president. I have never even really cared about any presidential inauguration (especially that last guy) but I was overwhelmed with excitement today.

I got out of class minutes before twelve and once I got home and turned the TV on Barack was just about to be sworn in. His speech was great as expected and even though i never fall for clever rhetoric or take powerful speeches to heart too much I must admit even I, the cynic felt a bit emotional hearing it. I just felt like regardless of anything else, we finally had a president that cared about the right things. That said, I'm still a pessimist and not expecting this country to pull its head out of it's ass, at least not entirely, any time soon. But my perspective has drifted from absolutely hopeless to "this country just might have a chance." I hope that first of all he's elected next term as well ( I can't imagine anyone else coming out of the woodwork being worthy of succeeding him, even before seeing him in action) but I also really hope to see some changes. Not just in the obvious things like health care and our wonderful middle east situations, though those are certainly very legitimate and important concerns, but I would like to see a gradual change in attitudes of the public, and of government officials.

In that whole speech what impressed me the most was the fact that Obama mentioned various religions and then in an accepting way, acknowledged non-believers. I can't think of any president that's ever done such a thing. With the exception of some early presidents that for some reason, some truly un-biased historians never recorded. We're lucky enough to even know most founding fathers were atheists (and most people don't even know that.) At the same time, "non-believer" is a somewhat condescending term- as if we should believe. But in this society, that's still a big step so I'll take it without much complaint.


In video game news; I got Call of Duty: World at war when I got back from winter break and played it quite a bit. I finished the single player story which was entertaining enough to get through but i have no interest in ever playing it again and Call of Duty 4's story was much more engaging. Upon completing the game you're given a a cool zombie mini game that's actually quite well thought out and has some decent depth to it. Though it was fun a few times it was clearly meant for at least 2 to 4 people. When I played with my roommate it was significantly more enjoyable and the ability to revive each other instead of just dying, makes it much less frustrating and each session last much longer. Though the online was fun, I started getting really sick of it by the end of the week. I love the Call of Duty formula for online multiplayer but there just wasn't enough to distinguish it enough from the last game. It was all the same but in a different setting and with a few tweaks.

Next on my queue are Resistance 2 and Prince of Persia. There really isn't a whole lot I'm too excited for in either of them but there is literally nothing else of interest currently out, so we'll see how one of those are in a few days.

-B

The Spike TV Videogame Awards

Also known as quite possibly the biggest disgrace to gamers in popular media, of all time.

I was really excited to see this, mostly just to see the "epic world premieres" of several games (I'll get to that soon) but also because I had never really watched them before.

It started out with a pretty funny skit starring Jack Black, the only even remotely entertaining performance he gave all night which led into a slightly humorous song. The level of humor throughout the rest of the show just drops every few moments from there, until by the end I was literally forcing myself through it. The awards were interesting enough to watch with short clips and followed by very short acceptance speeches but it seems like each awards were filled with at least ten minutes of absolute crap between each. By crap I mean terrible rap "artists" plugging when their new album drops, and a whole cornucopia of people plugging movies, albums and other non-video game related media.

The only highlights were Neil Patrick Harris' very brief appearance (let's face it, he should have been the host and that would have greatly improved everything about the show) and the game premiere's; even though they should have noted that every single premiere, albeit yes a first time look at these games, were very much incredibly short teaser trailers. Very few of them even showed game play and each one was remarkably short. Overall, the show was not worth watching, one part I don't understand at all and really ruined the experience for me was at one point, without a warning or further explanation of any kind it rushed through the winners (not mentioning the nominees) of at least dozen awards (new ones that had not been shown yet) in some sort of frenetic 30 second montage. WHAT? Apparently between the horrendous music performances and constant plugging of completely non-video game related media they ran out of time for awards and did some utterly despicable prioritizing. The only plug I was okay with was Neil Patrick Harris' which was of a game (Eat Lead) anyway.

Honestly, this should have been called "Spike Tv's Commercial Extravaganza: featuring Jack Black making an ass out of himself, terrible music and maybe some game awards (if we have time)."

Disgrace, utter disgrace. That's all that really needs to be said.

So let's now move on to the one good thing to come out of that exhausting experience, a few teasers of upcoming games.

God of War III

Although it was a bit short I was of course, really psyched to see a few snippets of God Of War 3 game play footage. At first I thought it didn't look that impressive graphically, but upon watching it again after downloading it from the Playstation Store in 1080p it's easy to see how much smoother and crisp the graphics look. Regardless, it's no surprise I'm really excited about this game as I've loved the first too. I don't usually love hack and slash game play but GOW is so much more than that; the story in particular has always stood out so much to me. It doesn't hurt that I'm a huge Greek Mythology Buff.



Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Another premiere I was looking forward to was Uncharted's sequel Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Uncharted's biggest and possibly to some, only flaw, was it's length. It was a very gorgeous, cinematic game that had very classic platformer feel while still maintaining a sleek modern polish. The second game will surely be good and I'm looking forward to it, though it's premiere is a pre-rendered trailer that really shows me nothing about the new game except that it will maintain the same visual style and humor. Decent enough, I'm looking forward to reading more about this in the new issue of Game Informer that is most likely waiting for me in New Hampshire.




The Watchmen: The End is Nigh

I was extremely excited, ever since I first heard of the conception of a Watchmen video game; The Watchmen: The End is Nigh. I read the graphic novel my senior year in high school and it is the graphic novels that made me appreciate graphic novels (in tandem with Arkham Asylum, also being made into a great looking game). If you haven't read it, stop reading and purchase it immediately. It is indescribably epic. I was in awe when I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie and as I soon as I heard about a premiere of the game being shown on this show, I was overwhelmed with anticipation. I was pretty impressed with the how the characters looked; especially Rorschach one of my favorites, my other favorite wasn't shown in the trailer though he will undoubtedly be awesome; and also the pretty nifty looking combat in the trailer right away although I was taken aback by something shown at the end: "Download The Game March 2009." Wow, it's not a full game. Although my initial reaction was disappointment, it does seem to be shaping up quite well and there are a lot of really great downloadable games. I don't know much about it yet but it looks like it be some sort of brawler and hopefully follow the amazing story to some extent. Anyways, here's the first glimpse at a game that will hopefully do justice to the incredible graphic novel that inspired it.

Dante's Inferno

When I first saw the name of this title on the screen I was somewhat confused. I've read the divine comedy a few times and I wasn't quite sure how to react to news of it's video game adaptation. I still don't really know too much about it yet and all the trailer really shows is the look of the game and some and a few glimpses of some characters so I'll just show the trailer.


Brutal Legend

Ugh, Brutal Legend. This is the game Jack black stars in that was plugged for an unnecessarily long amount of time towards the end of the show. Now Brutal Legend may be a decent game (to someone out there) but I was so incredibly annoyed with Jack Black by the end of this show that the last thing I was interested in was some gimmicky-looking game where I have to hear him spitting out "yeah ha ha's" and woo hoo's" left and right. No thanks. But here it is.



GTAIV: The Lost and the Damned

Now at first I thought , oh cool the GTA IV expansion that Rockstar has been working on since June. But no, this new "game" is just the Microsoft exclusive downloadable content, the "mission pack" that Microsoft paid 50 million dollars for. Of all the great characters in GTA IV they had to make it based on that stupid biker gang? I respect Rockstar a lot so I'm sure it will be pretty decent, but it's not something I'll lose sleep over not being able to play. I can wait for the expansion/sequel. I don't think it looks very exciting but here it is:



Mafia II

The original Mafia game was probably most popular on PC but I remember playing it on console and although there were some porting issues and some flaws in general it was a game with some great features and a really great atmosphere. Unfortunately, like a lot of the other trailers shown, this only shows a pre-rendered sequence with no gameplay; though that's no reason not to get excited about this second installment in a very promising franchise. With the Godfather games (which were great) nearing completion of their next iteration, it will be interesting to see what features each game will use to set them apart from one another.



Fight Night Round 4

I have never really been into many sports games or even a lot of 1 on 1 fighters like this but fight night was a pretty great franchise. The graphics, unique controls (that worked remarkably well) and overall fun factor made this game a must play. I'm hoping that this next iteration will have more to offer as I don't remember 3 as being much of a step up, but this trailer shows absolutely nothing of value. (Unless I'm supposed to be jumping with joy that Mike Tyson is in the game because that's all the information this pre-rendered trailer offers.)


Terminator: Salvation

Last but probably not least, is a new terminator game based on the new movie. With that said it's already going to have a really hard time proving itself. There has not been a great terminator game ever (though there is so much potential for one) and thus far, this one isn't screaming "I will renew the Terminator franchise's place in video games as something worth buying" but then again that is a mouthful. With that said, the few snippets of gameplay in this look pretty promising and the graphics are definitely looking nice. At first glance I didn't have a whole lot of interest in this but on second thought, I'll be keeping my eye on this title.



Well that's all for now, that concludes my brief critique of the "game awards" and a a few notes on the premieres it showed. My next update will likely be about either dead space which is a must play, or a preview of some of the upcoming games I'm most excited about.

Oh and wish me luck, from tomorrow night until January 12th I'll be gaming not in 1080p but,.. Standard definition..on a small TV. Ugh, I'll do my best to persevere.

-Ben

Fallout 3

This Review is straight out of what I used for my review essay in my comp1 class. It's not really in blog format. When i get the chance I'll change it up a bit and put in the pictures i had in mind but for now, I figured something was better than nothing. Also I had to explain any specific terminology, which is why some things like AI are explained in parenthesis.

Fallout 3 is an epic game. Of all the things it does well, of which there are many, it really creates an amazing atmosphere. It is it's own very distinct world, from the 1950's era specific songs on the radio broadcasts to the Enclave's (new U.S. government with a shady agenda) propaganda spewing president and to every other little detail in every part of the world - you really feel like you're in a post apocalyptic wasteland. You are almost always scavenging for supplies and running into dangerous enemies out in the barren wasteland, walking through abandoned towns and destroyed cities and it really makes you feel like you're there. It feels lonely and dangerous and sometimes even scary.

The main story doesn't stray too far from the previous iterations in the franchise, but that's alright, because it worked there and it works here too. You live in Arlington Virginia, in Vault 101, one of the many vaults designed as a safe haven for people during the event of nuclear fallout. The game literally begins, in a first person perspective, as your mother gives birth to you. You then pick your gender and what your face will look like when you get older which is followed by a dramatic scene of your mother dying from complications. When that's all done a white flash jumps you to one year later and your father leaves you in a playpen which you proceed to escape from, learn to walk and get a feel for the controls for basic movements. It jumps further to your tenth birthday party as you learn the basic social interactions like talking to people and where you meet such characters as your friend Amata, her father the Overseer (basically the guy in charge of Vault 101) and your Father's friend and fellow scientist, Jonas. Another flash sends you to a classroom where you, at 16 years old, take a "placement" test. You choose your skill sets and determine which stats you want to specialize in. After one of these flash forwards you find yourself as an adult amidst chaos; your father has left the vault (the very vault that no one enters and no one leaves from) and Stanley has been murdered by Vault Security. Your friend Amata explains all of this to you and tells you that the overseer and his goons are searching the vault for you. She gives you a pistol that she stole from her father's office and tells you about a passage through his office to the vault door that would sneak around most of the security staff. You're eventually faced with a huge vault door and switch. Turns out, opening the vault is really just a matter pulling a switch despite the popular belief in the vault that they're all locked in. You pull the switch, the vault begins to open and you walk through a short tunnel, open a door and then the game actually starts.

Fallout 3 is very much an RPG (role playing game) in the sense that you will always be micromanaging your inventory, be able to collect and use hundreds of different weapons, apparel and other items and also in that you have branching conversations where you will be able to vary your responses greatly which in turn, will vary different character’s reactions to you; even going so far as to include a karma system that tracks how “good” or “bad” you are. Something that sets it apart from other RPG’s (primarily the developer’s other big franchise, Oblivion) is that you are not traveling through lush green forests, using magic spells to defeat mythic monsters or encountering massive thriving cities full of friendly people. You are traveling across an irradiated wasteland 200 years after a nuclear holocaust that is almost completely barren and dead. You use modern weapons and technology (even creating custom weapons from any spare junk you come across) to defend yourself against mutated animals, people and monsters of unclear origins and terrifying ferocity and other people who are trying to survive in this hellish environment. The biggest, most advanced city you will come across is in one half of an old broken ship of rusty metal stained with rust. Though there are surely some friendly people the overall atmosphere is very dog-eat-dog with most resorting to absolutely anything to survive. You will need to scavenge for weapons and supplies like food and water constantly while keeping a close eye on your radiation level, if you want to live. You are not just living in this world, you are surviving in it; and that is a tone I have never felt so engulfed in, in any other game before. And don’t let the RPG elements bore you, this game is chock full of action, and is rated Mature for a good reason. There is constant gunplay and an abundant mess of blood and gore presented in all of the fights; not at all to an unreasonable point but in a way that is perfectly fitting with the tone of the game.
The controls are very fluid and intuitive. Your Pip Boy (a watch-like device worn on your wrist) contains all the info you need from maps and your inventory to objectives and a status menu with your health and current radiation levels. You can switch between a 1st person and 3rd person view on the fly and although I often used the 3rd person view while walking around, the 1st person view is far more effective for actual combat. Any weapon in the game can be fired manually but can also be used in a new gameplay mechanic called Vault-tech Assisted Targeting System. VATS, as it is more often referred to be an option where by pressing a button all of the enemies in range will be highlighted. You can then scroll through the enemies and more specifically, each enemy’s body parts such as head, body and any extremities and queue up shots on your choice of enemy and location. This adds a small strategic element that spices things up some; especially since after queuing up your shots you are rewarded with cool cinematic camera angles as the actions play out in slow motion. This nifty feature is of course limited though, you have a set number of AP (Action Points) and each shot with different weapons has a different corresponding number of AP used. This gives a great balance to the combat where you can depend on VATS for particularly tough enemies or when suddenly ambushed by multiple enemies.

For the first 30 hours of gameplay I was absolutely in love with this game. It was near the 40 hour mark where for the first time, I was really disappointed. There are tons of different quests for you to go on with the main story consisting of a small portion of them. I got so into the story that I focused on that instead of the countless other side missions and more minor quest and as it turns out, when you finish the last part of the quest, the game literally ends. You’re sent back to the main menu and can start a new game, load a save file from the minutes before completing the game, but can’t continue to play the game with the extensively upgraded character you’ve spent 30+ hours decking out with the best armor and weapons you could find. Despite the initial shock and even anger that left me feeling, I soon started a new game (keeping in mind not to progress too far in the main quest) and have put in another incredibly entertaining 30 hours (and counting) of gameplay. It just would have been nice to have some sort of warning beforehand. Other than that the game is nearly perfect, and I don’t throw that word around in videogame reviews, with the only real exceptions being flaws so small I almost don’t even want to mention them. But for the sake of objectivity:
There is one character who although not a main character of great importance, will give you caps (the currency of the wasteland) in exchange for random parts of scrap metal you find – and keep in mind that currency is very valuable, and very limited here. So you can imagine my disappoint when I come into town looking for Stanley only to discover that while I was out exploring, his AI (Artificial Intelligence) was so bad that he had wandered off a ledge to his death, never to be revived. It didn’t ruin the game, there are plenty of other ways to make money, but it was disappointing.

There are a few instances of small flaws in logic essentially, where something a character says or does, simply doesn’t make sense. Such as when I rescued a small family from their Super Mutant captors; the leader of their small town said to me “Here, the whole town got together to get you something to express our gratitude” she then handed me a bottle of dirty water. There are other such instances where someone else I rescued from some terrible danger would express overwhelming gratitude and then tell you to get lost when you ask them a favor in the future.
These inconsistencies though annoying, are small and considering the absolutely massive scale of this game world and everything in it, they take little to nothing away from the overall experience.

This is an ingeniously crafted game with a very real atmosphere that caries through every environment, gameplay and a story that is endlessly engaging, and several features and ideas that have never before been seen in any other game. Being a broke college student (and somewhat frugal regardless) the pivotal questions I ask myself before buying a new game is: Will this game be worth 60 dollars? Will it be fun enough and long enough to justify 60 dollars? The answer for this game is a resounding yes. If you figure I’ve played it for a total of 60 hours so far (which is certainly a generously low estimate) and have had a great time with it than that is 1 dollar per hour of high quality entertainment. The best part is I’m still playing it and having a blast, Fallout 3 is a spectacular experience and without a doubt my pick for game of the year in 2008. I have never been as adamant as I am now for the use of the term “must own.”

Here's some short entries I wrote and never got a chance to update.

Also really quick, I now have internet! Woohooo! I'm working right now on downloading demos and ill check out SOCOM tonight. I have Fallout 3 and it is AWESOME. My next entry will likely be an in depth review of what exactly is so awesome about it as well as a few aspects that are not so awesome.

My triumphant return to the internet is here, expect much more thorough entries at much more frequent intervals.

10/15

Not having an internet connection is seriously hurting my gaming life – I guess my educational life as well but that wound doesn’t hurt nearly as much. An example you say? Well, today I bought (picked up, rather) SOCOM: Confrontation which could very well be one of the best online shooters out right now, and easily the best available on the Playstation 3. Is it? I wouldn’t know, because I can’t even install the required hard disk installation without being connected to the internet. (Or pair my nice new Bluetooth headset without downloading the new software update) Now I suppose that’s not too much to ask for an online-only game but it is frustrating. I won’t have internet setup in my room for another week or so (don’t even get me started on how ridiculous it is we have cable included in our costs but not internet; an absolute necessity as a student) I can’t even play the game for a week or so.

That is ok though, because I have just recently setup a Gamefly account over the weekend and Saints Row 2 should arrive tomorrow or maybe Friday at the latest. I am very hesitant about trying Gamefly and it has taken me quite some time to finally give in and try it. It’s really my only option at this point; there aren’t any Blockbusters in Philadelphia. I can either spend sixty dollars on every game I want to play or maybe I can rent at some obscure place around here that probably consists of close to 10 dollars per rental for maybe five days at best. After growing so accustomed to Blockbuster’s basically-two-week rental for eight dollars, I can’t step down to that. So I’m paying $8.95 this month and then something like $15.95 every month after that to have one game out at a time. I figure if I send my rentals back when I get the few new games that are absolutely worth buying (such as Farcry 2, Little Big Planet, Fallout 3) I’ll never be without something to play. Being here has made me realize even more how much I LOVE video games. It’s such a huge part of my life and it’s really hard for me to be very passionate about much else. I hope that as soon as are internet is hooked up here that not only it is very fast (for sixty bucks a month it better be) and that I can keep up with this blog frequently and consistently enough to gain some viewership. I fear that my writing abilities have seriously weakened in my time out of school and without many structured writing “projects” per say.

10/22

I got Saints Row 2 last Thursday. I've been having some fun with it but I'm sending it back already today. It is definitely fun. Pretty much anything you really wanted to do in GTA and couldn't, you can in Saints Row 2. The problem is that with that abundance of features, the overall quality of everything else drops significantly. The graphics are pretty poor overall, though they will surprise you at times and look really nice. The explosions and high speed chases in particular are nice eye candy. The ability to customize pretty much everything definitely sets it apart from the GTA series and gives the game some more longevity. The story certainly pales in comparison; in terms of originality depth, and overall quality. I really enjoyed doing things like customizing my outfit, setting my gang members to look like PMC-style soldiers or purple ninjas or stealing cars to store in my garage - which was one of the features they really nailed. At any of your "cribs" or safe houses, you'll have a driveway or parking lot and if you exit a vehicle while it's in that designated area it will be saved into your garage. You can then take it out whenever you want and I'm pretty sure it's always there even if you never bring it back. That's the best way to save cars in an open world game that I've seen. The only thing that's one notch better is in Scarface: The world is yours on ps2, you were able to purchase cars and then from anywhere, call your driver who would bring the car right up to you in a few seconds. If someone would combine those two concepts they would have the best system for saving and accessing personal cars in open world game.

I could go a little more in depth on this game, and i may later, but as fun as it could be at times, it wasn’t a very memorable experience. You may not have the same quantity of features in GTAIV that Saints Row 2 has but none of its quality is compromised for the extra quantity. I didn’t get a chance to play any of the online modes on account of my lack of internet, but I can't imagine it's better than GTAIV's. I'm sure it has some fun to it but GTAIV online is just such a massive, incredibly fun experience that would be tough to beat. All in all, Saints Row 2 is a great rental but I'm just not sure I would pay 60 dollars (65 here in philly! Ugh sales tax is horrible) for it.

Farcry 2 and Bioshock both come out today and my only class is 12:30-2:30 so I do have more than enough time to go get it. But I have an essay to write, a report to write and a project to finish all between tonight and Tuesday. So I may not even get Farcry 2 until tomorrow (my girlfriend bought it for me so I just need to pick it up, p.s. she's the best) and Bioshock I'm still very undecided on whether I should fork over the $65 for it or if I should just wait to receive it as my next gamefly rental. I did some research onmetacritic to read some critic and user reviews on it and I was convinced I should just buy it. Then the one thing that turned me off the idea was hearing about a few glitches that carried over from the 360 and PC versions. A few reviews mentioned them as being a bit of an issue, though not really hurting the overall experience and a few more said they hadn't carried over from the previous versions. I'm tempted to just buy it anyway because I've just heard so many good things about it. Well either way I'll definitely have farcry tonight or tomorrow and either have Bioshock too, or be getting it in the mail early next week. I'll update on Farcry 2 when I get it and try to put together a more formal review soon after that.

-B